Apple's iPhone 6S announcement: live updates, news, and more from Apple’s big event

I have mixed emotions about Apple moving online iPhone pre-orders from a weeknight to a weekend; on the one hand, this means that many of us won't be getting turnt on a Friday. On the other hand, there won't be any bleary, dead-eyed workers collapsed at their desks the next morning. You win some, you lose some.

Regardless of how you feel about Apple's weekend pre-order party, though, there's one thing you want to do right now: open the Apple Store app on your iOS device. Look for this blue bar across the top:

T-Mobile CEO John Legere isn't one to let the introduction of a new iPhone pass by without using it to drum up interest in his company, and this time he's doing it by offering an extravagant deal on Apple's latest flagship phones. In a blog post and video today, he announced that T-Mobile will be offering the iPhone 6S for $20 a month through the carrier's Jump on Demand program, with the 6S plus going for $24 a month. Jump on Demand is an 18-month leasing plan which allows customers to switch devices up to three different times a year, but when you factor in the $164 pay-off prospective customers would owe at the end it means T-Mobile is essentially selling the iPhone 6S for $524.

Update: Read the iPhone 6S review.

Yesterday Apple unveiled a new version of the Apple TV, and for the first time, it can play video games. But in typical Apple fashion, games were far from the core focus; they’re just one relatively small aspect of what the set-top box can do, a bonus on a device meant for watching TV and movies. Compared to a modern game console, the Apple TV is underpowered with a sparse lineup of games, so it’s unlikely that it will go head to head with the Xbox One or PlayStation 4 anytime soon. But it doesn’t have to: just as the iPhone opened up gaming to a whole new audience, the Apple TV has the potential to do the same for gaming on a television.

Read next: The Apple TV review.

It’s easy to get lost in Apple’s torrent of disparate announcements yesterday and miss the common purpose to them all. But there was indeed a shared, unifying strategy at play, and that was the pursuit and maintenance of high profit margins. Viewed through the unemotional prism of "how much money do I make from every unit sold?," there’s a perfect congruence between the diversity of new Watch bands, the content-focused reboot of the Apple TV, and the launch of the large and expensive iPad Pro. Apple isn’t here to sell the most of anything; its overarching goal is simply to generate the greatest possible profit. It's a beguilingly simple approach to a very difficult and complex market.

The iPad Pro was only just announced, but we're already starting to see third-party accessory support. Logitech, which makes some of the most popular keyboards for existing iPads, is introducing a line called Create that has been designed in collaboration with Apple.

Read next: The iPad Pro review.

By Apple standards, today's event was a blockbuster, covering major product updates in three different categories. One is notable, two is a party, but seriously — three? We're still catching our breath.

Read next: The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus review, iPad Pro review and the Apple TV review.

Apple announced the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus today. And if you want one, Apple would like you to think that it's business as usual. You can preorder them starting September 12th, and they'll be available on September 25th. The 16GB iPhone 6S starts at $199 on-contract, and 64GB and 128GB versions will be available for $299 and $399, respectively. The 5.5-inch iPhone 6S Plus is priced slightly higher at $299, and it too is available in 64GB and 128GB options ($399 and $499, respectively). Easy.

But these prices aren't quite as meaningful as they have been in years past, because major carriers have trended away from traditional two-year contracts and toward 24-month payment plans. This way, instead of paying a large chunk of the cost of the phone up front when you sign a new contract, companies like AT&T and Verizon spread that cost over the life of your plan. So today, Apple announced its own version of this: the iPhone Upgrade Program.

The guys at FiftyThree can't catch a break. First Facebook named its biggest and best app Paper, copying the name of FiftyThree's earlier iPad drawing app, and now Apple has named its new stylus a Pencil, just like the iPad accessory FiftyThree already sells.

