MANILA – Apple’s newest offerings, among them the much-awaited iPhone 6, have been the talk of the town since the Cupertino-based tech giant unveiled them earlier this week.
Apple fans and tech geeks around the world were quick to welcome the new developments, tuning in to the launch event, Apple Live, during which Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke introduced the new products in a keynote adress.
Along with the iPhone 6, Apple introduced the iPhone 6 Plus–both of which, according to Cook, are “the biggest advancements in iPhone history.” The new phones offer bigger displays than the iPhone 5S, and come with the iOS 8, the latest version of the operating system.
Apart from this, Apple also launched a smart watch, Apple Watch, and a mobile payment service, Apple Pay.
While the new offerings were met with much excitement, they were also crticized, generally for their similarity to products already on the market.
Industry techies seemed to share the sentiments of most critics when they shared their opinion on the iPhone 6, Apple Watch and Apple Pay.
Hit Productions president and managing partner Vic Icasas said that the new devices “seemed more reactionary than revolutionary,” because they entered ground already covered by competitors.
“I found [the] keynote to be an interesting one because for the first time since I can remember, it seemed like Apple was playing catch up,” Icasas said.
“While I own both iOS (iPad Air) and Android devices (Sony smartphone, Nexus tablet), I prefer to avoid Apple for mobile telephony because of its (somewhat deserved) poor reputation as far as battery life is concerned,” Icasas added. “And now with even bigger screens to power, I highly doubt the iPhone battery situation will change and in fact may even further suffer. We’ll see next week when the actual units start hitting the hands of consumers.”
“Whatever happens, Apple is still going to sell a gazillion of these, and I admit I’m tempted!” he said.
Di9it managing director and partner Carlo Ople shared a similar opinion, but expressed excitement over the iPhone 6’s design.
“My heart wants it but my brain says no. A lot of the features that the iPhone 6 brings to the table have been with Android for years (even the bigger display that Samsung pioneered with the Note). The most appealing thing about it is the design of the device! Johny I ‘ve knocked this one out of the ball park because it just looks so damn good!” he said.
For Ople, Apple Pay and Apple Watch were more innovative.
“Both are potential game changers that can drastically change the way people live their lives,” he said.
Y&R Dubai creative director and head of digital Joseph Bihag, himself a Google Glass explorer, expressed his disappointment with the iPhone 6, observing, like Icasas and Ople, how the features of the devices are hardly new.
“As I was watching the keynote presentation, I tweeted: ‘Apple used 2 stand 4 innovation. Watching #AppleLive makes me cringe. People used 2 copy UR ideas & not the other way around. #MissYouSteve’,” Bihag shared.
Bihag waxed nostalgic about the original iPhone, saying that while Apple was never the first to invent things, “they were very good at taking something that existed and refining it to perfection.”
“In the end you get something so simple and it works beautifully that you wonder why their competitors couldn’t figure it out earlier. Apple did that magic. Case in point the original iPhone. It wasn’t the first smartphone but what Steve did was design a whole ecosystem around it that made the iPhone what it is today. It was the genius behind the AppStore and using built-in sensors made the phone truly a smartphone,” he said.
“Now if I compare that with the newly launched iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus, I say ‘meh’. A lot of the so called ’new features’ were ripped off from their competitors. Is it a Samsung S5, I say it’s embarrassingly similar. Same story goes for the Apple Watch,” he said.
However, Bihag continued to pledge his loyalty to the brand: “Despite having Samsung Gear and Android Wear being ahead of the game, if there’s one thing we can learn from all of this is that Apple shows you how it should be done. And for that reason alone I will keep buying Apple products for years to come.”
