Apple Watch

Fantastical 2.5 is out now with new multitasking features for iOS 9 on iPad, a 3D Touch app icon on iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, a native Apple Watch app on watchOS 2 with its own watch face complication, and much more. Both the iPad and iPhone plus Apple Watch updates are available for free for current Fantastical 2 customers. The new versions come just two weeks after Split View in Fantastical hit the Mac with OS X El Capitan. See the new features in action below:
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At some point, a high price alone can dull your interest in something that’s otherwise desirable. Many people feel this way about Apple’s leather Apple Watch bands, which start at a jacket-like price of $149, jump to $249, then hit even crazier prices (effectively $600 and up) for versions co-developed with Hermès. Leather isn’t rare or magical, and a wristband only uses inches of it, so it’s hard to justify spending a lot of cash for something so simple.

Third-party developers agree, as evidenced by X-Doria’s Lux ($50) and Nomad’s Strap ($120-$150). Lux is an alternative to Apple’s Classic Buckle at 1/3 the price, and Strap resembles the Apple Watch Hermès Single Tour at around 1/4 the price — actually less, since you don’t need to buy a steel Apple Watch just to get it. While they’re obviously not identical to Apple’s versions, X-Doria’s and Nomad’s designs are far more affordable, giving you a luxurious look and feel on any budget…

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Microsoft comparing its new Surface Book laptop/tablet combo with Apple’s MacBook Pro

At Microsoft’s event today it unveiled a huge array of ambitious and interesting tech which should be enough to make Apple stand up and take notice. The once-giant of the consumer electronics world has had to reinvent itself over the past couple of years, and judging from today’s event, it’s doing enough to get people interested again at the very least. At best, it could transform the way we see technology and computing.
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After Apple announced plans back in July to let accessory manufacturers produce Apple Watch docks that integrate its magnetic charging connector, today the first product to take advantage arrives with Belkin’s new Charge Dock for Apple Watch – which also includes an integrated lightning connector for simultaneously docking an iPhone. We’ve been testing the product ahead of its release… 
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Sleep tracking accessory maker Beddit is out with a new watchOS 2 app for Apple Watch today. Because Beddit offers a dedicated sensor for tracking your sleep duration and quality each night, Apple Watch is able to charge overnight as needed and still present sleep data in the morning. Thanks to hardware access granted to native software, Beddit’s watchOS 2 app lets Apple Watch double as a sleep tracker during the day for measuring naps and creating silent alarms. Just as Beddit’s watchOS 2 app is hitting the App Store, Beddit’s Smart Sleep Tracker is coming to Apple Stores around the world and apple.com for the first time starting today…
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Apple this evening has shared six new video advertisements for Apple Watch. All six of the ads have different focuses, but all of them center around what Apple Watch is useful for and in what instances it can be used effectively.

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After announcing an official program for accessory makers interested in making Apple Watch bands back in May, Apple has now delivered on its promise of providing Apple-made watch lugs that third-party manufacturers can use to make straps. That’s the first sign that official third-party watch bands will soon be hitting the market through Apple’s Made for iPhone program (MFi). Companies enrolled in the MFi program can now order the parts (pictured above) through Apple’s supplier (via MR).
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If you haven’t yet found your perfect Apple Watch strap among the company’s own offerings or the numerous third-party options, Apple has today officially launched its partnership with French leather fashion company Hermès.

Uncompromising craftsmanship. Pioneering innovation. Groundbreaking functionality. Apple Watch Hermès is the culmination of a partnership based on parallel thinking, singular vision and mutual regard. It is a unique timepiece designed with both utility and beauty in mind. With leather straps handmade by Hermès artisans in France and an Hermès watch face reinterpreted by Apple designers in California, Apple Watch Hermès is a product of elegant, artful simplicity — the ultimate tool for modern life.

Splashing out between $1100 and $1500 gets you a special version of the stainless steel Watch, with Hermès branding on the back, a number of special watch faces and a choice of three leather straps. Color options depend on the strap, some with suitably exotic-sounding names … 
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Apple has declared that Apple Pay is off to a “great start” almost a year after its launch with the company seeing steady growth in Apple Pay transactions every month. In a statement to Bloomberg, the company said:

“We’re off to a great start and we are seeing continued, double-digit monthly growth in Apple Pay transactions since launch,” Apple said in an e-mailed statement.

Apple Pay launched last year with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the US. The service expanded to the UK a few months ago. In Apple’s January investor call, Cook claimed 2015 was “the year of Apple Pay”. However, Bloomberg notes that not everyone is as thrilled with the mobile payments service as Apple is. At both Panera Bread and Firehouse, Apple Pay transactions make up low single-digit percentages of overall purchases…

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Whenever someone asks what I think of my Apple Watch, I explain that I like but don’t love it, and wouldn’t recommend it to everyone… yet. “In two or three years,” I say, “they’re going to be common, but right now, they don’t feel necessary.” Nice, yes. Necessary, no.