We reached out to the company, which is growing increasingly reliant on hardware sales of its Pencil for its income, to ask how it will react to Apple's new launch. The answer is equivocal, as it neither derides nor entirely welcomes the Apple Pencil:

The new iPhone has today been unveiled and it looks very much like the old iPhone, except for one variation: the iPhone 6S now also comes in pink. Or rose gold, in Apple parlance. It's still the perfectly chiseled metallic leader of the smartphone world, but now it's wearing a gentler shade of aluminum skin. How are we going to deal with that?

In a world where the best technology is usually dressed up either aggressively or austerely, is there room for a globe-conquering phone dressed like Dwayne Johnson's Tooth Fairy? Well, if Dwayne Johnson can pull off the look, why not the iPhone? Pink is strong. It always has been. It's served the Financial Times for over a century and it's a favored color for business shirts too. Apple used a neon salmon shade on its iPhone 5C and HTC dressed up its One M9 in pink and gold earlier this year, but we've never had the best of the best dressed in pink before. About time that changed.

Every time Apple announces a new iPhone model everyone suddenly starts wondering if theirs is good enough. The company apparently wants to encourage this feeling, and has quietly dropped the gold color option for older iPhone models — reserving it for the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. Its online stores (in the US and abroad) no longer offer the gold option for the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, or iPhone 5S, and Apple has confirmed to The Verge that the finish is being discontinued for these models. That's not saying these devices won't be available with a gold finish somewhere (carriers and retailers will have their own stock), but it seems Apple wants to make sure that its most "premium" colors — including the new rose gold option — stay on the most expensive devices. You can have it in any color you want, as long as you pay more.

Read next: The iPhone 6S review.

Apple's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are still some of the best phones on the market today, but are dogged by a particular design flaw: they bend. Last year, numerous early adopters (and even Verge reporters) discovered that the devices bent over time, culminating in a weeks-long dustup known as #Bendgate.

Update: Read the Apple iPhone 6S review.

Apple TV's new remote has a touch pad, motion controls, and a few buttons, all of which will help it double as a video game controller. The remote's design — a thin candy bar of plastic that can be used both vertically and horizontally — should be identifiable to anyone who has used Nintendo's Wii. The Apple TV Remote Loop in particular looks identical to the Wii Bracelet, both harnesses wrapping around the wrist of their respective hand model. According to Apple's press materials, though, the Remote Loop isn't part of the remote. It's an accessory sold separately.

Read next: The new Apple TV review.

Apple events can usually be referenced based on the one flagship they focus on: the iPad event, the iPhone event, the Apple Music event. That doesn’t work quite as well with today’s news-packed event. The company officially delivered on two long-overdue rumors: it refreshed the Apple TV, and it unveiled a giant, almost laptop-like iPad. The iPad Pro is a 12.9-inch behemoth with a matching stylus and keyboard, seemingly designed to fill the same market Microsoft is going after with the Surface. The Apple TV set-top box is back with a new remote and deep Siri integration. Both have a new ecosystem of apps, including productivity tools and games. And both are coming out later this fall: the TV in October, the iPad in November.

But the biggest news for most people will probably be the regular iPhone updates: the 6S and larger 6S Plus. While the design looks a lot like the last-generation iPhone 6, it’s been redesigned with better specs and a more complex “3D touch” interface. Before you start learning the approximately 300 new synonyms for “tap” that will become common in the coming months, take a look at the rest of the news below.

Phil Schiller announced a few new iPhone camera tricks at today's Apple event, but one of the strangest was something called "Live Photos." Think of it as a something between automatic GIFs and short video clips.

Read next: The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus review.

Every other year, Apple releases an iPhone that many people write off as a spec bump. Sure, it has a better camera, faster processor, and various other small improvements — but most people just think of it as an iterative update over the "real" new iPhone that comes with a new version number. But to think that this year would be a serious mistake. Yes, the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus look basically the same as their predecessors — but the changes Apple has made to the camera, processor, and even the basic build of these phones makes them something much more important. Even though they're cosmetically similar, the changes this year put these iPhones into a different category entirely.

