Apple Reveals Apple Watch Details And Availability
by Brandon Chester on March 9, 2015 4:37 PM EST- Posted in
- Wearables
- Apple Watch
Apple's Spring Forward event saw the launch of a new MacBook that greatly departs from the typical image of a notebook, the launch of iOS 8.2, and most importantly, the announcement of several details about the upcoming Apple Watch. Apple revealed the Apple Watch at their October event last year, but several things about it have remained a mystery until today.
While Apple showed off some of the Apple Watch's abilities at their earlier event, their demos from today went more in depth. Apple made note of the fact that the watch is accurate to within 50ms of UTC, which is probably a higher level of accuracy than most people will ever need, but it may increase appeal to those who value the accuracy of their watch. Apple also demonstrated its communication abilities, and showed how users can communicate using pictures drawn on the watch, voice dictated messages, audio recordings, and their heartbeat.
The role of third party developers in expanding the abilities of Apple Watch was also highly emphasized. Apple demoed an app from CNN that reports headlines to users, and also made note of the availability of an Uber application.
There have also been several questions unrelated to the Apple Watch's software and abilities. The biggest area of concern up until this point has been battery life. The battery capacity for wearable devices is almost always constrained due to the limited space available. There has been a great deal of speculation about whether or not the Apple Watch will last through an entire day, and whether it will need to be charged every night like a smartphone is. At the event, Apple revealed that the expected battery life for the Apple Watch will be somewhere in the realm of 18 hours. This means that it should last a user through the day, but that charging every night will be a necessity unless the watch has hardly been used.
| Apple Watch Pricing | ||||||
| Pricing | Apple Watch Sport | Apple Watch | Apple Watch Edition | |||
| 38mm Low | $349 | $549 | $10,000 | |||
| 38mm High | $349 | $1040 | $17,000 | |||
| 42mm Low | $399 | $599 | $12,000 | |||
| 42mm High | $399 | $1099 | $15,000 | |||
The second big question was about pricing. Apple Watch is by far Apple's most customizable product to date, and the number of combinations of bands and models and sizes is enormous. Because of this, Apple only provided price ranges for each model. At the October event the starting price for the Sport model was revealed to be $349, and this has not changed. That price is for the 38mm size, while the 42mm size bumps the price up to $399. The steel and sapphire Apple Watch will start at $549, and go all the way to $1099 for the most expensive model which is the 42mm body and the link bracelet. Finally, the Apple Watch Edition starts at $10,000, and goes up to $17,000 for the models with the red leather band and gold buckle. All of the bands are also available for purchase separately, and so users can outfit the Apple Watch Sport with a nicer band than the fluoroelastomer one it comes with. The pricing for the bands ranges from $50 to $500, and you can take a look at all of them on Apple's website.
The final question is obviously about availability. The Apple Watch will be available for pre-order on April 10 in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US. Users can also make appointments at select Apple Stores to preview and try on the watch.
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lilmoe - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
Yikes. Too expensive for me. Not interested in any "smart watch" yet. Not until I won't have to charge the battery every night... Maybe if it was once a week (is that a stretch?)cmdrdredd - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
Maybe some day. I really want a smart watch as I like the idea. I just don't think an entry level option should cost as much as my dive watch which uses no battery.Samus - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
I've had a Pebble for two years and wear it every day. I charge it every 3-days because I use it quite heavily (lot of vibration notifications, I have it set to display "seconds" requiring a screen refresh 60 times a minute, I have the backlight set to always on, etc) but some people get a week out of it even with the Bluetooth always on.The epaper with led backlight approach by Pebble is the right way to go until battery technology improves. OLED or LCD technology just saps too much power, and what use is a watch if the display isn't "always on."
The Apple watch is really nice, but like the Android Wear competition, doesn't offer anything really compelling yet. The base features that Pebble has are all that are really needed for a basic smartwatch accessory unless you actually plan to use the healthkit features (at which point the Pebble Time is still less than half the cost of the Apple Watch)
mkozakewich - Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - link
This info is what I needed! A Pebble would have been useless to me if it didn't display seconds, and I wasn't sure if I could. (I may have been under the impression, back then, that it was using e-Ink).Honestly, the Pebble Time seems like the perfect watch. Maybe a little thick, but that's about it.
zodiacsoulmate - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
it is using e-ink, it has low refresh rate but still way faster than 1frame/second.(probably around 15fps)BittenRottenApple - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Link to comment further down below:http://www.anandtech.com/comments/9067/apple-revea...
BittenRottenApple - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Source and Copyright:
http://fudzilla.com/news/mobile/37224-iphone-insta...
>>>>
More Malware
Jobs' Mob has decided that the only way that punters will buy their nearly useless iWatch is if they are forced to watch adverts for the thing.
This morning iPhone users woke up to receive and undeletable advert for the iWatch and applications they didn't need forced on them. Now most Apple fanboys were overjoyed that Apple was paying them some attention, but others were less happy.
iOS 8.2 adds in the companion app for the Apple Watch, which Apple talked about in its event on Monday. The app is useful if you have an Apple Watch, as it lets you pair the device with your iPhone. However no one has an iWatch, and no one with any common sense would buy one.
So the Apple Watch app is pretty much just an ad for the watch that you can't delete. It has a bunch of videos showcasing what the Apple Watch can do, and lets you know when you can pre-order one.
There are a large number of tweets from outraged iPhone owners. We guess that Apple has not learned from the time that it forced people to download and listen to U2's latest album, that you should not force people to download things they don't want.
Either that or it is sheer arrogance and stupidity that Apple really does believe that people want to pay $350+ for a device which means they don't have to take their iPhone out of their pocket (but still have to carry it).
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BittenRottenApple - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Edit: This link is working:http://fudzilla.com/news/mobile/37224-iphone-insta...
Please excuse the inconvenience.
medi03 - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Uhm, unless there is some magical e-ink, not yet found in e-readers, refresh rate is close to 1fps, I think 15fps for e-ink is not even remotely imaginable.On top of it, the low power consumption of e-ink stands only when you do NOT update screen frequently, which isn't the case if you refresh it every second.
jeffkibuule - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
In the 7 years we've had the iPhone, battery life has not gone significantly up. Instead phones have gotten thinner, from the 11-12mm with the first phone to now 6.9mm now. 5 years from now, expect to be doing more power intensive things during the day (maybe GPS, LTE), but I wouldn't expect a week's worth of battery life in the near future. That's not the point of the product.And besides, even if it were able to stretch out to 2-3 days, an inconsistent pattern would make it a bit harder to remember to charge on a regular basis.