Apple launched its cheapest iPhone SE and other products at an online event on Tuesday.
Here are five takeaways from the event.
Green Apple
The new iPhone SE and iPad Air are designed in a sustainable manner, the company said.
The smartphone is made up of recycled materials, including 100 per cent recycled rare earth elements. Its redesigned packaging eliminates the outer plastic wrap, bringing the company closer to its goal of completely removing plastic from all packaging in the next three years.
iPad Air comes with a 100 per cent recycled aluminium enclosure and 100 per cent recycled rare earth elements in both the enclosure and audio magnets.
Apple is currently carbon neutral for global corporate operations and by 2030, it plans to have a net-zero climate impact across the entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and product life cycles.
Centre stage comes to iPad Air
iPad Air’s ultra-wide 12-megapixel front camera comes with the centre stage feature. It automatically keeps the users in the main frame as they move around. When others join in, the camera detects them, too, and smoothly zooms out to include them in the same frame.
With the addition of centre stage to the new iPad Air, all iPad models now feature this experience.
In addition, there is a 12-megapixel wide camera on the rear of the new iPad Air that lets users capture photos, record videos, scan documents and experiment with various augmented reality experiences.
M1 Ultra: Apple's most powerful chip yet
Apple unveiled the M1 Ultra, the next giant step in the chip industry. It consists of 114 billion transistors, the most ever used in a personal computer chip.
It can run up to 22 trillion operations per second, speeding through the most challenging machine learning tasks, Apple said.
The company launched its own M1 chip in November 2020 to reduce its reliance on other chip manufacturers such as Intel and to avoid supply chain-related disruptions. It launched the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in October.
Attracting baseball fans
Apple and Major League Baseball (MLB) in the US announced “Friday Night Baseball” - a weekly double header with live pre- and postgame shows that will be available in eight countries on Apple TV+ as soon as the regular season begins.
“Just like all baseball fans, we can’t wait for the season to open,” said Peter Stern, Apple’s vice president of services.
“Baseball has a special place in the heart of so many Apple customers — not just in the US, but in many countries around the world. We are proud to make Apple TV+ the home for great baseball moments throughout the season,” he added.
Apple might launch new iOS 15.4 on March 18
Though Apple did not disclose the exact date of the launch of the consumer-version of its latest operation system, iOS 15.4, it indicated the update might be available from March 18.
This is the same day Apple’s new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro with green finishes will become available to customers. In a media statement on Tuesday, Apple said these phones will be shipped with the latest iOS 15.4.
Apple recently rolled out the fifth beta of iOS 15.4. It will offer many new features, such as a Face ID facial recognition system that works with masks and can recognise unique features around the eyes for verification.
