A social-media campaign hopes to put pressure on Apple to release the Pebble Time smartwatch app for iOS.
The to-do started after an update on the Time’s Kickstarter page yesterday.
Apple Watch hasn’t even been out for a month yet but it may have already claimed its first victim in the war for your wrist.
Smartwatch maker Pebble is in big trouble and has applied for a $5 million loan from a Silicon Valley bank to stay afloat, according to a new report that claims the company is having a hard time maintaining growth.
The Apple Watch and everything it will do is not a new idea. Watches for years have been able to store data, give us directions, offer a means to communicate at a distance and, yes, show us our heartbeat.
It’s just that you couldn’t get all of those functions wearing just one watch. For each function, there was a separate wrist gadget.
So on the eve of the Apple Watch launch, consider the technologically advanced timepieces that paved the way to this momentous day. You might be even more impressed with the power of your new device.
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.
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?
During today’s historic Apple earnings call, Tim Cook dropped a subtle bomb on Apple fans by revealing that the Apple Watch is slated to launch in April.
“I’m using it every day and I love it and I can’t live without it,” Cook said.
While he didn’t give a specific release date for the wearable, it’s the first time Apple’s narrowed down the launch beyond “early 2015.” Cook said Apple considers “early” to be sometime within the first four months of the year, so the Apple Watch is right on target.
LAS VEGAS — Walk the halls of the massive International CES trade show and you’ll be bombarded by an outrageous number of pitches for products with radical new features.
You can glimpse the shiny happy future of consumer electronics at the show, although some of the innovations on display are clearly destined for the dustbin of gadget history.
At the biggest booths, reps for big companies like Sony and Samsung — but, sadly, not Apple — talk up the latest additions to their product lines. At smaller booths, inventors show off prototypes for products that may not ever roll off an assembly line. There’s a nonstop blitz of “world’s first” products.
It’s impossible to see everything, but it’s a blast trying. Here are Cult of Mac’s picks for the best of CES 2015, from Lightning-enabled headphones and massive TVs to drones and self-adjusting belts.
LAS VEGAS — The problem with the state of smartwatches, beyond the sucky software, is that they’re all ugly. The Apple Watch might very well be the first wearable that not only works, but looks good too, although we won’t know for sure until the finished product is on our wrists this spring.
There were dozens and dozens of smartwatches displayed on the sprawling show floor at International CES last week, but the only one that looked good enough to adorn my wrist was the new Withings Activité Pop.
It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of fancier watches like the Samsung Galaxy Gear, but it’s not your average dumb watch either. And for now, just a smidgen smarter is smart enough.
Apple is still trying to work out the last few details of its first wearable, but with an early 2015 launch just months away, plans to manufacture and assemble the Apple Watch are being finalized. But AppleDaily reports production isn’t scheduled to ramp into high gear until January 2015.
To manufacture its first wearable, Apple has turned to its old partner Quanta Computer to churn out the first units, and they’re already hiring an army of assemblers for the hyped release.
The Pulsar might have been the reality of digital watches around the time that Apple started, but what was predicted by the age’s futurists? The 1979 Usborne book Future Cities: Homes & Living Into the 21st Century describes the arrival of "wrist-phones" or “ristos.” These devices, the authors predicted, would work with cellphones and GPS equipment.
"City dwellers of tomorrow could have a small gadget of enormous benefit — a wristwatch radio-telephone,” the book notes. "With a wristwatch radio, you could talk to anyone, wherever you happened to be.... If you were late for an appointment, it would be easy to let the other people know.... It ought to be impossible to get lost in tomorrow's world, in a city or out of it.... The wrist-phone can provide guidance back to the nearest town.” Pretty accurate, no?
Picture: EDC Publishing
The iWatch is no longer a unicorn.
Apple finally unveiled its wearable device today — dubbed the “Apple Watch” — and Cult of Mac was there to get a hands-on look at the highly customizable smartwatch.
Last week there were rumors that Swatch might be partnering with Apple to work on its iWatch project. Swatch quickly denied the report, saying that the only business relationship Swatch has ever had with a mobile phone maker is to supply integrated circuits and other electronic components.
Now a new piece of the puzzle has emerged, with Swatch CEO Nick Hayek providing Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag with another reason why his company isn’t going to be helping Apple: because it’s making a smartwatch of its own.
Design questions aside, the true mystery about Apple’s long-rumored iWatch lies in exactly what types of health-related sensors the wearable might include. A recent report claims the iWatch will sport an astonishing 10 different sensors, including one for sweat.
While pedometers, accelerometers, thermometers and every other o-meter Jony Ive can get his hands on might all make sense for a smartwatch, we’re wondering what Apple could do with a sweat sensor? Other than verify that, yes, your sweat glands are pouring out more fluid per minute than Niagara Falls during your jog?
It turns out that adding sweat sensors would do more than differentiate the iWatch from smartwatches by LG, Motorola and Samsung right out of the gate. It could make the iWatch the most “personal” device you’ve ever shackled yourself to, with surprising applications that go far beyond fitness and health.
Google’s keynote presentation at its I/O developer’s conference today offered a revealing picture of the company itself: meandering, unfocused, copycat and just a little bit evil.
The two-hours-plus keynote had a lot of everything, from a new version of Android to new phones, smartwatches, TVs, cars, Chromebooks and big data — but much of it was deja vu from Apple’s WWDC two weeks ago.
