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What your favorite apps look like on the Apple Watch

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Apple Watch isn't being too closely, err, watched. Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

What will make or break the Apple Watch for most people isn’t a fancy band or the feel of the Digital Crown. It will be the apps they can use.

And after today’s Spring Forward event, it looks like a lot of apps will be ready for Watch on day one.

There won’t be an App Store on the Watch itself, but you’ll be able to install apps directly from a special section of the App Store on a paired iPhone. Here are what the hottest third-party Watch apps will look like, including ones Apple isn’t showing off on its site:

Apple Watch sizing guide finds your perfect fit from home

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Apple Watch sizing in store. Photo: Apple

 

Starting April 10th you’ll be able to go into any Apple Store and try on Jony Ive’s amazing new timepiece.

If you’d rather not wait and want to see how Apple’s timepiece will fit your wrist right now, Apple’s got a handy sizing guide that will help you find the perfect size from your house. The Apple Store app for iOS also has a size comparison tool so you can see how big each watch face is on your wrist.

Grab the printout version below:

ResearchKit turns every iPhone into a medical crowdsourcing tool

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ResearchKit could transform the way we gather large scale clinical datasets. Photo: Apple
ResearchKit could transform the way we gather large scale clinical datasets. Photo: Apple

Aside from the gorgeous new 12-inch MacBook Air, the part of today’s Apple keynote that excited me the most was the announcement of what Apple is calling ResearchKit, a new open-source iOS software framework designed to crowdsource volunteers for medical research studies.

Using the tool, researchers can tap into Apple’s massive iPhone user base to recruit people for medical data-gathering. Users sign up with a digital signature, and can then instantly begin recording data.

Feast your eyes on the gorgeous new Retina MacBook

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I love gooooold! And so does the new MacBook. Photo: Apple

“We set out to completely reinvent the notebook,” Tim Cook told the crowd during today’s Apple event. “And we did it.”

Apple introduced it’s biggest redesign of the MacBook since the original MacBook Air was released in 2007. The new notebook comes weighing in at just 2 pounds and 13.1mm thick, despite boasting a Retina display with a 2,304-by-1,440 resolution.

The thinness of the new MacBook isn’t the only thing that’s impressive. There’s a new Taptic TouchPad, thin keyboard and USB C. Plus, Apple invented new terraced batteries to squeeze juice into every cranny of the all-metal housing, giving you 10 hours of use on a single charge.

The 7 biggest shockers from Apple’s ‘Spring Forward’ event

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Only the sticker shock mattered. Photo: Apple
Only the sticker shock mattered. Photo: Apple

The biggest surprise about today’s big Apple Watch event? That Cupertino’s upcoming wearable didn’t really steal the show.

We got a few new details about the smartwatch, but Tim Cook and crew really blew our minds with several other big announcements. Here are the most important revelations from the show at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

How much every Apple Watch band costs

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Apple Watch. Photo: Apple
Apple Watch. Photo: Apple

The Apple Online Store is back up and, along with revealing how exorbitantly expensive the Apple Watch Edition will be, Apple has laid out the prices for its various watch bands.

Right now the Apple Store carries a variety of different band styles. We imagine more will be come out as the product line progresses, but it looks like you’ll only be able to get the Classic Buckle if you throw down $10,000 for the Apple Watch Edition. The Sport watch bands come with two bands in the box: one small, one large.

Here are the different price points:

iOS 8.2 is here with an Apple Watch app you can’t delete

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Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

Apple’s big keynote just ended, and iOS 8.2 has already been released.

The update includes the new companion app for the Apple Watch, which will be required for setting up the device and loading apps. It also can’t deleted, which means it will be a constant reminder of the Watch you don’t.

Here’s what the official Apple Watch app looks like:

The Apple Store is back and ready for orders

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Are you ready to get your fingers all over the brand new MacBook with its Force Touch trackpad?

Get your credit cards ready because the online Apple Store is back and ready for your hard earned cash. You can pick up the fanless MacBook if you don’t mind shelling out $1599, though there’s no word on when it ships.

The updated MacBook Pro and MacBook Airs are listed in the store and start shipping today. And if you want to start lusting after the Apple Watch Edition, you can look through the different price combinations while waiting for April 24th to finally get here.

