Far from being a superfluous device strictly for hard-core Apple fans, the Apple Watch is a surprisingly delightful and useful device.
Now that we’ve spent enough time with the latest gadget from the mothership, we’re noticing quite a few sweet little positives (and a couple negatives) about Apple Watch.
Bottom line: The more you use this thing, the better it is.
Most of us can agree that selfie sticks are pretty much the bane of humanity, right? Heck, even Apple agrees: Cupertino already threw down a decree from on high that selfie sticks are not welcome at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
But while I admit to thinking the selfie stick pretty much represented the nadir of civilization and the beginning of the end for humanity, I spoke too soon.
It’s nothing compared to this monstrosity: the Selfie Arm.
The Apple Watch is such a stunningly gorgeous piece of engineering that throwing it down on your nightstand at the end of a hard day — as if it were a common-as-dirt Android Wear device — is borderline insulting.
What you need is an equally attractive charging stand to proudly display your new wearable as it’s refreshed for the following day.
But which one to choose? Follow Cult of Mac’s suggestions and you’ll be keeping your Watch battery fully-juiced in style.
Most early reviews of the Apple Watch didn’t do it justice. It’s fine, they said, but not for everybody.
Come on! COME ON!!!!
The Apple Watch is the most exciting gadget for years. Its ambition is huge. It does a ton of stuff. It’s not some silly smartwatch — it’s a computer for your wrist. And I’m loving it.
Yeah, it has its quirks, and it’s far from perfect, but it’s a great vision, and it’s only going to get better!
It’s a ton of fun, and it works great — except when it doesn’t.
More Apple Watch owners with wrist tattoos are reporting problems using the device. The light sensors that enable the Watch to determine if it’s being worn apparently get confused by tattooed skin.
The problem — let’s call it “Tattoogate” — is possibly the result of metallic pigments used for the inking process, although nobody knows for sure. While the glitch affects only a small number of users, it’s definitely mauling the buzz of some frustrated Apple Watch early adopters.
Cult of Mac reader Michael Lovell spoke with us about his disappointing experiences with the Apple Watch, and even sent in a video demonstrating the problem. Check it out below!
Apple Watch is the most confounding device to come out of Cupertino since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. Is is it a watch? Is it a tiny computer on your wrist? It’s both — and it’s so much more.
After four days playing with the Apple Watch, we’ve found it to be far more futuristic — and far more fun — than we could have imagined. (It’s even more impressive if you’ve tried any of the other smartwatches on the market.)
Apple Watch isn’t without its disappointments, though. If you’re still unsure whether to shackle yourself to Jony Ive’s fabulous timepiece, here’s our take on what works — and what doesn’t.
The iPhone 6 is a monster hit, China is now bigger than US for iPhone sales, and Tim Cook is delighted with the world’s response to the Apple Watch. And those are just some of the key insights from today’s Apple earnings call.
Here are the top 11 takeaways about Cupertino’s blockbuster second quarter, which once again set financial records.
There’s an old adage about most sports car crashes happening within minutes of leaving the automobile showroom for the first time, and apparently the same is true of clumsy (or unfortunate) Apple fans enjoying their first weekend with a brand new Apple Watch on their wrist.
Almost like a badge of honor, social media already shows multiple people who managed to break their Apple Watches before most of us even got our hands on one of the devices.
There are plenty of great apps for the Apple Watch, but what about the weird ones?
Developers have some interesting ideas for what you’d want to do on your wrist. Here are some of the weirdest, goofiest and most downright bizarre Watch apps:
The weird thing about all the promotional videos for the Apple Watch is how perfect the hand models are. The people wearing the watches look like citizens from Logan’s Run: fresh and young and perfect.
What you won’t see is a parade of hairy arms.
But now that the Apple Watch is out in the wild, that’s exactly what you get on Instagram. These pictures tell the real story.
Once your Apple Watch arrives, you’re going to slap it on your wrist ASAP. But then what?
There’s a fairly steep learning curve for the Apple Watch, since Apple came up with innovations like Force Touch and the Digital Crown to make wrist computing more manageable. Luckily, there’s an easy way you can avoid being baffled by your shiny new Apple Watch — and it won’t take more than a half-hour of your precious time.
Greg Pabst and his neurologist were trying to get a handle on his adult onset epilepsy when the doctor’s mention of the newly announced Apple Watch gave Pabst an ah-hah moment.
The doctor was discussing tools for Pabst to chart his seizures and send alerts to emergency contacts.
“Then he said, ‘It’s only a matter of time before somebody does that for the Apple Watch,’ ” Pabst, 38, recalled. “Then I thought maybe it should be me.”
