Apple Announces the Apple Watch; Available Next Year
by Joshua Ho on September 9, 2014 2:06 PM EST
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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Laxaa - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
That one looks very much like a regular watch. I'm interested to see how the battery life fares.I am also dissappointed that Apple didn't disclose the battery life in the Apple Watch. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
eanazag - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
I'd like to see that, too. I'm not getting a car charger for my watch.I think $350 is a bit steep too. I think the watch is the new crime piece. #iwatch-just-got-robbed.
JRX16 - Sunday, September 28, 2014 - link
They will disclose it. That was just a preview, it's not released yet. They are still tweaking it obviously, it's not in production yet.invinciblegod - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
Hey, you never know maybe lg will oneup Motorola and use an omap2!piroroadkill - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
Yeah, I think the G Watch R is a fine looking device too, and honestly, for square devices, the ZenWatch is much better looking than the Apple Watch.tipoo - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
To be fair, we have no idea of the relative performance of S1 yet either. I don't think the watch needs anything more than a single core, perhaps something Cortex A7 derived, which would not be much faster than the A8 in the 360. We'll have to wait for die scans.eanazag - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
It said it will leverage the phone for processing and requires an iPhone 5 or newer for pairing. It is basically a thin client/chromebook-like for the PC analogy.tipoo - Wednesday, September 10, 2014 - link
They do still need some localized processing, animations and stuff don't lend themselves well to being processed elsewhere (ie touch response would be way slower)tuxRoller - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
I've said this before but I really don't think either os needs more than an cortex a5. The problem for noon apple companies, is that I'm not aware of a current gen soc a5 with a decent CPU.OreoCookie - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
The round display of the Motorola 360 makes for a nicer-looking watch, but for worse usability. I'm not so much skeptical of the Apple Watch but of the whole category of smart watches.