apple watch

Great but no gamechanger yet: The Apple Watch is finally here

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Table of contents

What we were expecting

Apple Watch: Heres what to expect from Apples first smartwatch 04Apple Watch: Pebble, LG Urbane LTE, Huawei Watch and other competitors 07The Apple Watch Wish List: This could make it really rock 09Should you buy the Apple Watch? Find out why it would be best to wait 11

What Apple finally unveiled

Apple Watch launched at $349 onwards; available for pre-order starting 10 April 15Design, features, price and availability: All you need to know about the Apple Watch 17Hands-on with the Apple Watch: Find out what the critics are saying 20Apple unveils new 12-inch MacBook in gold, only 13.1mm thick and will start at $1299 22Apple MacBook Air, MacBook Pro line refreshed with faster processors, Force Touch trackpad 24

What we thought of Apples latest offerings

Apple Watch: How apps could help make or break the new wearable 26Apple Watch: The $10,000 hefty price tag hasnt gone down well with the Twitterati 29Apple Watch is finally out: Heres why I dont see myself wanting this 33Apple Watch has 8GB space but only 2GB for music and 75 MB for photos 36Apples shiny new MacBook: Here are the pros and cons of buying this $1299 laptop 39Dell, Asus and Lenovo take potshots at Apples new MacBook on Twitter 43This is no iPhone: Tech experts declare Apple Watch confusing 46

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What we were expecting

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Apple Watch: Heres what to expect from Apples first smartwatch

tech2 News Staff / 09 Mar 2015

W e are just a few hours away from Ap-ples big event, wherein the company is expected to launch the Watch. Ap-ple announced its wearable at its media event in September last year, without disclosing a specif-ic launch date or too many details. However, in the past six months, a string of rumours, specu-lations and confirmed reports have surfaced. Heres a quick sum up of everything we know about the Apple Watch, so far.

Design and display

The Apple Watch features a squarish screen and the company hasnt gone for the round watch as some were hoping. Apples Watch will be com-ing in three distinct collections and two differ-ent sizes. The three editions are Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch Edition. Apple Watch Edition is plated with 18 karat gold. Going by the propensity to buy anything with gold, we predict this edition might do exceptionally well in India. The two different screen sizes are 38 mm and 42 mm.

The Watch is crafted from custom alloys of polished or space black stainless steel (Apple Watch), space gray or silver anodized aluminum (Apple Watch Sport) and 18-karat rose or yellow gold (Apple Watch Edition). With two sizes and three different editions, Apple has also intro-duced six different straps. These are a sports band; the Milanese Loop as Apple has named which has a flexible magnetic stainless steel

mesh; theres the Leather Loop which has a magnet for quick fastening; the leather Modern Buckle, which closes with a solid metal clasp; the leather Classic Buckle; and the stainless steel Link Bracelet.

The Sports band will come in black, blue, green, pink and white. The Classic Buckle comes in black and midnight blue. The leather Loop comes in bright blue, light brown and stone. The Modern Buckle in midnight blue, brown, soft pink, rose gray and bright red. The Mila-nese Loop is stainless steel and the Link Brace-let in brushed stainless steel and polished space black.

The latest hands-on report has also praised the force-sensing touchscreen interface.

Input

There are three input methods direct touch inputs, navigation via the Digital Crown and voice input. There is no keyboard input at all. All forms of input are handled with pre-populated options and voice dictation, adds the report further. All voice control features are labeled Voice Control, instead of Siri. This version of the Watch doesnt support replying to emails (no voice support either), and one has to send all replies from the iPhone.

Clock Faces

The Clock faces in the Apple Watch are said to be incredible and expected to come with in-sane level of detailing and customizing. Each face is supposedly like an app and the company wont yet allow third-party faces. The smart as-tronomy Watch Face will let you use the crown to scroll through time and watch planetary alignments for the complete solar system.

Notifications and storage



The Apple wearable will come with a notifica-tions center, just like the iPhone. The notifica-tions can be accessed by simply swiping down the screen. Apple watch may most likely support 8GB storage, just like the prototype watches. It will let users store music and play even when unlinked to an iPhone.

Battery Life

Earlier, there were reports about how the com-pany will not achieve the target it set for the bat-tery life. Now, Apple has reportedly improved the devices battery life, and it spruced up to handle 5 hours of fairly heavy application us-age. The report further states that the wearable wont run out of battery during a typical day of mixed active and passive usage. The sources have now confirmed to the news site that the Apple Watch will require to be charged nightly, and definitely not last through a second full day.

Power Reserve mode

Apple is known to come with a Power Reserve Mode that will cut optional services and pre-serve the wearables core functionality. A re-cent report by 9To5Mac adds that the Power Reserve Mode can be activated using a Battery Glance thats accessible at any time, or via the Apple Watchs Settings application.

The Reserve mode can be accessed even when the battery life shows 100 percent charge. As soon as one activates the mode, it dims the display, slows down communication with the iPhone and even puts the display to sleep after about two seconds of inactivity. One unit tested allowed access to all Apple Watch functions while in Power Reserve mode, while another unit was limited to the Clock face. Were told that some test units took between four and five hours to charge up to 100% from 0% via the wall-attached MagSafe charger. This is a no-table improvement, were told, from fall 2014

prototype, adds the report.

Glances and yet-to-be-announced Heart Rate Glance

Glance is the quick view of Apple watchs im-portant app content. Apple Watch comes pre-installed with Glances and reportedly default Glances include Fitness Stats, Activity, Clock, Weather, Music, Quick Settings, Calendar and Maps. Heart Rate Glance, it is a new feature that will let users see their Beats/minute any-time. The Glance option will show a heart im-age and one has to tap a button that will start updating the screen with BPM reading. Recently a Apple Watch hands-on report reveals that the reading were displayed instantly and seemed accurate.

Companion app and health features

As per 9To5Mac, the Watch will come with set-tings for individual Apple Watch applications that can be controlled by a Companion applica-tion on the iPhone. The Companion app with a dark black user interface will allow to control the various settings, music storage and also with re-arranging the icons on the Apple Watchs homescreen.

For Health, the smartwatch has two main apps. These are the Activity App and the Workout App.The Activity app on Apple Watch provides a graphic of your daily activity, with three rings which show calories burnt, minutes of exercise done and how often a user takes a break from sitting. The Workout App lets users set goals as far as fitness and exercise is concerned and you can monitor your progress on your iPhone as well. Apple Watch uses the accelerometer, a built-in heart rate sensor, GPS and Wi-Fi from your iPhone for all of this.



