By Nicole Nguyen
Ah, glorious September, the best month. It's when the school
year starts anew, the weather is just right, and sparkly new
iPhones hit shelves.
In normal times, anyway. But these aren't normal times.
This year has been turned upside down. This month, students are
logging into Zoom classrooms, the West Coast is on fire, and
Apple's annual September iPhone event is going virtual -- and
probably won't feature the iPhone at all.
The only clue on the press invite for the streamed Tuesday
announcement is "Time Flies." A likely nod to Apple Watch, sure,
but perhaps also reassurance that although we expect the next
iPhones to be delayed, that delay will feel brief in hindsight.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the company's coming
products.
In any case, rather than try to predict Apple's plans at the
most unpredictable of times, I decided to write a wish list: what
we hope to see in the final months of 2020. It's a review of our
experiences with Apple devices -- and competing offerings --
throughout the past year and a look at what features are missing in
the latest iDevices.
A Goldilocks phone with a zoom camera. There are essentially
three iPhones: the pricey iPhone 11 Pro, the popular midtier iPhone
11 and the wallet-friendly iPhone SE. That $700-ish phone -- iPhone
XR, iPhone 11 and now, presumably, iPhone 12 -- is the perfect
phone for most people, with a good price point, fantastic battery
life and most of the latest features, except for one: a telephoto
lens.
The current model has two cameras -- wide and ultrawide -- and
it is the wrong pairing. Ultrawide landscape pics are cool, but an
optical telephoto lens is more useful. It's currently available
only in the $1,000-and-up Pro iPhones. And if we're going to have
to socially distance for the foreseeable future, we're going to
need all the zoom we can get.
An iPhone 12 in a smaller size. It bears repeating: The basic
iPhone 11 has the right price and many worthy features. But its
display is a bit too large for those with smaller mitts. For me,
the added bulk makes it difficult to operate with one hand or
securely fit into jean pockets.
Currently, the small-handed folks have two iPhone options: Fork
over $1,000 or more for the smaller iPhone Pro, or opt for the $399
budget iPhone SE and lose key camera and security features. I want
a third choice: an iPhone 12 that improves on the iPhone 11 yet
fits into my undersized palms.
An in-screen fingerprint sensor. We're living in the Mask Era.
Face ID is now useless in places where we need it most, like the
grocery store. We're hoping Apple takes a cue from Samsung and
embeds thumb-identification tech under the screen.
The option to choose your charger. Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at
TF International, predicts that Apple, to cut costs, will no longer
ship power adapters or headphones with its new iPhones. So you
could spend a thousand dollars on a phone that can't be charged out
of the box.
The move certainly spares the Earth of extraneous accessories.
But Apple should give customers the option to forgo the extras, or
add what they need at a bundled price. Maybe it is time for a new
pair of white buds or one of the newer fast chargers -- or maybe
AirPods Pro or a big pair of Beats headphones.
An Apple Watch with longer battery life. The world's most
popular smartwatch can detect irregular heart rhythms, call
emergency services and track open-water swims. But the Apple Watch
lags far behind its fitness-focused and Android-compatible
competitors in one key area: battery life.
The current model, the Series 5, lasts about 18 hours and needs
to be recharged daily. To take advantage of the new sleep tracking
capabilities, you'll need to charge your watch in the morning, but
it takes about 2.5 hours to fully power up.
Meanwhile, Samsung's Galaxy Active2 is rated for two to three
days without charging. Fitbit's Versa 3 smartwatch can go for
nearly a week or run 12 hours with continuous GPS, double what
Apple Watch is capable of.
A Qi-compatible Apple Watch. The Watch's proprietary magnetic
charger is another battery nuisance. Newer iPhones and AirPods work
with the Qi wireless standard, the kind you'll find all over,
including at Starbucks and McDonald's. The Apple Watch needs a
special, separate charger. Apple, if you can't give us AirPower,
you need to give us Qi.
A budget iPad with a Zoom-worthy front camera. The $329 iPad is
Apple's Trojan Horse into the battle for the classroom, not to
mention all the battles over virtual schooling. And it would be a
great learning tablet if it didn't have such a terrible
front-facing camera. That 1.2-megapixel 720p-resolution webcam
could use a serious upgrade for our e-learners.
A splash-proof iPad Mini Pro. I'll save you my spiel on why the
iPad Mini is the best iPad. (So compact! So much functionality!) I
just wish Apple believed in the tiny tablet's potential, too. The
current iPad Mini, refreshed in March 2019, arrived with outdated
hardware, including an older chip, Touch ID and the classic
thick-border iPad design.
Making the Mini water-resistant, like the iPhones, would be
ideal for bathtub and beach reading. And adding iPad Pro features
-- Face ID, a higher-contrast screen, a magnetic strip for Apple
Pencil storage and a sleeker design -- would make the Mini the
ultimate travel iPad.
A MacBook running Apple silicon. In June, Apple announced a big
shift: Future Macs will run on custom-designed chips, replacing the
Intel-based processors in today's computers. The company's stated
gains in battery life and performance, plus the ability to run iOS
apps, are behind the switch.
Apple said its first system would ship "by year's end." I'm
hoping it will be a new MacBook Pro or Air. Then, we may finally
get a Mac laptop capable of serious multitasking -- with or without
Chrome -- that doesn't sound like it is about to blast off into
space.
An App Store that reflects the reality of today's tech. The
battle between the iPhone maker and developers over App Store fees
is far from over. While Apple made some concessions recently, the
legal fight between it and Epic Games -- the company behind
Fortnite -- could determine the fairness of the App Store's 30% cut
of in-app purchases.
Is Apple's rent too high? It's all about balance. Yes, the App
Store gives developers access to billions of iPhone users and the
ability to make money off them -- but those apps also add
tremendous value to the iPhone experience.
And right now, developers are breaking their own apps to
circumvent Apple's fees and policies. Netflix can't even tell
iPhone users where to subscribe. (It's here, by the way.)
"Do Not Track" features that actually prevent tracking. In June,
Apple excited us by announcing many privacy-focused additions in
iOS 14. App developers would finally have to ask users for
permission before tracking them across other people's apps and
websites. This appears to give people power over how much extra
data a developer can collect about them -- and many would probably
opt out.
It's unsurprising that Facebook, which relies on data collection
to serve personalized advertising, complained publicly. Amid that
pressure, from Facebook and other publishers, Apple decided to
delay the new prompt until early next year. Boo.
My hope is that Apple makes good on its promise, but I'm not
holding my breath. Last year, Apple initially told developers
third-party trackers in children's apps were banned -- and then
softened the guidelines and eventually permitted some trackers and
advertising.
And now we wait and see what happens. Stay tuned, the WSJ Tech
team will be covering the news Tuesday -- and in one or two more
events expected before the year is out. I will be crossing my
fingers, hoping to hear any -- or all -- of the above.
(Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has
a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.)
For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and
headlines,
sign up for our weekly newsletter
.
Write to Nicole Nguyen at nicole.nguyen@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 13, 2020 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024