Apple Pay, iPhone 6 & Watch – Welcome To The Party, But You’re Late

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September 10th, 2014 by financetwitter

Sep 10 2014

Apple has officially announced the iPhone 6 – the eighth generation of iPhone – at a special event in Cupertino. Boss Tim Cook also reveals the iPhone 6 Plus, a bigger brother of iPhone 6, and the Apple Watch too. At last, Apple has woken up to the reality that people do want a bigger phone, after the market was gobbled up by Samsung and HTC for as long as one can remember.

Previously, we had written why Apple have to reveal iPhone 6 junior (4.7-inch) AND iPhone 6 senior (5.5-inch) AND smartwatch – no buts, no ifs – if the company doesn’t want to see its stock get bashed. Now that they have delivered precisely that, yet the stock still get whacked. Okay, the stock didn’t get dumped although the intraday ranges from as high as $103.08 to as low as $96.14 during the event.

After the closing bell, Apple’s share was down $0.37 to $97.99 (or 0.38%). After hours trading saw the stock gets hammered by another $0.27 or 0.28%. While the decline is negligible, the fact that investors were neither super impressed speak volume about their pessimisms. Apple is late to the phablets party. And the Apple Watch will not be available until early next year.

{ 1 } The Bigger iPhone 6

We’re not sure if Steve Jobs was looking from up there with great disappointment. Naughty boy Tim Cook disobediently releases bigger screen 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and biggest screen 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, when Jobs had been saying for centuries the standard 4-inch diagonal screen size was the most suitable for mankind. Well, market has proved that people like jumbo sized phone so Jobs may need to eat humble pie after all.

The fact that the iPhone 6 design had been leaked months ago doesn’t give the audience the “wow” factor anymore. There was nothing much to shout about with both the new iPhone 6. Instead people were more interested to know about the pricing. The iPhone 6 will start at $199 for 16GB, $299 for 64GB, and $399 for 128GB – all on a two-year contract.

Meanwhile in the UK you’re looking at £539 for the 16GB iPhone 6 and £619 for 64GB, while the 128GB version is a whopping £699 SIM-free. The iPhone 6 Plus will start at $299 for 16GB, with the 64GB at $399 and 128GB at $499. Yeap – there won’t be anymore 32GB as in iPhone 5S and its predecessors. Both models will begin shipping on Sept. 19, but you can preorder them beginning Sept. 12.

Apple has overhauled the squared off design which has been with us since the iPhone 4. Now the iPhone 6 will gives us a more rounded, slimmer body. At 6.9mm, the iPhone 6 is now one of the thinnest smartphones, although its bigger brother iPhone 6 Plus is 0.2mm thicker at 7.1mm. Still, it’s thinner than now-dinosaur iPhone 5S’ 7.6mm.

While the new iPhones can be proud of its’ slimmer and sexy bodies, the same cannot be said about its weight. Both iPhone 6 and Plus are 129 grams and 172 grams respectively, as compare to iPhone 5S’ 112 grams. That can be explained because the new iPhone 6 comes with bigger and better batteries. While iPhone 6 has 14-hours talktime than iPhone 5S’ 10-hours, the winner is iPhone 6 Plus – 24-hours talktime.

With bigger size comes the problem with the display. Apparently, the new iPhone 6s will come with Retina display (what else can they do, right?). Due to its bigger size, iPhone 6’s resolution has been bumped to 1334-by-750-pixel as compare to iPhone 5S’ 1136-by-640-pixel. Hence both iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S have 326 ppi (*boring*). But the giant iPhone 6 Plus is boosted with 1920-by-1080-pixel to deliver 401 ppi.

As expected, both iPhone 6 and 6 Plus make the jump to Apple’s A8 64-bit dual-core processor, with the larger model features a higher clock speed, giving it more oomph for your games and video editing. The cameras are rather disappointed – both new iPhone 6s come with the same 8-megapixel iSight camera, similar to iPhone 5S. But they will support Voice Over LTE technology, which means you’ll be able to make clearer phone calls over Wi-Fi connections.

But, where’s the scratch-resistant sapphire screen many were expecting? Perhaps there will be nothing revolutionary to show come next year, so the sapphire thingy may be reserved for that. And 256 gigabytes would be revealed as well next year.

{ 2 } The Apple Watch

When the gigantic screen behind Tim Cook flashed with the iconic words “One More Thing”, everybody knew it was the much anticipated Apple Watch. Now, here comes the disappointment. First, it’s as thick as a bible. Second, it’s not called iWatch (*tongue-in-cheek*). Third, it looks remarkably like the Samsung Gear smartwatch. Fourth, it will start at a whopping $349 a pop. Fifth, it’s only available early next year.

Nobody really cares or asks about the Apple Watch’s battery life, and it’s easy to understand why. The stock got hammered because it means people will not be able to buy it during this years holiday season. And do we need to write how expensive and risky to buy this first generation smartwatch, when even our hamsters know the next version will be slimmer, cheaper, prettier and sexier (*grin*).

Nevertheless, the watches come in two sizes – the male and female versions. They will have interchangeable bands and be able to track things like a user’s heart rate. Some versions come in 18K gold, so yeah, those Middle Eastern super rich will definitely get them, just to show off. But just like Samsung’s recent released Virtual Reality toy, you need an iPhone 5 or later to work.

Let’s get real, this version of smartwatch is gonna flop, simply because Apple is late to the party. And the design is not super duper mind boggling as compare to Samsung’s design.

{ 3 } The Apple Pay

This is perhaps the most exciting product revealed by Apple. The expectation and news about NFC technology is as old as Tim Cooks in the company. Everybody has been asking when they can start tapping an iPhone onto a terminal to pay for something. Finally, Apple Pay – a mobile wallet – that stores a user’s credit card information for quick and seamless transactions is here.

Instead of swiping a credit card, users of the service will swipe their iPhones (or Apple Watches), which can be preloaded with customer’s debit and credit cards using the Passbook application. But the iCloud hack which caused the nude photos of actresses and singers on the net could slow down peoples’ readiness to adopt Apple Pay. Just like iCloud, Apple cannot guarantees NFC to be 100% secured.

Apple’s advantage is its access to about 800 million credit cards by way of people’s iTunes account. Okay, the problem may not be that iPhone users will start losing their fingers because bad guys start robbing and chopping fingers. The main problem is the vast majority of retailers lack the technology to accept the company’s new payment service.

Even Tim Cook acknowledged during Apple’s announcement – only 220,000 stores will work with Apple Pay out of the gate. That’s about 2.4% of the roughly 7 million to 9 million merchants in the U.S. that accept credit cards. Analysts believe the service would need to be usable at about 20% of U.S. retail locations to reach critical mass of acceptance.

Apparently, Apple had worked quietly with American Express, MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. for the service. Companies that are ready to accept transactions through Apple Pay include Starbucks, Whole Foods, Uber, Groupon, Open Table, Disney, Macy’s and Target. This will put Apple against players such as PayPal. Nonetheless, Apple together with the card issuers need to give more goodies to entice users to use the new method of payment.

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September 10th, 2014 by financetwitter

Apple Inc., Credit Card, Education, Gadgets, Investing & Trading, Samsung, Technology Stock

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