Some of the earlier reports were hinting at an array of sensors for measuring blood pressure, heart activity and stress levels, however, looks like we may not see these features in the first iteration of the watch.

A WSJ report in February revealed that features like tracking stress levels and blood pressure were extremely complex to implement. On the other hand, some sensors couldnt be imple-mented because the sensors didnt meet Apples standards.Some sensors didnt give accurate readings, adds the report.

Miscellaneous

The Apple Watch features Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 4.0 to pair with your iPhone. The S1 chip that powers the Watch is comparable to the Apple A5 chip. The Watch display will light up whenever the iPhone is locked for all of the

phones notifications, but in case the iPhone is unlocked, the Watch will not light up for new alerts. Apple watch doesnt come fitted with a power off button and reportedly one can do so by long-pressing the communications button seen on the right side. It also gets the option to Force Quit an unstable app using the same shut down screen. The Settings app brings the toggle option between Bluetooth and Airplane mode. Wi-Fi doesnt get a dedicated settings panel and needs to be controlled on the iPhone.

Price

Apple Watch Sport starts at $349 which comes to around Rs 21,000 when converted without taxes. The Steel Sport Band could start at $749 while the Classic Buckle at $849. The high-end Apple Watch Edition with Sport Band may carry a price tag of $7,499 and the gold bracelet a whopping $17,999, suggests Fortune.



Apple Watch: Pebble, LG Urbane LTE, Huawei Watch and other competitors

Naina Khedekar / 09 Mar 2015

F inally, it looks like the battle of the smartwatches will begin soon. It was way back in 2013 that rumours about Apple working on a smartwatch had taken the indus-try by storm. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, and the market already has a lot of competition brewing for the Apple Watch even before its release. While smartwatches from Sony and the popular Pebble were already launched, bigwigs like Google, Samsung, Mo-torola and several others soon followed suit. Lets quickly take a look at some of the existing competition to the Apple Watch.

Pebble

The Pebble looks like a worthy competitor to the Apple Watch. According to Canalys, a total of 1 million units of the popular Pebble smartwatch were shipped from the 2013 launch through to the end of 2014. The timely software updates, more apps and price cuts are believed to have helped with its sales in the second half of the year, placing it on the top of the charts of the watches sold in 2014. The Pebble Steel comes with an e-paper display and promises 5 to 7 days of battery life. With a waterproof design, the display also gets Gorilla Glass protection along with an anti-fingerprint coating. Recently, the company announced Pebble Time, its third generation of the smartwatch. Slated to launch in May, the Pebble Time will feature an all new design and color e-paper display. It is 20 per-cent slimmer and will come with a completely different software platform.

Huawei Watch

The biggest surprise and the head-turner at the MWC this year Huawei Watch looks like a worthy competitor. Powered by Android Wear, it is a circular watch with a 1.4-inch touch-sen-sitive AMOLED display. The screen resolution is 400 x 400 pixels, with 286 ppi pixel density. The Huawei Watch has Qualcomm 1.2GHz processor, 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM and Bluetooth 4.1. It also has a heart rate monitor sensor, 6-Axis motion sensor and barometer that automatically detects and tracks in real-time if a user is walking, running, biking, hiking or sleeping. Heres all you need to know.

LG Urbane LTE

Another competitor to Apples upcoming smartwatch is the LG Urbane with support for LTE. Just like its non-LTE version, it sports a 1.3-inch plastic-organic-light-emitting diode circular display with an always-on ambient mode. It also comes powered by the same



1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and 4GB of storage. Talking about some key dif-ferences, LTE connection enables the device to make and receive calls as well as text messages independently. It gets a larger 700mAh battery, sprucing up the time in standby mode. It also includes support for NFC. Besides, LG has fitted in three physical buttons on the right side of the smartphone. The top button can be used to access settings, center button to switch between the watch and apps, the lower button serves as a back button to return to the previous screen.

Moto 360

The popular Moto 360 smartwatch that entered the Indian market for Rs 17,999, is yet another Android competitor to the Apple Watch. It comes with an elegant circular backlit display with a diameter of 1.56 inches and comes with a 320 x 290 resolution that uses a pixel density of 205ppi. It also gets a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to protect it from minor scratches and bumps. The smartwatch is powered by the TI OMAP 3 processor coupled with 512MB RAM. It also gets 4GB internal memory for saving music and photos. For tracking activities, it is fitted with a pedometer and optical heart rate monitor (PPG). The IP67-certified Moto 360 is water-resistant and also supports wireless charging.

Samsung Gear S

Just like most smartwatches, Gear S notifies users about new messages, Facebook updates and weather. It also comes with an alarm clock, music playback and apps for tracking steps and exercise. However, what makes this watch stand out is the support for cellular connectivity. Other smartwatches use a Bluetooth wireless connection linked to your phone to receive calls, send texts and perform other tasks. The Gear S can do all that on its own.

Sony Smartwatch 3

For SmartWatch 3, Sony has collaborated with Googles Android Wear platform. Apart from Android Wear goodies, it comes with its own standalone applications. The device has a built-in microphone, accelerometer, compass, gyrom-eter and GPS sensor which assists with accurate lifelogging. It sports a 1.6-inch 320320 TFT LCD transreflective display to help in easy view-ability in sunlight. The SmartWatch 3 is also water proof and charges via a microUSB port. It comes with 4GB onboard storage, allowing you to add music and sync playlists.



A pples Watch will be launched at a spe-cial event today and while we already know about the specifications of the Watch, were hoping that Apple will give us a more detailed look at what the smartwatch is capable of. Heres a wishlist of what we would love the Apple Watch to be like:

1. Battery life

Be it any gadget, battery is the most crucial and important component. In this day and age, when we check our devices relentlessly, without break, the battery can make or break a device. Earlier, there were reports about how the com-pany might not achieve the target it set for the battery life of the Apple Watch. But now, Ap-ple has reportedly improved the devices bat-tery life and it spruced up to handle 5 hours of fairly heavy application usage. But is that really enough? Apple has also reportedly come up with a Power Reserve Mode that will cut op-tional services and preserve the wearables core functionality.

Apple cannot make the user to charge it every 9-10 hours we already have to do it with our smartphones. It just isnt fair and it also doesnt make very good sense.

