iPhone6 - Apple Thinks Bigger Is Better

All eyes have been on Apple this week as they unveil the new iPhones as well as welcoming the new Apple Watch to their ranks.

The Apple Watch is Apple’s first new product line since the introduction of the first iPad, and the passing of its co-founder Steve Jobs.

The Apple Watch will run apps, act as a health and fitness tracker and will be able to communicate with the iPhone. Although a number of rival smartwatches are already available on the market, experts have highlighted a number of sectors that Apple have entered late and have subsequently helped to change their direction.

So, even though Apple might be joining the smartwatch battle a bit later than expected, they are no means out of the race. The device, which is expected to launch in early 2015, is simple in its design which has opened up a big debate among tech experts, and 11 different watch faces will be on offer with the ability to change the straps.

That’s not all though as Apple also gave spectators a glimpse of their two new handsets. The Apple Watch may have been the most anticipated product of the day, but their new larger iPhones are likely to be their bigger earners.

The iPhone 6 has a screen that measures 4.7in and the iPhone 6 Plus will be fitted with a 5.5in screen. The main reason for the move towards a ‘bigger is better’ notion is to stop the likes of Samsung prizing away its customers. Since the market for ‘phablets’ has opened up, more companies are moving towards a larger screen.

Steve Jobs was very much behind the smaller screen and was known to say “no-one is going to buy a phone that they could not get a single hand around” but these days seem to be long-gone for Apple.

Another feature, new to the iPhone 6 models, is Apple Pay. This is Apple’s take on contactless paying and depends on an NFC (near field communication) chip and a NFC reader at the shop till. Although Apple has ensured users that this will be ‘secure’ because it worked without having to store credit card details or needing to share any details with the cashier.

The new iPhone 6 models will be available to buy on 19th September, so we won’t have to wait as long to get our hands on these.

Could It Be The End For Tablets?

Just as we get an influx of tablets from all of the biggest names in technology including Google, Samsung and Apple, there is news surrounding a possible demise of the tablet.

The reason this news has surfaced is because Apple, the company that has dominated the tablet market for a while now, is now selling much fewer iPads, which could mean they may be making a six-inch phablet. This has therefore led to exaggerations that tablets are dead – far from the truth.

There have been rumours for months about Apple adding a bigger phone to its collection and these rumours won’t be going away any time soon. The phablet market is huge in Asia and Samsung have already begun preparations for releasing a seven-inch phablet there.

News of living in a post-iPad era are not quite accurate, but this could happen sooner than we thought. Although the iPad no longer dominates the market, it is still a high quality piece of technology, that is beautifully created and ahead of its time.

Apple has a knack at being adaptive and one example of this is the iPhone 5 turning into the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C in order to cater for consumer behaviour. So, don’t rule the iPad out, especially when there has been an increase of 25% in the number consumers that are 65 years old or older, which is a relatively new market.

It is not only the over 65’s that are into tablets, once people have a tablet, they are much less likely to trade it in unlike they would with their smartphone, which means people hold onto them much longer before replacing them.

But, the future could very well belong to the phablet – a smartphone with a big screen of between 5.6.9 inches. According to statistics, 25 million phablets were sold in China and South Korea alone, with sales doubling each quarter. In 2014, it is predicted that phablets will make up 25% of all smartphones sold, equating to 300 million, so claims that the future could belong to the phablet could be true.