The iPhone is a luxury. Macs are overly expensive. Apple Watch is an expensive, luxurious fashion gadget. Is Apple all about the luxury market? Yes. And no. Let’s look at luxury as a noun.

lux·u·ry
ˈləkSH(ə)rē,ˈləɡZH(ə)rē/
noun: luxury

1. the state of great comfort and extravagant living. “he lived a life of luxury”
synonyms: opulence, luxuriousness, sumptuousness, grandeur, magnificence, splendor, lavishness, the lap of luxury, a bed of roses, (the land of) milk and honey; informal: the life of Riley “we’ll live in luxury”

Is luxury simply owning the most expensive of anything? Is luxury simply the best of whatever money can buy? Carolina Milanesi takes issue with the iPhone X- which starts at $999- being labels a luxury.

Expensive and luxury are very much intertwined, and they are labels that change slightly depending on what item you are referring to. If you look up the definition of luxury in the Webster dictionary you find that Luxury is

Her list of bullet points are revealing.

• something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary
• an indulgence in something that provides pleasure, satisfaction, or ease

iPhone? Certainly. Mac? Yes. iPad? Of course. Apple Watch? Definitely. But when one looks up the definition of expensive you’ll see what some could describe as defining Apple’s products

• involving high cost or sacrifice
• commanding a high price and especially one that is not based on intrinsic worth or is beyond a prospective buyer’s means
• characterized by high prices

One can make a Watch luxurious by getting a solid gold band, or perhaps the gold Watch Edition. Luxury? Definitely. Or, get a diamond studded iPhone case. Luxury? Sure. But those baubles do not make Apple’s devices luxury or luxurious.

My view has been a simple and straightforward perspective. Apple’s products are affordable luxuries.  Almost anyone who can afford a smartphone and a cellphone carrier plan can afford the $349 for an iPhone SE. Yes, some Android-based smartphones are priced lower, but they run mostly the same software as the much more expensive Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Likewise, iPhone SE runs mostly the same applications are iPhone X which can be $1,149.

That’s an affordable luxury because iPhone is considered the premium brand that commands the highest prices, but has a broad line of phones, all of which run the same operating system and applications.

Apple has a similar approach in other product lines.

Few Windows PCs are more expensive than a Mac and most are priced far less. But they run Windows. Macs run macOS and fit snugly within Apple’s famous walled garden ecosystem, which in itself can be labeled an ‘affordable luxury‘ of convenience, privacy, and security.

Let’s pretend there was no iPhone X and that the iPhone 8 Plus was the flagship product. Although starting at $799, $50 more than the launch price of last year’s iPhone 7 Plus, nobody, as far as I am aware, called it a luxury phone. For some reason, there is something about getting to the $1000 price point that gets people to think differently.

iPhone 8 Plus, the successor to last year’s popular but not quite luxurious iPhone 7 Plus, is $949 for the 256GB model. That’s an affordable luxury.

$200 more gets you the so-called luxury model iPhone X with 256GB of storage. If you keep a new phone for three years, the amortized difference between iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X- which carries a few features not found on other iPhone 8 models, including the edge-to-edge screen, Face ID, and more- is $5.55 per month.

See? Affordable luxury.

Apple Watch is another example. Apple Watch Series 1 runs most of the same software as Watch Series 3 with LTE and starts at $249. Affordable? Yes. For those that want the best of the smartwatch models on the market. Watch Series 3 with LTE starts at $399. If you have money and desire, Watch Series 3 with GPS, cellular LTE, and a ceramic case with a non-standard band can approach $1,500. Luxury? Perhaps, but it runs most of the same applications as the entry level model, which I would label as affordable luxury.

That’s Apple’s real niche in technology. Affordable luxuries.

A few years ago we swapped out an aging Sony television for a 47-inch Vizio flat panel HD TV. The change was remarkable on a number of fronts. The $1,500 Sony TV was best of breed back at the turn of the century. It was also as big as my first car (a 1949 Renault 4CV for $35). The $500 Vizio TV was easy to carry, easy to install, far more flexible on capabilities, and the quality difference, by comparison to the Sony, was stunning.

Since then, we’ve seen LED TV’s hit the market, then Ultra HD TV’s, and now 4K Ultra HD TVs so good and so advanced that today’s broadcast television shows and news look pale by comparison.

The latest Apple TV supports 4K video, all the UHD video, and HDR- high dynamic range- which promises to make early 4K televisions look anemic. Consumer Reports says the future of television is here.

Almost. But not quite.

My wife and I wandered around Costco, Best Buy, and Walmart recently and found many 4K HDR televisions available, some for less than what we paid for a 1080p TV just five or six years ago.

When presented with HDR content, TVs with HDR can display a wider range from black to white, so you can see more details in the very darkest and brightest areas of the picture. You’ll also see “specular highlights,” which are the momentary glints of brightness that appear on illuminated objects, such as the reflections off a car’s chrome bumper or a Roman gladiator’s armored breast plate. Without HDR, those highlights wouldn’t be any brighter than other bright objects in the scene.

So, today’s 4K HDR televisions are something of a breakout, even when compared to previous Ultra High Definition TVs, and prices have dropped quickly.

What’s missing?

Content. Content is king and there isn’t much 4K HDR content available.

To enjoy an HDR experience, you need content—movies and TV shows—that have been mastered with HDR, plus a display that can reproduce it. Most of the HDR-enabled content right now comes from streaming services such as Amazon and Netflix, as well as from new Ultra HD Blu-ray players and discs. For streaming 4K videos with HDR, you need a relatively fast broadband connection, of at least 18 to 20Mbps.

In other words, you’re not going to get 4K HDR video content from your cable TV connection. It’s internet only. At some point down the road- and it will be a long road- we’ll see broadcast television and movies in 4K HDR, but for now, it’s limited to a few sources.

