watches

How to make your Apple Watch tell the wrong time

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Apple Watch clock
Find out how to never ever know the actual time with this great tip.
Photo: Jon Tyson/Unsplash

Did you know you can force the Apple Watch to display the wrong time? You can. In fact, you can make it add up to 59 minutes to the actual time, and show that bogus data on the main display.

It’s either the most useless setting on the Apple Watch or the most useful, depending on your point of view. Here’s how to make your Apple Watch tell the wrong time.

Replica of Steve Jobs’ timepiece costs less than an Apple Watch

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Which watch would Steve wear? This one, apparently.
Photo: Seiko

Back in 1984, Steve Jobs didn’t wear an Apple Watch. Instead, he wore a Seiko Chariot timepiece, as seen in an iconic photo used on the cover of Time magazine after Jobs’ 2011 death.

While Jobs’ “heavily worn” original sold for $42,000 at auction last year, Japanese watchmaker Seiko and Tokyo retailer Nano Universe are teaming up to produce a small batch affordable replicas.

Apple Watch Series 2 is sold out ahead of Christmas

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Apple Watch Nike Plus
Giving "the gift of go" might not be possible.
Photo: Apple

Getting your hands on an Apple Watch Series 2 in time for Christmas has become nearly impossible for holiday shoppers.

Demand for the new watch has ticked up to a new level in the last month, according to Apple employees, who told Cult of Mac that stores are selling out of the Apple Watch Series 2 so fast that production can’t keep up.

Google’s round wearable will take on Apple Watch

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Watch out Apple Watch, Google is coming for you.
Watch out Apple Watch, Google is coming for you.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Alphabet-owned Google is planning to take another step toward becoming a genuine hardware company later this year with the release of its own smartwatch.

The search engine giant plans to take on Apple Watch directly, with not one, but two Android Wear smartwatches that will be deeply integrated with Google Assistant. Plus, it will pack some hardware features Apple Watch can’t match.

$230,000 Space Pirate timepiece makes Apple Watch look like a bargain

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Horological Machine No. 6, aka
Horological Machine No. 6, aka "Space Pirate," costs a little less than a mission to Mars. Photo: MB&F

Horological Machine No. 6 looks like something you’d see strapped to the wrist of an interstellar raider. Maybe that’s why Swiss watchmaker MB&F dubbed its lunatic $230,000 watch the “Space Pirate.”

The watch, which its maker says “has been designed to operate in the hostile environment of … the space on your wrist,” is one of just two timepieces to be awarded Red Dot design awards in the competition’s current round.

The other winner of the Red Dot Award for Product Design? Apple Watch, which seems like a modest piece of jewelry next to the MN6’s alien design. Just wait till you see the spinning turbines that make the Space Pirate watch tick.

Gorgeous Swiss timepiece will cure your Apple Watch envy

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Photo: Luke Dormehl/Cult of Mac
Photo: Luke Dormehl/Cult of Mac

Having not worn a watch regularly since my high school days, I recently took the plunge and bought my first “adult” watch, a self-winding automatic Swiss timepiece.

I had several criteria I wanted to meet. Firstly I wanted a self-winding automatic, because I liked the idea of owning a Swiss watch and I wanted one that, at least in theory, has a longer lifespan than a battery-powered quartz timepiece. Secondly, I wanted to keep my purchase sub-$2,000. Thirdly, as a watch novice, I was looking for something that would be as multipurpose as possible.

After some research, I settled on a watch from the Longines Master Collection — buying it in a dedicated brick-and-mortar store rather than online, so that I could try it out in person before buying.

The Apple Watch is thin as a Rolex

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From the iPhone to the iPad, immediate reactions are always mixed on new Apple products, as the public struggles to wrap its head around Cupertino’s next bold idea. And so we hear a lot of warrantless criticism until the product actually lands on shelves.

One refrain we’re hearing a lot from Apple Watch critics is that Jony Ive may have dropped the ball with the Apple Watch design. The problem? To these critics, the Apple Watch’s casing looks shockingly thick.

As it turns out, though, this is largely an optical illusion. The Apple Watch isn’t really any thicker than a Rolex.

TAG Heuer says its first smartwatch ‘must not copy the Apple Watch’

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Tag Heuer Aquaracer. Photo: Andreas Knudsen/Flickr CC
Tag Heuer says it won't ape the Apple Watch when entering the smartwatch field. Photo: Andreas Knudsen/Flickr CC

Now that Apple has entered the watch game, even the horological old guard is starting to take notice. Just a few days after Apple unveiled the Apple Watch, Swiss luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer has announced that it’s planning on making a smartwatch too … although they say they don’t just want to copy the Apple Watch.

Best List: Time to seriously upgrade your life

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You know what I hate about Apple computers? The precious keyboards. They look lovely, with their sleek designs and tiny little keys, but they absolutely kill my wrists and fingers. That’s why I plug a grimy old Goldtouch keyboard ($129 list when they made ‘em) into the MacBook Air that I use for work. I even take the weird-looking A-frame keyboard with me when I travel. It’s not an elegant-looking solution, but it’s a lifesaver.

