Around the world, Apple Watch is helping people make life-changing improvements to their health and fitness.
I recently asked Cult of Mac readers to share their experiences getting in shape with Apple Watch, and the response has been amazing. Here are some of the inspiring stories I received — and some great insights into how you can use an Apple Watch to smash your fitness goals.
Apple Watch has a thing for style. Your wrist is the perfect spot for a subtle yet effective statement en la moda.
Apple-centric accessories brand ullu answers the call for tangible luxury with a line of fine-leather bands for Apple Watch. On some bands, the word fine understates what is actually exotic.
Peruse ullu’s collection of colorful, exotic bands in our Watch Store.
If you have something to count, a new Apple Watch app will let you do so quickly and easily.
Clicker comes from developer Craig Hockenberry, and it’s a crazy-simple way to count anything you have that needs counting. And it’s here to motivate you.
Swiss watchmakers have been tripping over themselves to dismiss the Apple Watch as a threat, but TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver has come out with what I think is one of the fairer assessments of Apple’s debut wearable device to date.
His take? That the Apple Watch is hella bad news if you’re a low-priced watchmaker, but probably okay if you’re making timepieces over the $2,000 mark.
Some Apple Watch users are apparently confused over what types of exercise the wearable’s Workout app can track. Many people are using it to log weightlifting or stretching sessions, even though Apple only claims the app is suitable for “dedicated cardio workouts.”
Fortunately, a new breed of fitness apps is emerging that uses the accelerometer access enabled by the recently released watchOS 2 to track strength and flexibility workouts more effectively.
A new study suggests that the increased popularity of wearables like the Apple Watch and fitness trackers in the workplace is giving information technology professionals the willies.
IT tool and service provider Ipswitch polled 288 workers who feel like the burgeoning devices might present some problems, especially if they’re connected to company-owned Wi-Fi networks.
From a gamer’s point of view, if not a developer’s, the ultimate metric of a new device is its TTD, or Time To Doom. Ever since the source code to the classic first-person shooter was released over a decade ago, it has been used as the standard measurement of a new device’s capabilities.
Now, Doom has been ported to the new Apple TV and watchOS 2.
Thanks to its arrival at major retailers like Target and Best Buy, the Apple Watch is going (more) mainstream — and Apple wants potential customers to know exactly what they’ll be able to do with their new wearable devices.
In six cool new ads, Apple shows off nifty Watch features like Apple Pay, Siri, Maps, voice messaging, fitness tracking, and more.
Check them out below.
Apple today launched its ultra-chic Apple Watch Hermès product line, as announced at the company’s media event last month.
Combining the existing Apple Watch hardware (only with the addition of a Hermès logo) with luxury leather straps from the Parisian fashion brand, the result is quite possibly the most stunning range of Apple Watches yet. They even come with unique Hermès watch faces.
Prices range from $1,100-$1,500.
This week: we’ve spent seven full days with iPhone 6s and we’re ready to report what we love and what we don’t. Plus: El Capitan just made your Mac a lot better! We’ll cover the cool tricks your Mac just learned. And then, how does $9 for an Apple Watch Sport band sound? How about $28 for a Leather Loop? Sure, the fake Apple Watch bands are 1/5 the price of genuine bands, but are they any good? We’ve been testing two fakes to find out, and the results might surprise you.
Our thanks to Lynda for supporting this episode. Lynda is like the Apple Music of online education, with over 3000 expert-taught video courses you can stream straight to computer or mobile device. Learn how to use Logic’s new super powerful Alchemy synth, or develop Mac apps for OS X—learn all you want for free for 10 days at lynda.com/cultcast.
Apple Watch is missing a “killer app.”
At least that’s what some say. Apple’s first wearable has been selling well, but its inability to convince everyone they need a smartwatch since it went on sale in late April is being blamed on its lack of stellar software by some analysts. But are they right?
Does Apple Watch really need a killer app to become the next iPod (in sales terms), or will it do perfectly well with thousands of great apps?
Join us as we battle it out over these questions and more in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac!
Continuing the mass rollout of the Apple Watch, Target announced today that it is ready to start selling the popular wearable device.
Target will begin stocking the Watch in selected stores this week, followed by its website on October 18, and in all retail stores by October 25.
Major Leaugue Baseball doesn’t have a great reputation of embracing Apple products on baseball diamond, but starting this week, teams will finally be allowed to replace their paper binders with iPads to look up everything from statistics, scouting reports, spray charts.
Teams were given the MLB’s blessing to start using iPads in the dugout during games, however there’s a catch: teams can’t connect iPads to WiFi during games, and all info must be downloaded before the first pitch.
With watchOS 2, you can now use any photo in your library to make a custom Apple Watch face. And that gives you a lot of freedom to make the wearable your own, but sometimes, you and the watch might have different ideas for how to treat your pictures.
Here’s a quick and easy way to make sure that your Apple Watch looks exactly how you want it to.