Apple TV handles 4K HDR, including both standards; DolbyVision and HDR 10, so Apple is futureproofing the device. Mostly. The future is bringing a video revolution with resolution so crystal clear that it will make movie stars look like your neighbors or that uncle you never talk about anymore.

Guess what?

Apple’s most recent iPhone models shoot video in 4K. They can’t display it properly on the screen, but it’s there, waiting, ready for 4K. That means 4K HDR video cameras are around the corner, too. Even iPhone X has an HDR display (but not 4K).

Changes are coming. Those big, beautiful, flat-panel LCD TVs we purchased just a few years ago are already outmoded and the future is knocking on the door. Apple appears to be ready.

Maybe I should change the title to ‘…Disaster That Wasn’t.’ Apple software honcho Craig Federighi attempted to demonstrate Apple’s new Face ID facial recognition technology while opening an iPhone X during the product’s launch presentation.

Things did not go well and that set the interwebs into a viral moment. That’s how things work these days. Say the wrong word, do something that seems wrong even if it’s right, and the folks monitoring the interwebs go crazy.

Apple’s disaster that was wasn’t really a disaster.

Federighi is Apple’s on-stage hunk who oversees the company’s software. He was tasked with demonstrating the new Face ID feature on iPhone X. To show off the feature, Federighi said, “Unlocking it is as easy as looking at it and swiping up. And- you now…”

That’s where everything went wrong. A ruffled Federighi said, “Let’s try that again.” Why? The swipe didn’t open the iPhone’s screen. “Ho ho ho! Let’s go to backup here.”

The iPhone X backup worked perfectly and all was well throughout the rest of the demonstration, including the much ballyhooed Face ID facial recognition system.

What happened? Why didn’t the first iPhone X work as expected? Well, it did.

Now, the headlines much of yesterday and today will say Apple failed, iPhone X failed, blah, blah, blah. Except the iPhone X did exactly as it was expected to do considering the state it was in. That particular iPhone X wasn’t set up as it should have been, and Federighi was sufficiently rattled that he didn’t back up one more time, enter the password to allow access to Face ID properly, so he could demonstration the functions.

As any good present would and should do, he moved quickly to the backup iPhone X.

What Federighi saw and what every iPhone user already knows is this- a password must be entered whenever an iPhone is restarted. That’s the screen you get, so Face ID would work only after the password was entered. Touch ID, which is almost flawless these days- to the point of being too fast at times- works the same way.

If the iPhone has been restarted or turned off or, if I’m not mistaken, unused for x-amount of time, the password is a requirement. Always. Now, maybe an Apple staffer restarted the iPhone just before the presentation. Maybe the iPhone X burped and restarted itself (it happens). It doesn’t matter because iPhone X did, in that unfortunate incident with terrible timing, exactly what it was supposed to do.

Ask for the password.

My prediction for iPhone X?

Apple will not be able to keep up with demand, thanks to Face ID, and perhaps more importantly how Face ID meshes with animated emojis in Messages. That’s exactly the kind of cool Apple excels at and this feature will sell plenty of iPhones.

I’m already in line in my mind.

This past weekend, in anticipation of iOS 11, I bought an iPad Pro; specifically, the 12.9-inch model. The screen is as remarkable as the reviewers say; it’s like a MacBook Pro screen in physical size, but the display itself is a notable improvement you can see instantly. It’s just missing the Mac’s keyboard.

This iPad purchase precedes the iOS 11 launch. I’ve been running iOS 11 on an older MacBook Air. This iOS is different. The iPad and iPhone get a Dock that works somewhat like the Dock on the Mac. But different.

How do you prepare your iPhone or iPad for iOS 11?

It’s easy and the steps are few and mostly painless, but they mirror what I did on my new iPad Pro. At first, I thought I would simply set up the iPad Pro manually. So, I started to download and arrange all my applications the way I wanted, and change Settings accordingly.

After two hours I stopped and did the obvious.

In this case, I set the iPad Pro back to new. Settings, General, and Erase All Content and Settings. That gives you a new device, ready to be set up.

A new iPad or iPhone gives you the option to restore settings and applications from iCloud. Since all my devices get backed up to iCloud, restoring was absolutely painless. Tap the right buttons and get some lunch or dinner. The deed will be done when you return a couple of hours later.

Yes, it’s that painless.

The only negatives will be a few apps that need their passwords loaded again and some permissions to set, otherwise, the new iPad Pro had all the same settings as the iPad Air 2 it replaced.

iOS 11 will work on older iPhones and iPads; the latter dating back to the iPad Air and iPad Air 2, plus the former iPhone 5s and iPhone SE- but not iPhone 5 or iPhone 5c, or older iPads beyond Air. That also means iOS 11 will be running on about 90-percent of all iOS devices this time next year.

Simply put, back up your iPhone or iPad to iCloud, and back up each device to iTunes if you have a Mac or Windows PC. If something goes wonky you’ll still have a recent backup to use.

iOS 11 should be a painless installation, as usual, but it is different. The Dock is different. Control Panel is different. The App Store is different. Control center is a delight and highly customizable. The Lock screen is merged with Notification Center. The App Switcher is mashed into the Control Center.

See? Different.

iPhones get a new one-handed keyboard option. Maps gets lane guidance and speed limit info. And, my favorite, a Mac Finder-like Files app to manage local files.

Oh, and Siri is smarter and sounds more human. Siriously.

Change is inevitable. It seems to be a major constant in the universe. How we deal with change is a reflection of how we deal with reality. I prefer incremental changes to major changes.

Finally, the iPad Pro’s screen is to die for, and as it was with the iPhone’s original Retina display and the displays in recent Macs, going backwards is less enjoyable than going forward.