2. Cross-platform functionality

The watch will most definitely be only com-patible with Apple products. But it would be a pleasant surprise if the device can support cross-platform functionality; if Apple can tell us that they are actually thinking about going in that direction. As the world is dominated by Android users, it would be nice to have the option of using the Apple Watch along with my Android device.

Earlier, the iPod was only compatible with Mac but after few years, Apple realised that the de-vice had a larger audience and hence, they made it available for Windows. We hope Apple does not follow the same path and announces some capabilities wherein the Watch could connect to Android, Windows, BB and other platforms out there.

The Apple Watch Wish List: This could make it really rock

Karrishma Modhy / 09 Mar 2015



3. Health Focus

Apple has plans to go big on health and keep us as fit as possible. The buzz earlier was about how the Apple Watch could revolutionise healthcare. A report by Forbes shared that the Apple has also gone a long way to hire digital health sensor experts as well. We dont exactly want the watch to provide us with our blood sugar count but we do hope that it could com-municate with other gadgets for health pur-poses. Just a simple tracker for calculating steps and distance will not do the trick.

Apple needs to offer us something unique; something that sets it apart from the competi-tion and it shouldnt just be a replica of a fitness tracker.

4. Think Different again

We have waited a long time for Apples Watch and if we have waited for so long, they need to offer us a different take on the smartwatch. There needs to be something that sets it apart from the pack. Apart from telling time, it will perform the same functions that our phones cover. Along with Health, it gives us or mails and messages on the go but is that it? It might distract or entertain us during meetings/classes but we need more; much more.

Be it Sony, Samsung or the latest Huawei, all the companies are trying to figure out the one major USP which will capture the smartwatch market. Could the-last-but-not-the-least Apple

do that?

5. Price tag

Face it, its going to be expensive. Apple always has a high mark-up on its products, the Watch will be no different. They had announced that the basic Apple Watch will start at $349, but hasnt said anything beyond that. The rumoured limited edition Gold Watch might run into thousands of dollars. But we are looking for whats in between.

According to a report by the Daring Fireball, every watch with a different variant along with unique materials, will have a different price. The Apple Watch, steel, Sport Band could be $749/799 while the Apple Watch, steel, Link Bracelet could go up to $1499/1599. On the other hand, the Apple Watch Edition, Modern Buckle (38mm only) could go to $9999 or the Apple Watch Edition, Classic Buckle (42mm only) could up to a whopping $10,999.

For example, if you look at the Pebble, it costs around $150, which is much more affordable.

If the rumoured prices turn out to be true, we could be looking at the most expensive smart-watch, till date. At the end, it comes down to a simple question: Is it worth my money?

But, if it isnt, this could go as one of Apples biggest fail in a long time.



Should you buy the Apple Watch? Find out why it would be best to wait

Nimish Sawant / 09 Mar 2015

T he Apple Watch launch is just a few hours away and although the smartwatch category has been around for quite a while, every geek will be looking forward to what Apple has to offer. Just to keep things in perspective, Apple Watch will be the first major product launch by Cupertino-tech giant since the iPad launch in 2010 and the first major product launch since Steve Jobs demise. We had got a glimpse of the Apple Watch last year at the iPad event and it received mixed respons-es.

Looking at the past, whenever Apple has en-tered into a new product segment that is al-ready in existence, it has in a way redefined that segment. It happened for MP3 players with the launch of the iPod back in 2001, with smart-phones when Apple released the iPhone in 2007 and with tablets after Apple introduced the iPad in 2010. With the Watch, will Apple repeat his-tory?

The Buzz

Well the answer may not be as easy, consid-ering we have seen some really good looking smartwatches over the last year and at the just concluded Mobile World Congress. On the list are LG Watch Urbane LTE and Huawei Watch both of which look as premium as one can expect and which come with a traditional round watch design. But despite the multiple smartwatches available to users, if you look at pure sales numbers, they pale in comparison to

smartphones.

According to Strategy Analytics, only 5 million smartwatches were sold worldwide last year, whereas around 74.6 million iPhones were sold in just the last quarter of 2014. People are clear-ly treading with caution as far as this category is concerned.

Another reason is the over dependence on your smartphone. As a companion device to the smartphone, the smartwatch is commanding quite a premium pricing. Apple Watch is ex-pected to start from $349 onwards. Unlike an iPod or an iPad which catered to a specific need among the audience, the smartwatch is offer-ing multiple functionalities which can be over-whelming to a lot of potential buyers.

Also Apple Watch still has many questions unanswered (maybe they were saved for the launch event today) specially over battery life. The Apple Watch will sport a colour display, will support Apple Pay, Apple Health kit and will have a heart-rate sensor tasks which have a potential to drain the battery within a day. Some reports are already out suggesting that Apple Watch will not meet its required mixed usage battery life of 19 hours in the first genera-tion variant. We will come to know more details on the battery life tonight.

If one looks at Apples previous first generation products, it does not really paint a rosy picture. Let us look at some past products from the Ap-ple stable, which created a lot of hype around their launch, but started picking up sales only with their succeeding generations.

The iPod

This was a product that truly revolutionised the way we consume music. It also changed the game when it came to distribution of music and can easily be called as the single product cat-egory which led to the decline of audio CD sales.



It spawned multiple categories within itself. But since September 2012, we havent seen a new iPod in any form. For all practical purposes, the standalone MP3 player category is going the way of the entry-level compact digital cameras.

But the very first iPod launched back in October 2001 did not see massive sales. In fact, it was one bulky device with a proper FireWire port for transferring music, came with 5GB and 10GB capacities and had a mechanical scroll wheel to navigate through songs and folders of music. Also it was only compatible with Mac systems and was priced at a whopping $399 for 5GB of storage (this was still a huge capacity back then). Naturally, this limitation kept it confined just to the Apple enthusiasts.

Sale for the iPod started picking up only when the Windows compatibility was added on, iTunes for Windows was released and Apple decided to diversify the iPod into various afford-able segments such as iPod Nano, iPod Mini or iPod Shuffle. The chart above shows the sales of the iPods. The spike in 2004 was thanks to the release of the higher capacity iPod Classics as well as the first gen iPod Minis. If you want a more detailed chart, check this one out.

The iPad

The first iPad was launched in January 2010. Before the iPad came on to the scene, we had seen prototypes from Microsoft, Samsung and others. But Apple was the first company to re-lease a consumer tablet before anyone else. Ap-ple did manage to sell close to 15 million iPads in the first year, but this was also due to the fact that its closest competitor, Samsung, came out with the Galaxy Tab six months after the iPad launch.

