The Apple Watch has been out for a few months now, and it’s given us plenty of time to decide what we do and don’t want from the wearable. It’s a versatile device, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean that we expect it to do everything for us. In fact, a lot of the apps that we use all the time on our iPhones and iPads would be ill-suited, if not impossible for that plucky little screen.
Here are some Apple Watch apps that wouldn’t break our hearts if nobody ever got around to making them.
Apple Pay rolled out in the U.K. this week, letting a bunch more people start paying for snacks, clothes, and commutes with their late-model Apple gear. It’s all very neat and exciting, but our friends should get ready for some unexpected side effects of living in the high-tech future time.
For example:
Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra doesn’t put much stock in what he calls the “copycat melodrama” surrounding the company’s products, which bear more than a passing resemblance to Apple’s hardware.
Barra gave his thoughts on the matter to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. He says that the criticism is not so much because Xiaomi’s stuff looks like Apple’s stuff but rather because “every smartphone these days kinda looks like every other smartphone.”
You can see the whole clip below.
People (likely men) who are down with porn and not embarrassed about watching it through a hunk of cardboard on their heads are about to have a very good day.
A new adult-entertainment site launched today that is specifically geared toward virtual-reality gear like Google Cardboard, which means that the iPhone can now become part of an even less subtle way than usual of looking at pictures of naked people.
How big a fan of Hellboy are you?
If you answered, “Such a big fan that I wish ‘Hellboy’ were a language I could speak all the time — if only someone would make a keyboard to that effect,” you’re in luck because custom keyboard designer Swype has teamed up with publisher Dark Horse Comics to bring both Red and samurai rabbit Usagi Yojimbo to your iMessages.
Apple Pay dropped in the U.K. this week, and iPhone 6 and Apple Watch users can employ the touchless payment method to travel on a variety of public transports, including subway, London Overground, busses, and trams. But public agency Transport for London has issued an advisory to those who wish to pay for their commute with the power of living in the future:
Make sure your devices have enough juice to get you where you’re going, or it’ll cost you.
A new report suggests that the Apple Watch’s maker has sold its wearable short when it comes to its performance in water.
Developer Craig Hockenberry says that the wearable works (mostly) fine in liquid and knows because he swims with his smartwatch regularly. In the ocean.
Where sharks live.
The upcoming Suicide Squad movie may be the most gritty and in your face version of the world-saving team of supervillains, but it isn’t the only one around.
If you can’t wait until next year to see Task Force X in action, you have a few options available to see Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and their crazy friends right now in both live-action and animated forms. And they’re available online, so you can crank up your iPad or Apple TV and watch them right now.
We’re seeing a lot of reports across the Internet of Apple Watch owners getting some irritation from their wearables. We have a few likely culprits for these blights, including friction with the band; contact dermatitis from dirt, water, or soap getting stuck underneath; or allergic reactions to adhesives or nickel used in the smartwatch’s production.
Whatever the cause, however, the fact remains that wearable rashes are very real and not limited to Apple’s new smartwatch. Here are some of the most interesting (meaning disturbing and gross) pictures we’ve been able to turn up from the Internet.
Apple has a history of blasting fart apps from its App Store. But when is a fart just a fart, and when is it art?
Scott Kurtz, artist and writer of popular webcomic PvP, and his business partner Cory Casoni decided to find out with Farty Troll, a Flappy Bird clone about propelling a flatulent, blue giant named Skull through a maze of coffee cups using nothing but his own wind. Apple repeatedly rejected the app, but after a bit of straining and a lot of effort, it has finally come out.
It all started a year ago as part of Kurtz’s comic, which is about the employees of a magazine who were transitioning into game publishing.
Let’s be clear: It is incredibly dangerous to do anything with your phone while you’re driving. You shouldn’t be texting, checking your mail, or swiping through Tinder when you should be focused on all of the people and giant, dangerous machines around you.
But Toyota knows that despite all of the warnings and common sense, some people are just going to chance it anyway. So a new radio ad it’s running in Sweden is taking the choice out of their hands.
You can see the promotional video about the ad below.
A major pharmaceutical company is looking at how it might use ResearchKit to create new, potentially life-saving medicine.
Purdue Pharma, maker of painkiller Oxycontin, would be the first company to use Apple’s open-source, data collection platform for commercial use.
That Apple logo on your iPhone sure is pretty, but it doesn’t do a whole lot other than remind you who made your phone in case you forget. It’s kind of lazy that way, really.
