Apple has thrown their hat into the wearable ring with the Apple watch, which tries to bring a better user experience to the watch without trying to adapt iOS to the watch with multi-touch gestures that we're familiar with on the iPhone.

There's a single crystal sapphire display, a digital dial crown that acts as a home button and a scroll system. There's also a strong emphasis on haptic feedback which allows for linking of watches to share notifications by sending taps in any possible pattern. This is done by using a force sensitive touchscreen, which is a method of navigating along with the scrolling dial. This allows for subtle communication that doesn't rely on obvious sound or gestures. It's also possible to send taps based upon pulse/heart beat.

There are IR lights and sapphire lenses on the back of the watch for heart rate and serves as a magnetic alignment wireless charging system. The accuracy of the watch is no more than 50 milliseconds off at any time.

In order to support this watch, Apple has also designed a custom SoC called S1, likely for battery life and sensor integration and reduction of board area.

There are six different straps that are easily exchanged. The sport band has multiple colors and is some kind of rubber. There's a leather sports strap which has multiple magnets to ensure that the fit works correctly. There's also a traditional leather strap and a stainless steel link bracelet. There's also a stainless steel mesh band that is infinitely adjustable. There are also two versions of each watch edition, one larger and one smaller.

The Apple Watch also has NFC and will work with Apple Pay.

There are actually three variants though, which include the standard Apple Watch, Watch Sport, and the Watch Edition which has 18 karat gold for the casing. The sport edition has a anodized aluminum casing.

Furthermore the watch will also come in two different case sizes to account for different wrist sizes (essentially his & her watch sizes). These sizes are 38mm and 42mm tall respectively.

The Apple Watch must be paired with an iPhone to work properly. It starts at $349 USD and will go on sale early 2015.

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  • AppleCrappleHater2 - Monday, September 15, 2014 - link

    Worship the holy apple.

    The apple way, selling over expensive crap to stupid consumers that like to
    get robbed.

    This has been a disastrous launch in every respect. The iwatch is such an
    ugly piece of crap, it is truly unbelievable how a company, formerly known for
    its remarkable design, dares to put out such a crap ton of shit. Some
    characteristics are glaringly obvious and inherent to it: over expensive,
    hardly innovative, limited functionality and usability (need of an iPhone to
    make it work), looks exactly like a toy watch and so on.

    There are of course way better smart watches out there, especially form the
    likes of Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Asus, LG, simply put, there is no need for
    another piece of over expensive junk.

    The iPhone 6 is technologically stuck in pre-2011 times, a base model witch
    a capacity of 16GB without the possibility to use SD cards isn't even funny
    anymore. The screen resolution is horrendous, it isn't water proof, shock and
    dust resistant, it offers nothing innovative, just some incremental
    updates over its predecessor, both lacking severely behind their competitors at
    their respective launch dates.

    Now the Iphone 6 Plus offers a „Retina HD“ screen, full 1920x1080p, oh wow,
    where have you been for the past 4 years apple, talk about trailing behind.
    That’s pathetic. The interesting thing about that is the fact that apple
    always manages to sell backwards oriented, outdated crap to its user base, all
    while pretending to be an innovative technology leader. The similarities
    regarding any form of sectarian cult are striking.

    You gotta love how Apple always comes up with new marketing bullshit terms,
    aka "Retina HD", with the intention to manipulate its users while preventing easy
    comparisons with its competitors by withholding the actual specs. Apparently it’s
    not enough to have an 1080p screen, you have to call it "Retina HD" to make those
    suckers buy it, otherwise someone could look at the 4K Amoled and Oled screens
    form LG and Samsung devices and get outright disappointed. Same goes for
    everything else. Every outdated „feature“ needs to get its own marketing label
    to persuade buyers with crappy „experience“ and „usability“ ads, while covering
    the truth with marketing gibberish, knowing full well that only a fraction of
    aforementioned buyers cares to look at the facts and dares to compare them.

    Car engines come to mind. For comparisons shake let’s look at a 1.0 liter, turbo
    charged petrol engine and a V8 compressor. What’s better should be obvious, but
    by calling the former an „ecobooster“, thus giving it a special marketing label,
    this joke becomes a „feature“, something positive that can be added tot the list
    of features of a car.

    By doing so a negative aspect is transformed into a positive one, the
    reality is distorted, non tech savvy buyers are manipulated and comparisons are
    made more difficult (another layer of marketing bullshit to overcome), well done
    marketing department. You see , if something is seriously lacking (of course for
    profit, what else), don’t bother explaining, just give it a nice marketing term, distort
    reality, make it a feature and call it a day. Fuck that!!

    The Apple Iphone 1 and Ipad 1 might have been innovative at their time,
    but since then, the bitten apple has been continuously rotting from the inside
    outwards, always swarmed by millions of Iworms which regale themselves with its
    rotten flesh, not forgetting all other Americans who support apple by means of
    their tax dollars to finance its bought US Treasury/Government bond interest rates.

    Last but not least, every Apple product includes a direct hotlink to the nsa,
    free of charge, something that might make it a good value, after all.

    Ceterum censeo Applem esse delendam.
  • flyingpants1 - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link

    Why is it called "Watch Edition"?

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