Pabst, of Orlando, Fla., and a developer friend quickly went to work creating SeizAlarm, which appeared in the iTunes store for the iPhone last week and is available for the watch, the pre-orders for which begin arriving Friday.
Crafting a tiny icon for an Apple Watch app is a huge design challenge. Coming up with one that’s truly adorable – even at 80 pixels by 80 pixels – requires something like a graphic design miracle.
Lucky for anyone strapping an Apple Watch on their wrists this Friday, some designers have been working wonders. Behold the cutest Apple Watch app icons in the world!
Apple has begun rejecting iOS apps that support Pebble, the immensely popular and more affordable alternative to Apple Watch.
One developer received an email to say that their app, SeaNav US, was no longer welcome in the App Store because it mentions the Pebble — a third-party mobile platform — in its description.
Apple has started notifying numerous Apple Watch customers who preordered the device that their orders have shipped, and that they can expect to receive the eagerly anticipated device tomorrow.
Woop woop!
Were you hoping to get your Apple Watch preorder on Friday? We were, but based on the shipment status of our orders here at Cult of Mac HQ, all our watches are still stuck at “Preparing for Shipment” despite the fact we’ve already been charged for the orders.
We asked Apple fans this morning if they’re starting to worry that their preorders might not arrive as quickly as expected and the responses bordered closer to panic than simply worried.
Apple Watch might be the most controversial product Cupertino’s ever launched, but according to Jony Ive, Apple’s been on this path since the Jobs and Woz founded the company.
The Apple design boss and Marc Newson opened the inaugural Condé Nast International Luxury Conference today in Florence, Italy, to talk about their smartwatch that’s part fashion item, part tech gadget. Ive and Newson sat down with conference host Suzy Menkes and explained how they approached the development of Apple WAtch.
“We don’t look at the world through predetermined market opportunities,” said Ive. “What we’ve done fairly consistently is try to invest tremendous care in the development of our products.”
Here are the eight most important bits we learned about the Apple Watch’s development:
When you hold up your wrist to admire your new Apple Watch, the shiny new device might also catch the eye of an opportunistic thief.
Police and security experts are urging common sense and awareness of surroundings when interacting in public with the new smartwatch, which will begin arriving on doorsteps and adorning wrists Friday.
Like an autopsy performed on a cadaver that’s yet to be born, slick new renderings dissect the Apple Watch and show off its shiny guts.
Since few normal people have an actual Apple Watch in hand, concept artist Martin Hajek created the images using information gleaned from Apple’s website and industrial porn videos about the making of the smartwatch.
It can be tricky to get the best shot when taking a selfie or group shot with your iPhone. If you want a better angle than the length of your arm can provide (or your ridiculous selfie stick will telescope to), you might consider setting your iPhone on a ledge or tripod and using the built-in timer mode to get yourself and everyone else into position before the shutter goes off.
It’s not super-tricky, but you do need to know where to look. Here’s our recipe to enable timer mode on your iPhone.
Imagine an iPad Air sliced in half. The top half peels up to reveal a pin-sharp high-res screen. The other half has a full-size keyboard that’s almost flat.
This is the new MacBook. As usual, Apple’s latest crazy-thin laptop is dividing the tech punditsphere.
Because it comes with only one port, some think this machine is too radical, too new. It’s been called a glorified netbook — short on features, and, to really rub it in, high on price.
But I’m smitten. We have one in here at the Cult of Mac offices, and I’ve been putting it through its paces. Here’s what I found.
In Mac OS X, you’ll spend much of your time in the Finder, the part of your operating system that manages files and such. While you might think you know all there is to know about it, the Finder is a complex and wonderful app — with its own special tricks to master.
Here are 10 essential Finder tips that will help you get the most out of your time working or playing on your Mac.
J.J. Abrams whetted our appetite for more lightsaber dueling action with the first Episode VII teaser last year, but today’s release of a new trailer has got us counting down the days until Christmas.
We’re still eight months away from Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ public release, and while plot details for the highly anticipated movie are being kept under wraps, there’s a ton of fresh info to glean from the new trailer. We’ve diced the entire trailer up into GIFs so you can rewatch each scene to look for new clues.
Here are 18 things we learned from the new trailer:
With the advent of Apple’s motion coprocessor chip (the M8 in recent iOS devices), any apps that you download and grant permission to can use this data to enhance their offerings.
This lets apps like RunKeeper, Carrot Fitness and others both gather fitness data from your iPhone as well as send it to the Health app.
This could raise privacy concerns for some, so being able to decide which apps we allow to access our fitness-tracking data — or whether the iPhone tracks these activities at all — can be a helpful.
Here’s our recipe for getting finer-grained control over your fitness-tracking data.
Here’s a chart that explains the Apple Watch user interface so well, you’ll have the UI memorized by the time your smartwatch comes in the mail.