The most expensive Apple Watch Edition costs $17,000

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Photo: Apple
Photo: Cult of Mac

Not satisfied with just having a regular gold Apple Watch for $10,000?

The Apple Store just came back online, revealing that you can actually spend a whopping $17,000 on two of the 18-karat Rose Gold watches.

Fashionistas can grab the 38mm rose gold case with a rose gray modern buckle or a bright red modern buckle for 17 grand. At least free shipping is included.

Nordstrom may be only retail partner for Apple Watch

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Upscale fashion retailer Nordstrom could be one of the few non-Apple Store places to buy an Apple Watch. Photo: Bill Holmes/Flickr CC
Upscale fashion retailer Nordstrom could be one of the few non-Apple Store places to buy an Apple Watch. Photo: Bill Holmes/Flickr CC

One of the biggest unknowns about the Apple Watch — and something we’re hopefully just an hour away from learning — is just how Apple plans to sell its first ever wearables device.

Is the Apple Watch going to be an Apple Store exclusive, giving more of a reason to visit your local store than ever, or will it be like the iPhone and therefore available for sale in a number of third-party retailers?

According to Reuters, retailers Best Buy, Macy’s, Saks 5th Avenue, Bloomingdales and Barney’s all have no plans to carry Apple smartwatch — although upscale fashion retailer Nordstrom is reportedly in discussions to be an Apple Watch purveyor.

Susan Kare’s original Mac icon designs go on show in New York

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Fast Company/Susan Kare
Susan Kare helped define the personality of the Macintosh. Photo: Fast Company/Susan Kare
Photo: Fast Company/Susan Kare

As the artist responsible for the famous icons used for the original Macintosh, Susan Kare played an immensely important role in personal computer history. A new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York pays homage to the queen of pixel art — while giving Mac fans a chance to see Kare’s original graph paper designs in the process.

Called “This is for Everyone: Design Experiments For The Common Good” (the name comes from a phrase from World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee), the exhibition also features other classic bits of computer iconography, including @ symbol, Google Maps Pin and the Creative Commons logo.

Liveblog: Time to answer all your Apple Watch questions

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Ready to Spring Forward. Photo: Jim Merithew/ Cult of Mac
Ready to "Spring Forward?" Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple is hosting a big media event today in San Fransisco for the hotly anticipated Apple Watch. It’s been about six months since the Watch was first shown off to world, but plenty of questions still need answering, like pricing beyond the $349 base model and when the wearable will go on sale. App demos should also be a big part of today’s presentation, because killer software will be instrumental in convincing people to buy an Apple Watch.

And who knows, there could always be some surprise Mac news.

The event starts at 10 a.m. Pacific, and Apple will provide a (hopefully working) live stream on its website. We’ll be breaking down all the news you need to know, with expert analysis and the usual pinch of sass. We invite you to follow along with us below. No need to refresh the page; the liveblog updates on its own!

Watch today’s keynote via the ‘Special Events’ channel on Apple TV

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Photo: MacStores
Are you ready for the Apple Watch? Photo: MacStories

Whether it’s watching it via Apple’s website, or joining us here on Cult of Mac for our live blog, there are plenty of ways to keep abreast of today’s “Spring Forward” Apple keynote.

If you’ve got an Apple TV, you can also tune in to watch the event — courtesy of the newly-added Apple Events channel.

Drone flyover shows how Apple’s Campus 2 is coming together

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Apple Campus 2 Rendered
A rendering showing Apple's Campus 2 as it will appear in 2016. Photo: Apple

We’re hours away from one of Apple’s most important special events in years, so what better time than to check in on the progress the company has made on its forthcoming Campus 2, courtesy of a new drone flyover video.

The video shows the extent to which the futuristic “spaceship” campus is taking shape, with much of the landscaping done. Earthwork is set to continue until the middle of this year, and overall construction is set to be completed by late 2016.

Check out the video below.

Eddy Cue talks Apple Watch, theft and Apple Pay

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Eddy Cue spotted sporting an Apple Watch at a basketball game! Photo: CNET
Eddy Cue spotted sporting an Apple Watch at a basketball game! Photo: CNET

Here’s a weird setting for an Apple Watch interview: CNET caught up with Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of Internet software and services, at a Golden State Warriors basketball game Friday. And Cue actually walked CNET through how Apple Pay will work on your Apple Watch, as well as how it will prevent thieves from stealing your watch and draining your bank account with it.

