My take in real-time on Apple's September 10, 2013 event.

iTunes Festival

Frankly, I do not care about the event. 20 million people wanted in, so they are live streaming for free. So what is the point? I need my Apple device to join the party and see the streaming event.   And that is not free, but then we are enough Apple users to enjoy it. Join the club, other humanoids...  I guess.

Retail Focus

OK, the stores serve many customers and provide sidewalk assistance. Can you please stop impressing us with design to help our "experience?" I am waiting for breakthrough technology, not marketing breakthroughs.

IOS7

About to ship 7M IOS devices next month to become the world's most popular mobile operating system. Here are the innovations. Gorgeous home screen, gorgeous colors, OK enough with the beautiful, now the goodies...  So far, nice design, navigation, and responsive page stacking. I like Siri and am glad it has increased its capacity and reach.   Different and sounds - so what? Cool, but really, bringing this up as an improvement? I like the new collection of picture browsing. Much much better. My wife will be happy as she has been complaining about the pictures' organization for years. The Share Sheet is also very well designed, including airdrop P2P. Now you are talking about distributed and privacy features. Cool!   The New iTunes offers stations that challenge Pandora. About time!  

With over 200 features, we can expect great applications with better design. This should finally give me what I wanted to bring Tweetzup to the mobile platform. Apple commented about IOS7 being free - Why would you charge for a platform that supports your online commerce. Of course, it is free. That comment takes us just a little, for idiots here. Drop the free argument Apple. We get your business model.

Applications on IOS

Apple can be a serious competitor to Google Docs with its iWork suite. I have been using them and love them. The new announcement about making these 5 apps free is the needed approach to challenge Google Docs. The issues still remain in the war for cross-platform shareability. XML anyone?

iPhones

Apple claims that The iPhone 5 is the most liked model, bringing the iPhone to new levels. The recent price announcement is paired with a customer penetration strategy to increase its market share.  

First, the iPhone 5C includes all the iPhone 5 features and a new design. The color is trivial, but then again, I am not a teenage girl. I wish they could tone down the beautiful design and experience argument during these shows. The cases are poorly designed where the name iPhone shows "non," which means "no" in French. That is a basic design mistake, especially for a company that prides itself on design. Nonetheless, it is not revolutionary, but it does what it should do for the right age group at the right price of $99 and $199 with a contract. Unlike the iPad, the covers are just idiotic, given the strong independent manufacturers and the fact that they are made of plastic. Why the redundancy? Not needed. Also, what about the eco-friendly and recyclable mission? Dixit Jony Ive, senior VP of Design: "It's quite remarkable when something feels familiar, yet it's new at the same time." It sounds like a rationalization for weak design innovation.

Now the iPhone 5S. I was waiting for innovation, and here is what we got. Again drop the design, and let's explore the substance. Gold with diamond-cut edges? Yep, the gold standard. Now let's look at the innovations. Performance is key, and this phone has it with the A7 with the first 64-bit chip in a phone. Now we are talking, but if we design powerful applications for this phone, we will need to dumb them down for the other phones. Well, c'est la vie. At least we can be 32-bit compatible. This is good news. The power has increased by 40X since the first iPhone and 56X for the graphics. Impressive. The power of OpenGL/ES will help us create our tweetup cloud animation. 

M7 works with the A7 as a motion co-processor, improving applications addressing environmental motions. The fact that the M7 is separated from the A7 allows better resource management and performance for many applications.   As to the battery life, Apple has been able to pack the new features without depleting the battery capacity.  

The new iSight camera has the right new hardware with F2.2 aperture and better sensors; the real improvement is the 1.5 micron for better color range and light capture. Now the software is keeping up with the hardware. It has preemptive environment detection about lighting and other sensing capability. The new True Tone Flash can now produce the right color variation to adapt itself to the ambient situation. This is true innovation providing more natural colors. The image stabilization is also a great addition through multiple shots selecting the crispier areas to build the right picture automatically. More features are also included in video multiple shot selection through real-time processing. And now slow-motion cameras can create great scenes. What a great use of its processors and software. That is a very cool and innovative advancement without user editing.

Security is now stronger and smarter. Apple's innovation in using finger prints is right on target, and they have achieved what IBM could have done on its ThinkPad over ten years ago.   The Touch ID capacitive sensor is right on the home button.   That makes sense to me, and it is effortless. The extended authentication to other services is also great. I can see many new uses for this innovation. But please replace Jony Ive's videos; his tone and voice make me feel like he is trying to control my brain. Sorry, Jony.

The iPhone 5S is priced reasonably, but the case... you could have left that to the store rather than the show.

Apple starts to take orders on Friday 13. Thankfully I am not superstitious.

The overall presentation was just OK. The real gems have been hidden by silly distractions like iTunes festivals, music, colors, and cases. This always feels like a substitution for substance. And the meaning was presented but lacked the focus the lighter touchy-feely distractions received.    Will I remain a faithful Apple user? Sure. But next time, wow me with a freaking iWatch that lightens my bag-o-tech.