Tuesday is a big day for fans of Apple’s iPhone: The company announced a slick new iPhone, called the iPhone X, with features including a bigger screen, thinner edges, and facial recognition for security.
It will be the most upscale iPhone yet and starts at $999. That makes the new super-luxury iPhone the same price as Apple’s basic laptop, the MacBook Air. The company also announced two other iPhones and new versions of its watch and TV media player.
Although Tuesday’s announcements will create a lot of hoopla among enthusiasts of consumer electronics, it is also a pivotal day for the company itself. Apple—the third-largest company in the United States and the most valuable company in the world—has seen its stock price surge a remarkable 53 percent in the last year.
But last year, for the first time in 15 years, Apple’s sales dropped. Okay, sure, the company still made $46 billion in profit, on sales of $216 billion—which is a number greater than the gross domestic product of three-quarters of the world’s countries.
Yet some analysts have started to wonder how much longer Apple’s dominance can continue. Under founder Steve Jobs, the company either created or dramatically expanded markets for gadgets that people didn’t yet know they wanted or needed: personal computers (Apple II, 1977; Macintosh, 1984), music players (iPod, 2001), smartphones (iPhone, 2007), and tablets (iPad, 2010). Its inventions have largely reshaped how we listen to music, consume news, and communicate with each other.
Jobs’ philosophy on innovation, as quoted in the outstanding 2011 Walter Isaacson biography Steve Jobs, was
Isaacson called Jobs a “genius” whose “imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. . . . He made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors.”
Since CEO Tim Cook took over after Jobs died of cancer in 2011, the company has refined products such as Apple TV and launched the Apple Watch. It is moving into areas such as artificial intelligence and perhaps even self-driving cars, as are its competitors. Yet while sales of new products are increasing, Apple still relies to an enormous extent on the iPhone: Almost two-thirds of Apple’s revenue comes from iPhone sales. And that proportion has generally been rising over the last decade.
All of which makes Tuesday’s launch of the iPhone X and the iPhone 8 even more crucial. As analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research told Wired: “Tuesday, September 12, is going to be the biggest day for Apple in at least three years.” The risk is that the new phone will be “disappointing to consumers in some way,” Dawson said.
Expect big lines at Apple stores in the next few weeks as the new products become available. But it will take much longer than that to figure out if the enthusiasm is enough to keep Apple on top.
Apple’s Tuesday announcements:
- A new iPhone line, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, made of durable glass on front and back. It has faster processing chips, louder speakers, and a better camera, including enhancements for shooting photos in low light and of portraits, as well as higher-quality video and better gaming capabilities. It can also charge wirelessly when resting on a charging pad. The iPhone 8 starts at $699 with 64 GB of storage, and the iPhone 8 Plus starts at $799 with 64 GB of storage. They’re available to order on Friday.
- A new iPhone X (“iPhone Ten”), which Cook called “the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.” It incorporates many of the features of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. In addition, its 5.8-inch screen is all glass, with no home button, and the phone can be unlocked by recognizing its owner’s face, a feature Apple calls “face ID.” The technology can also be blended with images of cartoon animals to create videos of animated emojis, called “animojis,” that can be texted to friends. The feature even works with the “poop” emoji, Apple officials said. It is called iPhone X because it has been 10 years since the iPhone’s debut. (There is no iPhone 9.) It starts at $999 with 64 GB of storage and is available to order on October 27.
- Apple is also dropping prices on its older iPhone models. The iPhone SE now starts at $349, iPhone 6S at $449, and iPhone 7 at $549.
- Apple announced a new line of watches, Apple Watch Series 3, that comes with cellular technology built in. This allows it to be used to make phone calls, stream music, and use GPS services without having an iPhone nearby, unlike previous versions. The company also announced a new operating system for the watch that improves its heart rate monitoring and other health-related features. The Series 3 Apple Watch with cellular starts at $399 and is available September 22.
- Finally, there is a new version of the company’s digital media player for televisions, called Apple TV 4K. It has improved picture quality, a faster processor and enhancements for sports fans such as notifications on close games and those involving the user’s favorite teams.
