Introducing the Apple Watch

Introducing the Apple Watch
Introducing the Apple Watch

Introducing the Apple Watch 5.00 / 5 (100.00%) 3 votes

Today, during a special event where the iPhone 6 smartphones were announced, Apple also announced the Apple Watch! I couldn’t help but get excited as I watched the live event unfold. As a nice touch, this event was held at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts close to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. This is the same venue where Steve Jobs introduced the Mac computer to the world 25 years ago.

I will go into more detail of each feature in future posts but to wet your appetite, below is a summary of what Apple will deliver when the Apple Watch goes on sale in early 201

  • As they did with the iPhone 5 series, Apple have again shown how well they understand that consumers have individual taste when it comes to ‘smart’ tech and this is especially so for wearable tech which is constantly visible. It has to be appealing and reflect the user’s style and personality.

    Apple Senior Vice President of Design Jony Ive sums this concept up well – “It’s driven Apple from the beginning. This compulsion to take incredibly powerful technology, and make it accessible, relevant, and ultimately, personal.”

    Apple have done this by creating 3 watch styles with several options for the interchangeable wrist band:

    Apple Watch – Stainless Steel with 18 watch/band combinations available

    Apple Watch Sport – Lightweight Anodized aluminium with 5 different colors

    Apple Watch Edition – 6 unique elegant watch cases crafted from 18-karat gold

    The Apple Watch has a flexible retina display, laminated to a single crystal of sapphire which is the next hardest transparent material after diamond.

    While being stylish, the Apple Watch doubles as an all day fitness tracker and advanced sports watch. Two applications give a complete picture of your health and fitness. The activity app monitors your movement throughout the day while the workout apps track your workout real-time monitoring such stats as time, distance, calories burned and pace.

    The Activity app displays 3 rings. The Stand ring encourages you take breaks from your desk. The Exercise ring measures your activity – anything that is at least a brisk walk will be recorded. The Move ring gives you an overview of how active you are being today.

    Key features of the Apple Watch include:

    Customisable watch face graphics with the ability to customize different segments of the screen

    Infrared sensors that accurately measure your heart rate

    Photos – view your photos much the same was as can be done on the iPhone. Pinch and Zoom is not used on the Apple Watch – instead the Digital Crown, a small dial on the side of the watch much like those found on traditional watches, can be turned to zoom in and out of your photo collection

    Message Dictation – Yes, Siri has made it to the Apple Watch. Your dream of talking to your wrist as if you are a secret agent has finally come true! I guess the real secret agents will have to come up with something new now that we have caught up with them. A nice messaging feature is if you are sent a txt message you can respond with a voice mail style dictation – the user at the other end will receive a sound file which they can listen to.

    Message preset phrases and smart responses – the Apple Watch includes some smarts that interpret the received message and provide possible responses with the click of a finger. For example, if my brother sends me a message saying “Would you like  to go to Chinese or Italian for dinner?”, then two options would appear on my screen – Chinese and Italian and I can just click the relevant one to respond. Italian sounds great! My brother can then return the love by sending his actual heartbeat pulse back to me with the push of a button – I can feel the pulse via the vibration received to the watch. Whoa, easy bro! I can see you’re looking forward to the pasta!

    Custom Emojis – Apple have added a bit of fun with custom emojis. You can draw directly on the watch screen to change the facial expression on the emoji to express your mood before you reply to the message – looks like fun!

    Apple Pay – Apple Pay was also announced today. This allows the consumer to pay for goods and services at supported EFTPOS terminals using their Apple smart phone or Apple Watch. Just hold the watch over the EFTPOS terminal to pay. This technology is widely known as near field communication (NFC) and there has been speculation for a couple of years now that Apple would bring this feature to the iPhones. Another example of how this will be used is in hotels – Starwood Hotels will be programming their hotel doors so that their Apple Watch wearing guests can open their hotel room door with a flick of the wrist. Or your new BMW can remind you exactly where you parked your car. You’re too young to have Alzheimer’s!

    Taptic feedback – Is that a word? This is a nice feature. The Apple Watch will give you suttle feedback with slight pulses on your wrist when you receive a message. When using the maps app, Taptic feedback will pulse to tell you it’s time to turn the next corner. That’s great as I’ve had one too many drinks tonight.

    The Apple Watch starts at US$349 and will work with iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, and the new iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 plus.

    That’s it for now. I’ll be writing a ton more posts about the Apple Watch as I learn more so if you haven’t subscribed to receive email updates, I encourage you to do so by filling out the form on the right. You’ll receive an email with a summary of recent posts.

    In the meantime, if you’d like to have a closer look at the Apple Watch, click the link below to watch a 2 minute video that Apple have released.




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