Today’s the day: Apple is holding its “Spring Forward” event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California. This article contains the latest updates from the event in live blog style; all of our detailed individual stories from the event are now summarized at this link. The event officially began at 10 AM Pacific/ 1PM Eastern time, and our live coverage is below.
Apple may be able to scale back its advertising budget for the Apple Watch: so far the device appears to be doing just fine in getting multi-page editorial coverage in the world’s fashion magazines. The latest fashion title to run a major feature on the watch is Hong Kong’s East Touch magazine, which is running a four-page spread–and has since made a cover appearance on China’s YoHo! magazine.
The Apple Watch has so far been featured Vogue China, Vogue France, the USA’s Selfand the UK’s Style, as well as fashion titles in France and Germany. Apple did, however, have to pay for advertising in the US edition of Vogue. A contributing editor to Vogue also described the Apple Watch as “terrific.”
Check out the other photos from East Touch, and the YoHo! cover, below … Expand Expanding Close
Over the past week, we’ve heard rumors that Apple planned “pop up” stores for displaying the new Apple Watch inside high end stores in both Paris Galeries Lafayette and London Selfridges (pictured above). Now the Austin Statesman notes that Apple has participated in SXSW in a number of ways over the past few years and it would almost be surprising if the Apple Watch wasn’t displayed in some capacity to the international SXSW Interactive audience there. Apple set up a pop-up shop for the iPad 2 during its spring launch in 2011 (pictured right).
Apple has used the festival in the past to showcase a new product (like the iPad 2) or to promote its services (like the iTunes Music Festival last year). SXSW Interactive is the perfect audience of early adopters for a product like the Apple Watch and it wouldn’t be surprising if the company offered a preview of the device there.
Following from features in fashion magazines in France and Germany, the Apple Watch has made its UK editorial debut in Sunday’s publication of Style. Although the Watch is not on the cover of the issue I received, there are four covers circulating — one of them features the Apple Watch as the cover photo. Regardless of whether you get a copy of the magazine with the special cover or not, inside the Watch gets three pages of press coverage.
The main picture features Guinevere Van Seenus wearing a 38mm Apple Watch Sport with Space Grey case and black sport band. The written accompaniment says that the Apple Watch does not convey ‘power, status and discernment’ like a Rolex can but holds back no punches in saying it will ‘wipe the floor with existing smartwatch manufacturers and give mid-market watchmakers a fright’. The magazine compliments Jony Ive in particular, for the design.
Jony Ive has got the tone of the Apple Watch just right. It looks elegant but not standoffish, and as well as the 18 variations of the regular version, there are the 10 Sport options, which come with a lightweight case, strengthened glass and a rubber strap, plus the more expensive Edition range (six models), made from 18ct gold.
Apple has made yet another key hire from the fashion industry: Chester Chipperfield, the Vice President of Digital and Interactive Design at Burberry. Chipperfield was “responsible for User Experience and Digital Design for all channels” and was “highly involved in digital retail initiatives” at Burberry, according to his LinkedIn profile. He confirmed the move to Apple on his profile as well as on Twitter…
Apple has picked up a few new hires and advisors to assist its growing Watch team ahead of the Apple Watch launch currently on track for March. Among them, Apple has recently hired another executive from the fashion industry, this time from Louis Vuitton, in addition to two new hires from the medical industry. Expand Expanding Close
On its website, French fashions retailer Colette is teasing a ‘one day only experience’, taking place at its stores on September 30th. The event runs from store open to 7 pm local time (via MacGeneration). Other details are unknown.
The invite image sort of resembles the Apple Watch home screen, so maybe this is some sort of special demonstration of the upcoming product. There is a possibility that Colette will sell the device in its store when the Watch is released ‘early next year’. Although this would make sense due to the connection with fashion, it would still be weird for the company to demo the product in public when it is still many months off release.
Lisa Armstrong, a contributing editor to Vogue and former Fashion Writer of the Year in the UK, has provided a fashion industry verdict on the Apple Watch – and if she speaks for the rest of the fashion world, Apple should be feeling pretty happy right now. Writing in the Telegraph, she said:
The Apple Watch […] looks terrific, although most of us will deploy a fraction of its potential. Would I like one? Yes. I love watches, and I’m a sucker for a good looking gadget […] [With the Apple Watch] the company is entering the style arena. It should be one hell of a show.
Apple always knew that the watch would need to succeed as a fashion accessory every bit as much as a gadget. The above image – from the Apple website – tells its own story… Expand Expanding Close
Now the Cupertino, California-based company will attempt to repeat that feat [the success of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad] in wearables, an emerging group of devices that track people’s activity and health. Apple will introduce a wearable gadget along with new iPhones on Sept. 9, a person with knowledge of the plans said. Notices for the event, which will also take place in Cupertino, were sent out today.
Apple now plans to unveil a new wearable alongside the two next-generation iPhones we told you the company will debut on September 9th. […] The new device will, predictably, make good use of Apple’s HealthKit health and fitness platform. It will also — predictably — make good use of HomeKit, the company’s new framework for controlling connected devices — though it’s not clear how broadly or in what way.
The Wall Street Journal has published a new report claiming that Apple’s upcoming entry to the smartwatch market will sport ten or more sensors for collecting health data. The report also claims that the company is working on multiple versions for the wearable device, which is expected to be released later this year.
The iWatch is expected to be a health-focused device and will likely work with Apple’s new Health application, which it debuted earlier this month at its Worldwide Developer Conference. The application and its associated framework, called HealthKit, already have built-in support for certain types of devices without the need for a third-party application.
New Apple hires on both the senior executive and standard engineering levels have expertise in fashion, wearable product industrial design, retail, blood-reading sensors, medical device product management, hardware engineering, software vision, and fitness.
As the rumored launch of the “iWatch” approaches, we have compiled an up-to-date list (into categories of leadership, fashion, fitness, and health) of all known and pertinent recent Apple hires to provide a clearer picture of what Apple’s future wearable technologies could offer to consumers…
Apple and fashion retailer Burberry have announced that Burberry’s London-based fashion show next week will be captured entirely with the new iPhone 5s. Apple’s iPhone 5s, which was announced earlier this week, includes major camera enhancements with an improved aperture, dual-LED flash, and new camera software like slow-motion and burst modes.
“iPhone 5s makes it even easier to take great photos with the world’s most popular camera,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPhone & iOS Product Marketing. “We’re thrilled to see the amazing photos and HD video Burberry has captured with the incredible all-new iSight camera.”
While the iPhone 5s will officially hit stores on Friday, September 20th, Burberry’s show is on September 16th, so they will be getting early access to the device for this special partnership.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iL5ceRxp4A
Update: Burberry has posted a new video (below) on their Instgram feed which spotlights the slo-mo feature of the iPhone 5s.
http://instagram.com/p/eUvd7NxJCC/