As First Watches Ship, Apple Opens App Store for New Device

The Wall Street Journal Blogs ^ | April 23, 2015 | By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI

[Swordmaker]

Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg News

Apple opened the App Store for its Apple Watch Thursday, just ahead of the first shipments reaching customers who pre-ordered the new device.

The store is third branch of the App Store, alongside areas hosting apps for the iPhone and the iPad. Apple says more than 3,000 Watch apps will be available when the store opens later Thursday.

The Watch has a smaller screen than the phone or tablet and must work in tandem with an iPhone. That’s forcing developers to decide whether a Watch app should be an extension of an iPhone app, or a separate experience.

Ariel Michaeli, chief executive of appFigures, an app-store analytics firm, said developers are experimenting with both approaches.

“I think the market will go through a long period of testing,” said Michaeli. “If we learned anything from the iPhone, we learned that users control the direction.”

After initial reluctance to opening the iPhone to outside developers, Apple opened the App Store in 2008 and now actively courts developers. When the iPad debuted in 2010, it added a section for apps catered to the tablet’s bigger screen. App Store sales totaled roughly $15 billion last year.

Apple has told developers that interactions on the Watch should last 10 seconds or less. It designed a feature called handoff to let users move easily between the Watch and the iPhone, so an activity can start on one device and finish on the other.

[dayglored]

Hi Swordmaker,

I'm signed up for a monthly donation, but I just kicked in another 2 months' worth on top for your challenge. Here's the note I wrote with my donation.

-- Dayglored

==================================================================================

Hi Jim and the FR Crew,

I'm kicking in an extra 2 months of my monthly donation today, in answer to Swordmaker's challenge:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3282385/posts?page=3#3

I treasure FreeRepublic as not only a terrific forum for political, social, science, technical, and other news, but also AN ISLAND OF SANITY IN A WORLD GOING INSANE.

People who intentionally disrupt harmless special interest threads (such as the Apple Ping List threads, or my own Windows Ping List threads) with personal insults and defamatory statements, are doing FreeRepublic a disservice and threaten our safe haven of relative sanity. My extra donation this month is to demonstrate my support of the idea that Conservatives shouldn't tear each other down over silly things like technology. There are so many more important battles to fight to save Our Beloved Nation.

Thank you for your continued hard work to keep FreeRepublic going and improving, and God Bless you for your efforts to save America from the dangers she faces.

Very best FRegards,
Dayglored

[Star Traveler]

Thank you for a very rational and conservative response and action!

[dayglored]

John Lennon (of all people) said it this way:

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan.
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're all doing what we can.

Today I'm happy to do a little bit more, to show that whether we agree or disagree, we will not stand idly by when others weaken our forum by tearing down fellow FReepers. We should demonstrate our commitment to the ideals, rules, and plain good manners that keep FreeRepublic strong and the best there is!

[roadcat]

I just don't see the worth of coming into a thread to disrupt it, especially for one not interested in the product the thread is discussing. As a teen, there was a lot of arguing between Chevy and Ford folks (I was part of the Chevy crowd). It was of course in jest, and people didn't fly off the handle. We more than tolerated each other, we were friendly with each other. Same goes for rivalries between fans of other products, like between IBM mainframes and DEC minis (I was an IBM supporter). Except when I lost my job because a few managers preferred the DEC platform and dismantled the IBM setup against my protests (the DECs failed to support the applications and the managers lost their jobs later).

Anyway, always hoping Freepers can keep it civil and not try to be evil to others, as one jerk demonstrates by being rude to Swordmaker. More serious things going on in the world to direct our anger at.

[Swordmaker]

Well, I was having some concerns about revealing the name of the Freeper who had made the threat. My ethical dilemma was basically this:

I would love to gather more money for Freerepublic in the name of the Apple Ping list, but my gut feeling is that would put me somewhat in the same boat as the Freeper who made the threat against me and his $2000 bribe to have me banished. . . except this would be a public shaming and shunning. I am loath to do that. . . it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like the Christian thing to do.

