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Apple Watch Spreadsheet→

Rob Griffiths:

But I am fascinated by this new business Apple’s going into; the sheer number of products and prices is pretty amazing: By my count, Apple will be shipping 38 separate models of watches. There’s a gallery page at Apple’s site where you can page through all of the watches, and get the details on each specific model. You can also view the watches in the store, where you can find pricing info.

Rob put together a spreadsheet to compare case, weight, cost, and more for each Watch model. Useful.

(via Six Colors)

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Rene Ritchie on Using Apple Watch→

Smart observation by Rene Ritchie on using Apple Watch for the first time:

The digital crown and the button aren’t directly analogous to the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons on the iPhone. Force Touch has no analogue on the iPhone (at least not yet). Trying to use the Apple Watch like an iPhone works about as well as trying to use an iPhone like Mac. (Or trying to use the original iPhone like an old-school BlackBerry or Treo.)

Yes, you can go and seek out all the features if you really want to. Apple made it possible. But the watch really wants to bring those features to you.

Something that I’ve noticed is that a lot of people (myself included) tried to rationalize the UX of Apple Watch in the six months since the original announcement. And, for me, a wrong assumption was to believe that Glances were comparable to widgets on iOS 8 – always accessible from anywhere by swiping from the bottom. But Glances are meant to be used to peek at information from the watch face, and the entire structure of the Watch OS is different from iOS. I’m curious to see how quickly I’ll get used to Apple Watch, as brief demo sessions aren’t enough.

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iFixit Tears Down the new MacBook Pro with Force Touch→

Some fascinating findings in iFixit’s teardown of the new MacBook Pro with Force Touch:

Made of wire coils surrounding a ferromagnetic core, the electromagnet in the Force Touch Trackpad is used to create the vibrational feedback you feel.

And:

We’re guessing that the four separate coils here are used to vary the feedback given to the user. Turning different sets of the four coils on and off varies the strength and direction of the vibration, and how it feels to your finger.

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Apple’s HBO Now Deal Has Been in the Works for a Year→

In the spring of 2014 — months before HBO would announce its plans to sell the pay-TV channel as a standalone subscription service — HBO CEO Richard Plepler had already reached out, via an intermediary, to Apple media boss Eddy Cue: Would Apple want to sell HBO’s service on the Web?

Of course Apple would. So the basic agreement for HBO Now came together quickly, according to people familiar with the deal.

Peter Kafka at Re/code has more detail about the deal that made Apple the exclusive launch partner of HBO Now, the new service that will allow anyone in the US to get HBO’s full library of back catalog and currently airing shows without a cable subscription. Significantly, the deal gives Apple a three month exclusivity window. That’s long enough to mean that anyone wanting to watch the new seasons of Game of Thrones, VEEP or Silicon Valley (they all start April 12) will either need to have a cable subscription with HBO, or use HBO Now on the Apple TV, iPhone or iPad.

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Thoughts on Today’s Apple Keynote from David Sparks→

Watching the China store opening I was struck by the question of how a company instills so much devotion and emotion in customers over a new retail store opening. I think the answer is in delight.

Doesn’t HBO coming to Apple TV feel like the tiny hole in the dike that could pull the whole thing down?

I felt like the whole Apple TV bit was sort of a tease. Apple TV still needs an overhaul.

The avalanche of opinion pieces on Apple’s announcements from today is only just starting, but this one from David Sparks is an early favorite for me, with most of my thoughts aligning with his. Plus, if you’re getting a bit tired from all the Apple news today, you’ll be relieved to know that all his thoughts are written in a concise dot-point format (with the above points being his first three observations).

I’ll just add a few points myself:

  • Apple Pay was briefly mentioned, highlighting some significant progress in the United States. But still not a word on international availability, disappointing given contactless payment is already a huge thing in Australia and Europe.
  • Interesting that they didn’t adjust the MacBook naming conventions. The MacBook Air is now both thicker and heavier than the MacBook.
  • HBO Now is US-only, once again disappointing from an international perspective, but hardly surprising.
  • There was a lot of focus on China, which is unsurprising. Not only did they open the keynote with a video of a retail store opening in China (and then detail Apple Retail progress in China) but China will get the Apple Watch on day one. Makes a lot of sense given how important the country now is for Apple.
  • Not that it was expected at all, but we didn’t hear anything about music.
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‘Spring Forward’ Keynote Video Now Available for Streaming

Apple has now posted the video of its ‘Spring Forward’ keynote held earlier today in San Francisco. The video can be streamed here, and a higher quality version should be made available in a few hours through iTunes (on the Apple Keynotes podcast). To avoid streaming errors, Safari is recommended for the best viewing experience.

For more coverage, check out our ‘Spring Forward’ keynote news hub and follow @macstoriesnet on Twitter.

Apple Found Its Newest Billboards on the Internet→

Brendan Klinkenberg, writing for BuzzFeed on Apple’s new ad campaign for iPhone 6 photography:

Last December, when the Bay Area had one of its rare rainy days, Cielo de la Paz took her kids out to play. She’s an avid photographer, “willing to wake up at five in the morning and hike 10 miles to get that shot of the sunrise,” and when she saw the reflection of her red umbrella on the wet concrete, she knew she had a good one.

“It took a few shots,” she said, “this was the last one I took, I was finally happy with how the wind arranged the leaves for me.”

She edited the shot with Filterstorm Neue, uploaded the picture to Flickr (she was taking part in the photo365 challenge), where Apple found it.

Very nice of Apple to use these real photos in billboards around the world, too.

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The Story of Crossy Road→

Dave Tach, writing for Polygon on the story of Crossy Road:

Crossy Road is the rare story of success at the intersection of art, commerce, design and marketing. It’s about lessons learned in hard times and a games maker who thought he might never go back to GDC after one terrible year. It’s about a pair of developers who, in fact, did set out to create a video gaming phenomenon — and succeeded.

An inspiring tale of success, especially because the developers purposefully tried a different free-to-play model and didn’t simply experiment without consideration. A good lesson.

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Interactive Apple Watch App Demos→

Cool idea by the newly launched WatchAware: interactive demos for Apple Watch apps ahead of the device’s release.

At WatchAware, we’re excited to bring you our take on industry news about Apple Watch and the impact of wearable technology in general. But we’re even more excited about our new, just-launched Apps section. There, we’re giving third-party developers their own little corner of the site, where readers can come to check out their wares, see how their apps will look and run, and even interact with them. It’s really cool, and we’re really proud of it.

The Apps webpage they launched features a collection of apps previously shown in September but also new ones provided by indie developers. I’m particularly intrigued by Feed Wrangler, Todoist (obviously), and Run 5k. Besides the device itself, I’m excited to see how third-party apps will adapt to the Watch – Run 5k (video here) will display heart rate, distance, and pace directly on your wrist, which wouldn’t be possible with an iPhone app.

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