Posted on 03/09/2015 11:26:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s been some time since Apple introduced the world to the Apple Watch, it’s first wearable ever. Few devices could hold our attention for so many months without losing their allure, but because it’s Apple, we’ve been following every move since it first appeared onstage in September. Now, the time has finally come to meet Apple Watch. Here’s what we know so far.
A note on updates: We’re updating this post with all the news from the March 9 reveal, so keep checking back.
Tim Cook relieved a lot of people today when he announced that the Apple Watch will tell time accurately. He said it’s within 50 milliseconds of UTC, so you’re never behind. Cook also showed off watch face widgets for the first time, which can be anything from a stopwatch, calendar events, world clock, or other tools. The Glances feature was also explained. All you have to do is swipe up from bottom of watch to see Glances such as weather, calendar, music, heart rate, and other key information that you only need to see for a second or two at a time.
Cook claimed the Apple Watch offers brand-new ways to communicate immediately and intimately with your family and friends. Thanks to what Apple calls Digital Touch, you can send animated sketches scribbled on the screen to a friend’s Watch, in real time, or send a tap from your watch to get your their attention. It’s even possible to send your digital heartbeat.
Unlike Android Wear, the Apple Watch will have a home screen that’s full of app icons. The app icons look like small, brightly colored bubbles, resting on a black field. You’ll be able to choose which app to open at will. However, we’ve also heard that the watch will be contextually aware and bring up appropriate apps when you need them most. You’ll receive notifications, calls, texts, and other alerts on your wrist, which you can glance at, answer, or dismiss.
Related: The Apple Watch must succeed for smartwatches to surrvive
The watch will supposedly know when you’re looking at it and turn off when you’re not, so you don’t have to worry about pressing the power button every five minutes. Apple says the screen will be sensitive enough to recognize a “force touch” press from a light tap, so you’ll have yet another way to interact with the watch. Meanwhile, the digital crown will handle all the zooming, scrolling, and so on. Additionally, Siri will be there for voice commands, dictation, and other functions.
Apple always puts a lot of focus on design, but it has really put the emphasis on style for the Apple Watch. The watch comes in three versions, each made of different materials. All three watches will come with several strap options at the start, though many third-party manufacturers are expected to jump in with their own straps, too.
The entry-level Apple Watch Sport is made out of anodized aluminum and comes in space gray or silver. You can choose from a variety of strap options, including brightly colored silicon. The Sport has an ion-X strengthened glass screen to protect it from scratches. Meanwhile, the mid-range Apple Watch comes in stainless steel with a hadr-wearing sapphire crystal face, and you can choose between the space gray or standard silvery finish options. A variety of metal, leather, and other kinds of straps are available for this model.
Related: Get a virtual pet on your Apple Watch
Finally, the premium and likely most expensive version of the Apple Watch, called Edition, comes in 18-karat yellow and rose gold. The watch face is made of sapphire crystal, and you can choose from several fancy leather and metal strap options.
So far, wearables have been one-size fits all, but that’s not the case with Apple Watch. It will come in two sizes, 38mm and 42mm, so as to fit a wider range of wrists more comfortably. For reference, the 38mm Apple Watch will be smaller than the 1.56-inch wide Moto 360, as well as the 42mm Huawei Watch. It will also be much shorter than the Samsung Gear 2, which measures 58.4mm tall. Theoretically, this will make it ideal for smaller wrists, while those who can sport a Moto 360 and look natural can have the larger 42mm version.
According to Apple’s WatchKit developer information, the 42-millimeter Apple Watch model will feature a screen with 390 × 312-pixel resolution, and the 38-millimeter model will pack a 340 × 272 pixel resolution.
Jeremy Kaplan/Digital Trends
As with any smartwatch, one the Apple Watch’s biggest features is fitness. Tim Cook says it’ll even give you a tap on the wrist if you sit for too long. The watch has a built in heart rate monitor, which should give it accurate fitness tracking and an awareness of how many calories you’ve burned. It will track your steps, the intensity of your workouts, and other fitness metrics. The accelerometer and GPS are also sure to draw gym rats, as are the personalized fitness goals in the workout app.
Just like the latest iPhones, the Apple Watch will work with Apple Pay, thanks to built-in NFC. Tap-to-pay will undoubtedly become much easier once you’re doing it from your wrist instead of your phone. Reports hint that it’ll be secure, thanks to sensors in the Apple Watch that know it’s on your wrist when you pay.
Apple isn’t a miracle worker, and it probably still hasn’t solved the eternal smartwatch battery life conundrum. The Apple Watch will almost certainly need charging every night in its box, or with the company’s MagSafe charger. Luckily, it seems there’s a power saving mode, which should keep the most basic watch functions alive when the battery’s running low.
Tim Cook even says you can wear it in the shower, while you’re running in a rainstorm, or sweating through a hot yoga class. There’s no mention of swimming with it, though.
We’ve heard that pricing will start at $350 and go up from there, perhaps into the thousands of dollars. Tim Cook previously said the Watch will arrive in April, but we’ll keep you updated in the meantime.
To save the iWatch Apple needs to sync it with iGlasses. Reduce as much of the clunky crap on the eyeglasses so that they look seksee on a person and not so much like a prop on a Tim Burton movie. Task the watch to just feeding the glasses.
And my comments (regarding it looking like the Dick Tracy watch) hold for any ‘smartwatch’ (others are being discussed in this thread).
I thought of the water issue because I remember the problem with watches in the 70s and 80s if they weren’t waterproof (and you didn’t have to be a swimmer or diver to experience them).