However, a quick look at this chart from Gartner research shows the volume of sales in the first year of the iPad and the succeeding years. 15 million seems like a small number, when you see the three-fold rise in sales in 2011, after the iPad 2, a thinner, lighter and more powerful tablet came along.

At 680 grams, the first iPad was bulky and was called by many as a large screen iPod Touch. Also due to its internal components such as the Apple A4 SoC with 256MB DDR RAM, it started exhibiting sluggish performance after it was updated to iOS 5 and support was discontinued after iOS 6 was released.

The iPad Mini, which had the Apple A5 SoC (first seen in iPad 2) was replaced in the suc-ceeding generation by the iPad Mini with Retina Display sporting the Apple A7 SoC and a high res display.

The iPhone

This is the marquee product of the Apple em-pire, specially if you look at the last five years. In fact, Apple broke all records when it an-nounced a whopping profit of $18 billion, bu-

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oyed by a record 74.6 million iPhone sales in the fiscal quarter ending at December 27, 2014. While iPhone sales have known to come up with record numbers, the first generation iPhone did not get as much love.

Back in 2007, when the first generation iPhone was launched, it came in a 3.5-inch form factor, it lacked 3G connectivity, front-facing camera (although that wasnt an era when selfie was even a word), GPS, digital compass and so on. The first gen iPhone was criticised for its EDGE only connectivity. There were also a lot of bugs, there were issues with Wifi connectivity, Apple logo screen of death and so on.

Also the App store wasnt as expansive as it became over the years. It took 74 days for the iPhone first generation to sell 1 million devices, whereas the iPhone 3G took only three days to reach that mark, although it was sold in only 21 countries. But it still shows the caution people

observed when going for the first generation Ap-ple products. This chart will help you visualise how the iPhone sales took off only after iPhone 4 came on the scene.

Conclusion

Tim Cook will try hard to position the Apple Watch as the next best thing tonight. After the showcase last year and the discussions that have followed, there is certainly a lot of buzz around the product. Unlike the previous first generation launches, the Apple Watch has had solid lead time and comes with ample software backing. Between September last year to this day, Ap-ple has had a lot of time on hand to add more finesse to the Watch.

We will have to await the answers to some important questions such as battery life, avail-ability outside the US, confusion over the wire-less/inductive charging standards, and so on. Moreover, as this Wired article points out, Apple Watch tries to do a little bit of everything. There are many other smartwatches on the mar-ket at the moment and so far there isnt a single stand-out feature on the Apple Watch, bar-ring Apple Pay, that hasnt been seen on other smartwatches out there.

Looking at the information we have so far, it seems wise to wait out the first generation Ap-ple Watch and invest instead in the succeeding generation which will surely be thinner, more powerful and hopefully will give smartwatch buyers specific needs to fulfill.



What Apple finally unveiled



Apple Watch launched at $349 onwards; available for pre-order starting 10 April

tech2 News Staff / 10 Mar 2015

F inally, Apple launched the much talked about Apple Watch at an event held at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco at its Spring Forward event. It is designed to serve as a timepiece, a communication device and also a health and fitness companion.

Apple Watch will be available in three col-lections The Apple Watch Sport priced at $349 (approx Rs 21,908) and $399 (approx Rs 25,000), Apple Watch priced between $549 (approx Rs 34,400) and $1,099 (approx Rs 68,800) and the Apple Watch Edition built from custom rose or yellow 18-karat gold alloys starting at $10,000 (approx Rs 6,27,500). Apple Watch works with iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus running iOS 8.2 or later. iOS 8.2 is available for download.Conceived, designed and developed as a singu-lar product, Apple Watch merges hardware and software like never before, said Jony Ive, Ap-ples senior vice president of Design. In Apple Watch, weve created three beautifully curated collections with a software architecture that together enable unparalleled personalization in a wearable device.

The Apple Watch comes in 38mm and 42mm sizes. The 38 mm: 21.2 x 26.5 mm, 33.5 mm (1.32 in) diagonally, 272 x 340 pixels; while 42 mm: 24.3 x 30.5 mm, 39 mm (1.5 in) diagonally, 312 x 390 pixels. It is available with different watch faces and straps. The Watch includes interchangeable straps such as the Sport Band, the Leather Loop, Link Bracelet, Classic Buckle,

Modern Buckle and Milanese Loop. It also includes a range of faces such as Astronomy, So-lar, Modular, Timelapse, Utility, Motion, Photo and Mickey Mouse.

The device sports a fresh UI which can be con-trolled by the Digital Crown. This wheel al-lows users to scroll and browse through the user interface. Theres Bluetooth 4.0 support, Wi-Fi and Magsafe wireless charging. A custom-designed S1 chip has been used inside the Apple Watch. Apple has fitted a flexible Retina display protected by a sapphire crystal

The Apple Watchs Taptic Engine will vibrate when you receive a new notification and can also do things like provide slightly different vibrations for left and right turns within the Maps app. A Glances feature lets you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to see what-ever information you care about like weather forecast, your current location on a map or the music youre listening to. Using the Apple Watch, one can pay for coffee using Apple Pay, board a plane with a Passbook boarding pass, or just raise your wrist to ask Siri for turn-by-turn directions in Maps.

Towards the back, there are four sensors name-ly that make up the heart-rate monitor. This will allow the Watch to keep a track of all your daily activities. The Apple Watch also has an acceler-ometer to measure body movement, and uses the Wi-Fi and GPS features on the iPhone to track distance.



An Activity app present in the Apple Watch will track your daily activities and store all that information. The Workout app shows real-time information such as calories burned and dis-tance traveled and also helps set goals. Accord-ing to Apple, over a period of time the Apple Watch will learn your behavior and know you just like a personal fitness instructor would have.

One of the first apps to come to the Apple Watch is Letterpad, a word puzzle from Nimblebit, the developer behind Tiny Tower. The Apple Watch can also nag you to stand up if youve been sit-ting down for the first 50 minutes of an hour as well.

Starting April 10, the Apple Watch will be avail-able for preview, try-on by appointment at Apples retail stores and also available for pre-order through the Apples online store in Aus-tralia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US. On April 24, it will be available online or by reservation in Apples retail stores and select Apple authorized resellers in China and Japan. Customers who purchase online or in-store from Apple will be offered Personal Setup to customize and pair Apple Watch with their iPhone.



