View All results for ""
Articles by "Apple Watch"

Advertisement

Showing posts with label Apple Watch. Show all posts

at 0
iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Apple Watch in Real Life
Four months into owning an Apple Watch and amid all the noise about it either doing phenomenally well in the market or disappointing expectations, I feel ready to offer my own unbiased user experience. To put this in a bit of context, I have always been interested in watches, have read several books on horology and recognize most watches at first glance. At the same time, I am a cautious spender and my relationship to watches has remained mostly platonic. Unlike other people who caught the watch bug, I only own three nice models and a Rolex Explorer occupies my rather small wrist most of the time. 
Apple's announcement to launch a Watch put me in a dilemma. To me a watch by definition is assembled by a Swiss watchmaker. It would never have occurred to me wearing something with a battery inside. But then I am fully immersed in the Apple eco-system and Jony Ive's emotional statements about the Watch finally sold me.
I received my 42 mm steel model with white sport band in early May and have worn it every day since. Will I go back to my mechanical watches? Maybe for special occasions like evening invitations but not for day to day use and here is why.
To me, the Watch has two game changing features. First, it weaned me off the iPhone. Through carefully tuning the notification settings, I get alerted with a gentle tap on the wrist when I receive an important message and I happily ignore all others. Finding the right balance took a couple of weeks of defining VIPs on my iPhone but it was definitely worth it. Second, the Activity and Workout apps have a strange addictive quality to them. I worked out a lot before owning the Watch but now I am even more disciplined and I regularly choose the staircase over the elevator in order to get these three circles completed every day. Having a heart rate sensor with me any time I feel like running is also game changing. I have one with a chest strap but it mostly sits on a shelf collecting dust. 
Where Apple clearly excelled is the hardware. I wear mine during heavy workout in often hot climate and under the shower. Both the Watch and the band look as shiny and new as on day one. The mechanism to exchange bands is an embarrassment to all traditional watchmakers. Why didn't Rolex come up with something like this? At the end of an average day, when I put the Watch back on its charger its battery typically still has 40% juice left. While this is not great, a somewhat bigger battery would not make a difference to me. Charging it every night is easy to remember while charging it every other night is something I clearly would forget to do quite a lot.
In terms of software, I believe that Apple got the essentials right. First and foremost, the Watch does not demand attention in the way the iPhone does. The whole software experience is a bit complicated and not really Apple-like. But then I also understand the conflicting objectives of making the Watch highly personal and customizable while keeping it as simple as possible. Let's hope that the watchOS 2 gets the tradeoff done in a better way.
In summary, the Watch is by far the best first generation device I have ever owned. 
Continue reading

