Yesterday, Shawn posted an article about the emergence of USB-C and the growing pains associated with a new connection form factor.
That formed the center of discussion for one segment on yesterday’s Amplified podcast. Conversation turned to the problem of a computer sporting a single port used for all connections, for power, for data transfer, for video, etc.
Turns out, Shawn’s article laid all that out as well. Apple will ship a USB-C to USB-C cable, as well as a power brick that plugs into the wall with a USB-C port. Plug in the brick, then plug the USB-C cable into the brick and your computer.
But what if you need to connect an external monitor or hard drive? The port is already used up. Well, for $79, Apple has your answer, an adapter with a USB plug on one end, and three ports on the other, one USB-C (for power), one HDMI (for video), and one standard USB port (for all your existing USB accessories). They’ve also got another version with USB-C, VGA, and USB in case that’s the way you roll, as well as an adapter for USB-C to (old) standard USB.
What about Thunderbolt?
Thunderbolt isn’t dead and USB-C doesn’t look like it’s going to kill it off soon. Indeed, it seems likely that USB-C will wind up replacing ports on consumer-leaning Macs, like future MacBooks (if 12-inch isn’t the only model), Mac minis, and iMacs, while the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro will probably retain Thunderbolt for the highest performance with external drives and other peripherals.
This makes perfect sense to me. The new MacBook is light as a feather, designed for portability. So consolidating down to a single USB-C port is logical. With judicious use of WiFi, you could spend the MacBook’s entire life without need for peripherals, just the occasional sip of power.
With these timeless thoughts in mind, we crafted The Luxury Pocket Stand for Apple Watch, The Luxury Travel Kit, Travel Pouch and The Roll Up Kit for Apple Watch. A gorgeous celebration of ageless craftsmanship and appreciation for the beauty found in natural resources.
They took inspiration for the Pocket Stand from Brian’s grandfather and the pocket watch he used. I’m a big fan of the quality of products this company makes.
Apple Watch is bringing people to their keyboards in droves, writing opinions and asking questions about Apple’s newest device. That’s a great thing—unless you represent many of the world’s larger luxury watchmakers and you write a purely negative article about Apple Watch for The Guardian.
I saw an article today on The Guardian written by Martin McNulty, who they say at the bottom of the article, “is chief executive of Forward3D and Locaria,” which are basically marketing agencies. Seems innocuous, right?
It is until you take a look at some of McNulty’s clients, which include Kering, the owner of Boucheron; Dodo; Girard-Perregaux; Gucci; Jean Richard; and Ulysse Nardin. All of these companies offer high-end luxury watches.
Let’s take a look at what McNulty has to say about Apple Watch:
All of this came before the unveiling of potentially the most outlandish Apple product in history: a $10,000-plus 18 carat gold watch. It was almost as if Apple needed to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, in order to justify catering to such a niche market. All delivered without a hint of irony.
Like your article was delivered without disclosure of the luxury brands you represent. I’m sure they don’t have any high-end products for sale.
Apple has not had a product failure in more than 10 years, but the Apple Watch could very realistically be the first.
That would be great for your clients.
But that isn’t necessarily new in terms of functionality; we’ve been able to use our phones while it’s in our pocket for ages – just look at bluetooth.
Clearly, you have no understanding of what Apple Watch can do.
The sleek white art direction that leads with the product is still there, but what’s missing is the gravitas of a functional item.
I’ve had an Apple Watch on my wrist twice now—I can clearly see the advantage to using the watch. Just how much I’ll use it will depend on a number of things, including apps, but I’m happy with what I see so far.
One thing’s for sure, this is not a Steve Jobs move.
What do you know about what Steve Jobs would do? You don’t, so shut the fuck up.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you write for a publication like The Guardian, you have to disclose. Writing a negative piece on a product when you represent the marketing efforts of its competitors is shady and underhanded.
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.
Both of these solutions, though, require lots of paging and scrolling to get all the details. I was curious as to how all the watches compared, so I pulled data from those sources and made one massive spreadsheet
Rob Griffiths has done the work so you don’t have to.
I’ve seen some comments over the past couple of days from people wondering what the “killer app” for the Apple Watch will be. I’m pleased to tell you that it’s here—it’s called iPhone.