Design, features, price and availability: All you need to know about the Apple Watch


F inally, Apple's highly anticipated Watch is here! There has been a lot of talk about what fea-tures it may adopt and what may be given a miss in the first iteration of the Apple ever since the Watch was announced last year in September. As the device is ready to hit store shelves in April, here's all you need to know about the Watch.

Design and display

The Apple Watch features a squarish screen and will be coming in three distinct collections and two different sizes. The Watch is crafted from custom alloys of polished or space black stainless steel (Apple Watch), space gray or silver anodized aluminum (Apple Watch Sport) and 18-karat rose or yellow gold (Apple Watch Edition). The two different screen sizes are 38 mm and 42 mm. The 38 mm: 21.2 x 26.5 mm, 33.5 mm (1.32 in) diagonally, 272 x 340 pixels; while 42 mm: 24.3 x 30.5 mm, 39 mm (1.5 in) diagonally, 312 x 390 pixels.

With two sizes and three different editions, Apple has also introduced six different straps. These are a sports band; the Milanese Loop as Apple has named which has a flexible magnetic stainless steel mesh; theres the Leather Loop which has a magnet for quick fastening; the leather Modern Buckle, which closes with a solid metal clasp; the leather Classic Buckle; and the stainless steel Link Bracelet.

The Sports band will come in black, blue, green, pink and white. The Classic Buckle comes in black and midnight blue. The leather Loop comes in bright blue, light brown and stone. The Modern Buckle in midnight blue, brown, soft pink, rose gray and bright red. The Milanese Loop is stainless

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steel and the Link Bracelet in brushed stainless steel and polished space black.

Apple Watch Sport sports a lightweight anodized aluminum case in silver and space gray with a Retina display protected by strengthened Ion-X glass along with fluoroelastomer Sport Band in five colors. The Apple Watch collection comes with polished stainless steel and space black stain-less steel cases with a Retina display protected by sapphire crystal. The Apple Watch collection will be available in three different leather straps, a stainless steel link bracelet and Milanese loop, and a black or white Sport Band. Apple Watch Edition crafted from custom rose or yellow 18-karat gold alloys are said to be twice as hard as standard gold, a Retina display protected by polished sapphire crystal and offers a choice of straps and bands with 18-karat gold clasps, buckles or pins.

Software and features

Apple Watch serves as a timepiece and can be personalised with watch faces ranging from tradi-tional analog such as the Chronograph face, Modular face, animated butterflies and jellyfish on the Motion face. It goes beyond telling time with specialised functions on the watch face such as the sunrise/sunset, upcoming calendar events or daily activity level. Users can simply swipe up from the watch face for Glances that quickly show you information you care about. It could be anything from weather forecast and current location to the music youre listening to.

Apart from a timepiece, the Apple Watch serves as a communication device to send messages, read email and answer calls to your iPhone directly from the wrist. It comes with Taptic Engine that sends notification alerts. Users can also send a sketch, a tap or even the rhythm of your heartbeat. Using the Apple Watch, one can pay for coffee using Apple Pay, board a plane with a Passbook boarding pass, or just raise your wrist to ask Siri for turn-by-turn directions in Maps.

The UI can be controlled using the 'Digital Crown'. This wheel allows users to scroll and browse through the user interface. There's Bluetooth 4.0 support, Wi-Fi and Magsafe wireless charging. A custom-designed S1 chip has been used inside the Apple Watch.

For health and fitness, it comes with the Activity app that gives simple visual snapshot of your daily activity with three rings that measure active calories burned, brisk activity and how often you stand



or take a break. Using the Workout app, it also provides detailed metrics required during workout sessions for activities like walking, running and cycling. It supports accelerometer, built-in heart rate sensor, GPS and Wi-Fi from the iPhone. The Activity app on iPhone collects your activity and workout data from Apple Watch and uses this history to suggest personalized activity goals.

The Watch lets users request an Uber, check American Airlines flight, remotely control the Honey-well Lyric thermostat and more. It also supports popular apps such as Instagram, Nike+ Running, OpenTable, Shazam, Twitter, WeChat and more. Apple Watch promises to deliver up to 18 hours of battery life. It combines Apples MagSafe technology with inductive charging for a quick connec-tion.

Compatibility

Apple Watch works with iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus running iOS 8.2 or later. iOS 8.2 is available for download.

Pricing

Apple Watch will be available in three collections The Apple Watch Sport priced at $349 (approx Rs 21,908) and $399 (approx Rs 25,000), Apple Watch priced between $549 (approx Rs 34,400) and $1,099 (approx Rs 68,800) and the Apple Watch Edition built from custom rose or yellow 18-karat gold alloys starting at $10,000 (approx Rs 6,27,500).

Availability

Starting April 10, the Apple Watch will be available for preview, try-on by appointment at Apples retail stores and also available for pre-order through the Apple's online store in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US. On April 24, it will be available online or by reservation in Apples retail stores and select Apple authorized resellers in China and Japan. Customers who purchase online or in-store from Apple will be offered Personal Setup to customize and pair Apple Watch with their iPhone.



Hands-on with the Apple Watch: Find out what the critics are saying

tech2NewsStaff / 11 Mar 2015

A pple unveiled its smartwatch, simply called the Watch, last night at its Spring Forward event in California. Apple announced three variants of smartwatches: Apple Watch Sport starting at $349 for the 38mm model and $399 for the 42mm one; Apple Watch collection going from $540 to $1099 and the Apple Watch Edition which will be priced over $10,000.

Post the announcement journalists/critics present at the event got access to the smartwatch. Apple hasn't announced any India launch date yet, so we will have to wait a while till we get our hands on Apple's smartwatch. But let us see what the critics have to say about the Apple Watch.

User interface

Speaking about the user interface Cipriani says, "It was highly responsive, and looked fantastic on the screen. Animations lacked any stuttering or lag, something I saw on the demo units in Septem-ber. Siri, the voice-prompted virtual assistant, was quick to come up, though the mic had a hard time picking up commands in my noisy environment. Zooming in and out of the Photos library was fun."

Ryan Smith from Anandtech said that the Apple Watch appeared to be running a scaled down ver-sion of the iOS. "Apps other than the clock have a short but distinct loading time. Once youre in an app most move smoothly as youd expect, though flipping through one of the Apple fitness applica-tions saw noticeable stuttering. Whether the load times and stuttering I saw is a limit of the SoC or the NAND Im unsure, though as this is a pre-release device its entirely likely that Apple still has some performance tuning to go," he said.



