Apple Inc unveiled a new watch, two larger iPhones and a mobile payments service on Tuesday as Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook seeks to revive the company’s reputation as a wellspring of innovation.
The “Apple Watch” will come in three distinct collections, including a sport edition and an upscale line coated in 18-karat gold.
With the launch of two new Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Apple as the company marked a radical change for the first time since launching the iPhone in 2007, acknowledged that bigger screens do provide better experience. The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch screen while the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen.
“We are announcing the biggest announcement in the history of iPhone,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook as he unveiled the two phones at an event in Cupertino in the US.
The iPhone 6 screen has a resolution of 1334 x 750 pixels while the iPhone 6 Plus screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Both phones are powered by Apple’s A8 processor that, the company claimed, is 25 per cent faster in general purpose processing and 50 per cent in graphics processing compared to the A7 processor found in iPhone 5S.
Apple also announced that it is building an e-payment service called as “Apple Pay” that will allow iPhone and Apple Watch users to pay in retail stores using the Apple devices. The company said that the service, which for now will be available only in the US, works with iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch using NFC technology.
The company said that Apple Pay is easy to set up as anyone already using an iTunes account can simply add their credit or debit card on file from their iTunes Store. Apple Pay supports credit and debit cards from the three major payment networks, American Express, MasterCard and Visa.
“Security and privacy is at the core of Apple Pay. When you’re using Apple Pay in a store, restaurant or other merchant, cashiers will no longer see your name, credit card number or security code, helping to reduce the potential for fraud,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services.
“Apple doesn’t collect your purchase history, so we don’t know what you bought, where you bought it or how much you paid for it. And if your iPhone is lost or stolen, you can use Find My iPhone to quickly suspend payments from that device,” added Cue.
The move gives Apple access to a trove of data on how consumers shop in brick and mortar stores, where more than 90 percent of U.S. retail sales are still conducted. Barclays Capital said in a Sept. 5 note that the mobile payments feature would give Apple “one of the largest sets of consumer transaction data in the U.S.”
Each new iPhone will come with a “secure element” chip and a near-field communications, or NFC, antenna.
