I’ve been off the internet all day and wanted to share some gut reactions to the updates Apple just announced before being influenced by others. So, in the general order they talked about things, let’s go!

Apple Watch Series 10

This looks like a nice update to the normal Watch line and if I were a normal Watch user then I’d 100% be getting this. The thinner body is appreciated, but the display update is a big winner in my book. Better off-axis visibility is great to see, and the ability to have seconds hands tick away in the always-on mode is a very good improvement that makes the Apple Watch feel more like a classic watch. I’m also happy to see the Ultra’s Depth app come to the smaller device.

Doubly cool that they fit a larger display than the Ultra in a much smaller body.

Purchasing? Nah, I’m an Ultra boy.

Apple Watch Ultra 2

They added a new color way (the one we thought we were getting last year) which is cool, although I personally like the standard titanium look, but to each their own. I like that they have a new style of Ultra watch band that is pricy, but kinda cool.

Oh, and as a frustrated Ultra 2 owner who thinks they never should have upgraded from the Ultra 1, I’m happy to see I can now play music and podcasts from my Ultra 2’s speaker. It’s rarely useful, but sometimes very useful, and I’ve been hoping to see this come to an Apple Watch for many years. Happy to see some new functionality come to existing hardware.

Purchasing? Nope, my Ultra 2 is still literally the best Apple Watch I can buy. The new watch band isn’t my style, so not getting that either.

AirPods 4

I have AirPods 3 and I prefer them to my AirPods Pro 2 in terms of comfort, but I really value noice cancellation, so I always use the Pros. The idea of having noise cancellation (albeit worse noise cancellation) in the form factor I prefer is certainly compelling.

Purchasing? No, although if my Pros bit the dust for any reason, I’ll probably replace them with the noise cancelling version of these.

AirPods Pro 2

Not new hardware, but new software is coming to add some hearing tests and hearing aid functionality. Much like with the Ultra 2, I’m happy to see existing hardware get new features of this magnitude. My parents are starting to think about getting hearing aides and they’re annoyed by the process. If they could just use AirPods instead for at least a while, that would be really nice for them.

Purchasing? Nah man, I just told you I’ve got these 😛

AirPods Max

What the what happened here? So the same product in new colors and with a USB-C connector? Obviously there’s only so many changes you can make to headphones, so I’m not outraged or anything, but they didn’t give these a new chip inside, which means they are already behind the curve on several features that the cheaper AirPods have gotten in recent years. Buying AirPods Max in 2024 feels a bit like buying an Intel Mac…you can do it, and it’s going to do some thing really well, but you’re only going to fall further behind the rest.

Also we’re really committing to that case, huh?

Purchasing? Absolutely not, although I get why some people would buy them exclusively to get USB-C on them.

iPhone 16 and 16 Pro

This event just solidified my opinion that the iPhone 15 lineup was one of the greatest iPhone lineups of all time. The upgrades this year are sparse unless you want camera improvements and camera improvements only. I am excited about the 48MP ultrawide sensor on the Pros, I’m happy the non-pros can do macro shots, and I’m happy that the normal Pro phone got the 5x lens as well. I’m also into photographic styles not being baked into the image anymore and how they will work better with skin tones (the Achilles’ heel of photographic styles until now). I’m happy that you can shoot 120fps at 4K. I’m happy for young creators for the voice isolation tools. These are all good things with the camera upgrades.

I’m also happy to see 14% more battery life and faster MagSafe charging. I’m also happy to see a promised improvement to thermals so that the phone doesn’t get hot to the touch as often as the 15 Pros did.

Then there’s the capture button which if I’m being honest, I simply don’t get. The ability to open the camera instantly is cool, although I’ve been doing that with the action button for a year. It can be the shutter button, which is also cool, but again, the action button and volume down buttons have been doing that for me. That’s all fine, and it makes it so the action button can be freed up to do something else.

However, the rest of the things they showed just didn’t land for me in a way I’m not used to seeing from Apple products. Take this all with a grain of salt until I’ve used it myself, but to me this looked like a harder way to do everything on your camera. instead of using the screen to adjust things like zoom, focus, and a few other elements in a moment, now you can very carefully slide your finger across a small part of the side of your phone, click to select the feature you want to adjust, and then slide precisely again to adjust that one item. To me this feels like the sort of UI you would put on a physical camera that didn’t have a touch screen and you had to load a bunch of functions onto the one button and tiny screen you had access to. Looking at zoom alone, you can already pinch to zoom for quick, intuitive changes and you can turn the jog dial for more smooth and precise controls (complete with haptics). Now you can gingerly swipe the side rail of your phone to go to zoom mode and then change it there? I guess, and from an accessibility angle, it’s good to give people different ways to do the same thing since what works for you may not work for someone else, but I am struggling to see the use case where this new version of the action that requires more fine motor skills to boot is going to enable someone to use camera controls who could not before.

Again, I haven’t used it, so I may be wrong here, but I guess I’m spending a lot of words explaining why I’m not sold on this.

Purchasing? Despite my general unimpressed vibe, probably. Partially because I’ve scratched my current phone’s screen to hell and after a trade-in, it’s not the most expensive thing in the world. Obviously I think I’ll like it, but if I can’t get one for whatever reason, I’ll be okay.