However, my quandary was made moot. The Freeper spontaneously combusted a short while about in a thread where he attacked Jim Robinson in the same manner as he attacked me. His Freepname was Esoxmagnum. You can see the fire starting on this thread:

Valerie Obama Jarrett

The fireworks begin on Reply 30 with Esoxmagnum's first post.

[Swordmaker]

not insulting the Applebots

Applebots is an insult.

[HereInTheHeartland]

We used to be tuned in to launching rockets into space and going to the moon.
Now we think a watch is cool.
Sigh....

[Vendome]

Well, damn.

Rode the lightning

[Swordmaker]

We used to be tuned in to launching rockets into space and going to the moon.
Now we think a watch is cool.
Sigh....

Think about it. The Apollo Missions had less computing power than the Watch.

[roadcat]

The Freeper spontaneously combusted a short while about in a thread where he attacked Jim Robinson in the same manner as he attacked me. His Freepname was Esoxmagnum.

Wow, just wow! I never understood the reasoning of people coming to a thread and attacking people, just because they think others shouldn't like the product they don't like. And then calling customers of the product "fags"; so childish. Just made a large donation to FR, thanking Jim Robinson for his good work. From a pro-God, pro-marriage, pro-family guy who owns Apple products.

[who knows what evil?]

Applebots is an insult.

Not at all. If that is how you take it, fine with me.

[Swordmaker]

Not at all. If that is how you take it, fine with me.

Applebot is an epithet used by anti-Apple haters towards Apple users indicating the are nothing but robots doing the will of Apple, cult like, without free will. It is an insult to Apple users. Apple users do not appreciate the use of the term and do not accept it as a name for Apple users. We have been labeled with such slurs for years from Windows bigots. We won't put up with it any more. You don't get to define what is insulting. We do. We are fed up with it!

[who knows what evil?]

“As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.” Isaiah 3:12

I don’t have a dog in this controversy, so have a nice day; be you Apple or Microsoft fans.

[House Atreides]

“Zzzzzz...won’t be owning one of these.”
****************************************************************************
So you’re “cutting Z’s” on this subject and won’t be buying one. Yet you’ve done 7 (and counting) posts on this thread on something that puts you to sleep. Strange mentality you have.

[who knows what evil?]

It’s polite to respond to people. Now I’m done.

[ReignOfError]

We used to be tuned in to launching rockets into space and going to the moon. Now we think a watch is cool. Sigh....

People thought a watch was pretty cool then, too.

We're not flying to the moon any more and we never got our flying cars, but I can reach into my pocket wherever I happen to be and in a matter of seconds have the complete works of Shakespeare, any translation of the Bible in every language, Britannica, today's headlines from newspapers in every city in the world in every written language, live weather radar, photos of galaxies never seen before, and complete courses from some of the world's top universities. I can reach into my pocket and pull out my own television network, sending out pictures and sound to anyone in the world. And that's just a tiny sliver of the stuff you can get and do for free.

An American serviceman overseas can look into the eyes of his baby who was born yesterday, and the child can look back.

I've been online in one form or another for the last thirty-some years. The progress has been amazing, but incremental, and sometimes I have to stop and remind myself how amazing all this stuff is, and how much more amazing it is getting every day.

[dfwgator]

Announcer: Someday, everyone will own a watch like this. Now, it is available only for the privileged few. The Mogasaki Corproration of Tokyo is honored to announce... Kromega III. [ lightning strikes ] A watch so complex, it takes two people to make it work. One hand wears the watch. The other hand presses the buttons that activate the 100% solid state multi-function digital quartz crystal micro-computer unit. And now, you're ready for the third hand to trigger the light-luminating dial to give you an alphanumeric readout accurate to within 9 a year. It's that simple.

KROMEGA III. Command-crafted in impact-resistant crushed chrome. It's no wonder that professional skiiers prefer Kromega III over any ordinary timepiece.

Woman's Voice: And I love Lady Kromega III. The sleek, space-age styling compliments any outfit. [ Woman's other hand presses one of the buttons ] And the clearly displayed perpetual calendar helps me to remember my many appointments. Would you mind? [ other person brings in a spare hand to operate the Lady Kromega III ] Thank you.

Announcer: Kromega III. It's like asking a stranger for the time.