This week has been a crazy release week. We got a bunch of new products and all in a somewhat reasonable price category (all under $600 for base model). This week started off with Apple’s Time Flies event! This event was announced a week before and was expected to include Apple Watch and iPad, not iPhone. This was found to be true and we saw an update to the iPad line and the Apple Watch line. Starting with iPads, we saw two new updates, the iPad 8th generation and the iPad Air. These devices seem really great for the price and I’m excited to see full reviews. Next, we got Apple Watches. We saw two new Apple Watches, the Apple Watch series 6, and the Apple Watch SE, these both include WatchOS 7 and seem very good for the cost. Then today (September 16th) we saw some releases from GoPro and Oculus/Facebook. This will mainly be a recap of the releases, not a review, so I would recommend checking out reviews before purchasing.
iPads
The iPad 8th generation, in base iPad fashion, seems like a great choice for $329. Well I would recommend waiting for full reviews, this doesn’t seem like a big upgrade from the 6th or 7th gen, but as an upgrade from an older iPad or as your first iPad, the iPad product line is again a really great value, especially with everything going virtual. Seems really great!
The iPad Air looks really awesome. It’s the first product announced with Apple’s new A14 class of processor, which we will later see in this year’s release of iPhones. It also adopts a similar design to the iPad Pro 2018 and 2020, but substituting Face ID for the first Touch ID sensor built into a lock button. This looks really awesome at $599 and besides losing ProMotion, LIDAR and Face ID, I think it’s a really good offering for those looking for a step up over the $329 iPad, but don’t want to shell out the money for a iPad Pro.
Apple Watches
The Apple Watch continues to be the the best smart watch, hands down. We got two watches from this event; the series 6, replacing the series 5; and the Apple Watch SE; replacing the series 3. We got the first Apple Watch featuring blood oxygen sensors allow you get to get your oxygen percentage in 15 seconds. This has become more important during the times of COVID and will be adding to Apple’s choke hold on the smart watch industry for fitness enthusiast. The Apple Watch SE adopts the Apple Watch design originally introduced in the series 4, but does not include the EKG, blood oxygen sensors, but does include cellular, GPS, and water resistance. This watch seems like a really good choice for Apple’s newest use case.
During the Time Flies event, Apple also introduced Apple Watch Family Setup. This is Apple’s introduction to kid’s cellular devices (other companies have offered watches, small trackers, walkie-talkies, etc) and might be the prime choice for families in the Apple Ecosystem. This new feature allows you to setup an Apple Watch using one iPhone (belonging to the parent) and will then allow the watch to be used alone without an iPhone connected and allow parents to use iMessage, Find My to keep up with their kids. This does require a cellular Apple Watch, meaning a minimum of $329 for a 40mm Apple Watch SE with cellular and these features will have to be seen in real life. I think this is a great addition, but for $70 more, not including cellular, you can get an iPhone SE, which will make it a tough sell for some.
We also got our first subscription service based on the Apple Watch, Fitness+. These are exercise courses produced by Apple that work with your Apple Watch. This is slated for a October release and will be interesting to see how the Apple Watch can compete with in home classes from other companies like Peleton, or in person from companies like OrangeTheory. They require no special equipment, and have varying degrees of difficulty and required skills. Fitness+ is $9.99/month with 5 member family share, and is also included in the Premier tier of Apple One.
Apple One
Apple One was Apple’s next step in a service focused future. Apple One is a bundle featuring multiple Apple services, for a bundled price. There are three tiers, and all include Music, Arcade, TV+, and some amount of iCloud Storage. Only Family, and Premier can be shared with 5 person family share.
Oculus Quest 2
The Oculus Quest 2 seems like a great new headset, but not a necessary upgrade over the original Quest but with a big catch. You’re being forced to use Facebook account. Oculus was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for 2 Billion and it was recently announced that Facebook accounts would be required for future Oculus products. This was annoying to many, seeming to be a play to gain more data on users or force those who have no Facebook account to make one. This makes the Oculus Quest 2 not the easiest decision. I own a Oculus Quest 1 and it’s awesome, but Facebook makes it harder to decide. If you don’t care about the Facebook part, the Oculus Quest 2 is a great offer for $299 and will give you a really fun experience.
GoPro Hero 9
Last, but not least, we have the GoPro Hero 9. The Hero 9 is the latest offering from GoPro and continues to keep GoPro on top of action cameras. We see an introduction of a front facing screen, borrowed from the DJI Osmo Action, and a bigger design over the Hero 8. This is also the first GoPro to feature 5K recording. This retails for $349 (requiring a purchase of a year of GoPro) or $449. I feel the GoPro Hero 8 or 7 will be a better option for most as it still offers 4K 60, but if you want the front facing display or the 5K recording, GoPro continues to be the best option, as long as you’re willing to spend the price of an iPhone SE or Pixel 4a on an action camera.
Reviews (more to come)
The Software Update 
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