Every day, it’s the same thing. Wake up to my iPhone blaring OK Go’s “I Won’t Let You Down” at me, then fumble the Tap to Snooze function (which never seems to work for me in the morning). It’s not as simple as an alarm clock, and the distraction of having your iPhone with you when you go to sleep at night is something I think we all can do without.
Apple Watch now has the answer, in the form of a new watchOS 2 feature, Nightstand mode.
Here’s how to use it to help you get your sorry butt out of bed in the morning.
DataMan could be the name of a superhero, but it is instead an app that saves you from the dangers of going over your data limit. Now it has a sidekick for the Apple Watch that lets you be vigilant with a flick of the wrist.
The DataMan app for the watch lets you easily view your usage, but if you don’t need to know in detail, simply raise your wrist and an icon will appear in the upper left corner of your watch face that gives an idea. A green check means your safe, a blue exclamation point is for caution and a red X means you are in danger of going past your limit and paying nasty overage fees.
The teen who had his life saved thanks to his Apple Watch heart monitor has received a brand new iPhone 6s and — more importantly — an internship with Apple next summer.
17-year-old football player Paul Houle says he was recovering from his recent medical emergency when he received a very special call from Cupertino.
“I got a phone call from a California number, and [the person on the other end of the line] said ‘Hello, my name is Tim Cook, CEO of Apple,'” Houle says.
Here’s another tip that’s snuck into watchOS 2: Did you know that you can keep your Apple Watch awake longer now while you’re using it?
Apple hasn’t mentioned this feature much, if at all; we couldn’t even find it on the details screen when we upgraded. But it’s a great addition to the firmware that will save you a little frustration and a lot of wrist-flipping.
Here’s how to do it.
This week’s release of watchOS 2 brings a much-needed security update to Apple’s wearable by adding Activation Lock to the device, and the great news is that you may not even have to do anything to add it.
Activation Lock has been around for a while for other Apple devices, and its purpose is to keep thieves from using them even if they manage to get ahold of your preciouses. The first version of watchOS only included basic locking features and a passkey, which wouldn’t keep smart evildoers from gaining access to sensitive data like your Apple Pay data.
Here’s how the feature shows up on the Apple Watch.
The future of computing may be sitting on your wrist, but it’s still tethered to something a little old-fashioned. But as of Monday, the Apple Watch’s new operating system allows it to cut a few of the cords that connect it to the iPhone.
Apple’s watchOS 2 debuted, giving the watch new superpowers but also allowing native apps to run independently of the iPhone.
Third-party complications have arrived to the Apple Watch in watchOS 2, and setting them up is far from complicated.
The new operating system for Apple’s wearable dropped this week, and this is one of the features the company has talked up the most. And rightly so, because it adds a ton of new functionality to the device.
Here’s how to put a wealth of new information on your watch face.
Dave Justus is no stranger to writing video games, having written both Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us adventure game for Mac, PC and console, as well as the original Lifeline, a text-based story game that brought the epic struggles of an astronaut named Taylor to our wrists.
With the help of 3 Minute Games’ lead game designer Mars Jokela, Justus has created another massive adventure that still fits inside your Apple Watch. This time, however, you’ll have a conversation with Arika, a young woman with magical powers who needs your help to escape mortal danger.
Lifeline 2: Bloodline is a funny, moving, and above all human story that really plays to the strengths of the Apple Watch; it’s like having a text conversation (with a cheeky magician) from your wrist.
“We’ve built Lifeline 2 to be a bigger and richer experience,” says Jokela via email, “[but] the story is still focused on a likable, relatable character who desperately needs your help.”
If there’s one thing we could all benefit from, it’s more time in the day. Unfortunately, Time Travel on the new Apple Watch operating system, watchOS 2, won’t actually let you travel back in time to get a few extra hours of Netflix in, no matter which edition you purchased.
However, watchOS 2 does now include a new feature called Time Travel, which lets you see the past and future right on your wrist. You can check what the weather will be a few hours from now for your drive home, see if you’ve got any appointments later in the day, or just figure out what time the sun set yesterday to prove you were home before it got dark.
Either way, here’s how to Time Travel on your Apple Watch running watchOS 2.
Apple has hidden a Rickroll in plain sight in its latest Apple Watch help page, with a FAQ on how to add friends on your Apple Watch spelling out a very familiar reference.
Sure, it’s all a bit 2008 by now, but there’s still something hilarious about Apple spelling out “NE VE RG ON NA GI VE YU UP” as the initials of your apparent Apple Watch friends.
Well played, Apple. Well played!
Apple’s second major iteration of its wearable firmware, watchOS 2, is finally out today, and it has some extra fun features hiding along with all of the ones the company has been talking about since it first announced the update back in June.
Sure, native apps and custom watch faces are cool, but watchOS 2 also contains some smaller updates that you have to look for. Here are some of the hidden gems.