People get caught out in the rain as well. Sucks when it happens but it is a not so rare occurrence.
Hopefully there is something in the design that deals with this.
It was never “given to you” even if you didn’t ask for it. It was a “download” that you could choose. You were alerted to the fact that it was available for you to download. If you didn’t want it “ever” ... then you could also delete that.
NOW ... if you were one of those users who ACCEPTED the choice on your device to “download anything and everything” no matter whether I want it or not ... then ... in that case, it would be downloaded. But, then if you made that choice, you were basically making a “stupid choice” ... the way I look at it. You chose, by your own clicking of the preferences to “download anything and everything” ... thus ... what do you expect when you get “anything and everything”?? ... LOL ...
RE: To save the iWatch Apple needs to sync it with iGlasses
I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about an Apple product called iGlasses...
I’m thinking twenty years from now the kids will look at the tech we’re using today and chuckle about its rudimentary design.
Watch when the host asks the kids with the rotary dial phone to ‘text’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkuirEweZvM
The host exposes his own lack of knowledge in this area. There were clunky devices to telex or fax images and documents. They were in use for many decades.
Google had the glasses.
I’m discussing new technologies in general, not just a phone-watch-pen.
I won’t speak to that issue, since I don’t have one and I haven’t read all the material available on it. But, I expect to keep up with the pros and cons of the device, over the coming months, because ... as I said ... I intend to get one.
I would expect it to be this way (a guess on my part), that it can withstand rain, but that it’s not going to withstand sustained use in a shower (they’re going to say, “Don’t take a shower with it” ... but they’re not going to say, “Don’t go out in the rain with it.”).
Again, that’s my guess at this point, but maybe someone else can give you the “lowdown” on that from having read it somewhere. I haven’t read it, yet.
ALSO ... in getting one of them, I may also wait for the second iteration of the product, as they will always find problems in a new product and then improve it in the second iteration. So, sure ... there are going to be a lot of “bleeding edge buyers” (and that’s good for those types, if they want to do that), but I know how new products are, and I’ll probably wait for certain things to sort themselves out ... :-) ...
Then Apple will sue Samsung because they claim a trademark on the shape of the watchface.
That’s pretty good. In the small town I’m from the hardware store has an old crank phone that they still use to call over to their house. I’d like to see what those kids think of that.
I know, I just invented it off the top of my head. Everybody give me a million dollars now. Thanks.
I think the fit bit is useful and unclunky. I wear my 24/7 and it tells time.
Once Apple reaches the quadrillion mark, they’ll be able to purchase China and all its workers, and after that, they’ll try for the quintillion mark, whereby they’ll be able to purchase the world, and the entire solar system. Jobs will rise again once Apple gets to own all genetic research facilities, and a clone of him gets created. Heck, there won’t be any other humans on the planet, other than Jobs clones.
And now you’re stuck with something that requires two hands to use.
I know with phones that have all the same stuff on them people can operate what they want one handed.
You keep reading me wrong.
I too do not begrudge Apple’s success. I just don’t think it’s worth its market cap. I also fail to understand why so many people become fanatical about Apple, as if it’s a religion or a baseball or football team. I find it very unseemly to be rooting for them, just because they created an item which people seem to adore.
My view is that, Apple might be worth a lot of money right now, and perhaps they’re a company worth, perhaps, $200-400 billion, and not as much as it’s worth on paper now. I base by view and calculations on the simple fact that, Apple is basically a one-horse show, with iPHones. Once iPhone drop from the clouds, Apple will become just another high-tech company, like HP and Dell and Samsung and LG.
Throwing my hat in with the “iCan” - toilet with apple logo on it and a microchip taped on just so it’s high-tech.
Yes I know it’s been done. “iPoop”, iPotty, iCrap, iDump, yeah.
You should see the way the Apple Event started off this morning!! I haven’t seen even a small portion of it yet, but I will watch the full announcement later on today, or maybe tomorrow.
BUT ... it was amazing to see ALL THOSE CHINESE FACES at the LATEST Apple Store in China. I understand that they are building about 40 Apple Stores in China, by next year, which will be about 10% of all the Apple Stores in existence in the world! Amazing!
Who would have thought that we would be exporting so much American Technology to CHINA??! ... LOL ...
Today’s Apple Event!
http://www.apple.com/live/2015-mar-event/
Contrary to your assumption, Apple did NOT push the U2 album onto any one's computer or device. They merely made it FREE for anyone to download if they chose to do so. If you didn't want it, you just didn't download it.
You need to be talking to the “keeper of the stats” ... which is Swordmaker ... who regularly supplies the hard data for this stuff. I’ve read it all before, and read it all several times over again, and seen all the articles published at various news agencies around the world, about Apple, so I have no doubt about how ENORMOUSLY SUCCESSFUL Apple is.
The thing is ... I’m just not the one to go over the stats, as I AM NOT AN ECONOMIST, as Swordmaker is. I’ll defer to his analysis, plus all the other articles that I’ve read about Apple. That’s good enough for me.
We’ll wait and see how that pans out with the “keeper of the stats” ... :-) ...
As far as Apple being a “one-horse show” ... just that comment alone, shows me that you have no idea what Apple does. I do believe that this was really answered in the last day to two days - in regards to this “one-horse show” idea which is totally false. I’ll see if I can pull it up again. If it wasn’t directed right at you ... you should have seen enough information on these threads to KNOW WITHOUT A DOUBT ... that Apple is definitely not a “one-horse show” ... LOL ...
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