at 0
iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Watch consumers, not Apple Watch
The Apple Watch is set to hit the market on March 9, ushering in another must-have revolution that’s synonymous with the brand’s identity. The power of the Apple Watch to “change everything” includes empowering the health conscious to track their activity and performance in a more aggregated manner.
There are many eyes on this: tech gurus, healthcare companies, wearable-device makers and consumers. The paramount question on all our minds (with hope in some and fear in others) is: Will this be another iPod or iPhone?
The wearable-device landscape is different from any that Apple has entered into before. Apple is pushing its way into an already active – and crowded – marketplace. Smart watches are an active frontier of innovation with new entrants joining at a prodigious rate. Huawei and LG have recently unveiled watches that can also track your heart rate and your movements. But they do have their limits: neither manufacturer has announced a more robust interface to aggregate or track one’s other health data as Apple has.
Adding more fuel to the fire, the Apple Watch and iHealth platforms are open to developers – which is likely to result in a large number of health and fitness add-ons, from linking with a physical heart monitor to aggregating all your health information from a variety of apps into one interface. The promise is enormous to consumers and potentially highly disruptive to many businesses.
The explosion in health tracking devices changes the business landscape for many companies: GPS wearables like Garmin; threatened. Stalwart fitness wearables like Polar; threatened. Newer wearable entrants like FitBit and JawBone; threatened. All of the watchmakers themselves, threatened.
While the Apple Watch will grab headlines, the bigger story is the $4 billion (and growing) invested in start-up consumer health engagement technologies (CHET) in 2014. These smart technologies allow you to track, measure, time and diagnose, making them the new portable health guru. What will follow will be an avalanche of innovations and applications for consumers (and professionals) to track and guide their health decisions.
Often, CHET are featured on tech-oriented blogs, such as PSFK, and it’s hard to tell the hype from the heroes. While only a few thousand people are now using and prepaying for CHET items from start-ups, it is not too far a stretch of the imagination to consider a day when CHET will be a significant factor across the weight loss and fitness industry, and a growing enabler of adherence. Thanks to the connection of multiple sources, tracked health data can yield new insights into conditions that often have only been the domain of health professionals. Dr. Eric Topol’s book The Patient Will See You Now explores this territory. Unfortunately, it may not go far enough given the pace of innovation with CHET.
There is nothing sci-fi about the Apple Watch – we're talking about an individual's endless journey to maintain his or her, and their family’s, health. Apple, as it does, is further opening the door for a new wave of even greater opportunity for consumers and companies, and their mutual interest in consumers taking charge of their health.
But, above all, the success of the Apple Watch is predicated on its acceptance by consumers. That begs a few fundamental questions:
  • While early-adopter consumers will definitely buy smart watches across all companies, how long will they use them, and will smart watches, more than the current fitness technologies and wearables, lead them to better health?
  • Will smart watches become a mass market like smartphones? And if so, when?
We’ll be watching the consumer and exploring those questions in the months to come.
Continue reading

at 0
iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Apple Car and BMW Watch?
Consider the panic rumors about Apple making a car caused in the automotive industry. Comments from chief executives at carmakers ranged from a sober "we take them very seriously" to an echo of Nokia's reaction to the first generation iPhone "the automotive industry is too mature for Apple to be successful".
But could they really make a car? Of course they could. Apple's war chest is big enough to simply buy out a couple of the world's most prestigious carmakers. But Apple could also take a more familiar approach. Taiwanese original design manufacturers (ODMs) like Foxconn are itching to grab their share of the automotive industry but it would be a stretch to see them making an entire car in the way they make iPhone, iPad, Watch, iMac and MacBook any time soon. But there is the equivalent of an ODM in the automotive industry, the Canadian-Austrian company Magna. Magna's site in Graz, Austria has decades of experience in engineering and manufacturing entire vehicles. Currently, the Mercedes G-class, the Mini Countryman and the Mini Paceman are made by Magna in Graz. Magna has been emphasizing for years that they could act as a one stop shop for anyone who wants to launch a new vehicle and they demonstrate this with prototypes presented at auto shows like the Magna Mila Plus plug-in hybrid shown in Geneva in March 2015. So nobody should be surprised that high ranking Apple executives did in fact show up in Graz and talk to Magna.
The key question though is not whether Apple will or will not make a car but how the established carmakers will react to the challenge from Silicon Valley. After all, Tesla is already a very real threat to them and Google also appears to be serious with its plans for a self steering car. Tesla's model S was a shock to the automotive industry. Everybody expected the Tesla to perform poorly in crash tests and in handling but the opposite was true. Since there is no engine under the hood that threatens to penetrate the passenger compartment in the case of a frontal crash, a couple of aluminum tubes perform better than complicated crash boxes in comparable large Audis, BMWs and Mercedes. Similarly, a lot of quite heavy batteries in the Tesla's sandwich floor make it behave rather like Ferrari than a four door sedan. Luckily for the old carmakers, the current low gas prices give them a bit of a break but who knows when the next price hike comes.
More worrying than the surprisingly good performance of Silicon Valley cars, is their electronic architecture. Tesla's model S has been dubbed a smartphone on wheels and this it what it essentially is. The majority of Tesla's people in Fremont have a background in high tech consumer electronics and it shows in the car. Where others have arrays of switches and dials, the model S sports large touch screens. Every Tesla is continuously online and receives software updates to keep it fresh. Consumer electronics teaches people to deal with technology cycles of a year or less. Compare this to technology cycles in the automotive industry of many years. If car makers want to avoid the fate of Nokia and Blackberry, they need to embrace a consumer electronics mindset now. Over the next decade, the combustion engine - so far one of the key differentiators in the automotive industry - will be tamed by emission regulation. Look at the Mercedes S 300 Bluetec Hybrid for a flavor of what is to come. It combines a four cylinder diesel engine with an electric motor. Going forward we can expect this to become the norm. With nothing exciting under to hood and being stuck in traffic jams most of the time, customers will turn to different buying criteria. How well the car integrates with the ecosystem defined by their smartphone may become the key one. And this is where all traditional carmakers perform poorly.
Continue reading

