Apple Watch

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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Apple Watch Sport’s Ion-X Glass display (left) vs Apple Watch w/ Sapphire display (right)

DisplayMate is out with a new report today, this time applying its usual detailed analysis to the different displays that come with the various models of Apple Watch. In case you didn’t know already, Apple is using a sapphire display on its pricier, mid-range collection of Apple Watch, as well as with the higher-end Apple Watch Edition. That’s opposed to the Ion-X glass display on the less expensive, entry-level Apple Watch Sport models. But the report shows a detailed analysis of what many users have already noticed: despite sapphire being more scratch resistant, in many cases the cheaper glass display performs better in terms of screen reflectance and visibility in outdoor lighting:
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In a new patent application, Apple details an idea it’s experimenting with that would have Apple Watch users shake hands to exchange data (via PatentlyApple). The idea is simple. The patent application imagines two Apple Watch wearers exchanging data, such as contact information, for example, by performing common gestures like a handshake or a hug:
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Apple directors have been somewhat talkative over the weekend about the imminent release of Apple Music. Former Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers, who now works as a Senior Director of Apple Music, blogged about the product’s launch. He reminisces on the history of digital music and radio saying that seeing Apple Music on stage at WWDC ‘it was hard not to feel like the last 20+ years was leading to this day’.

Interestingly, Apple will be releasing iOS 8.4 at 8 AM on June 30th which includes the newly revamped Music app to support Apple Music. This is slightly earlier than the usual 10 AM release window. The change in scheduling seems to be in service of Beats 1, Apple’s worldwide radio station, which will start streaming from 9 AM on the same day.

Meanwhile, Eddy Cue has also been leaking some tidbits about Apple Music on Twitter …

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Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has started early production of the next-generation iPhone with Force Touch. We initially reported back in May that the next-generation iPhone will include a design similar to the current lineup of devices, but include support for Force Touch. 
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The Apple Watch, originally launched in nine countries, hits seven more today – with a further rollout on July 17th. Apple has so far added the July 17th date to its websites in the Netherlands, Sweden and Thailand.

The countries going live today include Italy, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan … 
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