Build Quality

Among all the watches the Apple Watch Sport has the most plasticky of bands, says PC World's Dan Costa. According to him, the watch face is infinitely customisable and it is easy to navigate between digital, analog, hybrid and animated watch faces.

According to Fortune's Jason Cipriani, there was a noticeable difference in the weights of the three variants, with the gold plated Apple Watch Edition being the heaviest at 69 grams which is double that of the Sport variant.

Navigation

This is the first Apple device that has not one, but three ways of interacting with the device. Using the Digital Crown, via voice input - Siri and through the touch display.

"First things first: it is really confusing to have both the Digital Crown and the communications button next to each other on the side. As I tried to navigate the Watch interface, I found myself pressing one or both several times, without knowing which one would take me to the home screen, back out of an app, or launch a feature," says Nilay Patel of The Verge.

However, Techcrunch's Darell Etherington said that the system software was intuitive, although the Digital Crown does take some getting used to. According to him, the touch input is also fast and responsive. Speaking on the 'taptic' touch engine, Etherington says that it works wonderfully. "The engines vibration is very subtle and subject to fine tuning, providing a different response though only small variations. Compared to most haptic feedback in wearables that Ive tried before, its almost on a completely different level whereas you wont even notice the kludgy vibration motors in a lot of Android Wear devices, taptic feedback is as difficult to ignore as an actual human lightly tapping your wrist," he said.

According to CNN Money's Heather Kelly, there are two tapping options for the touchscreen, light and hard, which can perform different functions. But this just adds to the confusion and does not make the Apple Watch as intuitive as the iPhone. The new interface certainly has a learning curve, she says.

Navigation is heavily reliant on the Digital Crown says Cipriani, and it offers little resistance while rotating it. Force Touch navigational method will require some getting used to and specially figur-ing out when and for what to use it for.

Confusion regarding purpose

As we have been hearing over the days before the launch, Apple hasn't really articulated well enough, the question as to why one needs the Apple Watch. For instance the feature which allows you to send doodles, what possible purpose does that serve? journalist Heather Kelly exchanged doodles with an Apple employee, while trying on the Apple Watch. "I wondered what exactly you could communicate with tiny drawings. The medium doesn't really seem meant for casual ac-quaintances. The potential for confusion and awkward misunderstandings is too great. The tech-nology feels fresh and exciting but it can also seem confused and unnecessary," she says.

"That feeling of not knowing exactly where you are or what's going to happen is pretty disorienting for an Apple product. I'm still not sure why you'd want to put this thing on your wrist all the time. Apple's big task at this event was convincing people that a use case for the Watch exists, and at this moment it still feels like an awful lot of interesting ideas without a unifying theme," says Patel.



Apple unveils new 12-inch MacBook in gold, only 13.1mm thick and will start at $1299


A t the Apple Watch event in San Francisco yesterday, the company showcased the new MacBook, calling it the thinnest Mac ever built. The new MacBook comes in three colours: Space Grey, silver and gold, just like the iPhones.It has a 12-inch Retina display screen with a resolution of 2304 x 1440 pixels. According to Apple, the new MacBook's display comes with 16:10 aspect ratio and it is only 0.88 mm thin making it the thinnest display ever on a Mac. The company also claims the new Retina display uses 30 percent less energy than previous versions.

Where the form factor of the new MacBook goes, it is only 13.1 mm at its thickest point and weighs only 2 pounds which is 0.9 kgs. According to Apple, the new MacBook design is ensures that it is 24 percent thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air.

Apple has also made changes to the keyboard, which is 34 percent thinner. It also uses a newer Apple-designed butterfly mechanism to provide keys that are "four times more stable" and more precise and according to Apple the "stainless steel dome switches located beneath each key deliver a crisp and responsive feel when typing". Also each key is individually backlit with its own single LED.

The new MacBook also features the all-new Force Touch trackpad which has built-in force sen-sors that allows users to customise the trackpad based on the pressure exerted. There's also a new gesture called Force Click, which is essentially a click followed by a deeper press, and can be set for specific tasks like checking the meaning of a word or seeing a map, etc. It also eliminates the right click.



The 12-inch MacBook also comes with a new compact USB-C port for data transfer, video out and charging in a single connector. USB-C supports higher wattage charging, USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps) data transfer and DisplayPort 1.2 all in a single connector thats one-third the size of a traditional USB port.

Apple has also reduced the logic board making it 67 percent smaller than the logic board of the 11-inch MacBook Air and this is the first fanless MacBook.

Where battery goes, Apple says the new MacBook comes with a "terraced battery design" that is layered in individual sheets and that the new Macbook has 35 percent more battery capacity than would be possible with traditional battery. It delivers all-day battery life with up to 9 hours of wire-less web browsing and up to 10 hours of movie playback.

The processor is the fifth-generation Intel Core m processor that runs at just 5 Watts and Intel HD Graphics 5300 and Apple claims the new MacBook is the worlds most energy efficient notebook.

The MacBook comes with a 1.1 GHz dual-core Intel Core m processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.4 GHz, 8GB of memory, 256GB of flash storage and Intel HD Graphics 5300. It has built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity.

It will cost $1,299 which is around Rs 80,000 without taxes; the one with 512GB of flash memory will cost $1,599 which is Rs 1,00,000 without taxes, which seems like a very steep price for the MacBook. The India Apple site shows the new MacBook as coming soon.



Apple MacBook Air, MacBook Pro line refreshed with faster processors, Force Touch trackpad


A pple's Spring Forward event saw the official release of the new MacBook and eagerly awaited Apple Watch, but along with these products, Apple also refreshed its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines.

The major addition to both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is the latest OS X Yosemite operating system. MacBook Pro will also get the Force Touch trackpad, which was announced yesterday while launching the new MacBook.

Force Touch trackpad which has built-in force sensors that allows users to customise the track-pad based on the pressure exerted. Theres also a new gesture called Force Click, which is es-sentially a click followed by a deeper press, and can be set for specific tasks like checking the meaning of a word or seeing a map, etc. It also eliminates the right click.

The 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air will get ei-ther a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor or a 2.2GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor along with Intel HD 6000 graphics. Both will

come with Thunderbolt 2 port (which doubles the bandwidth to 20Gbps), 4GB or 8GB of RAM and will have Wi-fi 802.11ac.