Last week, my life changed. Shortly after our kids went to school, my wife stopped breathing in our home. I was able to get her breathing again, and thanks to 911 and outstanding EMTs, she survived to be diagnosed with Brugada Syndrome, a rare heart condition that typically goes undetected before a massive, fatal attack. Once Brugada was suspected, doctors looked for records of her heartbeat, but couldn’t find much on file. Between ER and ICU visits, I remembered that her iPhone’s Health app contained three months of heart rate data, because her Apple Watch had been passively recording it. But would that data actually be useful?

A report earlier this year said Apple has wavered on adding irregular heart rate reporting and other health functionality to the Apple Watch, fearing additional governmental regulation and/or liability for potentially inaccurate results. Given what my wife just went through, I have a newfound appreciation for the Apple Watch’s existing heart rate sensor, and a strong request for Apple: be bold on expanding Apple Watch’s health features, as well as its ability to be continuously worn. It’s nice for a watch to estimate calories burned after a workout, but merely having advance notice of her irregular heart rate could have prevented my wife’s near-death experience, and who knows how many other lives better sensors could save…

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Still no Apple Pay in stores at Target just yet, but Apple Watch will be joining the lineup of iPhones and iPads in select stores this week – and all stores by October 25th.

Target operates over 1800 stores across the United States, greatly expanding the points-of-sale for Apple Watch going into the holiday quarter. Aside from the couple hundred Apple Stores in the US, Apple Watch has been sold in a few premium vendors plus Best Buy, T-Mobile, and Sprint…
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Is Apple considering another round of major changes to iOS’s Home screen? If watchOS and tvOS are any indication, the answer could be “yes.” Earlier this year, Apple launched the Apple Watch with a purely text-free Home screen, requiring users to identify 20-some initial apps (and manually-added third-party apps) by icon designs alone. This month, it will release the fourth-generation Apple TV with a refreshed UI, again almost entirely eliminating below-app text in favor of redesigned icons with 3D depth.

While it would be easy to write off Apple’s changes to text labels as one-off decisions for “really small screen” and “really big screen” devices, they collectively raise an interesting question: if developers properly redesigned their iOS icons, would text labels — a staple of graphical user interfaces for decades — really be necessary any more? I’ll take a look at some of the pros and cons below…

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Today we are looking at the Gold Apple Watch Sport and comparing it to something closer to the real deal. This is a relatively new color release from Apple and if you can’t afford the real gold version this may be the next best option, but you’re making a sacrifice in materials. Personally, I like the gold aluminum as it matches the gold iPhone, but I prefer the stainless steel Apple Watch as it features a sapphire display to prevent scratches…

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Apple has officially released iOS 9 and watchOS 2 to the public and today we’re getting into a rundown and our first impressions of the new features that come along with these updates. If you’d like to find out more about the top features in iOS 9 you can check out our full rundown here. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed.

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One of Apple’s biggest focuses recently has been the health capabilities of its devices specifically Apple Watch. From the start, Apple has highlighted the device’s health features and it reinforced that message at its “Hey Siri” event earlier this month. Now, a Cape Cod, Massachusetts teen says his Apple Watch saved his life. The teen’s story even prompted Apple CEO Tim Cook to call him.

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After slightly missing the originally announced release date due to a last-minute bug, the watchOS 2 software update is now available for downloading through iOS 9’s Watch app and installing on your Apple Watch.

watchOS 2 comes just six months after the Apple Watch officially launched, and what Apple is labeling as a full successor to watchOS 1 feels a lot like a more polished version of what it likely had in mind from the start. It incorporates a few features first shown off last September and even includes fixes for a few common complaints over the original software.

The big story with watchOS 2 is support for native apps, which launch quicker and have more access to hardware, but there’s several small changes within the update worth discussing as well. Let’s explore:
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Apple first showed off the next-generation software for its smartwatch earlier this year, revealing that it would allow the wearable devices to run native applications directly on the watch, vastly improving performance and allowing apps to interact with the watch hardware in new ways.

Following a significant delay due to a critical bug, watchOS 2 is out now and can be downloaded for all Apple Watches through the companion app on the iPhone. The update seems to have an new build number, indicating that, like iOS 9, it was updated after the GM build was seeded to fix whatever issue held up release.

While a lot of the new watchOS 2.0 update will be familiar, there are some new features throughout the update that will help make your life with the Apple Watch even easier. Check out the video below from 9to5’s Dom Esposito for a rundown of some of the best new additions.

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