at 0
iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
LIVE BLOG: What Apple is Announcing Right Now
[Here are my initial impressions of the Apple Watch rollout. Hint: They buried the lede.]
And, that's all folks!
_____
April 24 is the release day. Apple is setting up special table in their stores to help the decision-making process.
_____
Select retail stores will sell a $10,000 model.
_____
18 hours or battery is not going be well received. That's best-case and aspirational. You can't wear it to sleep.
_____
Cheapest Apple Watch is $349, as expected. For $400, you get a wider model (42mm vs 38mm)
_____
And that is the last word on battery life, which is not a good sign.
_____
Finally: 18 hours of battery live in a "typical" day.
_____
First real emphasis yet that this a stand-alone device. "Apple Watch has been designed to work with the iPhone." I'll say. In other words, lots of this functionality would seem cool if it wasn't tethered to an iPhone, but is less compelling as an iPhone annex.
_____
So, Über notifications are right on point. As are flight notifications. These are non-immersive conveniences, unlike scrolling through your Instagram feed.
_____
No mention of battery life yet. But why you don't generally want to answer your phone with your watch — a speaker phone — is pretty clear, as the audience is treated to news that Phil's dog is ready to get picked up.
_____
Apple Pay does not seem to require Touch ID or any authentication. Good idea?
_____
Kevin Lynch just activated my iPhone as he activated his Apple Watch ...
_____
Now the brief interaction bit, which will tell us how they intend to address battery life: as the reality of smart watch use, or as a necessary condition.
_____
Apple Pay (We knew that). Photos and music, ditto. Siri integration. Finally, notifications, almost as an afterthought — "So you can keep up with your favorite sports team." Some of this pitch makes it sound as though Apple is inventing the space, which is hard to hear since there are so many precursors from other companies.
_____
Not really sure what the Christy Turlington Burns sideshow is all about. This is perhaps the most obscure endorsement ever at an Apple Event. As a colleague sitting near me says, unless I plan on running a marathon, I don't get it. She's showing off her "chic" Apple Watch. Crickets in the auditorium. "Apple Watch is going to help me get there."
Full-time health feedback, including whether you are sitting too long. And it will send you a weekly report, which doesn't seem to be the sort of urgent thing that I would be just fine getting in an email ...
_____
You can draw on your watch and send it to another Apple Watch. You can send your heartbeat. These are not compelling use cases, though Cook presents them as new communications paradigms. The audience isn't going nuts.
____
Making and taking calls: "I have been wanting to do this since I was 5 years old." Almost zero applause. Full emails, and messaging from the Watch. Audience seems unimpressed.
_____
Faces themselves are very customizable, which is very un-Apple like. But does follow the lead of Pebble.
_____
"Apple Watch is the most advanced timepiece ever created" — Tim Cook. OK ... Cook shows off various possible faces and data displays. Nothing new here yet. Maybe the animated Mickey Mouse. Or not.
_____
1:54 pm ET: Finally, the Apple Watch.
USB-C — One Plug to rule them all: Power, USB data transfer, DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA. This means that you won't have to search for the right port — and Apple doesn't have to "waste" space accommodating them.
But ... it looks like there is only one of these. Which means that you can't power up and connect a display or a USB peripheral simultaneously? Anyone out there know different? It does have Tunderbolt 2
_____
Terraced batteries — different sizes that fill new available space. 35% more capacity "all-day battery life." Which raises the question if the new MacBook will have better batter life than the Apple Watch.
_____
First MacBook with no fan (Shiller called it "fanless," which is bad marketing)
_____
Four trackpad sensors enable something called "force click" — a new nav option that works in context within apps.
_____
New MacBook is thinner than the latest MacBook Air (17.3 mm at the thickest). Retina display, natch. LED under each key.
_____
"Can you even see it? I can hardly feel it" Cook says, holding up a new wafer-thin Macbook. Weight: two pounds. "This is the lightest Mac we have ever made," Phil Shiller says. Thicket point is 13.1 mm — 24% thinner. Edge-to-edge keyboard.
_____
Mac news: "We challenged ourselves to reinvent the notebook." Cue the video...
_____
ResearchKit is open source. Releasing next months, and first 5 apps are available now. What else — if anything — has Apple ever made open source?
_____
ResearchKit — an extension of HealthKit — is going deep into some basic diagnostics and crowdsourcing. Apple has partnered with more than a dozen teaching hospitals. Operations SVP Jeff Williams emphasizes the privacy protections.

