Clocks sprung forward announcing spring and so did Apple one week ago in San Francisco, where the latest devices and services were announced. Some of them were expected, having been announced in late 2014, some of them were surprises which kicked up international conversation. A brief review of the company’s numbers reminded the audience why Apple is one of the top companies of the world – 453 retail stores worldwide were visited by 120 million people during the last quarter alone. 700 million iPhones have been sold so far, making the iPhone the top selling device in the world. Apple TV, shy until now, seems to have found a way to outgrow the 25 million units sold so far. HBO Now will launch in early April at $14.99 per month with Apple as exclusive partner. For the event, Apple has lowered the price of its device from $99 to $69. Apple Pay has seen a positive trajectory, too. From the initial six banks that originally supported the initiative, it now has reached over 2,500 banks and won’t be stopping there. Tim Cook announced that soon vending machines will work with Apple Pay. CarPlay is also working its way up; over 40 models of cars will offer it by the end of this year. Perhaps even more interesting is the announcement that every “major” auto manufacturer has committed to using it. CarPlay’s mission is to increase safety while driving by making major phone features easier and safer to use, such as text-to-speech and voice recognition. Apple decided to step up and help health innovation with the new iOS software framework ResearchKit. It was built after close collaboration with 12 research institutions, among which are the University of Oxford and Stanford. This new app lets people volunteer to join medical research studies and also take tests to detect walking in line, vocal variations, or tapping in rhythm to test for Parkinson’s disease. Users decide how to share their data, and can decline to share it with Apple if they wish. ResearchKit will be open source, available next month, but with the first five tests built with it are already available. These help people participate in tests for Parkinson’s, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and breast cancer. A new MacBook entered the scene; it completely stole the spotlight, thought to be reserved this spring for the Apple Watch. For many years now, Apple hasn’t made any changes in MacBook Air’s core design, the top of the line thin-and-light laptop. One port to connect them all The new 12-inch MacBook device is the result of a complete revamp that dumps virtually every conventional port – Thunderbolt, SD card slot, power connector – in favor of a pair: a single USB Type-C connection and an audio jack. The USB-C connector supports power, DisplayPort, VGA, data, and HDMI. Apple focused on wireless connectivity using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth; the company will sell VGA and HDMI adapters separately, meaning that only DisplayPort, charging, and USB 3.1 connectivity is supported natively through the single port. This advance helped turn the 12-inch MacBook into the slimmest, lightest MacBook ever; and a very silent one, too. The new MacBook doesn’t make a sound as it flaunts a fanless design, a feature that required a complete makeover. Under the hood it sports a new energy-efficient Core M Intel processor that sits in a logic board 67 percent smaller than Apple’s previous best. It runs at 1.1GHz that can Turbo Boost to 2.9GHz, consuming a mere 5 watts of power. Intel HD Graphics 5300, 8GB memory and 256GB SSD complete the logic board. The keyboard lies from edge-to-edge with closer together keys than its counterparts. The real novelty is in the engineering effort to create a new keyboard switch that replaces the scissor switches that power most laptop keyboards: the “Butterfly mechanism.” The new mechanism uses a single assembly with a stainless steel...

In the technology world, autumn brings with it a new line of Apple devices. From the stage of the Flint Center in Cupertino earlier this week, the launch location of Macintosh and iMac, Tim Cook announced the arrival of the new generation of iPhones and the debut of the company’s much-anticipated first wearable, the Apple Watch. Continuing last year’s trend, the company introduced two models of iPhones: the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus. Their enlarged sizes flaunt curved edges with a thinner figure of 6.8 mm and 7.1 mm, respectively (the iPhone 5S is 7.6 mm thick). The curved glass screen melds smoothly into the aluminum body, and the power button has been moved on the right side of the device for easier one-hand use. With the ability of one-hand use in mind, Apple included a new smart feature called Reachability that minimizes the display, bringing the items from the top of the screen to the bottom of it, in order to reach all of the onscreen by double pressing on the home button. Furthermore, the landscape mode has been intelligently modified into a two-pane display, following the design used on Macs. For instance, when viewing iMessages or email, the left side shows a list view of the messages/emails, while the right side shows the contents of the message/email. The homescreen will also work on the horizontal position. Both phones come with Retina HD Displays that show off 1334 x 750 (326ppi) and 1920 x 1080 (401ppi) respectively. The expected sapphire display cover wasn’t used on the iPhone, but an ion-strengthened glass with an improved polarizer meant for better outdoor viewing. Focused and Fast The rear camera is still at 8-megapixel f/2.2, but adding some new features announce a vastly improved picture quality. One of these features is the Focus Pixel, designed to speed up autofocus, while auto image stabilization will take care of motion blur and hand shakiness. The face detection capabilities have been improved, the exposure is more controllable, and the Panorama feature now supports high-resolution photos of up to 43 megapixels. Video can capture 1080 HD at 60fps, while iOS8 has introduced a new 240fps slo-mo mode and time-lapse video. The front camera has been improved to FaceTime HD with a new sensor and an f/2.2 aperture, capturing 81 percent more light, thus taking better photos in low-light. Between the aluminum and ion-strengthened glass purrs the second generation 64-bit A8 processor; smaller than the A7 in the iPhone 5S, is able to deliver 25 percent faster CPU performance while being 50 percent more energy efficient. The new M8 coprocessor measures data from the accelerometer, compass, and gyroscope, and introduced the barometer that measures elevation, in addition to steps taken and distance traveled. The two chips and the Apple gaming technology, Metal, support developers in creating console-like games on the smartphone. Connectivity was improved to offer faster LTE reaching up to 150 Mbps. The new iPhones include support for Voice over LTE (VoLTE) which translates to higher-quality phone calls over LTE and, for the first time, through VoLTE, users on CDMA networks like Verizon will be able to use voice and data simultaneously. Wi-Fi 802.11ac is three times faster than its predecessor, and the iPhone 6 supports calls over Wi-Fi, a solution to the situation where a cellular connection is lacking. Can Apple Pay make credit cards passé? Touch ID is present on both devices and is an integral part of Apple’s new Apple Pay mobile payments initiative using its Near Field Communication (NFC) antenna. The three terms used to describe the service are Easy, Secure, and Private. It’s easy because with just a fingerprint, Apple Pay allows users to pay at already thousands of retail stores, by simply waving the newer iPhone or Apple Watch in front of a reader. For security, the owner’s thumbprint scan on the smartphone is required before...