If you don’t like the implications of calling a hardware device a killer app, then we can say it’s iOS. Either way, some of the great things that will be done on Apple Watch over the next few months will be about the iPhone and the way it interacts with the watch.
Apple Watch is an accessory for the iPhone, that’s very clear. The challenge developers will have is making their app’s UX and UI work and display properly on the watch.
I mentioned yesterday that I really like what Uber has done with its app on the watch. You are initiating something on the watch, not just responding to things happening on the iPhone. This is what we need to see more of from developers moving forward.
One of the mistakes that I made when thinking about the watch was that I’d just be responding to messages—that sounds expensive and boring. Luckily I was wrong.
The idea of watch first, iPhone second is something we’ll have to get used, but it’s also a feature that will make the Apple Watch much more useful for us all.
With the new 12-inch MacBook, Apple has gone all in for all-in-one, using USB-C to provide power, display output, and USB connections. Thunderbolt is gone. The SD card slot is gone as well.
The upside is compatibility, and thus lower costs and more options. USB-C is also a unifying and universal standard that doesn’t involve a single company acting as a licensing gatekeeper, the way Apple protects Lightning cables and adapters. USB-C would seem to have a lot to offer, but first we have to get over the hump of newness.
Typical story of “short term pain for long term gain” but it means I don’t see this particular machine as my next laptop.
When you crack open the laptop’s case, most of the space is taken up by its battery. Or, more accurately, batteries — plural. The irregular brown rectangles in the laptop’s four corners, as well as the big one in the middle, are all batteries. The device’s logic board — the brains of the laptop — is at the top. At the bottom of the image you can see the underside of the trackpad.
That logic board is tiny, Moore’s law at work. But batteries follow no such law. So Apple figured out how to break them into pieces to better fit into every nook and cranny of the MacBook case, all while leaving them connected as a single functional unit. Incredible.
Jay Yarow at Business Insider pulled together a variety of reactions to some hands-on time with the Apple Watch. These are snap reactions, given without the opportunity to live with the technology, without the benefit of true immersion.
In a nutshell, the sense I get is one of confusion with the interface. Stephen Pulvirenti at Bloomberg:
Since the first Apple Watch announcement in September 2014, Apple has been touting the digital crown as a groundbreaking interface that will set the Apple Watch apart from its competition. So how is it in practice? On first use, the device felt a little confusing and clumsy. Sometimes it seemed to do one thing; at other times, just the opposite.
Nilay Patel, writing for The Verge:
First things first: it is really confusing to have both the Digital Crown and the communications button next to each other on the side. As I tried to navigate the Watch interface, I found myself pressing one or both several times, without knowing which one would take me to the home screen, back out of an app, or launch a feature. Coming from the traditional iOS paradigm of a single home button that always takes you home, it’s a notable difference.
There are certainly some positive comments, but the tone is more hopeful for future improvements, rather than kudos for the existing Apple Watch.
John Gruber called the reactions worrisome. In reference to confusion stemming from restricted access to glances:
Worrisome. Compare this description of the “slide up from bottom of display” Glances to Control Center on iOS. Control Center is available and works the same way (again: slide up from bottom of display) everywhere: the lock screen, the home screen, and within any app.
To me, this gets right to the heart of the matter. To be successful, an interface must have rules that are intuitive and consistent. Sounds like there’s some work still left to do here. That said, this is, fortunately, a software problem. Software is fixable. Software can evolve over time.
About 24 hours ago I was sitting in a room with Apple executives with an Apple Watch on my wrist, flipping through the different screens and options. I was immediately more impressed with the watch than I was when the device was first introduced in September 2014.
I’ve maintained since it was first shown to the public that for Apple Watch to be successful, it would need to do more than just show a notification or alert from iMessage. I really wanted the watch to do something to make it an indispensable part of my routine, no matter where I was or what I was doing. That’s what I saw yesterday.
Features like summoning Uber from the watch, while a small thing, is quite fascinating. These are the types of tasks that are initiated from the watch—it’s not just a reactionary response to something happening on your iPhone. It certainly opens your mind to other greater possibilities from other apps. Typical of Apple, the implementation of this functionality is done in a very cool way.
