Following up from iOS 18 at WWDC 2024, Apple has announced a wealth of new hardware to go with that new software. This is led by the new iPhone 16 Pro, which is packed with a powerful A18 Pro chip, which will power complex AI workloads on a gorgeous new screen.
But the iPhone 16 wasn't alone. Apple also announced the Apple Watch Series 10, which has new health and fitness features that can help you hit your health goals. For instance, the new Apple Watch will be able to detect Sleep Apnea without having to go through an exhausting sleep study.
The AirPods 4 also finally made an appeearance, with a more comfortable design and a much improved charging case that'll charge quicker and be easier to find if you misplace it. Plus, Apple also improved the AirPods Pro 2 and the AirPods Max with new software features and colorways, respectively.
Apple Watch – Bigger, Brighter, Better
After going on about how Apple Watch makes everyone's life better, Tim Cook announced the new Apple Watch Series 10 with an 'all-new design' that looks just like the last Apple Watch, just a bit thinner. The biggest change is a much larger, more legible display, with 30% more screen real estate than the Apple Watch Series 6. This should make it much easier to read content at a glance, combined with a 30% brighter display.
Apple is showing off the bigger, brighter display with a new Flux watch face. The Apple Watch Series 10 also features new colorways: Jet Black, Rose Gold and Silver. Plus, Apple has made these finishes more scratch-resistant, while cutting the thickness down to 9.7mm, making it an extremely thin smartwatch. Apple has also improved the charging coil on the back of the Apple Watch, which should cut down on charging time.
If you want something a bit more premium, Apple is also releasing the Apple Watch Series 10 in a new Titanium finish, which weighs 20% less than the Aluminum versions, while also having more premium-looking finishes. Though, you're going to have to fork over quite a bit of change to get this model.
The Apple Watch Series 10 is being powered by the new S10 SoC (System on a Chip), which has a 4-core neural engine, to better handle AI workloads, like being able to detect falls and contact emergency services when you need it and without needing you to do anything. This AI chip also powers a translation app native on the watch, which will be a lot less awkward than bringing out your phone to mediate a conversation.
New to the Series 10 is the ability for the Apple Watch to help detect changes in your sleep pattern that can help identify Sleep Apnea before it becomes a serious problem. These notifications will be coming to Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, as well.
The Apple Watch Series 10 has some new workout improvements, too. Key among them is a new depth app, which will measure how deep you dive, making it an awesome companion for divers. This is paired with a tides app, that'll help you predict the movement of the tides if you're planning on hanging out on the beach or surfing.
Apple is also announcing a new finish for the Apple Watch Ultra 2, which now comes in a Satin Black colorway with a matching titanium band.
The Apple Watch Series 10 starts at $399 and is available for preorder today. You can expect to see it on store shelves September 20, 2024.
AirPods 4 – Now Protecting Your Hearing
It's been a few years since the AirPods 3 hit the market, but Apple has finally announced the Airpods 4, and it has a new, refined design that should be much more comfortable. These new AirPods are now also powered by an H2 SoC and a new audio architecture. This allows for features like Personalized Spatial Audio, which should make audio quality much better, no matter what you're listening to.
The charging case has also been improved, cutting down the size and changing the connection to USB-C, effectively ending the dreaded Lightning cable for good. Noise cancellation is also coming to the base model, which used to be exclusive to the AirPods Pro. Apple is also taking notes from the Samsung Galaxy Buds, with adaptive noise cancellation, which will tweak the cancellation depending on what you're doing and whether or not you're speaking.
Apple has also added a speaker to the charging case, which will work with Find My, making it easier to find your earbuds when you've misplaced them.
It's not just the basic AirPods that are getting new toys, the AirPods Pro are also being updated. The AirPods Pro 2 is getting a suite of features to help identify and prevent hearing loss. The new Hearing Protection, which will be enabled by default, will use machine learning to identify loud noises and adjust noise cancellation accordingly to help protect your hearing. The AirPods Pro 2 will now also have a mode that will allow them to act as clinical-quality hearing aids.
Apple has also refreshed the AirPods Max a bit, adding new colorways and a USB-C charging option, and are still starting at $549. The Aipods 4 start at $129 for the regular model and $149 for the noise-cancellation model, and are available to preorder today.
iPhone 16 – Now With an Extra Button!
