Apple clearly wants its new watch to be more than just a cool gadget. It’s no coincidence that Tuesday’s event falls in line with New York Fashion Week, a time of the year when the world’s top designers look for new tech to accessorize their outfits.
Journalists and prominent figures in the fashion industry were invited alongside the usual tech press to the Apple Watch’s unveiling. The fashion world’s initial reactions are mostly positive, but some question the device’s appeal to women.
From books to phones, Apple’s named everything with the same “i” moniker since 1998. With the Apple Watch and Apple Pay, however, it looks like that convention is set to change.
Cult of Mac reached out to Ken Segall — the former Apple employee who started the tradition with the original iMac — for his surprising reaction to Apple ditching his naming convention for new product categories.
Decision time: Which iPhone 6 is right for you? We’ll walk you though the features of both new iPhones to help you make that very decision in time for the Sept. 12th pre-order. Plus, will Apple Pay be replacing our wallets? We’ll tell you our thoughts and musings. And of course, the Apple Watch—we’ll review its features and reveal our initial impressions. And finally… he did it… Tim Cook brought back the One. More. Thing. Some of us are thrilled. Some of us aren’t. Hit play for all that and more.
Titter your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.
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Hey, at least give Samsung credit for being quick off the mark.
Apple’s Tuesday keynote is only days old and already professional Apple spoofer Samsung has released a new series of ads skewering Cupertino’s latest developments — from its Apple Watch to its problematic live feed.
There are six ads in total, all designed to advertize the Galaxy Note 4, although barely any time is given to talking up Samsung’s own products, since the company clearly feels it’s better off trying to tear down its leading competitor.
We’ve had a couple of days to let the massive announcements of Apple’s September 9 keynote sink in, but if you want to relive the event you might want to check out this new video from Jonathan Mann.
Who is Jonathan Mann, you may ask? The brilliant YouTube musician who created the celebrated Mario Opera close to a decade ago is the answer. An unabashed Apple fan, Mann was previously responsible for composing the iPhone Antenna song which Steve Jobs publicly danced to, and earlier this year composed a great WWDC ear worm which is still rattling around my brain months later.
Following Apple’s Tuesday keynote Mann is back in Apple territory with a new musical tour-de-force entitled “Apple Watch: The Musical,” which somehow manages to compress Apple’s entire Tuesday event into just 3 minutes and 13 seconds.
For the last 2,078 days, musician Jonathan Mann has been composing a song a day.
For his latest ditty, Mann summed up Apple’s entire iPhone 6/Apple Watch event in song form, covering everything from the rather underwhelming iPhone 6 debut to the excitement of Apple announcing its first new product category in years. There’s even a funny chorus about the bizarre Chinese voice-over in the livestream.
While the rest of us were celebrating the unveiling of Apple’s much-anticipated smart watch on Tuesday, Apple’s European legal team was busy rushing to file six trademark applications for the name “Apple Watch.”
Of these applications, four featured the Apple logo in front of the word “Watch,” while the other two referred to the two words “Apple Watch.”
Apple’s legal firm filed the trademarks under a total of 11 International Classes for protection and clarification, covering areas including financial transactions, fitness and wellness sensors, and more.
With all the livestream trouble Apple had during its iPhone 6 and Apple Watch unveiling, it’s likely you missed at least part of the big reveals.
Cult of Mac is here to help with this 90-second version of the Apple keynote that will show you all the most important highlights.
There’s tons more that Tim Cook and Co. announced but it’s impossible to cram it all into a minute and a half. Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to keep up-to-date with all the latest Apple news, reviews and more.
Apple is officially a watchmaker. And like all fancy watchmakers, the company has created a trove of gorgeous marketing close ups of its timepieces, only Apple has hidden a subtle to diss to competitors that its way ahead of their analog challengers.
Most watchmakers set their watch faces to 10 past 10 o’clock in advertisements. Rolex is anal about using 10:10:31, TAG Heuer uses 10:10:37, and Bell & Ross are dedicated to 10:10:10, but Apple’s so far ahead, it set the clock of its watch to nine minutes past 10 o’clock.
There are a lot of Apple skeptics out there. CNBC thinks the new iPhone 6 models are nothing special, and dis the Apple Watch because it doesn’t work with Android. Watch Cult of Mac editor and publisher Leander Kahney set them straight in the video above. See also our report card for Tim Cook’s first three years as CEO.
The Apple Watch looks far more elegant than the rectangular smartwatches we’ve already seen from competing companies, but we couldn’t help noticing that some of its straps look a little… familiar.
In fact, several of Apple’s new strap designs look almost identical to straps from luxury watchmaker Ikepod, which not so coincidentally used to be run by Marc Newson, an Australian industrial designer who recently became a part of Apple’s design team.
Tim Cook and the team at Apple seemed mighty proud of their incredible Apple Watch achievement yesterday, but Cook’s excitement was just a flash in the pan compared to the world’s truthiest Apple fanboy: Dr. Stephen T. Colbert
The late-night news show host was seen catching up on the iPhone 6 keynote when show started last night, but once the Apple revealed the device that’s going to revolutionize the way you look at your wrist, Colbert unleashed an explosive celebration and capped it off by making his boring dumbwatch as obsolete as possible.
Stephen even managed to get an exclusive look at the upcoming WristPad. Check out his hilarious Apple Watch segment below:
Apple crushed its introduction of the Apple Watch yesterday in Cupertino, but while Kevin Lynch and Jony were waxing poetic about the design of watch and its revolutionary UI, there was one feature everyone steered clear of: battery life.