Of course, fitness is going to be a popular and great use of the Apple Watch. Being a walker myself, I’m looking forward to being able to better track my walks and the benefits I get from that exercise.
The simple fact that the watch screen is small, limits the amount of information Apple can reasonably display for the user. You could try to make everything smaller and cram as much into the UI as possible, but that would make it almost useless. These are the types of things that Apple thought about and implemented very well.
Even when you consider things like scrolling, you can see that Apple put considerable thought into how we would use the watch. For instance, you can scroll using your finger on the screen, much the same way you would with an iPhone, but if you wanted to scroll to the bottom of an email list very quickly, you can use the Digital Crown and be done in a jiffy.
There are other cool features too. I love the fact that you can mute an incoming call by covering the Apple Watch with your hand. That’s a level of detail that we only see from Apple these days. These are the types of “surprise and delight” features that become part of our everyday use.
I was also surprised that you could use Apple Pay on the watch. I know I shouldn’t have been, but I was. All you need to do is double-tap the button on the side of watch and your Apple Pay cards are up on the screen. Swiping left or right allows you to choose between the stored cards. They were very easy to see as well.
The prices of Apple Watch weren’t much of a surprise to me. What Apple announced at the event lines up pretty close to what I’ve been saying all along. Personally, I like the Apple Watch with the Milanese Loop—it will cost $699.
There have been some stories written that say the downside for Apple is that people will use their iPhone less often. I really don’t think those people understand the Apple Watch.
Apple Watch is an accessory for the iPhone. It’s meant to make your life easier and more convenient, not to replace the iPhone.
Personally, I don’t mind taking my iPhone out of my pocket to complete some tasks, like checking the time 1. However, the watch will make many of these tasks easier and less distracting. I can respond to an iMessage using one of the auto respond answers very quickly and get back to what I was doing.
I don’t think Apple is concerned that you won’t be taking your iPhone out of your pocket as much as you used to—they are more concerned that you are using their devices in the most efficient way possible.
That’s what Apple should be concerned about.
Update: fixed the price of the Apple Watch.
Checking the time leads to responding to an iMessage, which leads to checking mail, which leads to responding to a tweet, and so on. I just wanted to know what time it was and all of a sudden, you’re “that guy” sitting at the table with his phone in his hand. ↩
That’s the message HBO CEO Richard Plepler was sending yesterday to the cable giant and the other big pay-TV distributors, when he announced he was going to start selling subscriptions with Apple.
HBO’s plan to sell a standalone version of the service — HBO Now, for $15 a month — using Apple as its exclusive digital launch partner is big news. Remember, though, that it’s only half of the story: Plepler wants to use his new digital service to create a new revenue stream, and perhaps a life raft. But he also wants to use it as a lever to get more money out of his existing business with the pay-TV companies, which generated $5.4 billion last year.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. HBO exclusivity with Apple is for a rumored three month time frame.
Apple Inc.’s huge gravitational pull on mall traffic is distorting the market for mall rents, winning the iPhone maker sweetheart deals and putting upward pressure on other tenants’ leases.
Apple draws so many shoppers that its stores single-handedly lift sales by 10% at the malls in which they operate, according to Green Street Advisors, a real-estate research firm. That gives Apple the clout to negotiate extremely low rents for itself relative to its sales, while creating upward pressure on prices paid by mall neighbors who might not benefit from the traffic.
No surprise and a big change from the early days of Apple Retail when Apple was “forced” to sign long term leases because mall operators were worried about the company’s long term viability.
Apple has published their second major security roll-up package of the year, Security Update 2015-002, which contains fixes for multiple version of OS X stretching from Mountain Lion 10.8.5 to Yosemite 10.10.2. These updates mitigate threats from several different vulnerabilities, but the most notable is a fix that will inoculate Safari users against the so-called “FREAK” SSL/TLS exploit.
Good to see Apple extending this patch back to Mountain Lion.
Every Apple Watch you see in an ad shows a time of 10:09. According to the linked article:
Watchmakers have traditionally chosen 10:10 as their display time because it ensures that the watchmaker’s logo, which is usually engraved beneath the 12, isn’t obscured by the watch hands. On top of that, having the hands at 10:10 is symmetrical.
