This is a really comprehensive guide from Rene Ritchie and his crew. If you have any questions, this is the best place to start.

I can’t verify how accurate some of the more brutal comments are in the Apple Watch reviews posted today, but here’s a roundup of some of their harshest comments.

Of all the people that posted reviews today, Gruber is the only one I really trust. If you’re going to read a review, make it this one.

Duncan Robson makes YouTube supercut videos and is taking to Patreon to seek funding to keep making them. What’s a supercut video? Watch.

[via Daring Fireball]

Part industry analysis and part interview, this Fast Company profile is a well crafted and extremely entertaining read.

On the risks associated with yesterday’s rollout of HBO Now:

What if people dump their regular HBO subscriptions? What if the cable providers, who generate virtually all of HBO’s $5.4 billion in revenue, remain displeased by this run around them? What if Now, which may feature content never before seen on HBO, is less consistently excellent than the existing HBO service? And what if this pushes Netflix to become even more aggressive?

Plepler is not nervous. He’s done his homework. Great read.

WantChinaTimes:

South Korean smartphone giant Samsung paid people to pretend to be its fans at a press conference for its products’ release on Friday, reports Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper.

A person specializing in recruiting these “fans” said he brought over 100 people to the event. They and the other groups of people brought by other recruiters reached 400 to 500 in total. These hired “fans” amounted to around half of the 1,000 people at the event, according to the Paper.

And:

The smartphone brand has also hired several groups of 20 to 30 people to be its professional fans. A woman surnamed Huang who joined one of the groups said she applied for the job after seeing a recruitment ad in a group chat on popular messaging app WeChat. Every hired person is required to post their picture, register their name and phone number and like the fan page of Samsung Galaxy on Baidu’s online forum Baidu Tieba. A Samsung staff member who also joined the group chat checks and monitors the application process.

I struggle to understand how Samsung thinks on issues like this. Surely they must realize that this sort of thing will make its way into the news cycle. The benefit of artificially inflated attendance at a news conference can’t possibly be worth the bad press when they get caught.

Developer Rusty Mitchell is obsessed with Apple’s Map and Spotlight icons. Lots of interesting bits in this blog post.

For starters, take a look at the iOS 5 and iOS 8 Apple Map snapshots. The major change is the way building outlines are swapped for pictograms.

And the collection of pictograms, shown in the very first image, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Apple Watch icon cluster display.

If this sort of thing interests you even slightly, read the post.

A series of photos have surfaced on social media today that provide a first look at what could be the retail packaging for the Apple Watch and individual bands. Instagram user Jeremy Gan posted the photos to his profile, which he has since switched to private, this afternoon. The photos appear to show a 42mm stainless steel Apple Watch with Milanese Loop propped on a stand within its official packaging, alongside a brown leather band in a separate box.

Gan works for the Daily Mail, so the pics could very well be genuine. Somehow I don’t think he was supposed to post these pics to social media.

Re/code:

Foxconn is eager to present a different face, and agreed to give Re/code a tour of a sprawling manufacturing facility in Shenzhen in the south China province of Guangdong were it makes iPads and Macs. To be clear, we were not allowed unfettered access. A special assistant to CEO Terry Gou traveled from Shanghai to escort us on a tour that appeared to paint a picture of workers being treated well. We weren’t permitted to observe the factory floor — an unidentified customer wouldn’t allow that.

I think it’s fair to assume we all know who the “unidentified customer” was.

Despite continued losses, Samsung’s projected earnings are actually an improvement from the last two quarters, when sales fell 36 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014, and a whopping 60 percent in the quarter before that.

Here’s the way it’s gone for Samsung over the past few years: They shamelessly copied Apple and made a boatload of money; Apple sued the hell out them, so Samsung changed its designs thinking it had consumers locked up; They didn’t and profits began to fall dramatically when they released phones not copied from Apple; The new Galaxy S6 shamelessly copies Apple’s iPhone 6.

Samsung is hoping for two things: 1. Apple doesn’t sue the shit out of them again. 2. People are too stupid to recognize the points I listed above and will buy the piece of shit.

Guitarists are always looking for great tones. AMPLIFi is a Bluetooth speaker and guitar amp in one. Now, with AMPLIFi Remote for Apple Watch, you can pick your favorite guitar sound right from your wrist. And when it’s time to tune up, you’ll see which note you’re playing and whether it’s sharp, flat, or in tune.

I can’t wait to try this out.

This is a big step forward, though the battery can currently produce only 2v (lithium ion batteries typically produce about 4v).

[Stanford Chemistry professor Hongjie Dai] believes overcoming this problem is not impossible. “Improving the cathode material could eventually increase the voltage and energy density,” he said.

This is promising. This battery tech is malleable, meaning a better fit for non-rectangular devices, yielding longer life and lighter batteries.

Aluminium!

