Posts tagged with "apple watch"

Apple Watch at the ‘Spring Forward’ Keynote: Our Complete Overview

At Apple’s ‘Spring Forward’ keynote held earlier today at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, Apple provided more details about the Apple Watch, which will open for pre-orders on April 10 and launching on April 24. Today’s keynote was mostly a recap of last September’s announcement of the Apple Watch, with a handful of new details sprinkled throughout, read on to get all the key details. Read on to get an overview of the important announcements from today, but if you’re looking for more information, look no further than the Apple Watch website or the keynote video.

“Apple Watch begins a new chapter in the way we relate to technology and we think our customers are going to love it,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait for people to start wearing Apple Watch to easily access information that matters, to interact with the world, and to live a better day by being more aware of their daily activity than ever before.”

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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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Launch Center Pro Coming to Apple Watch→

Launch Center Pro, my favorite utility to launch actions and apps on iOS, is coming to Apple Watch. As shown by Contrast’s David Barnard, Launch Center Pro for the Watch will feature a list of actions with a simplified interface in line with Apple’s guidelines for the new device.

I’m excited about the potential of bringing discrete automation to the wrist. And I’m curious to see how Contrast will slim down the experience to make sense on the Watch. The actions in the screenshot seem to be primarily web-based (likely powered by IFTTT) and they can work well with one-tap interactions and dictation, but I’m wondering if the more complex workflows of Launch Center Pro for iOS could have Watch counterparts as well.

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Apple to Live Stream March 9 Event

With an update on their website, Apple has confirmed that they will offer a live stream of the March 9 event, rumored to focus on Apple Watch.

Join us on March 9 at 10 a.m. PDT for our special event. Watch the live video and follow every moment on apple.com/live.

In November, Apple released WatchKit, a set of developer tools to allow developers to make apps for the Watch, which will be bundled inside iOS software on the App Store. Apple is expected to show off Watch apps from launch partners at the March 9 event. This wouldn’t be the first time Apple has live streamed an Apple Watch presentation – the company prominently featured a live video event for the original Watch introduction in September 2014, alongside a live blog of the media event with photos and text updates on Apple.com.

The March 9 event will be streamed live at apple.com/live, with an Apple TV channel likely to be added a few hours ahead of the event.

Apple Announces Media Event for March 9

As first reported by Jim Dalrymple at The Loop, Apple will hold a special media event on March 9 at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.

Apple on Thursday sent out invites for a special event to be held on March 9, 2015. The event will be held in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a venue that Apple has used many times before for special events.

According to recent speculation, Apple will set the stage for a second presentation of the Apple Watch, first unveiled alongside the iPhone 6 and Apple Pay in September 2014. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook previously announced that Apple Watch will be released in April in the United States, although it’s not clear when the device will be released in the rest of the world. It’s possible that the event will see the company announcing official release dates for more markets this year.

In November, Apple released WatchKit, a set of developer tools to enable app makers to develop apps for the Watch. WatchKit apps will depend on iPhone counterparts – initially, Watch apps will be included inside the same bundle of iPhone apps – and Apple will likely use the event for formal app announcements from major partners as well as independent developers on March 9.

Watch Apps and Tap Distance→

David Smith writes about changes to WatchKit Apple launched yesterday with the fifth beta of iOS 8.2:

In all my design work for my WatchKit apps the question that I keep asking is: How will this make my app more convenient to use? If I don’t have a good answer for that then I’m likely heading down the wrong path.

Watch apps shouldn’t try and be full blown apps, replicating the full functionality of their big-brother iPhone apps. Instead they should be sleek, svelte companions that take advantage of their immediate availability to their user. This leads me to the problem I’m so glad Apple has addressed. The tap distance required for the user to perform any action.

This, I hope, is how developers of the iPhone apps I use every day are thinking about Apple Watch. Making Watch apps that emphasize quick interactions in a natural and direct way instead of cramming iPhone apps into a small display.

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Todoist App Coming to Apple Watch→

This morning, Todoist announced an Apple Watch version of their app. Joe Rossignol writes:

Todoist aims to bring its popular to-do app for iPhone and iPad to the wrist with a simplistic Apple Watch app that will provide task management at a glance. When paired with an iPhone, the app will enable users to view their upcoming tasks and categories, reply to comments, and schedule or mark complete tasks. Todoist tells us that the video below is missing the task filter view, but plans to add the feature soon.

The past few weeks in the tech news cycle have been full of intriguing, but ultimately useless, examples of Apple Watch “concepts”. This is an actual WatchKit app coming soon to Apple Watch.

I’m excited because Todoist is my task management service of choice, and the ability to quickly mark a task as completed or defer it from my wrist could be interesting. The app looks standard – as I suspect most initial Apple Watch apps will be like – but make sure to hit the source link for a short demo video.

Also: considering Todoist’s integration with IFTTT and Zapier, how cool would it be to trigger automated workflows from an Apple Watch?

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‘Letterpad’ Game to Feature Apple Watch Support→

Jared Nelson, writing at TouchArcade:

A couple of weeks ago, NimbleBit announced that they were looking for testers for their new upcoming game called Letterpad. It’s a word game that gives you a grid of 9 letters and tasks you with coming up with words from those letters that relate to a certain topic. Well, the game is just about complete at this point, and today NimbleBit have additionally announced that Letterpad will be playable on the forthcoming Apple Watch. Here you can see a mockup of what Letterpad will look like on the Apple Watch.

A couple of points to keep in mind: this will actually be based on a WatchKit extension embedded inside the iPhone app. You won’t be able to run Letterpad natively on the Apple Watch initially. And, because there doesn’t seem to be a way for developers to monetize extensions in iOS apps, the Watch “game” will likely come for free in the main iPhone app. Still, I think the idea of iPhone games extending to the Watch is pretty cool (imagine having remote inventory for RPGs or glanceable information for simulator games on your wrist) and I’m excited to see how others will take advantage of WatchKit for gaming.

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Apple Watch Website Update→

I missed this update to the Apple Watch website when Apple refreshed it last week (via TUAW). The Watch microsite has been updated with more details for timekeeping and fitness features, revealing more details about customizable complications, watch faces, fitness and activity tracking, and more.

Timekeeping:

Many watches include a few specialized functions — known in watchmaking as complications — that go beyond telling the time. But Apple Watch comes with a full range that can be added to most faces. Some complications are traditional, such as moon phases or sunrises and sunsets. And some are unique to Apple Watch, like stock quotes, weather reports, your next calendar event, and a daily activity tracker. When you tap a complication, Apple Watch opens the corresponding app.

New Ways to Connect:

Use the built-in speaker and microphone for quick chats, or seamlessly transfer calls to your iPhone for longer conversations. To mute an incoming call, just cover Apple Watch with your hand.

Health and Fitness:

Apple Watch shows your daily activity at a glance. To see your progress and trends over longer periods of time, there’s Fitness, an Apple Watch companion app on your iPhone. You can view your activity history, workouts, and achievements by the day, week, or month. And the Fitness app can share your activity and workout data with the Health app on your iPhone, where it can be accessed by your favorite third-party health and fitness apps.

You can read our original overview of the Apple Watch here.

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