The 11-inch MacBook Air will come in two vari-ants - 128GB flash storage which will come for Rs 65,900 and the 256GB flash storage model which will start from Rs 79,900. With the 13-inch MacBook Air, the 128GB flash storage version will cost Rs 72,900 whereas the 256GB flash storage variant will set you back by Rs 86,900.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display will also get new faster 2.7GHz/2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 or 3.1GHz dual-core Core i7 processors along with Intel HD 6100 graph-ics, Thunderbolt 2 and better battery life. The MacBook Pro will be priced at Rs 94,000 for 8GB RAM and 128GB flash storage variant, Rs 1,09,000 for the 256GB variant and Rs 1,29,000 for the 512GB flash storage version.

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What we thought of Apples latest offerings



Apple Watch: How apps could help make or break the new wearable


B e it a smartphone or smartwatch, these days we are often looking at what apps a device can support. This is one reason why Google has been trying to increase the list of apps its Wear devices run. Apple has a vast apps store, but those looking to pay hundreds of thousands will definitely want something exceptional. Unless, some owners want to use it only as a timepiece.

Talking about apps accompanying the Watch, let's begin with the Apple Watch app itself. Yes, once you download the new iOS 8.2 version, you will find an Apple Watch app pushed onto your home-screen showing demo videos. Basically, compelling you to buy one, a great way of advertising the product, we must say. Want to get rid of it? No, you can't.

"For now, the Apple Watch app entices consumers with product videos, but it's not hard to imag-ine an update down the line that lets the app notify you every 30 seconds that it's time to just cave, buy the watch and live in the future already. Like Stocks, Calendar, Contacts and other Apple-made apps on iOS, the new Apple Watch app can't be deleted from your iPhone," points out Cnet.



Moving to what the wearable has to offer, it comes with some familiar apps like Mail, Messages and Maps, which the company claims to work in newer ways. Apple also says that some apps be-come even more convenient on the wrist such as Siri, Music and Passbook. Using the Apple Watch, one can pay for coffee using Apple Pay, you can board a plane with a Passbook boarding pass, or just raise your wrist to ask Siri for turn-by-turn directions in Maps.

All these apps have been built into the device along with some completely new apps like Activity, Workout and Camera Remote. For health and fitness, it comes with the Activity app that gives sim-ple visual snapshot of your daily activity with three rings that measure active calories burned, brisk activity and how often you stand or take a break. Using the Workout app, it also provides detailed metrics required during workout sessions for activities like walking, running and cycling. It sup-ports accelerometer, built-in heart rate sensor, GPS and Wi-Fi from the iPhone. The Activity app on iPhone collects your activity and workout data from Apple Watch and uses this history to sug-gest personalized activity goals. The Camera Remote turns the Apple Watch into a viewfinder for the iSight camera on your iPhone.

It also supports a list of popular third-party apps including Instagram, Facebook, Nike+ Run-ning, OpenTable, Shazam, Twitter, WeChat and more. It already has apps for airlines, department stores, social networks that take advantage of the unique opportunities the wrist brings, promising more apps being built almost everyday. The company had demonstrated how some apps will work. For instance, You can scroll up and down through your Instagram feed using the watchs digital crown while tapping on a photo will display more information.



If you look at the list of apps, there isn't anything exceptional. The focus seems distracted on how the apps will be accessed using the crown or single taps. Simply putting it, Apple should focus on action rather than apps

Now, some may disagree arguing how much time would one spend accessing an app on a small screen, especially when we are vying for large screen devices like phablets. Yes, that's true. The Watch can be called a luxury fitness device that will keep you in touch with some alerts and notifi-cations while workout. However, taking it beyond these activities is something Apple will have to focuss on. Developers will have to try hard and justify their apps on the small screen. Using an app on the watch will be more about the surrounding where you can conveniently access it without the need for your smartphone. Otherwise, it isn't really very hard to pull out your smartphone from the pocket and get distracted for a longer time without the need to reach out to the watch.

A Wired report rightly points out, "Yesterday, I used Yo (yes, that Yo) to help me remember where I parked my cartap twice to set the location, once to retrieve it. The execution wasnt perfect, but it helped me to understand when the screen on my wrist might actually be useful. Instead of dith-ering with an app on my phone while Im standing on a street corner, I could mash one button to make a complicated thing happen out in the world."

So, if the Watch can target such apps and manage to deliver this kind of usefulness and interaction, it could work wonders for the wearable device. Why would I like to see photos on a small screen when I can simply view them on my smartphone? The Watch has to bring convenience and that should be limited to some gestures or rotating the digital crown. Moreover, developers will have to remember, that monetizing is difficult on smartphones and it will be more difficult on the Watch.

"If ads are tough on small smartphone screens, theyre even tougher on smaller smartwatch screens. And thats to say nothing of the 10-second time limit Apple suggests for any Watch-based interactionnot enough time to sell anything. In the meantime, the Watch creates one more rea-son not to engage directly with apps on the phone at all," adds the report.

Apps could rather help make or break the Apple Watch. What do you think?



Apple Watch: The $10,000 hefty price tag hasnt gone down well with the Twitterati

Tech2NewsStaff / 10 Mar 2015

W ith Apple Watch ready to hit store shelves in April, the company has finally forayed into the wearable space that is already bombarded with the likes of Google's Android Wear devices, Pebble, Microsoft Band and so on. With yesterday's presentation Apple showed it still has some tricks up its sleeves, but looks like the hefty price tag for the premium variant at $10,000 hasn't gone down well with probable users. While the Apple Watch is loved by some fans, others decided to diss it for the pricing and other obvious reasons.

Here's are some the witty Twitter reactions to the Apple watch.



Apple Watch is finally out: Heres why I dont see myself wanting this

Shruti Dhapola / 10 Mar 2015

A pple's first new product since 2010, the Apple Watch is now out and even though it's not launching in India any-time soon, the watch is hardly something I'm find myself coveting. This isn't like the iPhone 6, which piqued my interest, even though I per-sonally hate big-screened devices.

If you overlook the price issue, which will be around Rs 21000 for the basic version if you dont add taxes, there's very little that motivates me to consider the Apple Watch.

For starters, there's the whole usability factor and this is a problem that even the Pebble didn't answer. Currently the Pebble Watch (the first edition) I own lies hidden away in a drawer, and except for getting occasionally charged and updated, there's not much use for it.

The reason I didn't end up using Pebble so much was because it has limitations. Sure I get notifications, alerts, can play music on my phone via the watch and can even use basic fit-

ness apps, but if I need to do something more detailed, the watch doesn't serve the purpose.

