Apple Event 2024: iPhone 16, AirPods, and the Apple Watch 10 Are Coming Out Soon

The Apple event 2024 “Glowtime” finally revealed the iPhone 16 lineup, the Apple Watch 10, and new AirPods, and a lot of other Apple’s latest innovations.

The 2024 Apple Glowtime event happened live in Cupertino, California (on September 9). This year’s event featured the highly-anticipated iPhone 16 lineup, along with the latest Apple Watch and AirPods wireless earbuds.

The crowd was obviously most excited for the iPhone 16 release because of the integration for the first time ever of Apple Intelligence. The Apple Watch 10 has a bigger size and an upcoming update to detect sleep apnea. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 adds a new satin black color to its color roster.

Apple Glowtime Event 2024

Apple Watch 10

The first item in the spotlight was the Apple Watch. It is the thinnest and biggest Apple Watch yet, the dimension being 9.7 mm. The watch will be available in Jet Black, Rose Gold and Silver Aluminum colors. The speakers apparently allow for media playback too.

The charging metal back has been designed in the Apple Watch 10 for faster charging. The S10 processor fitted inside Series 10 watches has crash detection and clear-audio capabilities. Along with this, there are a lots of cool features. A water-temperature sensor, sleep apnea detection, Tides app with information on tides, etc, are just some of those. The price starts at $399 and the cellular version starts at $499, with pre-ordering open today and shipping starting on September 20.

Interestingly, there will be no new Apple Watch Ultra or Apple Watch SE, though the former is getting a new finish.

Apple AirPods 4, Max, and Pro

Next up in the Glowtime event were the Apple AirPods. The latest version has 30 hours of battery life and lots of little new features, like Conversation Awareness, active noise cancellation, Transparency mode, etc. The AirPods 4 costs $129 but with active noise cancellation, it costs $179. Pre-orders are open now and the shipping starts on September 20.

The AirPods Max have Midnight, Blue, Purple, Orange and Starlight as new colors but the price is still $549. The AirPods Pro 2 has new features like hearing protection that manages the volume to prevent hearing damage and a Hearing Aid capability that essentially turns the AirPods into a Hearing Aid.

Apple iPhone 16

The best is saved for the last, apparently. The iPhone 16 incorporates Apple Intelligence, Apple’s foray into AI. The new iPhone has vertically stacked cameras with ultramarine, teal, pink, and black and white colors. The iPhone 16 has a 6.1-inches screen and the Plus version has a 6.7-inches screen. The Action and Camera Control buttons that caused so much furor in the months before are part of the iPhone 16. To adjust controls, all you need to do is slide your fingers.

But let’s come to beef of the matter. The latest iPhones will feature the A18 6-core neural engine CPU that is engineered for 2x machine learning. Of the six cores, two are performance cores, and the rest are efficiency cores. This CPU is 30% faster while consuming 30% less energy than its predecessor in the iPhone 15. The GPU has 5 cores and is 35% more power efficient.

The Apple Intelligence is the most important upgrade in the iPhone 16 lineup. This was unveiled back in June and included things like proofreading, tone suggestion, Image Playground and Genmoji for image generation, summarization of messages, etc. It also included updates to Siri, like the anti-stumble measures and understanding of on-screen context.

A feature called “Visual Intelligence” will be added in October that uses the Camera Control button to do things like look up a restaurant by snapping a picture of it or add items to your calendar by clicking a photo of a flyer.

The Camera Control button has a variety of uses in addition to capturing photos. A click and hold will capture video. A slide will adjust the zoom levels or add background blur. A light press will pull up a preview of the photo or video.

As for the camera, the iPhone 16 has the same main camera with a 12MP sensor but with better low-light performance and spatial video recording capabilities. Add to that a macro mode and autofocus as well.

Apparently, the A18 chip is powerful enough to play AA games like those on the iPhone Pro model. Surprisingly, the prices are staying the same: iPhone 16 costs $799 and iPhone 16 Plus costs $899. Up to $650 off is available on a trade-in if the phone is bought through Apple.

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

Let’s turn our attention to the iPhone 16 Pro now. The Pro version is 6.3-inches wide and the Pro Max is 6.9-inches wide. Black, white, natural, and desert are the available finishes.

The CPU is the A18 Pro chipset that has a 16-core neural engine with a 17% increase in memory bandwidth. What you need to know is that it is 15% faster than its predecessor and 20% more power efficient. The GPU touts 6 cores that allows 2x faster ray tracing than the iPhone 15 Pro.

The camera is a 2nd generation quad-pixel sensor coupled with the new 48MP fusion camera. All the Pro models now have a 12 MP telephoto lens with 5x zoom. There are also upgrades to the Photographic Styles that adjust color, highlights and shadows on a variety of surfaces. The video capture happens at 4K at 120 fps with a lot of slow-motion effects.

The playback rate can be adjusted on videos as can the audio mixes. These can remove or lower background noises. Amazingly, there are also no prices hikes on the iPhone 16 Pro. It starts at $999 and the Pro Max version starts at $1,199. The pre-orders start on September 13 and the shipping starts on September 20.

With that, the Apple Glowtime event came to an end. It had a lot of great announcements and was a lot of fun to witness. Undoubtedly, the iPhone 16 lineup was the highlight of the show, but the other announcements were great too.

The event is over now but the replay is available on Apple’s YouTube channel. You can also use the Apple TV app.