It's the final countdown to Apple's Big Reveal: here is what to expect
Apple Inc. is less than a day away from its highly anticipated event. It’s been a wild ride of rumors, leaks, hearsay, speculation, reviews, market analysis. Alas, we are close to showtime, and everyone wants to know what’s in Apple’s big white bag.
If it were the day before Christmas, we would all be guilty of sneaking a peek and shaking the boxes, yet, Apple has been very good at keeping a tight lid on its upcoming products, shedding an aura of mystery, building anticipation, sometimes to an extreme, as we reported last week.
Four years: has it really been this long since Apple released a truly brand new gadget? The iPhone has been one of the biggest Apple innovations of this decade, and it seems the company is ripe for a whole new batch. Let’s take a look at what we could expect tomorrow:
HealthKit
Apple has been working hard to secure some major alliances in the healthcare industry, as we reported back in June, towards the creation of a health and fitness monitoring and communication platform called HealthKit, which is the foundation for a range of future products in which Apple is planning integration for, including the iPhone, the iWatch and perhaps a host of future wearable devices designed to create a lifeline between patients and healthcare providers.
Mobile Wallet
Back in May, we talked about Apple’s interest in striking deals with major credit card carriers and processors, like Verifone, which has been manufacturing iPhone-enabled credit card swipers that include NFC-based Tap-To-Pay technology. NFC payment integration in the iPhone 6 has been a feature subject to much controversy, on the part of mobile carriers who’d rather keep control of all aspects of mobile communication, since NFC represents a method of communication that cannot be tracked or hindered by mobile carriers.
The iWatch
Some say yes, some say no. There is a good chance that the iWatch/iTime won’t be released until 2015, but no one actually knows whether there will be a reveal, tomorrow. the latest information suggests that the iWatch is still in EVT stage, an stage of engineering in which Apple still reserves plenty of time to work on design concept development, while shopping for materials and components. Given that even this information still falls under “rumors”, anything can happen.
The Guest of honor: the iPhone 6
The iPhone 6 continues to cause quite a stir, as speculations have been mounting, over the possibility that the device might sport a super-strong Sapphire touchscreen, NFC integration, and that it might even come in two sizes, 4.5 inches and 5.5 inches, pushing the smartphone into “phablet” territory, among some cool things we might expect from Apple tomorrow.