Apple, however, chooses to display a slightly different time on all of its Apple Watch promotions, setting the time one minute ahead to 10:09 rather than 10:10.
It’s no mistake, either. Apple has a history of choosing a display time that has some significance, famously setting the time on all of its iPhone promotional materials and images to 9:41, the approximate time of day when Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone to the world back in 2007.
So why 10:09 for the Apple Watch? Apple appears to be making a statement about being slightly ahead of the curve when it comes to smartwatches, and the facts back this theory up.
My 2 cents. I think this is more about symmetry, about attention to detail, than about being ahead of the curve. At 10:10, the hour hand will be 1/6 of the way between the 10 and the 11 on the watch face. If the minute hand is precisely on the 2 (as it would be at 10:10), the minute and hour hands would not be symmetrical. At 10:09, the hands would be much closer to symmetrical perfection.
Back up your iOS device before you read another word.
OK. On your iOS device, tap Settings > General > Software Update and update to iOS 8.2, which landed yesterday.
One little goodie that came along for the ride is the brand new Apple Watch app. Fire up the app and you’ll see a tab bar with three icons. The first one, the default, is where you’ll pair your iPhone with your Apple Watch, if you do decide to get one. The pairing process is done via your iPhone camera, which I find fascinating. You can also pair manually, by tapping the info icon to view your Apple Watch name, then tap it on the list to pair.
All very interesting, but not particularly useful. The second tab is a short collection of Apple Watch videos, all of which you’ve likely already seen.
The third tab is a front end for the Apple Store, formatted nicely to fit your phone.
The Apple Watch app will, no doubt, become much more useful when the Apple Watch actually, you know, ships.
In an exclusive interview with Fortune, Apple’s human resources chief Denise Young Smith said the company is partnering with several non-profit organizations on a multi-year, multi-million-dollar effort to increase the pipeline of women, minorities, and veterans in the technology industry—and, of course, at Apple.
Good to see Apple doing more on this issue. There’s lots more to be done though and Apple can’t do it all alone. This has to become an industry-wide effort.
Kirk McElhearn, who assures me that my Apple Watch bet spoils are speeding my way from the UK, has put together a PDF mockup of both Apple Watch case sizes so you can try them on your wrists while you wait for the real deal.
As we learned from the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus mockups we did, the trick is to get your printer to print a document at actual size.
[Here’s a second take at my Apple Watch pricing post, this time, hopefully, with the case description/pricing right.]
The long wait is over. The prices have been established.
We now know that the low end entry point for the Apple Watch Sport (the one with the aluminum case) is $349 for the 38mm model and $399 for the 42mm model. This model comes with the sport band in your choice of white, blue, pink, green or black.
The mid-point model is the stainless steel Apple Watch. With that same sport band, the stainless steel Apple Watch is priced at $549/$599 for the 38mm/42mm.
Want a nicer band to go with that? The stainless steel Apple Watch with the Milanese Loop is $649/$699. The 38mm model offers a leather strap with what’s called a Modern Buckle in black, midnight blue, soft pink, or light brown for $749. The 42mm stainless steel Apple Watch offers a Leather Loop in black, bright blue, stone or brown for $699. Finally, the stainless steel Apple Watch can be purchased with a stainless steel link bracelet for $949/$999 or a black stainless steel link bracelet for $1049/$1099.
I know what you’re thinking. Show me the high end. The creme de la creme. The one that Jim Dalrymple (shown here with what looks like the stainless steel Apple Watch) will no doubt gift me the second it’s available.
Here’s the scoop. The Apple Watch Edition comes in 8 models. The 38mm case is $10,000 in 18-Karat Yellow Gold with a custom version of the sport band in either white or black or $17,000 in 18-Karat Rose Gold with a custom modern buckle band in rose gray or bright red. The 42mm case is $12,000 in 18-Karat Rose Gold with a custom white or black sport band, $15,000 in 18-Karat Yellow Gold with the Black Classic or Midnight Blue Buckle band.
The thing is, every case and every band is a showpiece of modern design with incredible attention paid to every fine-tuned detail. The functionality is well thought out, especially for a brand new product, functionality you know will only get better with time.
