2016 Apple Event: iPhone 7 release and new updates

When Apple unveiled the original Apple Watch 18 months ago, it was supposed to be a device for everyone. Rich people and celebrities would get the gold-plated “Watch Edition,” with prices starting at $10,000. Middlebrow watch enthusiasts would pay more than $1,000 for a stainless steel version. More frugal users and fitness buffs would get the $349 Apple Watch Sport.

People would see notifications of incoming emails and text messages. They’d be reminded of upcoming appointments. They’d be able to summon Uber rides and check in for upcoming flights. They’d use it for health and fitness tracking. You’d send your partner cutesy messages and even real-time updates on your heartbeat.

Apple has finally figured out what the Apple Watch is for: It’s the watch that will let you leave your iPhone at home when you go for a run. And as a runner who wants to track her fitness progress, Apple’s new pitch is music to my ears.

The original Apple Watch was missing a crucial feature: a GPS chip that allowed it to track a user’s movements in real time. The new “Series 2” Apple Watch, announced Wednesday, does have GPS capabilities.

It’s true: The next iPhone won’t have a headphone jack. Apple just made the announcement at an event in San Francisco. While the rumored change has been debated for months in the tech media, it’s still going to come as a shock to millions of ordinary iPhone users who can’t imagine life without the ubiquitous 3.5 mm headphone jack.

While many people will grumble about the change, Apple argues that it will actually make users better off in the long run. On the one hand, removing the headphone jack is another step in Apple’s relentless campaign to make each iPhone thinner, lighter, and more durable than the last. On the other hand, Apple argues that digital alternatives — either wireless Bluetooth headphones or headphones connected to the iPhone’s remaining Lightning port — actually deliver superior sound quality.

Pretty soon, you’ll be able to catch Pokémon on your watch.

Apple and Nintendo announced the news at the big Apple event on Wednesday, in which the companies announced the iPhone 7 and revealed that a Mario game will — finally! — be coming to mobile devices (specifically the iPhone).

Today, Apple announced the first sequel to the Apple Watch, which itself is the first big new product line that Tim Cook’s Apple created.

The Watch has been a bit of an oddball product release. On the one hand, it appears to be far and away the most successful product in the general “smartwatch” category. On the other hand, judged on its own terms, it hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. People use it for fitness tracking and to tell to the time, but the various communications features that Apple launched it with (sending heartbeats to friends, weird scribbles, etc.) didn’t really take off, Siri is broadly considered inferior to similar voice assistants from other tech companies, and, most importantly, the Apple Watch doesn’t really work as an app platform.

The first blockbuster bit from Apple’s iPhone 7 announcement wasn’t about the new phone at all — it was about software that will be available for the new phone: Super Mario Run, which will be released in time for the 2016 holiday season.

Nintendo’s legendary Shigeru Miyamoto himself emerged onstage to announce the product — a Super Mario game that’s optimized for the unique user interface capabilities and limitations of the iPhone.

Are you interested in the new iPhone 7 or a new version of the Apple Watch? If so, you might want to tune in to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s presentation Wednesday in San Francisco. We don’t know for sure what Cook will unveil at the event, but new versions of the iPhone and Apple Watch are widely expected to take top billing.

Apple is offering a live stream of the event. The event will start at 10 am Pacific time — that’s 1 pm for those of us on the East Coast.

European Union officials announced Tuesday morning that they are ordering Apple to pay $14.5 billion (technically €13 billion) in back taxes plus interest (another €6 billion) to the government of Ireland.

That’s big news. What makes it weird is the Irish government is appealing the decision, saying they don’t want Apple’s money.

Apple’s latest diversity report shows the tech giant may be closer to achieving racial and gender parity among its workforce than the rest of the industry — but only slightly so.

Over the past two years, Apple has actively increased its recruitment of women and underrepresented minorities — specifically black, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander employees.

Apple posted its worst quarterly financial results in more than a decade on Tuesday. Sales of iPhones, iPads, and Macs all fell by double digits, leading to a 13 percent drop in total revenue. The markets have reacted harshly, with the company’s stock losing more than 7 percent of its value in after-hours trading.

Apple is still an enormously profitable company — it pulled in more than $10 billion in net income last quarter. But the latest figures represent the end of an era in which CEO Tim Cook — and before him Steve Jobs — could seemingly do no wrong.

For the past few weeks, Apple has been locked in a tense battle with the FBI over a dead terrorist suspect’s phone.

The fight is fairly complicated. It involves encryption, advances in modern technology, and long-running disputes about the right balance between privacy and security.