Will Apple sell custom watch faces for the Apple Watch?

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Here's a brief glipse of the Apple Watch's
Here's a brief glipse of the Apple Watch's "Add new watch face" button. Photo: Cult of Mac

One of the big questions we’re looking forward to Apple answering at tomorrow’s Apple Watch event is actually a relatively simple one: Can Apple Watch users add their own custom watch faces to the device?

The answer to that question might seem obvious, but Apple has not gone on record saying you can add new faces to the Apple Watch. Instead, the official website details just nine faces for the Apple Watch.

But if we had to bet on whether the Apple Watch will allow you to add custom faces, we’d guess yes. In fact, I bet we’ll see a lot more about this tomorrow. Here’s why.

Why Apple needed to invent a new kind of gold for Apple Watch Edition

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Photo: Apple
Come April, there's going to be a new gold rush. Photo: Cult of Mac

For the 18 karat gold Apple Watch Edition, Jony Ive told The Financial Times on Friday that Apple had created a process to place molecules in Apple gold closer together, consequently making it harder than standard gold.

But there’s more to it than that, with a metallurgist now explaining that Apple’s more densely packed gold atoms could reduce the amount of gold it needs to use per watch by a lot.

Awesome apps you might have missed this week

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Awesome-Apps-of-the-Week

It’s the weekend, and Cult of Mac is here to bring you a roundup of all the app awesomeness you might have missed from the last week.

There’s a hot new video streaming app called Meerkat that’s taking the tech world by storm, a fun new game that’s totally free, a widget-based app to keep you on top of the news, the Microsoft Office 2016 beta preview, and more.

Without further ado, here are this week’s awesome apps!


Awesome Apps

Catch our Spring Forward event hopes and expectations on this week’s CultCast

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Apple Watch time y'aaaall!
Apple Watch time, y'aaaall!

It’s time… for our Apple Watch desires to be fulfilled. With the big day coming March 9th, catch our Spring Forward event expectations, all that we know about the Apple Watch thus far, and our expectations for other Apple hardware announcements. Plus: why Apple watch will replace your keys; Apple adds cars to its list of products; and since the new Photos app for Mac just hit public beta, we’ll tell you what we like and don’t about Apple’s iPhoto replacement.

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

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Full show notes ahead!

Survival of the fittest: Apple Watch versus fitness trackers

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Will Apple Watch win the fitness-tracking race? Photo: Nathan Rupert/Flickr CC
Will Apple Watch win the fitness-tracking race? Photo: Nathan Rupert/Flickr CC

Apple Watch is entering the race to become the leader in wearable tech. And dedicated fitness trackers like the Nike+ FuelBand, Fitbit and Jawbone Up may struggle to keep up with Cupertino’s pace.

Few people remember the MP3 players that iPod left in its wake. Smartphones overtaken by iPhone shared a similar dismal fate. Could fitness wearables be next on the endangered list?

Apple Watch battery life will be better than expected

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apple-watch

Apple has been very quiet about the Apple Watch’s battery life since the device’s unveiling in September. Reports that the wearable might run out of juice after just 2.5 hours of heavy use have worried many Apple fans, but according to TechCrunch, battery life will be better than expected.

Tim Cook has said Apple Watch owners will need to recharge their devices every night. That doesn’t mean the battery will run dry midway through the workday, though. People who have used the Apple Watch say you should still have around 25 percent of your battery left after a long day.

Apple will kill free music with Beats revamp

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Apple has big ambitions for its new music streaming service.
Beats redesign is coming to WWDC 2015. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple will supposedly unveil a big redesign of Beats Music in June, but if you are hoping it will come with a free, ad-supported tier, you’re going to be out of luck.

Apple wants to help music labels kill free music streaming by inking deals that will give subscribers exclusive access to albums before they hit rival players like Spotify, Rdio and Pandora.

Japan Display is building a $1.4 billion plant just for Apple

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iPhone 6 Plus. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
iPhone 6 Plus. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo:

With more than 70 million iPhones sold in the last quarter alone, Apple has quickly become one of the world’s largest display buyers. To meet the increasing demand for iPhones, Apple has reportedly struck a deal with Japan Display to build a $1.4 billion factory dedicated solely to smartphone displays.