Posted on 09/09/2014 1:01:21 PM PDT by Red Badger
Apple unveiled its first smartwatch on Tuesday. The move was hotly anticipated, as Apple enters a competitive and rapidly expanding market. The new watches will be available starting in early 2015, starting at $349. Here's everything else you need to know about the new Apple Watch.
1) It's sleek
There's a reason Apple invited fashion bloggers to the event today. The Apple Watch is clearly more than just a wrist computer that does nifty high-tech things; it's meant to be pretty. CEO Tim Cook told the audience Tuesday that Apple thought hard about the watch's look, not just its capabilities. A video of the Apple Watch showed a variety of shots that could have come from a fashion magazine.
It was clearly also made to look like a watch, with a knob on the side and a small face — a departure from some of its bulkier competitors.
But it's not just about how the hardware looks; it's about the software. Apple created an interface that allows you to use the watch without having to try to manipulate a touchscreen with your (comparatively huge) fingers. As Tim Cook said at the event, "pinch-to-zoom" wouldn't make much sense on a screen that's so small. The crown on the side looks like it was meant to wind a watch's gears, but it instead is used to navigate: to zoom, for example, and scroll up and down. However, it is still a touchscreen, allowing you to swipe or scroll with your fingers.
2) There are lots of choices
The Apple Watch comes in three editions: the regular Watch, Watch Edition (made from 18k gold), and Watch Sport (made to be "light and durable"). It also has two face sizes...though not explicitly announced as a men's and women's watch, those sizes in that way also mimic the non-smart watches many people are used to.
In addition, the range of strap choices allow the watch to vary in its look, from sporty to dressy. And a variety of watch faces will also make the watch infinitely customizable.
3) You need an iPhone to use it.
As is standard with smartwatches, the Apple Watch doesn't do much without a smartphone. And this being Apple, the Apple Watch will only work with the iPhone. At the very least, you might not need a new iPhone to use it; it will work with iPhone 6 but also iPhone 5 models.
4) New ways to communicate
Have you ever wanted to send your heartbeat to someone? No? Well, you can now — you can share your heartbeat as tracked on the Apple Watch to another watch wearer. Not only that, but you can draw small pictures to send to friends; during the presentation, Apple's Kevin Lynch sent a drawing of a fish to a friend to ask him if he wanted to get sushi for lunch. It also has walkie-talkie capabilities, allowing a person to communicate with another watch-wearer.
5) It wants to make you healthier
Apple is billing its watch as a "comprehensive health and fitness device." Not only will it count your steps and track your heartbeat; it counts your calories burned, how much activity you've done all day, even whether you've stood up recently. The watch is also designed to "learn" about the wearer, suggesting fitness goals. All of this works in concert with the fitness app on the iPhone to allow you to keep track of your longer-term fitness progress.
6) You can pay with it
All of the Apple Pay functionality that Apple unveiled on Tuesday will be available on the Apple Watch. So instead of tapping your phone to pay for your groceries, you could also just tap your wrist.
7) It will run outside apps
In addition to giving you text notifications and updating your fitness achievements on your iPhone, the Watch will also perform other functions, thanks to Apple collaborations with other companies. It will show Facebook updates and baseball scores, as well as where you left your car (assuming that car is a BMW). Starwood Hotels has also worked with Apple to create an app that will allow the watch to unlock a hotel room door.
One reason Apple's iPhone announcements dominate the news Card 9 of 13 Launch cards Why is Apple so good at making gadgets?
No company is better than Apple at building devices that are powerful, beautiful, and easy to use. Over the last four decades, Apple has produced some of the most beloved products in the technology industry, including the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
How does Apple do it? A big factor is the distinctive approach to designing products pioneered by Steve Jobs. "Steve felt that you had to begin design from the vantage point of the experience of the user," said former Apple CEO John Sculley, who worked closely with Jobs until Jobs was ousted from Apple in 1985.
"The designers are the most respected people in the organization," Sculley said in a 2010 interview. "Everyone knows the designers speak for Steve because they have direct reporting to him."
It helps that Apple develops so much of its technology in-house. Most technology products are highly modular—most Dell computers, for example, have chips from Intel and an operating system provided by Microsoft. Apple products are different. For example, the iPhone is powered by Apple's A7 chip and runs Apple's iOS operating system. Apple even sells iPhones in Apple-designed retail stores.
Steve Jobs believed that this kind of vertical integration was essential to creating a great user experience. When hardware and software are designed by different companies, it's more difficult to make them work together seamlessly. Creating the whole product allows Apple designers to control every aspect of the user experience and ensure that everything lives up to Apple's exacting standards.
I’m wearing an old Luminox - a prototype of their Navy SEAL watch that was manufactured somewhere around 1992 or 93.
You realize this is the same hyperbolic negativity that came with the iPad launch, don’t you? Remind me how that went?
I can see where this might be a good idea but I won’t get one.
No money, no other Apple products but mostly I can’t wear watches anymore.
I have eczema on my left wrist/hand and wearing anything leads to breakouts. Might also have a nickle allergy that triggers a reaction. This started happening in 1995 and I stopped wearing a watch probably in 96 when I figured it out and tried different types of bands and nothing helped.
Still look at my wrist like I have a watch on sometimes. lol
I just use my old stupid phone I got in Dec 2007 to see the time and set alarms.
Cool.
I recommend trying a pocket watch. Some of them are pretty cool.
As a general policy, it's best not to buy the first generation of any new technology. This is a very good debut, but it's still a first generation model.
You kind of make my point. If Lawrence’s data had been encrypted and kept on her device, she never would have been “hacked”. It was the network upload and poor password security (apparently) that led to the “hack”.
There is no privacy in the digital world, end of story.
It isn't. I can send a text message and communicate the information I need to in less time than it takes a phone call to connect. If the person at the other end is busy, he can read a text message later. It's more efficient and less intrusive.
Aside from payments, Siri, the heart monitor, and the color screen, sure.
and is a third of the price.
$250 x 3 = $350? Must be that Common Core math I've been hearing about.
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
--Slashdot on the original iPod
"What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it's smart it will call the iPhone a "reference design" and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures."
-- John C. Dvorak, who has turned being wrong about Apple into a cottage industry
"Billions of Asians are going buy HP’s TouchPad due to him [Manny Pacquiao]. Apple will lose 98% of their Asian sales. ... They have torn part hundreds of iPads and know what makes them tick. They know how to make it all work better and the result is the HP TouchPad ... The HP TouchPad is something like the iPad v. 6.0"
-- dennisw, Free Republic, 7/15/2011
Correction: The lowest-price Pebble is $150. That price isn’t advertised on their home page. That still doesn’t come out to 1/3, but yes, you can spend almost half as much for a watch with a non-touch monochrome e-paper screen, 4 megs — not gigs, megs — of storage, no heart monitor, no payments system, and a four-push-button interface and tell yourself it “does almost all of the functionality of the Apple Watch.”
Did you miss ‘The Fappening’?
The Fappening...
lol! You beat me to it. :)
Such efficiency! Now the Social Security Administration won't need undertakers' reports!
Looks pretty impressive but I have no interest in buying one.
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