Apple Watch

Yep, that’s a cracked Apple Watch display. Nope, it’s not actually an Edition, just plated, but the $549 and up steel model uses the same sapphire display as Apple’s $10,000 and up watch. And yes, the Apple Watch’s sapphire display reacts to accidental drops against hard surfaces just like iPhones.

In describing the craftsmanship of the Apple Watch, Apple calls sapphire “the second-hardest transparent substance after diamond,” adding that “that’s why we chose it to cover the Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition faces,” but it still sells a $79 AppleCare+ warranty to cover accidental damage because sapphire is clearly not invincible.

Here’s what to expect if you accidentally break your Apple Watch display and what I learned about how easily it can happen…
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Following the initial launch campaign, Apple is debuting four new Apple Watch ads showing the device in action in several different real-world scenarios. The first video called Goals demonstrates a range of features including the Apple Watch’s fitness and workout tracking apps as well as third-party apps available for the device. Another video called Closer echoes a similar theme of recent Apple ads that show people using Apple’s products to stay in communication and share experiences.
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After its initial launch in nine countries in April, followed by seven more late last month and a handful of other countries launching later this week, Apple Watch will arrive for customers in New Zealand for the first time on July 31st. Apple has quietly made the announcement on an updated product page within its Apple Store iOS app, as pictured above.
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A European trademark holder has filed a lawsuit against Apple over the name ‘iWatch‘, despite the fact that the company’s own product was ultimately named Apple Watch. The issue it seems is paid promotion on Google search ads when the term “iWatch” is searched. Since Apple’s smartwatch was long rumored to be called the iWatch, and many regulars (including Tim Cook) still refer to it as such, Cupertino figured people would search for ‘iWatch’ when looking for its new device and took out some Google ads for the keyword to take advantage. Search for ‘iWatch’ yourself and you’ll almost certainly see a link to Apple Watch as the top result…
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HSBC appears to have let slip the release date of Apple Pay in the UK over Twitter. In a tweet that has since been deleted, a support representative from the bank said ‘Yes! It’s due to launch this Tuesday! We are excited too’. 9to5Mac previously reported the 14th July date for the expansion of Apple Pay into the UK a couple of weeks ago.

UK retailers also seem to think that the Apple Pay launch is imminent as signs showing support for the contactless technology have started appearing across the country, as noted by 9to5Mac readers and Matt Brian on Twitter.

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When Apple released the first beta of watchOS 2.0 last month following WWDC, users were surprised to learn that there was no way to downgrade from the beta build to the more stable Watch OS 1.0.1. Users tried a variety of different methods, but were ultimately left with one option: send their Watch into Apple and allow them to do the restore. With today’s launch of watchOS 2.0 beta 3, Apple has officially confirmed that there is no way to downgrade to an earlier version of watchOS without sending your device into Apple.

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Apple earlier today began rolling out the third betas of iOS 9, watchOS 2, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan and we’ve been digging into each of them, trying to figure out what is new, changed, and improved. Most of the changes come on the iOS 9 and watchOS 2 side of things, with the new OS X 10.11 beta focusing mainly on under-the-hood changes. Read on for all of the changes…

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Apple today has released the third beta of watchOS 2 to developers. The company released the second beta of the operating system two weeks ago after officially unveiling it at WWDC at the beginning of last month. Today’s new beta carries the build number 13S5293f. watchOS 2 includes support for native applications and beta 3 of the software will allow developers to continue testing their applications with direct access to local sensors, the Digital Crown, and the device’s processor.

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Using data by Mixpanel, Apple Music seems to be quickly driving adoption of Apple’s latest iteration of its operating system, iOS 8.4. The chart shows that, in just one week, iOS 8.4 usage now makes up more than 40% of all iOS device usage. This is a rather staggering rate of uptake for a point-release. Clearly, the interest and advertisement around Apple Music is having an effect on update rates. Obviously, this only tracks OS adoption and says nothing about how well Apple Music itself is being received.

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It’s easy to look at a photograph of Elago’s new W Stand ($30) without fully appreciating how large it is. There aren’t many Apple Watch stands that dwarf the device they’re holding — Griffin’s plastic WatchStand is a notable exception — but when you take the 6-inch-tall, 2.4-inch-diameter W Stand out of its package, you quickly get the sense that it’s designed to feel big and solid. Yet it’s also affordable, selling for the same price as WatchStand and $10 less than Just Mobile’s all-metal TimeStand.

With four different anodized aluminum color choices, W Stand is the rare stand to come in gold, dark gray, black, and silver options that match various versions of the Apple Watch. But will you like it? I’ll discuss all the details below…

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Bryan Jones has taken close up images of the Apple Watch screen, magnified such it is possible to discern the individual pixels and sub-pixels. The images show the arrangements of red, green and blue light that make up the images users see on the Apple Watch Retina Display.

