Swatch Group AG isn’t planning to just roll over dead now that Apple is entering the timepiece market. Swatch announced today that it’s preparing its own smartwatch to take on Apple Watch, and it’ll be ready to launch in just three months.
Swatch CEO Nick Hayek was originally skeptical of the smartwatch revolution two years ago, but in an interview with Bloomberg, Hayek said his company is ready to throw its numerous patents into a smartwatch that won’t need daily recharging.
Apple has been working on iOS 8.2 for a while now. Just yesterday, they released iOS 8.2 beta 5 to developers, introducing new changes to WatchKit, the new API for Apple Watch developers.
Given how many betas of iOS 8.2 have come out so far, you might expect that its public release is right around the corner. But a new report suggests we have a long way to go, and the release of iOS 8.2 will be accompanied by an official Apple event — as well as the new MacBook Air.
Today Apple seeded the fifth beta of iOS 8.2 to developers. While nothing too significant seems to have been added, there are some updates to WatchKit.
When the first iPhone came out in 2007, third-party apps were limited affairs: glorified web apps without a lot of access to the iPhone’s more advanced functionality. According to a new blog post from Eleks Labs, a developer working on an Apple Wacth Tesla app, the same could be true of third-party Apple Watch apps when the wearable launches in April.
This week: Apple has its best quarter ever, Apple Watch is coming in April and the best parts of the iOS 8.1.3 and Yosemite 10.10.2 updates. Plus, Disney considers a reboot of the beloved Indiana Jones movies, and then things really go off the rails in Facts of Life, a new game where we mix real facts with fake ones, then guess which is which!
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I’ll admit it: I don’t think I want an Apple Watch. I don’t need another screen to notify me about what’s happening on another screen.
That’s what I think now. But I’m not arrogant enough to believe Apple might not prove me wrong. They’ve certainly proven me wrong before.
Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you think the Apple Watch isn’t something you want, but you’re worried that the second you see one, you’ll want one. You’re right to be worried. Apple Watches are starting to be spotted in the wild. And the people who see them are immediately turning into believers.
China’s elite class overwhelmingly prefers Apple products for gift giving, even more so than luxury fashion brands like Gucci and Chanel.
An interesting survey conducted by Hurun asked 376 Mainland Chinese millionaires about their buying habits, and their responses also bode quite favorably for the forthcoming Apple Watch.
At least one of the big boys is planning on developing an app for the Apple Watch. eBay has posted an ad listing, looking for a developer to help them come up with a bidding app for Cupertino’s new smartwatch.
Apple closed its earnings call this afternoon after announcing an unprecedented 74.5 million iPhone sales to go along with $74.6 billion in revenue and $18 billion in profits. It broke the record for the most money made by a corporation in history.
While breaking down the Q1 2015 numbers, Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri also gave us some juicy details about what’s in store for 2015 by hinting at new products in the pipeline, as well as subtly dropping the Apple Watch’s release date.
We’ve combed through the numbers and the conference call and found seven huge new revelations every Apple fan needs to know:
During today’s historic Apple earnings call, Tim Cook dropped a subtle bomb on Apple fans by revealing that the Apple Watch is slated to launch in April.
“I’m using it every day and I love it and I can’t live without it,” Cook said.
While he didn’t give a specific release date for the wearable, it’s the first time Apple’s narrowed down the launch beyond “early 2015.” Cook said Apple considers “early” to be sometime within the first four months of the year, so the Apple Watch is right on target.
This week: Why Apple Watch will win the wrist war, we snap a pic with Patrick Stewart but he’s not amused, the good and bad of a George Lucas-free Star Wars 7, Microsoft’s new HoloLens looks incredible, and we reveal some of our favorite apps and gear on an all-new Under Review.
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Fresh off his deep dive into CES, Alex takes on home automation and how HomeKit may just change everything, making the dream of an easy, ubiquitous home future a reality. Rob takes a look at a new game that turns your Apple TV into a motion-controlled gaming console, Buster shows us how the Apple Watch has already won the war for your wrist, Luke builds his own fun with a shoebox full of maker-kit for kid-friendly iPad gadgets, and Lewis spends a little time in Microsoft’s holographic future.
We’ve got all this and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, so make sure to subscribe and download your copy today.
2014 was a landmark year for quality iOS games and, while we’re fully expecting to see more great titles for iPhone and iPad in 2015, it’s also clear that devs are keen to leap on the Apple Watch as soon as possible.
With that in mind, longtime iOS developers NimbleBit have announced that their upcoming word-game Letterpad will absolutely, 100 percent definitely, be coming to Apple Watch — and they’ve even released some mockups showing how it will look on Apple’s eagerly-anticipated wearable debut.
You’ve got to hand it to Sir Jonathan Ive: Apple’s head of design knows how to scare the competition. Wearables at CES were a huge disappointment, and there was a palpable sense that everyone was just waiting for the Apple Watch to come out.
Even the Swiss watch industry is scared. After initially dismissing the Apple Watch as a design joke, TAG Heuer’s luxury watch guru is singing a new tune.
We still don’t have a launch date for Apple Watch, but if you can’t wait to line up at Apple Stores for Jony Ive’s timepiece, you can do the next best thing and buy a knockoff.