_____
"iPhone is never more than an arm's length away." — Cook #HintHint
_____
Every major car brand has committed to delivering CarPlay.
_____
2,500 banks supporting Apple Pay. 700k establishments now accept Apple Pay, triple from launch
_____
Cook claims mantle for top-selling smart phone in the world (edging out Samsung). Claims 99% customer service approval
_____
700 millionth iPhone sold "recently" — Cook
_____
25 million Apple TVs sold. And now the price drops today to $70, from $100.
_____
Over to HBO CEO Richard Plepler. Apple is HBO's exclusive partner at launch of HBO Now, the stand-alone HBO streaming service. "All you need is a broadband and an Apple device." Service begins in April, and if you sign up for April, you get a month free. Now, an exclusive Game of Thrones trailer!
_____
Tim is starting with Apple TV. "We love HBO," Cook says, setting up the over-the-top announcement.
_____
"We now have 21 stories in China and have a very aggressive plan to have 40 (soon)" — Cook
_____
Here's Tim — Tucked, in a light blue-collared shirt and in a casual jacket! #MindExplosion
_____
1:02 PM: Event is up and running with an extended ad for it's retail presence in China.
Apple is expected to unveil its Watch at one of the company's tried-and-true live events today. The invitation's tag line — "Spring Forward" — is the not-so-subtle clue as to the main event, which is the second big party for Apple Watch.
First time out was hardly a big secret either, but my view last September when Apple made Watch official was that a Goliath was getting into an unproven space, and that only a Goliath could prove or disprove that smart watches had legs.
It's only been six months, but a lot has changed. Apple's nemesis for the hearts and minds of wearables, Google, pulled the plug on Glass. The only smart watch maker who has sales north of one million units, Pebble, is plugging away with a new model that will hit the streets just as Apple Watch tries to storm the beaches.
Felix Salmon's very practical observation that the first generation Watch might suck for a fundamental reason — battery anxiety — may not be addressed as much as it is finessed. Will Apple look like it is capturing or imposing a reality that we'll be fine using Watch in 10-second bursts? There is already delightful spin on this from Apple design chief Jony Ive, who says, in effect, that battery life is over-rated.
Speculation about Apple Watch has caused lots of arguments, but pretty soon we'll have facts, over which there is no point arguing. Sometime after 1 pm ET today the squabbles will be about whether the best possible vision for a smart watch Apple can conceive of is enough to make enough people care.
Let the games begin!
Continue reading
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
Back To Top