But a recently published patent suggests that Apple might put that shiny bobble to use in future models of its hardware.
If you think it’s amazing that your iPhone can recognize your thumbprint and take your pulse, apparently you’re in for some future shocks.
Dr. Justin Sanchez, program manager of the Biological Technologies Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency says that these basic biometrics are just the beginning for how our bodies could one day interact with technology.
“Many of you are just getting things back like, ‘This is what your heart rate is right now’ or ‘You took 6,000 steps today,'” Sanchez said at DARPA’s annual conference last month. “Who cares about that stuff? What you really want to do is use that information to help you interact with machines in a much deeper way.”
You can see the full presentation below.
Some comments from mobile-gaming platform DeNA chief Shintaro Asako suggest that Nintendo is taking a catch-all route when it starts bringing its beloved characters and properties to iOS and Android later this year.
Nintendo’s first five mobile offerings will all be in different genres to attract the maximum number of players across the board.
A new e-mail campaign from music streaming app Spotify is aiming to hit Apple right where it hurts — its service fees.
Spotify is notifying its iOS customers to let them know about the 30 percent extra Apple tacks onto its Premium service when listeners pay $12.99 a month through iTunes. It directs them instead to Spotify’s own website, where the same option with the same features only costs $9.99. You can see the image accompanying the e-mail below.
Nobody’s really sure what to do with wearables like the Apple Watch, and we don’t just mean in the “How does this improve my life?” sense of it. Safety and cheating concerns are putting it on a lot of people’s ban radar, and laws are scrambling to incorporate the new tech as needed.
But some researchers at Penn State are about to see if the Apple Watch might find a home in the classroom, after all.
Tinder is going hands-free, but not how you’re thinking, sicko.
Developer T-3 has looked at dating app Tinder, which has people swiping left or right to choose potential connections, and thought, “That seems like a lot of work.”
Its solution: Let your involuntary physical functions swipe for you. You can see the idea in action in the video below.
You know that feature when you order online from Domino’s that keeps you posted on the process of your order and even tells you which employee has put your pizza in the oven, and who just left the store to bring it to you?
I love that feature, for some reason. I don’t think it makes me some kind of creepy pizza stalker, if that’s even a thing.
But my main issue is that I had to keep my laptop open to stay on top of the whole process. Luckily, however, Domino’s has addressed that one, strangely specific gripe with the latest update to its mobile app.
If you’re starting to figure out how you can use HomeKit to make your house less dumb, you can now get started by heading to the Apple Store and picking up the ecobee3, the first thermostat that works with Apple’s smart-appliance platform.
The device retails for $249, and it’s available in North America Apple Stores today.
Smug Californians now have proof they’re better than you.
A couple of the most popular fitness apps in the App Store have pooled their data to figure out which U.S. states have the best (and worst) health habits. They examined a combination of workout and nutritional info among their users and concluded that the Golden State has the best habits, and Wyoming has a lot of work to do.
I typically look for two things in a hotel room: Internet included with the room and free breakfast. But a new hotel in London’s Covent Gardens might have me adding some things to that list.
The recently opened Hub hotel from Premier Inn, the U.K.’s largest lodging chain, sports some pretty impressive tech features that involve both smartphones and wearables like the Apple Watch. And while your hotel room shouldn’t be the coolest part of any trip, Premier is really giving the rest of your vacation something to live up to.
The Apple Watch may not be available in New Zealand yet, but that isn’t stopping some safety-minded organizations from seeking to ban it, and other smartwatches, from use while driving.
“A second’s inattention at the wheel can result in tragedy,” said advocate Caroline Perry of road-safety charity Brake. “Smartwatches and other wearable technology are extremely distracting if used while driving.”
The Apple Watch isn’t completely waterproof, so it makes sense that you won’t find a swimming option in the Workouts app. But that hasn’t stopped one development team from building their own way to track aquatic exercises on the wearable.
Active in Time has ported its own Pebble swimming app over to Apple’s smartwatch, and it tested its functionality (and the Apple Watch’s water resistance) with four lengths in an Olympic swimming pool. You can see the results in the video below.
In 1987, Apple created a video set in 1997 that was all about how much better the world was with all of the amazing Apple products the company was going to create. Almost 20 years later, some of the predictions in this ’80s-tastic fantasy film are true, and some are laughably (and thankfully) absent from current hardware.
Check out the video below, but brace yourself for some really bad jokes.