Earlier this morning, an eBay listing for a “prototype Apple Watch” sold in just hours for $260. The seller claims it’s an Apple prototype obtained from a cousin who works at Apple, but the sticker on the front and cheap leather band give it away as an obvious fake.
Here’s a look at the listing:
The forthcoming Apple Watch may be Apple’s first tentative steps into the wearables market, but it’s not the company’s first attempt at a timepiece — as YouTube user Jonathan Morrison shows in a new video.
You see, back in 1995, when Apple was still reeling from the damaging blow that was Windows 95, the company produced a limited collection of custom-made wristwatches to reward users who upgraded to Mac OS System 7.5. And despite its slightly Saved By The Bell appearance, it was actually pretty neat.
Check out Morrison’s video after the jump.
Ever since Tim Cook unveiled the Apple Watch last September, it’s been one disappointment after another as far as I’m concerned. Apple’s first wearable won’t come in the minimalist form factor of the fitness bracelets I love. Worse yet, the launch version of the fashion-forward device will lack GPS, suffer from underwhelming battery life and fail to offer truly native third-party apps.
For the first time, I realized I would not be buying an Apple product when it first hit the market. “It’s not worth lining up for,” I told my dad when he asked what I thought after the Apple Watch’s big reveal.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Apple Watch’s launch day, which is coming sometime this spring. And I’m not talking about the previously unthinkable — an Apple fan calling the Microsoft Band the best smartwatch on the planet. No, I’m talking about wading through an ungodly sea of really bad smartwatches at International CES earlier this month and seeing indisputable proof of just how innovative and disruptive Apple Watch actually will be.
You know that scene in a horror movie where everything seems to be good, but things are just a bit too quiet?
Well, according to analyst Abhey Lamba of Mizuho Securities, Apple is there right now. With the company coming off its most profitable iPhone launch ever, exciting new devices on the horizon and a stock price that recently hit an all-time high, what else is there for the self-respecting analyst to do but predict that doom is right around the corner?
What is the metaphorical monster ready to leap out of a cupboard and savage Apple to bloody death, so soon after it hits its glorious peak? Why, the Apple Watch of course.
And according to Lamba, it could cost Apple big.
We’ve known for a while now that a fortunate few people with close ties to Apple have been testing the Apple Watch in the wild, but this may be our best glimpse yet.
Posted on Instagram by Vogue international editor Suzy Menkes, the picture shows a man’s arm (thereby ruling out Menkes herself) sporting the chic Apple smartwatch, which Apple has been heavily promoting in fashion and design circles.
“So here is that new Apple watch gleaming and glinting and performing at the dinner table,” Menkes wrote. “Who owns the arm?! A free Apple watch for anyone who guesses right!”
Sadly, she went on to add that she was “only kidding.”
LAS VEGAS — The problem with the state of smartwatches, beyond the sucky software, is that they’re all ugly. The Apple Watch might very well be the first wearable that not only works, but looks good too, although we won’t know for sure until the finished product is on our wrists this spring.
There were dozens and dozens of smartwatches displayed on the sprawling show floor at International CES last week, but the only one that looked good enough to adorn my wrist was the new Withings Activité Pop.
It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of fancier watches like the Samsung Galaxy Gear, but it’s not your average dumb watch either. And for now, just a smidgen smarter is smart enough.
This week: As promised! With over 430,000 Instagram followers, photographer Cory Staudacher, aka @withhearts, joins us to talk mobile photography, his favorite photo apps and gear, and his tips for capturing beautiful images with your favorite iDevice. Plus, someone tries to burn down the Mrs. Doubtfire house—time for a drive-by fruiting; prepare thy wrists, the Watch may cometh in March; and details on a radically new Macbook Air.
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Can’t wait to get your hands on the Apple Watch? Well, tough, you’ll have to. But if you’d just like to play around with the interface, we can help you out, thanks to this new online Apple Watch simulator.
Samsung reportedly has Apple’s blessing to manufacture the processors for the Apple Watch, which will be allegedly be made using the company’s 28nm process technology.
The order would come at just the right time for Samsung, which recently announced another quarter of poor earnings: giving it its first annual profit decline since 2011.
With Samsung’s mobile division in the toilet, the company needs to focus on other areas, like securing orders for chip fabrication.
LAS VEGAS — In a sea of iPhone cases and other Apple-related gizmos, one would expect to find at least a few Apple Watch accessories at CES.
Sure, the Watch itself won’t come out for probably a few more months, but we already know what it looks like and a lot about how its apps will work. Where are the companies looking to hitch their wagons to Apple’s next big thing?
Out of the 3,679 exhibitors spread across the 2.06 million square feet of show floor at International CES this year, there is only one Apple Watch accessory, and it’s an unfinished prototype.
Foxconn’s new $2.6 billion factory dedicated to building displays exclusively for Apple will supply OLED panels for future iPhones and wearables, according to a report from leading Japanese newspaper Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun.
Long-time Apple manufacturer Foxconn is supposedly working with touch panel company InnoLux to put together an ecosystem, allowing it to produce sixth-gen low temperature poly-silicon films, aimed at entering mass production in 2016.