Apple hosted their annual launch event showcasing a variety of new products, upgrades, and intel on Sept. 12, 2018.  The release was held at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple HQ, where around 1,000 people were in attendance to hear the latest news about Apple’s popular products.

The event started with the release of the Apple Watch Series 4, where the watch itself was redesigned to offer a higher quality of features designed to keep the user healthy and active. More importantly, Apple stated the new watch has a quicker processor and better health and motion sensors so it can now detect injuries and even perform an electrocardiogram. Besides these new features, new band patterns and watch colors will be released as well.

“I think that Apple watches are useful, but I definitely think that there are better smart watches out there at better price points that do just about the same thing,” Michelle Li ‘20 said. “However knowing that many people have iPhones and Apple products, it may be beneficial to have an Apple Watch as it can be an extension that can be easily paired with your phone.”

Along with the Apple Watch, they also released their biggest iPhone ever -–  iPhone XS Max (pronounced ten-s). This upgraded device has a six and a half inch screen and is currently being sold at a hefty $1,099. The enlargement of the iPhone is a strong center point of this year’s event, as larger phones are selling well in the past few years.

As well as the iPhone XS Max, the company also released the standard size iPhone XS starting at $999. These two new phones offer a longer battery life, a higher quality camera that allows you to adjust bokeh (the effect of a soft out-of-focus background that you get when shooting a subject) levels, and other small additions.

“I think the new iPhone is a little expensive, but it’s worth it because of all the new things that come with it,” Adam Tomsio ‘19 said. “The Face ID, for example, is really cool, and is something I really like about the phone.”

Finally, Apple also released the slightly larger iPhone XR with a starting price of $749. This phone is advertised as the entry level phone, and will be released in a variety of colors such as white, black, blue, yellow, coral, and red. Unlike the other newly released phones, the iPhone XR is made with aluminum instead of steel, includes a liquid retina screen, has a single camera lens, and doesn’t feature 3D touch anymore. These new additions and the cheaper price has dubbed this iPhone the “budget” phone, meaning it is the more frugal option to buying iPhones.

However Apple didn’t release anything particularly new and just evolved their current products. People believe this is a strategy utilized by Apple in order to gain the maximum capacity of revenue from their products. They also have increased their initial starting prices from last year’s $700, $800, and $1,000 to this year’s $750, $1,000, and $1,100. From this jump in prices, experts are able to predict the trend in price growth for the upcoming years.

“Apple’s increasing iPhone prices are a little overboard considering that the durability decreases as soon as another iPhone is released, but they do tend to last long depending on how you take care of your phone,” Ria Chandane ‘20 said. “I honestly don’t see myself investing in one of these new phones soon because my current iPhone works fine, but maybe in a few years when the XS is less expensive.”

The iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and Apple Watch Series 4 are available for preorder on Sept. 14 and will release on Sept. 21. The iPhone X can be preordered starting on Oct. 19 and is set to release on Oct. 26. More information on the new releases can be found here.