Other than introducing the new inductive charging cable, Apple was mum on how long its timepiece will stay charged. According to a report from Recode, that’s because Apple is still trying to improve it ahead of the early 2015 release, but sources say Apple Watch battery life currently last about a day, and will require nightly charging.
With the poor streaming quality from yesterday’s Apple Event, you may have missed some of the juiciest bits — like the unveiling of the Cupertino company’s exciting new wearable. Well, fear not; the video above will tell you all you need to know about Apple Watch in just six minutes.
While you’re waiting for the Apple Watch to be released, be sure to subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to see more videos like this one — as well as the latest Apple news, and much, much more.
Apple started introducing gold variants of its devices with the “champagne” iPhone 5s in 2013. Given the unexpected popularity of that device, it was only natural that Apple would keep the color scheme going for future devices — which now includes the Apple Watch, as unveiled yesterday.
While Tim Cook didn’t dwell on too many details regarding the individual Apple Watch models during his keynote, technology journalist David Pogue does have some additional information about the 18-karat gold Edition variant of the Apple Watch, which he claims will come in a “gorgeous jewelry box” that doubles as a charger.
Jony Ive shared a bit of insight into the design process behind the Apple Watch during his interview with ABC News, following Tuesday’s keynote.
With Tim Cook looking on, Ive described how his team “worked extremely hard to make an object that, one, would be extremely desirable, but would also be personal because we don’t all want to wear the same watch.”
When asked how many Apple Watch variations will be available, Ive claimed that there are “millions and millions” of different configurations available, taking into account the different combinations that are possible.
“There are different materials for the actual case, there’s two different sizes, you can choose one of six different straps or bands,” he says, in addition to noting the different watch faces that can be chosen within the UI.
Apple’s actually made watches before, but one thing that makes the Apple Watch unique from other Cupertino products is it’s the first design I can think of that is asymmetrical. Look at the buttons, and you can see the Apple Watch has a clear handedness: it’s meant to be worn on the left wrist, and operated with the right hand.
Bad for lefties… or is it? Come on: this is Apple we’re talking about. As it turns out, the Apple Watch can be easily set up to wear on the other wrist, as long as you don’t mind the digital crown being on the bottom.
CUPERTINO, Calif. — One of the big questions about the Apple Watch is how Apple will prevent thieves from ripping it off your wrist and using it to clear your bank account.
Because the Apple Watch is connected to Apple Pay — making purchases as easy as a quick swipe — what’s to stop miscreants from abusing it?
The answer wasn’t addressed at Tuesday’s unveiling, but an Apple staffer at the hands-on demo told me how the watch will be protected against fraud.
Months of rumors suggested Apple’s wearable device would be a health-centric powerhouse capable of predicting heart attacks, analyzing sweat and other miraculous feats. But in reality, the Apple Watch seems more like a sexy, supercharged fitness tracker than a full-fledged medical device.
Still, this is an ambitious first-generation device — a crucial step forward for wearables that points the way toward the comprehensive health and fitness device the Apple Watch could become.
We love it when Apple live-streams its keynotes so that we can watch along with those lucky enough to have gotten an invite, but yesterday’s was nothing short of a disaster. It was down more than it was up, and it made Tim Cook and Phil Schiller sound like Chinese girls. But if you missed anything, you can now catch up on-demand and uninterrupted.
Now we know that even Apple called its wearable “iWatch” internally, thanks to an incredibly rare slip-up by CEO Tim Cook.
In an interview with ABC News after Tuesday’s keynote, Cook casually called Apple’s new wearable iWatch instead of Apple Watch.
Dragging U2 onstage to end Apple’s big iPhone 6 event was more than a disappointing denouement to an otherwise solid piece of marketing theater: It was a tacit admission that the recorded music industry is gasping for its last breath.
During his peculiar onstage banter with Bono, Apple CEO Tim Cook called the iTunes-exclusive release of U2’s new album, Songs of Innocence, “the largest album release of all time.” He also crowed that dumping the record for free on iTunes’ half-billion users would make music history.
It did, but for all the wrong reasons.
One of the smaller details Apple failed to mention during today’s keynote was its new watch’s tolerance of liquids. While the Apple Watch is designed to stay on your wrist all day, it’s not suited for all situations.
It turns out that the Apple Watch will be just fine with a little water, but don’t plan on wearing it while swimming.
Tim Cook just took Apple into uncharted waters with a new product that could completely redefine the smart watch category, but when he took the stage, Tim says he Steve Jobs was on his mind.
Minutes after the keynote closed, Tim Cook met up with ABC News’ David Muir and said that he thinks Jobs was smiling down on the event, and would be incredibly proud to see what the company is doing today. Cook also talked a little bit about the development of the Apple Watch, revealing that it’s the first post-Jobs device Apple has released.
Watch the short interview below:
CUPERTINO, Calif. — The Apple Watch doesn’t look like it comes from some distant future, where cars drive themselves and we never have to go through airport security again. Instead, it’s clearly the best smartwatch Apple could design based on knowledge gleaned from today’s experts — including those in arcane arts like metallurgy and horology.
And you will absolutely want one.
It may not look like it yet, but after trying out the Apple Watch, I’m convinced it will become an essential piece of kit – as important as your iPhone.
