AirPods, Wireless Headphones, Next Month

On 9-7-16 Apple® introduced AirPods™, innovative new wireless headphones that use advanced technology to reinvent how we listen to music, make phone calls, enjoy TV shows and movies, play games and interact with Siri®, providing a wireless audio experience not possible before. AirPods eliminate the hassles of wireless headphones, by just flipping open the lid of its innovative charging case and with one tap, they are instantly set up and ready to work with your iPhone® and Apple Watch®.

Advanced sensors know when you are listening and automatically play and pause your music. Using Siri, AirPods allow you to access your favorite personal assistant with just a double tap. This revolutionary experience is enabled by the new ultra-low power Apple W1 chip, which enables AirPods to deliver high-quality audio and industry-leading battery life in a completely wireless design. AirPods will be available starting in late October.

“AirPods are the first headphones to deliver a breakthrough wireless audio experience, and with the new Apple W1 chip they deliver innovative features including high quality sound, great battery life and automatic setup,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “AirPods are simple and magical to use, with no switches or buttons, automatically connecting to all your Apple devices simply and seamlessly, and letting you access Siri with just a double tap. We can’t wait for users to try them with iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2.”

With AirPods, setting up and using wireless headphones has never been easier. Just open the charging case near your iPhone and with a simple tap, AirPods are immediately set up with all the devices signed into your iCloud® account, including your iPad® and Mac®. AirPods are connected and ready to go when you are, just put them in your ears when you want to listen. AirPods can intelligently and seamlessly switch from a call on your iPhone to listening to music on your Apple Watch.

The all new Apple W1 chip enables the groundbreaking innovations in AirPods, with dual optical sensors and accelerometers in each AirPod that work with the W1 chip to detect when AirPods are in your ear, so they only play when you are ready to listen. Simply remove them to automatically pause the music, or just remove one to have a conversation and automatically resume when you put it back.

Access Siri with a double tap to your AirPods to select and control your music, change the volume, check your battery life or perform any other Siri task. An additional accelerometer in each AirPod detects when you’re speaking, enabling a pair of beam-forming microphones to focus on the sound of your voice, filtering out external noise to make your voice sound clearer than ever before.

The ultra-low power Apple W1 chip operates at one-third of the power of traditional wireless chips, enabling AirPods to deliver up to 5 hours of listening time on one charge. The custom-designed charging case holds additional charges, for an industry-leading more than 24 hours of total listening time, ensuring AirPods are charged and ready to go whenever you are.

Pricing & Availability
  • The new Apple-designed wireless AirPods including charging case will be available for $159 (US) from Apple.com and Apple Stores beginning in late October.
  • AirPods require Apple devices running iOS 10, watchOS® 3 or macOS™ Sierra.
Credit: apple.com

macOS Sierra Now Available As Free Update

Apple® today announced that macOS™ Sierra, the latest major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, is now available as a free update. macOS Sierra brings Siri® to the Mac® with intelligent and helpful features users know and love from iPhone® and iPad®, along with all-new capabilities designed specifically for use on the desktop. Features like Universal Clipboard, iCloud® Desktop and Documents, Auto Unlock and Apple Pay® on the web help your Mac work even better with other Apple devices. And Photos gets an update with a new Memories feature that automatically creates curated collections of your favorite photos and videos.

Siri on the Mac can help send messages and email, find documents, look up information, search a user’s photo library, adjust system preferences and more. Users can also drag and drop Siri results into documents or pin them into their Today view for later reference. Universal Clipboard allows users to copy content from an app on one Apple device and paste it into another app on a different Apple device. With iCloud Desktop and Documents users can now access the files on their Desktop from iPhone and iPad. And Auto Unlock lets users automatically log into their Mac when they are wearing an authenticated Apple Watch®.

Apple Pay on the web makes the online shopping experience in Safari® more convenient and secure than ever. Shoppers can now click the Apple Pay button at checkout on nearly 300,000 participating websites, including 1-800-Flowers, Gilt, Instacart, Lululemon, Warby Parker and more, and then complete their purchase with Touch ID® on iPhone 6 or later or with Apple Watch. Users’ credit or debit card information is not shared with online merchants and strong encryption protects all communication between a user’s device and Apple Pay servers.

Photos introduces Memories, which highlights favorite and forgotten moments in users’ photo libraries by automatically creating curated collections of occasions like birthday parties or family vacations. Photos uses advanced computer vision to identify faces, objects and scenes in your images, so photos can be searched by who and what is in them. An all-new Brilliance editing tool brightens dark areas and pulls in highlights to make photos look richer and more vibrant.

Other great new features in macOS Sierra:
  • Messages makes conversations more interesting, allowing users to preview web links and play video clips from right within the app; respond to messages with a Tapback like a heart, thumbs up and more directly onto a message bubble; and send bigger emoji for more message impact.
  • Tabs are now available across Mac apps that support multiple windows, including Maps, Mail, Pages®, Numbers®, Keynote®, TextEdit, and even third-party apps.
  • Picture in Picture floats video from Safari or iTunes® in a window over the desktop. The window can be resized, dragged and pinned to any corner of the screen so users can watch video while they work.
  • Optimized Storage frees up space when a Mac starts getting full by storing infrequently used items in the cloud and helping users remove apps and files they no longer need.
  • Apple Music® in iTunes makes it even easier to discover new music and browse exclusives and new releases.

Availability
macOS Sierra is available as a free update starting today from the Mac App Store®. macOS Sierra supports all Macs introduced since late 2009. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages. For more information, please visit: www.apple.com/macos/sierra.

Credit: apple.com
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