Watched the Apple Reveal yesterday

Well, I tired to watch it.

I’d just gotten comfortable on the couch, the big screen was on and the Apple TV was streaming the event. I could see the crowd and hear the din created when 2000 people or more are all talking at once.

Then Tim Cook took the stage and began talking.

I thought something was wrong with my TV, or the surround system. Mr Cook would speak and then there’d be the annoying whisper. I thought it was someone sitting too close to an open microphone. As I listened closer I recognized that the whisper was Chinese and it was getting louder.

I checked all my connections, rebooted the AppleTV and then couldn’t get back in to the live stream. The Apple TV kept saying “Content Unavailable”

Fine, I tried from my computer; “Access Denied”

I grabbed my iPad and tried it. My iPad picked up the stream with the annoying Chinese loud enough that I could barely hear Mr. Cook. 

That’s when I realized that it was some interpreter who was supposed to be there yacking a translation to all the Chinese people. Once again, I felt like i as an English speaker in America was a second rate citizen.

Then the stream failed on the iPad, with the spinning wheel of death.

But the computer was suddenly able to log in again. I put the iPad down. I managed to rejoin the presentation as they were talking about the iPhone, and the Chinese was gone. Fine! iPhone its great, iPhone is wonderful, lets talk about the new innovations and technology…

Cool! thats what I was curious about, I lean in toward my computer screen and the stream fails!

GRRRRR!

I click rejoin, Access Denied, you don’t have permission to use this server. WTF?

I open the iPad while the computer is rebooting. It rejoins the stream, now they’re talking about Apple Pay. Excellent, I wanted to know about that too. Credit cards obsolete… blah blah, lets look at this video… blah blah… Here’s how it works and what devices will…

Pinwheel of death…

OH COME ON!

I gave up, it was one of those days when I couldn’t catch a break.

I watched the stream later as a rerun on the AppleTV from my couch. It was a better experience. 

Based on what I’ve seen the iPhone is nice, but somewhat incremental to my iPhone 5s. Having NFC, is in my opinion something Apple should have been doing all along. But given that NFC payments are slowly rolling into the marketplace I don’t see an imperative to run out and buy a new phone.

Besides, I like the size of my existing phone. I can shove it in my pants or coat pocket and it’s fine. My phone does pretty much everything that the iPhone 6 does already.I figure I’ll be ready for an iPhone 7s just about the time that NFC is fully deployed in all shopping venues, then it will be worth the investment. (Have I ever mentioned I was an early adopter of the original iPhone? I don’t know if I ever spent that refund…)

The Apple Watch is very pretty, I’m not sure that I’m ready to go back to a digital watch. Honestly I like my nice self winding automatic. I don’t have to recharge it, all I have to do is move. Isn’t that what the Apple Watch is trying to remind the user to do as well?  It does look like the Apple Watch may contain an NFC chip too. If so, and if the watch would bridge the gap between my iPhone 5s and my purchase of an iPhone 7s for transactions I might consider it. But the payments thing would have to just explode and begin inconveniencing me before I’d feel any pressure.

Who knows, perhaps by the time I’m ready for a new iPad & iPhone they’ll be sentient!