I’ve dealt with typing-related RSI for decades. While I use voice recognition when I have to write something lengthy, it’s not the perfect tool to accomplish every task in every situation. Sometimes I need to hammer away on a keyboard, and when I do, the Goldtouch makes the experience far less painful. It’s split down the center, with a ball joint that lets me adjust the angle between the two halves as well as the height at the center. And the soft-touch keys just feel good to me. — Lewis Wallace

P.S. I haven’t tried the updated Goldtouch V2 ($115) or the company’s Go!2 Bluetooth mobile keyboard, but when ol’ faithful finally gives up the ghost, that’ll be my move.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac


Pebble Smartwatch App Finally Gets Support For Email Notifications In iOS

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For iOS users, the Pebble Smartwatch has largely existed as an exercise in frustration. While Android users can tie the Pebble Smartwatch into their smartphone’s central nervous system in all kinds of ways, the feature set of the e-ink proto-iWatch has been comparatively worse.

Case in point? Pebble Smartwatch owners who have an iPhone in their pocket couldn’t even get email notifications on the face of their watch. That’s a big deal: getting notified of new emails is seemingly one of the big things you’d want a second screen on your wrist to do. Luckily, that’s being rectified.

Filip, A Digital Leash For Kids

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filip.jpg

The Filip is a smart watch for kids, complete with a built-in cellphone, a tracker so you can keep an eye on them wherever they are, and messaging so you can continue to harass and berate them even as they try to build their own sense of independence.

I kind of hate it.

Change Up Your Style Easily With The Modify Watch [Deals]

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CoM - Modify1

I haven’t worn a watch in a while. I’m used to using my iPhone as a way to check the time when needed and I wasn’t a fan of having to have a watch that would be suitable for going to the beach and one for more formal occasions – or try to find one that would be versatile enough for both.

Then Modify Watches sent me one of their watches and my problem has essentially been solved. And right now they are offering Cult of Mac readers a 50% savings on a watch face and two bands – just $35.

Apple’s Design Team Studied Nike Sport Watches While Working On iWatch

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nikewatches

Included in Bloomberg’s big story this morning on Apple’s iWatch was a small paragraph that said Jony Ive and his team ordered a bunch of watches made by Nike in the mid-2000s.

Maybe Ive and his design team just liked the Nike watches, but according to Scott Wilson, who was Nike’s Creative Director at the time, Ive might have ordered the watches so his team could study them for inspiration on the iWatch.

Cuckoo Smart Watch Is Smarter Than Most [Kickstarter]

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Cuckoo works with your iPhone and lasts for a year on a single button cell

The Pebble watch is pretty neat and all ($10 million can’t all be totally wrong), but even with e-ink and low-powered Bluetooth it still needs charging way more than a regular watch. It’s also rather plasticky and dorky-looking.

The Cuckoo might not be able to fix the second part, looking as it does like a rather dull take on a Swatch, but it can certainly fix the first.

Fitness App RunKeeper Announces Partnership With Highly Anticipated Pebble Watch

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RunKeeper and Pebble? It's an exercise geek's match made in heaven.
RunKeeper and Pebble? It's an exercise geek's match made in heaven.

RunKeeper makes fitness apps for a variety of smartphones and is widely considered the premiere platform for tracking and sharing workout information. Today the company announced that it will be the first third-party service to partner with the Pebble watch, a record-breaking Kickstarter project that has collected over $8 million in funding. Pebble sports a customizable interface that can connect with apps and smartphones like the iPhone and Android.

Thanks to the partnership with RunKeeper, Pebble owners will be able to see live fitness data and control RunKeeper without touching their smartphones during a workout.

Add The iPod nano’s Mickey Mouse Clock To Your OS X Dashboard [How-To]

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Noticing that people really liked to wrap the new iPod nanos around a wrist band and turn them into watches, Apple decided to embrace the Nanowatch movement with their latest update, specifically by rolling out a number of fun new watch faces. The most iconic of the new options, though, is the one that mimics the classic Mickey Mouse watch face, famous with Mouseketeers all around the world since the 1950s.

If you don’t have an iPod nano, there’s a cool, easy way to get yourself the nano’s Mickey Mouse watch face on your Dashboard. Here’s how.

Wrap Your iPhone with a Pocket Watch in De Bethune Leather Case

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De Bethune Pocket-Watch iPhone Case

With iPhones and other devices replacing watches as personal timepieces for most people, analog craftsmen of yore are looking for other ways to ply their trades. Juxtaposing timekeeping technology across the centuries, luxury watchmaker De Bethune has introduced a new iPhone case that incorporates their DB 1024 pocket watch mechanism directly into the back panel of an alligator leather sleeve. It’s rather… unique. For those who can’t decide whether you prefer analog or digital, now you won’t have to make the choice.

I’m not sure the watch would provide good impact protection during a fall, however – for itself or the iPhone’s rear glass. Would that require another case to protect the first one?

[via Born Rich] [Gentleman’s Gadgets]