🎬 Apple's next rodeo

September 11, 2024

Happy Wednesday. Apple diehards had the chance to peep at the newest iPhones yesterday, as Tim Cook and Co. hosted their big fall event and unveiled all their latest gizmos.

Warning: Not that you should care, but for every nifty feature Apple has added to its phones, get ready for the usual army of internet reviewers lining up to tell you how their Samsung Galaxy from 12 years ago could already do that. And in fairness, they’re probably right.

— Edna Akanni, Geraldine Ndzomo

TECH
Apple attempts to ride the AI wave with its new releases

David Snelling/The Express

That day of the year your savings account fears the most has finally come. Yesterday, Apple debuted its iPhone 16 range of devices in a 90-minute gathering, highlighting how AI will be incorporated into the new phone. Many analysts and investors fear, however, that many questions have been left unanswered as Apple continues to fight off Chinese competition.

If you’re in a hurry and can’t wait for a second-hand device to hit your neighborhood, here’s what you can expect from the new iPhone:

  • You’ll be able to use Visual Intelligence, a feature that’s similar to Google Lens

  • Siri will be able to find info on your phone, summarize emails and messages, and send photos from your library.

  • You’ll get a custom emoji generator, for when multiples flame emojis can’t quite describe how excited you are.

Most of these changes were previously announced at the company’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference in June, except Visual Intelligence, which will be enabled by -and no, you won’t believe how revolutionary this is- a camera button on the side. At the launch event, Apple showed examples of how to use Visual Intelligence, like pulling up information about a car on the street, or telling whether your food is raw, or well-cooked.

But you’ll have to be patient: South Africans can pre-order on September 13th, with the devices expected to be available in-store by September 20th. For the rest of us, we may have to invest in an Amazon Prime subscription.

Aside from AI…Apple’s other announcements focused on two words: bigger and better. That includes; a larger and thinner Apple Watch, a bigger display on the iPhone 16 Pro, next-gen Airpods Pro 2 that can substitute as clinical-grade hearing aids, and a camera good enough to film a music video. —EA.

OnlyFans - The platform you pretend to only vaguely know about -revealed some stunning (financial) figures this past week. Creators cleaned house, combining for a total $5.32Bn in payouts. There was also a 29% annual increase in people getting infront of the camera, up to 4.12m creators, proving yet again, that the creator economy is alive and well - it’s just a question of which niche.

SNIPPETS

  • Yikes. Police in Guinea-Bissau seize nearly 3 tonnes of cocaine on a plane from Venezuela. We wonder what the excess baggage charges must have been like.

  • On target. Nigeria closes in on oil production target of 1.7 million barrels per day of crude. This is amidst an ongoing fuel scarcity crisis in the country.

  • Mourning. Acclaimed actor and voice-over artist, James Earl Jones, who was the voice behind CNN’s “The Lion King” and Darth Vader dies at 93.

  • Ugandan Rebecca Cheptegei’s attacker and former partner, Dickson Ndiema, dies from burn injuries sustained during the incident.

  • Yet again. UN continues to call out warring parties in Sudanese civil war, stating that “they are acting with complete disregard for international law” by violating Sudanese people’s human rights.

*Note from the editor: We want to apologize for the inconsistencies you may be experiencing in receiving our newsletter this week. We only recently changed domains and much like Apple’s iPhones, our delivery systems are well….taking their time to catch up.

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