This is it, the main event. We finally get a glimpse of the new iPhone 16, which looks a lot like the iPhone 15 that I reviewed last year. Apple is using a new color-infused glass, coming in new Ultramarine, Teal and Pink colorways, which of course accompany the White and Black iPhones we all know and love.
iPhone 16 also has the new Action Button that was introduced with the iPhone 15 Pro. This is a programmable button that can do all kinds of different functions quickly. There's a new button, too. Apple as hadded a dedicated camera button, which will both bring up the camera and act as a hardware shutter, much like an actual camera.
Much like a Mac touchpad, the camera button is less a button and more a haptic sensor. It can absolutely act as a button if you just need to snap a quick photo, but it can also sense lighter touches and movement, so you can use it to adjust photo settings on the fly, without having to touch the screen. Now, if only Apple could use this to bring back TouchID, that'd be truly awesome.
With the new camera button, of course, comes an improved camera. The iPhone 16 now has a 48MP main sensor, along with an Ultrawide lens, which can capture up to 2.6x more light. The Ultrawide lens also allows the iPhone 16 to capture macro photography.
The SoC has been upgraded to power AI, or 'Apple Intelligence'. AI workloads demand a powerful chip, and Apple is answering with a new A18 chip, with a 16-core Neural Engine, which is twice as powerful as the Neural Engine found in the A16 Bionic. Apple is also adding 17% more memory, which will help with memory-hungry AI workloads, like LLMs. The CPU is also much more powerful and efficient, which should help with battery life.
Apple did claim that the iPhone 16 is more powerful than high-end desktop PCs, which I will only believe after I get my hands on it to test it myself.
The more powerful A18 SoC is needed to power all the AI workloads Apple revealed back at WWDC 2024. The iPhone 16 will be able to run in the background, learning from how you use your phone to deliver better experiences. However, a mobile chipset can only go so far, and some of that computation needs to be handed off to the cloud. Apple is claiming that anything handed off to the cloud is completely private, with data being totally anonymized.
With the new AI features, you'll be able to more easily find photos with a search function, you'll be able to make new emojis and have Siri help you edit messages to make them more appropriate. How much of this can be handled completely natively on the device without a cellular connection, however, will remain to be seen.
You can even use the camera to search the internet for things you see out in the world, just like the Google Pixel 9 or the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. You can do so by holding down the new camera button while pointing at whatever you want to search for. ChatGPT is built in, too, so you can use this functionality with text you need help with to get the LLM to give you some help.
The iPhone 16 also features some important gaming improvements, with an entirely new cooling system that should stop the phone from getting too hot during long gaming sessions. This is while providing up to 30% better GPU performance than the iPhone 15, which should help with some of the AAA games Apple has been putting on iOS lately.
Luckily, the iPhone 16 also includes a much bigger battery, which is paired with better battery management in iOS 18. This should mean better battery life overall, but it will be especially impactful during heavy workloads like gaming.
The Apple 16 Pro takes the AI focus and goes even further with it. The new Pro has a 6.3-inch display for the base model, and a 6.9-inch display for the Pro Max, which is slightly larger than what the iPhone 15 Pro offered. The Pro is still sporting a Titanium finish, with four colorways: Black, White, Natural Titanium, and 'Desert', which is a more muted Rose Gold.
The iPhone 16 Pro is powered by the A18 Pro, which features the same Neural Engine as the regular A18, just with more cache, which should help in some pro workloads. Apple is promising a huge performance uplift over the iPhone 15 Pro. But it shouldn't make that much of a difference over the regular iPhone 16 in terms of pure performance.
Apple does include a 5x Telephoto lens, on top of the 48MP main shooter and ultrawide lens of the iPhone 16, which will dramatically improve the performance of any shots you need to zoom in to get. You should also be able to get much better photos of anything at a distance.
Audio quality will also see an improvement on the iPhone 16 Pro, which now features 4 'studio-quality' microphones, which will be much better at recording, especially if you're capturing video. It will also use the neural engine to apply pro voice filters, which can filter out background noise or isolate a certain speaker's voice.
The iPhone 16 will start at $799 for the 128GB model, with the iPhone 16 Plus starting at $899 for the same storage option. For the iPhone Pro, you can get it for $999 with 128GB of storage, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max costing $1,119 to start, with 256GB of storage.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