For the past few years, the idea of a "camera phone" has become redundant. Most flagship phones come with cameras that are impressive and good enough for casual users. So to call these iPhones "camera phones" seems a little silly. But make no mistake: Apple intends for the cameras in these iPhones to be transformative, and after just a few minutes with them I'm willing to believe that it's more than just marketing.

As expected, Apple announced an updated version of the Apple TV today, and I just spent a little time playing with it. Physically, the unit itself isn't much different than the older model — it's just a little bit taller — but the remote and interface are entirely new.

Read next: The Apple TV review.

Apple today announced the iPhone Upgrade Program, a new initiative that will let consumers buy new, unlocked iPhones from the company and move up to the new flagship model every year. It's similar to the upgrade plans offered by many US carriers, but this is Apple taking control of the entire experience; you're buying an unlocked phone direct from Apple that'll run on Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and others. Choose your own carrier, and pay Apple for the phone over time.

Update: Read the iPhone 6S review.

Apple has announced a new pricing scheme for its iCloud storage, halving the prices of some options. 50GB of cloud storage data now costs $0.99 a month (compared to the previous lowest plan of 20GB for the same price), while 200GB costs $2.99 a month and 1TB of storage will set you back $9.99 a month. (These two options previously cost $3.99 and $19.99 respectively). It's not clear whether the old 500GB plan will continue, or if Apple has dropped this option completely.

Apple's new mobile operating system finally has a release date. iOS 9 will be available on September 16th across the world. The date was announced on stage at the company's latest product keynote, alongside new hardware including the Apple TV and the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. iOS 9 was first announced at WWDC in June, and was made available as a public beta the following month, but this will be the first official release for the operating system.

Update: Read the iOS 9 review.

Ever since 2009's 3GS, Apple's entry-level iPhone has had 16GB of storage for apps, games, photos, music, video, and whatever else you can put on your smartphone. Six years ago, 16GB was plenty of storage for the puny 3-megapixel images the iPhone 3GS captured. Today, Apple announced the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, which start at, you guessed it, 16GB of storage. Pricing for the new phones starts at $199 on contract or $649 outright. Purchased on an installment plan, the new phones will cost $27 per month.

Read next: The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus review.

The camera has long been a focus point for each new iPhone, and the one in the brand-new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus is no different. The new 12-megapixel camera represents a significant leap in resolution over the 8-megapixel cameras the iPhone has had since 2012. Apple says the new camera also has improved autofocus and improved pixels for better color and image quality. The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are also capable of capturing 4K video, a first for iOS devices.

Read next: The iPhone 6S review.

Read next: The OS X El Capitan review.

Get ready to scale El Capitan. The latest version of Apple's OS X operating system for Macs will be shipping from September 30th, according to a demo email message shown briefly onstage at this year's product keynote and later confirmed on Apple's site. The update, which has been available as public beta since July, is a relatively small update for OS X, focusing on two major areas: "Experience" and "Performance." The former is all about integrating Apple's own apps more tightly than ever before (rewarding people who use the company's own products rather than third-party offerings), while the latter is about, well, faster performance.

At its fall event today, Apple announced that it's adding something called 3D Touch technology to its new iPhones, meaning the screen can sense multiple levels of pressure. The feature first appeared in simpler form on the Apple Watch as "Force Touch," where it can be used to clear all notifications with a single press. In the iPhone, a system measures the distance between the glass and the backlight to detect how hard the user is pressing.

Read next: The iPhone 6S review.

Apple is introducing the iPhone 6S, an updated version of its flagship smartphone with an identical design and a bundle of new features. Chief among them is a pressure-sensitive display, enabling a feature that Apple calls 3D Touch. 3D Touch allows you to press down on the iPhone's screen to pull up new menus, activate shortcuts, and generally interact with the device in new ways. Apple's Taptic Engine is also built into the phone to provide feedback. The features will also appear in the new iPhone 6S Plus.

Read next: The iPhone 6s review.