Apple's Awe Dropping Event: My Thoughts

I've seen enough YouTube videos and MacRumors posts about little details surrounding the Awe Dropping event to give my overall thoughts about the event in full.

I'll discuss the products in order of announcement, meaning AirPods Pro 3 are up first.

I'm sure that with time these AirPods will benefit from some sort of enhanced wireless communication bandwidth or processing power, but for now this strikes me as a very minor upgrade at launch time. The heart rate monitoring is great for people who don't already wear Apple Watches or other fitness trackers, but the majority of athletes who want to track their heart rate already do. It doesn't strike me as a major selling point.

I also wonder if my ears will hold Apple's new ear tips better with the extra sizes included in the packaging now. Even with third party foam ear tips my 2nd gen AirPods Pro still fall out of my ears when I get sweaty on a long run. The PowerBeats Pro 2, also made by Apple and include heart rate sensors, seem to be a better overall choice for folks worried about losing an earbud during fitness activity. Maybe the third generation, when it eventually comes, will leverage all of the AirPods Pro 3's bass boosting technology. If it did, I might make that leap before switching to newer AirPods Pro.

Overall, they're still a great buy but I don't think I can justify upgrading right away.

Moving on to Apple Watch, there are some great new features in the Series 11 like 5G connectivity, improved battery life, and faster charging. In particular, the Ultra 3's satellite connectivity is a major selling point for me since I currently have plans to travel to the least visited national park in the United States: Isle Royale. Phone service is guaranteed not to exist in the middle of Lake Superior, so having a way to send an SOS message with my exact location could potentially save my life or someone in my group's life. The hard part of the sell for me is that modern iPhones from the last 3 years all include satellite communications already, and my iPhone will be with me for photography. It will take a lot of deep consideration before I make the leap to a watch only two generations newer than my current $800 wearable.

In general, if you own an Apple Watch older than the Series 8 I could see enough new features piling up to justify it, but I think I'm just one generation too early.

And now, the biggest hype of the event: iPhones. I think these are definitely the devices with the most radical changes that could justify an upgrade, even for users holding last year's iPhone in their pocket.

First and foremost, the base iPhone 17's upgrade to a Pro Motion display is 2 or 3 years later than it should be, and it's a relief that Apple finally brought it to the base models this year. The new selfie camera's square sensor that can automatically extend and change from portrait to landscape when it detects more people trying to fit in the frame is a genuine joy. The improved battery life is also a welcome change. Starting at $799 means that the iPhone 16e finally makes sense in Apple's current list of offerings by making it $200 less at full MSRP, but that still puts iPhones out of reach for many people in developing countries unless they're buying models a generation or two old.

In a weird middle spot is iPhone Air, a marvel of modern technology that solves problems that never existed while creating others (a post-Jobs Apple staple). For me, it's very cool and probably an exciting experience to hold something different than almost every other phone on the market, but I think that excitement would quickly turn to disappointment after a year when the health of this battery diminishes to less than "all day battery life" that Apple is claiming for this phone. Claiming adequate battery life and then immediately showing off a $99 MagSafe power bank exclusively compatible with iPhone Air is a bold move and most tech journalists were quick to call out the irony as a red flag for the device. Quinn of SnazzyLabs was clever to consider that the efforts to make the iPhone Air were a one-time product launch as a proof-of-concept for the folding iPhone coming in the next year or two. We'll see if that rings true soon, I guess.

With all of that being said, I get the hype but think it is going to be like most first-generation Apple products: underwhelming but interesting.

The most interesting product from this event was also the last phone announced: iPhone 17 Pro (and its giant cousin the iPhone 17 Pro Max). To me, this phone is offering one of the greatest leaps in features from generation to generation in at least four or five years. Between finally offering three 48 megapixel sensors (after a 3-year ramp up to the complete trio), a major improvement to battery life, and the new unibody aluminum body with vapor chamber cooling (titanium was a waste of resources anyway), there's just the right amount of true improvement in this phone to warrant an upgrade from any other iPhone—even last year's iPhone 16 Pro. I don't think that was true from the 13 to 14, 14 to 15, or 15 to 16.

Will I upgrade this year? Nah. However, I do think it will be tough for me not to upgrade when the 2026 iPhones launch next year.