Apple kicks it old school with latest reveal ... a pencil?
Apple鈥檚 new product lineup unveiled Wednesday has a new iteration of the iPhone, a bigger version of the iPad, and in a technological throwback, a pencil.
No, you didn鈥檛 read that last part wrong. The new Apple Pencil, which will be released in November, functions as a stylus for concurrently released iPad Pro and works in a similar way to its leaded cousin. Choosing the 鈥渂lack pencil鈥� setting comes out grey and when drawing with the pencil pressing down harder will lead to darker and thicker lines.
With the iPad Pro, Apple seems to be doubling down on the 鈥渂igger is better鈥� direction they started going into with the iPhone 6 Plus and its 5.5 inch screen.
The 12.9 inch display dwarfs the current biggest tablet in the Apple lineup, the iPad Air 2, which has a 9.7 inch screen and also comes with a bigger price tag at $699.
With the introduction of the Apple Pencil and the physical keyboard cover, the tech company seems to be positioning itself to compete with Microsoft鈥檚 surface tablet range, which is set up as a cross between a notebook and a traditional tablet.
On the mobile end, the new Apple iPhone 6s looks pretty much the same as the previous version that came out last year, but as the old saying goes don鈥檛 judge a cell phone by its cover.
Inside the guts of the new iPhone there have been improvements to the camera, including increasing the megapixels to 12 and new sensors that enable quicker access to various functions.
Apple also introduced a new feature called 3D Touch, which basically allows users to create application shortcuts to directly access certain tasks. This is another dig at Microsoft鈥檚 Windows phone which has a similar shortcut feature, but without nearly the market control as Apple鈥檚 groundbreaking smartphone.
Also for selfie-lovers, the new iPhone lightens the screen as a kind of flash which isn鈥檛 as bright as the normal flash, but can provide lighting in low-visibility situations.
The new phones aren't coming out until Sept. 25, but advance orders begin Saturday.
A new version of Apple TV, the company鈥檚 set-top streaming device, is coming out on October replete with a new remote armed a touchpad that allows more control over scrubbing over video and music.
Even with all the shiny new toys, there was no big upswing in the company鈥檚 stock prices, with many commentators saying that Apple failed to unveil any breathtakingly visionary product.
This report contains materials from the Associated Press.