Apple Insider lays out the details on this Financial Times post [Paywall].

The Financial Times said that the developers are “handpicked” by Apple, and under surveillance by security guards while they work. To prevent photos of the labs from emerging, participants are asked to cover up the cameras on their iPhones. Each person is required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Developing for the Apple Watch without an actual watch to test on is a challenge. There are a limited number of watches in the wild, certainly not enough to seed all the developers with projects in the works. Visiting the lab is the next best thing if you want to get your app in the store for opening day.

Tim Cook, in a memo to employees:

I know that many of you have been looking forward to choosing an Apple Watch for yourselves, and we want to make it easy for you. Starting Friday, in countries where the watch is available for pre-order, a special Employee Purchase Plan will offer a 50% discount on any Apple Watch or Apple Watch Sport for your personal use.

As we introduce the watch in more countries, the special pricing for employees will be offered in those countries as well. Discounts will begin at pre-order and last for 90 days after availability. AppleWeb has more details, so I invite you to check it out.

This strikes me as a top notch idea. Spread the love, spread the word. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple Store employees are wearing the Apple Watch on Friday.

The entire collection is available for preorder now. Choose carefully, Padawan.

Will you start with A New Hope? Buy them all at once? Or resurrect your “Han shot first” Super 8 copy instead?

Let the trailer watching begin!

Good letter. Much better than the drivel Ballmer wrote.

Perfect for webcasting, podcasting, gaming and music production, the AG03 and AG06 hybrid mixing consoles/USB interfaces have unique features that make your computer-based audio tasks easier and better. The AG Series offers high-resolution (24-bit/192kHz) audio recording and playback, iOS compatibility and battery operation.

The intuitive “TO PC” switch allows users to route selected inputs back to a desktop or iOS device. The “Dry CH 1-2” allows computer or iOS recording of inputs 1 and 2, while the “INPUT MIX” switch routes all inputs to the computer or iOS device via USB for music production applications. The “LOOPBACK” switch routes all inputs to the stereo USB output along with the USB input from the computer — perfect for podcasters.

Gamers will appreciate the headset/mic interface and direct hardware control of game and voice level, perfect for adding professional audio to videos or TwitchTV broadcasts.

The AG series “1-TOUCH” effects utilize programmable digital signal processing like Reverb, Compression, EQ and even Amp Simulation, adding the final professional stroke to your music productions.

This could be a handy document to bookmark.

Not so funny now, is it Samsung.

This is pretty damn funny.

A thoughtful piece by independent developer Allen Pike on the best way to move the mountain that is Apple. Consider this quote from Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines:

If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.

So what’s an indie developer to do? What’s the best way to affect change? An interesting read.

[via iOS Dev Weekly]

Follow the link, read the text (it’s a quote from Becoming Steve Jobs), then think about the moxy it took for a 22 year old to stand in front of the world of grownups and tell them about the future.

Apple added four Apple Watch guided tour videos to its web site: Welcome to Apple Watch, Messages, Faces, and Digital Touch.

Disabled placeholders for future videos include Phone Calls, Siri, Maps, Music, Apple Pay, Activity, and Workout. [Via iHeartApple2]

According to the Apple Store front page, Apple Watch pre-orders start on April 10th (this Friday) at 12:01 a.m. PDT. Which really means late Thursday night, just after midnight California time.

Reuters:

Apple is not able to launch its new smartwatch in Switzerland until at least the end of this year because of an intellectual property rights issue, Swiss broadcaster RTS reported on its website.

The U.S. tech giant cannot use the image of an apple nor the word “apple” to launch its watch within Switzerland, the home of luxury watches, because of a patent from 1985, RTS reported, citing a document from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property.

The document, reprinted on the RTS website, was published by trade magazine Business Montres & Joaillerie, RTS said.

The patent is set to finish on Dec. 5 of this year. It currently belongs to William Longe, who owns watch brand Leonard that first filed the patent.

Given the short shelf life of this trademark, I imagine it wouldn’t take much money to make this go away.

Update: As pointed out in the comments, this is a trademark issue, not a patent issue. If you are interested in the details and happen to speak French, here’s a link to the original article which has the legal document embedded within.

This is a lovely bit of analysis on Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney and their respective approaches to soccer. My favorite bit (on Messi):

One freezing night this January, I was sitting in the Camp Nou with a Barcelona official, watching Barca-Atletico Madrid in the Spanish Cup. When the game kicked off, the official said, “Watch Messi.”

It was a puzzling sight. The little man was wandering around, apparently ignoring the ball. The official explained: “In the first few minutes he just walks across the field. He is looking at each opponent, where the guy positions himself, and how their defense fits together. Only after doing that does he start to play.”

Remarkably, even unbelievably, Messi has never scored in the first two minutes of a match. And that’s why. He’s thinking, plotting, planning.

[Via Kottke.org]