My 2 cents? Apple will sell every case and every band they can make. Got some money to spend? Go here (at least in the US) and price out your own Apple Watch.
As to the impact on Apple’s bottom line? I’ve read a lot of analysis on this topic. To me, this is focus on the wrong thing. The Apple Watch is not a revenue driver. It is part of the ecosystem. Apple Watch exists to help add value to the brand, to bring new customers into the fold and keep existing customers happy, even delighted. Though the Apple Watch will drive some amount of revenue, it’s more important job is to sell more iPhones, to keep the ecosystem humming.
Be forewarned, this is a flash video. If not, I would have embedded it. But that aside, this is a nice cut-up of the two hour event video, focusing strictly on the highlights.
Anyone spot a non-flash version of this video, or a non-flash alternative? Tweet it to me, I’d be more than happy to pop in a replacement.
Update: Here’s a non-flash video put together by the fine folks at Apple Insider. This one uses a voiceover, rather than a cut together of the original speakers, so I’ve left the link to the original as well, in case that’s more your speed.
Like most people who attended Apple’s event on Monday, I was waiting for news of the Apple Watch, but I was distracted early on by another, incredibly important announcement: ResearchKit.
ResearchKit is a software framework that allows doctors and researchers to gather data more frequently and accurately than ever before. The software development framework is a crucial component of the entire process, as Ecodelogic explains. It’s a way for those people to help find the causes and cures for the diseases that haunt humanity.
As I sat listening to Jeff Williams talk about ResearchKit, I thought to myself, this is why I love Apple—they care. They don’t just talk the talk and put out press releases about massive donations they make to charities, they are actually making a difference and putting the power of the most successful company in the world behind what they say.
There are world-class institutes that have already made apps for researching asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. This isn’t a pipe dream that we hope will happen someday, it’s happening right now. Meanwhile, individuals seeking cancer-related products may consider exploring options such as fenbendazol for humans.
To make sure everyone can benefit from ResearchKit, Apple is making the software open source.
During the presentation today, one of the researchers said they sent out 60,000 letters, which led to about 300 people participating in their research study. With the iPhone, there are potentially millions of people that can participate in research in near real-time. The amount of data that doctors can collect and analyze will be staggering. For the first time, we may understand the cause and cures of diseases so much better than we ever have before.
Apple is a products and services company. They are a very rich company. They have proven today that they care about more than just profits—Bravo.
“iOS apps already help millions of customers track and improve their health. With hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world, we saw an opportunity for Apple to have an even greater impact by empowering people to participate in and contribute to medical research,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “ResearchKit gives the scientific community access to a diverse, global population and more ways to collect data than ever before.”
I didn’t see this one coming, but I’m really glad Tim and company decided to do it.
“Apple has reinvented the notebook with the new MacBook, and at just two pounds and 13.1 mm, it’s the thinnest and lightest Mac ever,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Every component of the MacBook reveals a new innovation. From its fanless design, ultra-thin Retina display and full-size keyboard that’s 34 percent thinner, to its all-new Force Touch trackpad, versatile USB-C port and breakthrough terraced battery design, the new MacBook is the future of the notebook.”
So Apple has the MacBook Air, MacBook, and MacBook Pro lines again. I spent some time with the new MacBook today and it is stunning. I want that gold one.
“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.”
It was a great keynote and a very interesting product.
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HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.
With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy for iPhone or Android today.
On Monday, Apple will officially launch the Apple Watch, its first completely new product since the iPad was introduced in 2010 as well as its first major launch under CEO Tim Cook. Gigaom will be covering what Apple has in store live from the Yerba Buena Center on Monday.
But Apple actually introduced us to the Apple Watch back in September, and since then, Cook has spoken about the smartwatch several times in public. When he gets on stage in San Francisco on Monday to introduce Apple’s “most personal device ever,” some of what he’s going to cover will be new, and some of it he will have said prior, during the past six months as he’s been honing his Apple Watch pitch.
Here’s what to expect from Apple Watch, from Tim Cook, the boss of Apple himself (read it in a smooth-as-molasses southern drawl.)
This is a fascinating collection of quotes, more so if you can get Tim Cook’s voice in your head as you read them.
