As was expected, the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2 took much of the stage time during today’s Apple event. However, the day wasn’t all about these two products; either by announcing it on stage or refreshing it silently online, Apple announced updates for iWork, Beats, and iPad that are all welcome improvements.
iWork
Although unexpected, Apple took valuable stage time to cover what’s new in iWork – real-time collaboration. While we’d seen basic co-editing introduced in previous years, Apple took it up one notch further, demoing fluid, powerful collaboration tools that are updated right before your eyes.
Through the editing of Apple’s own Keynote presentation, Vice President of Product Marketing Susan Prescott walked through the tools used to work on another presentation with a set of colleagues. By inviting people to edit the slideshow, you can allow others to make changes to animations, text, and more – all in real-time. Each participant will be assigned a color that will be displayed during the editing process and changes can be made on the Mac, iPhone, iPad, or through the Web.
Check out Apple’s iWork page here.
Beats
To coincide with Apple’s new AirPods and the removal of the headphone jack in the iPhone 7, the company introduced refreshed versions of the Powerbeats and Solo series. Now in their third iteration, both sets of headphones aim to catch those moving to an all-wireless setup. Additionally, the two contain the W1 chip found in AirPods, which provides quick connections and high quality bluetooth performance to an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Mac.
Apple also announced the BeatsX earphones, a more affordable set of buds at $149.95. Coming in either white or black, the BeatsX sport the W1 chip and Fast Fuel technology, allowing for 2 hours playback on a 5 minute charge. Currently, the BeatsX are the cheapest Beats product.
You can browse Apple’s wireless headphone collection and view the new Beats here.
iPad
Despite no mention of an iPad refresh on stage, Apple has updated storage options for the iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 4, and iPad Mini 2. While all were previously sold with a base model at 16 GB, the three now have received a minimum storage bump to 32 GB.
The iPad Pro also received attention, getting a much-appreciated price drop on 128 GB and 256 GB models. Each 128 GB model received a price cut of $50, while the 256 GB prices were reduced by $100.
Rounding out iPad news, Apple revealed plans for more iPad Smart Covers and Smart Cases. At the time of writing, the products now have 16 colors to choose from and can be found here.
You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of today’s Apple’s keynote through our September 7 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated September 7 Keynote RSS feed.