Jones compares the screen technology with that of iPhone screens (shown below). They look quite different likely due to the fact that Apple Watch uses an AMOLED display rather than a LCD. iPhone pixels are tightly packed together with the red, green and blue aligned vertically. With the Apple Watch, the blue sub-pixels act as spacers for the stacked red and green sub-pixels. Jones also notes that the imaging specs are a lot smaller than compared with an iPhone which seems to be in aid of maximising battery life. When zoomed in to this level, it means you can see a lot more black space. Jones says this contributes to the Apple Watch’s excellent contrast ratios.

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Two new reports out of Asia this morning purport to shed light on improvements coming to Apple’s next-generation Apple Watch and the iPhone 6S.

According to a report out of Korea (via Naver/Digital Daily), Apple has decided to source flexible OLED screens for the Apple Watch 2 from both Samsung and LG, prioritizing improved outdoor visibility rather than changing the screen size, shape, or resolution. Outdoor screen visibility is a particular issue for the more reflective, sapphire-faced Apple Watch and Edition, which noticeably reduce the underlying screen’s apparent brightness compared with the glass-faced Apple Watch Sport. The report also claims Apple is more concerned about thinning components than reducing weight, in order to make room for a larger battery.

A second and more questionable report out of Taiwan, allegedly posted to microblogging site Weibo by a Foxconn employee before being pulled and recirculated by PhoneArena, claims to offer a series of additional details regarding the upcoming iPhone 6S. As detailed below, a new pink color, higher-resolution cameras with Force Touch simultaneous video/photo modes, and a faster Touch ID fingerprint scanner are all said to be on tap…

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Like many other people, I signed up for Apple Music yesterday because it was intriguing and free. Having skipped earlier subscription music services, I didn’t have Spotify playlists to worry about losing or importing, and I hadn’t experienced truly unlimited access to a giant music selection before. Apple Music’s sign-up process turned out to be great: attractive, simple, and just personal enough to learn my tastes without feeling creepy. It’s also likely to win long-term customers: sign up your family, and after 3 months, someone’s going to insist on keeping Apple Music (or just forget to cancel it).

But once the sign-up process is over, Apple Music repeats a mistake that Apple made earlier this year with the Apple Watch: throwing users into the deep end of a big new pool without adequate guidance. Despite all the talk of importantly human-curated content, Apple Music is oddly and robotically silent when it should be actively guiding new customers through a brand new service. In prior years, Apple held back products until they were polished enough that anyone could use them immediately. These days, Apple releases major products with enough rough software edges that customers and reviewers are (rightfully) complaining about learning curves and unintuitive interfaces.

As of today, Apple has a new VP of User Interface Design, Alan Dye, who is taking over software-side responsibilities from Apple’s vaunted design chief Jony Ive. In light of the Apple Watch and Apple Music launches, both of which were criticized for unnecessarily complex user interfaces, I’d respectfully suggest to Mr. Dye that fixing this problem should be a top priority…

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Back when white earbuds dominated the market, Beats by Dre proved that mainstream customers were willing to pay $300 for large wired headphones and nearly $400 for wireless versions — even plasticky, overly bassy ones. The subsequent shift towards big headphones nearly killed makers of premium in-ear models, leading many audio companies to mimic Beats’ formula. But there were holdouts: iconic audio companies including Bowers & Wilkins refused to compromise their materials or change their sonic signatures to match Beats. Instead, B&W offered premium-priced headphones made from premium-quality materials, and let customers pick between plastic Beats or metal and leather alternatives.

Today, Bowers & Wilkins is debuting P5 Wireless ($400), a Bluetooth version of last year’s luxurious P5 Series 2 (and the since-discontinued original P5). Mixing chrome, brushed aluminum, and ultra-soft sheep’s leather, P5 Wireless is virtually indistinguishable from P5 Series 2 apart from its ability to operate with or without a 3.5mm audio cable. Classy in ways that even the top-of-line Beats Pro can’t match, P5 Wireless is the first Bluetooth headphone I would recommend to fans of classic premium audio gear…

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If you want an Apple Watch stand, you can choose from three major materials: plastic, wood, or metal. The universally affordable plastic options tend to look a bit cheap when paired with the Apple Watch — particularly non-Sport models — while the pricey wood ones are somewhat polarizing, sparking a roughly equal mix of “love” and “hate” responses. From what I’ve gathered from readers, metal is the most popular Apple Watch stand option, with options starting at $20 and climbing sharply; most of the best metal stands are hovering around the $60 mark. For months, I’ve felt that the sweet spot for a nice metal Apple Watch stand was right in the middle of that range, but there hasn’t been a worthy option to test the viability of the $40 price point.

That’s part of the reason Just Mobile’s TimeStand ($40) feels inevitable. It was merely a matter of time until the metal masters at Just Mobile weighed in with their take on an Apple Watch stand, and given their design history, it’s no surprise that the result is an elegant little desktop sculpture. TimeStand is machined from a single piece of either silver or black anodized aluminum with a weighted, rubber-padded base, distinctly modern and substantial, yet $20 less expensive than options I’ve previously reviewed from Mophie and Nomad. Moreover, TimeStand’s unique shape offers compatibility with all Apple Watch bands, though there are some small caveats you might want to be aware of…

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