For longer replies, listening to music on your headphones (which a lot of us do while travel-ling or exercising), the smartwatch isn't the answer. I can use the smartwatch to play music on my phone, but this isn't a feature that makes the watch special or indispensable. After all, the music is still on my phone.

With Apple Watch, the company is promising us the use of Siri, the ability to answer full emails, reply to phone calls, keep a check on Health via apps like Nike etc. You can even send drawings on your Apple Watch screen to another us-ers who have the Watch via the Taptic screen. Also iPhone/iPad/Mac photos that have been marked as favourite can be accessed from the Watch.



All of this sounds great, except that as a user I don't see myself constantly turning to a Watch to say type out messages or even show photos to a friend. I'd rather do it on the phone, where the screen is bigger and I certainly would not risk typing official emails on a tiny screen.

On the Apple Watch you can dictate your an-swers, which sounds like a cool idea, but not very practical at least on a daily basis. I'm not saying people won't try it, I would too, but the novelty of something like this will wear off. Per-sonally I'm not enthused with the idea of shout-ing out my answer to a Watch, and there will be times when I would not want the whole world to know what I wish to type out. In addition to this, I'm not sure how accurate this will be in say in a crowded place.

Where Health is concerned, the Apple Watch uses a built-in heart rate sensor, and the accel-erometer, GPS and Wi-Fi from your iPhone. The two main features for Health are the Activity App and the Workout App. The Activity app on Apple Watch provides a a graphic of your daily activity, with three rings which show calories burnt, minutes of exercise done and how often a user takes a break from sitting. The Workout App lets users set goals as far as fitness and exercise is concerned and you can monitor your progress on your iPhone as well.

Again the Apple Watch is relying on the iPhone to monitor your health-data, so am not sure how useful it will be to someone who say doesn't have an iPhone. In my own case, where work-outs are concerned, I need my music along with my Nike App to run at the same time. Apple didn't comment on whether the Watch will sup-port bluetooth headphones and if that doesn't happen, then I guess to listen to music, one will still need their iPhone.

Also while Apple CEO Tim Cook described the Apple Watch as having your personal coach (the Watch can remind you if you've been sitting for too long and will tell you to stand up), except that I don't really see how this different from another smartwatch. The market has many smartwatch options like TomTom's GPS sports watches, which are designed for hiking, swim-ming, etc and aimed solely at fitness freaks and trainers. If I were to go in for hardcore training,

I don't think I'd fancy running with a $549 Ap-ple Watch.

Personally with most smartwatches, the one major problem I've had is the size. The Apple Watch will come in two screen sizes (38 mm and 42mm ) with the smaller one being aimed at women. However given that I have exception-ally slender wrists, I know that smartwatches are not for me. The Pebble, which has a 1.26-inch screen, is a serious misfit on my hand and I don't see how the Apple Watch will be an im-provement on this.

For me, the squarish design, something that hasn't impressed everyone, isnt the only prob-lem with the Apple Watch or any other smart-watch. In fact, I've tried the Moto 360 before, the Samsung Gear, and frankly they all look like a monstrosity on my hand.

The only problem is that a more slender smart-watch will mean a smaller screen which might not serve much purpose. Where design and size of smartwatches are concerned, it really is a Catch-22 situation for people like me.

There's no doubt that this is crucial launch for Apple and Tim Cook. This is of course the first new product line being unveiled without Apple's iconic founder Steve Jobs. Where smartwatches and smart bands are concerned, the market is expected to grow. For instance last year, over 4.6 million smart wearable bands, which in-cludes Fitness bands, Fitness-related watches, Android Wear smartwatches, etc were shipped, according to Canalys.

The good news for Apple: Out of these only 720,000 were Android Wear devices, which means that when it comes to smart-wearables, the market is still largely driven by fitness bands and the Android hasn't dominated the market. Pebble led in the smartwatch section with over 1 million shipments.

As we've noted in this post that when it comes to Apple products, they tend to get more fea-tures with the second and third generation of devices. It's likely that the Apple Watch will fol-low this trajectory but for the Watch to succeed, Apple will need to make sure that it becomes an indispensable device, a standalone that doesn't

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require the iPhone or iPad or even another Apple Watch. Only then will I be convinced of its need. Only then will I perhaps line up to get one.



Apple Watch has 8GB space but only 2GB for music and 75 MB for photos


A pple Watch, which was launched yesterday, comes with serious space restrictions even though the smartwatch has a total of 8GB space, according to a report on 9to5Mac.The report says that while the Apple Watch has 8 GB space, you can only use 2GB for music (which doesn't sound like a lot) and around 75MB for photos app. The report adds that all three versions of the Watch: Sport, Watch and Edition will ship with 8GB memory.

The good thing is that the music store on the Apple Watch can be played without the need for an iPhone, so you won't need it when you're say going on a run and the watch will suffice. Users can choose what songs to sync by managing the "Apple Watch companion app on the iPhone, that ships with iOS 8.2".

Interestingly Apple's new iOS 8.2 update makes the Apple Watch app compulsory and that hasn't gone down well with some users.

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The Apple Watch app on the iPhone has three tabs My Watch which will presumably show you the apps on your Apple Watch, Explore which shows videos about the Apple Watch and an App Store for Apple Watch apps and currently reads as coming soon.

The Apple Watch with its 8 GB of space doesn't sound like a lot, especially if you look at the restric-tions. We're assuming that if you take out the 2GB space for music and 75MB for photos, the Apple Watch OS will also be taking up some space, which will be at least 1GB if one were to go with a conservative estimate. That gives users a little under 5GB space which doesn't really sound a lot, if the watch is collecting a lot of daily health data.

The Apple Watch features a squarish screen and will come in three distinct collections and two different sizes. The Watch is crafted from custom alloys of polished or space black stainless steel (Apple Watch), space gray or silver anodized aluminum (Apple Watch Sport) and 18-karat rose or yellow gold (Apple Watch Edition). The two different screen sizes are 38 mm and 42 mm. The 38 mm: 21.2 x 26.5 mm, 33.5 mm (1.32 in) diagonally, 272 x 340 pixels; while 42 mm: 24.3 x 30.5 mm, 39 mm (1.5 in) diagonally, 312 x 390 pixels.

The UI can be controlled using the Digital Crown and the touchscreen. This wheel allows users to scroll and browse through the user interface. Theres Bluetooth 4.0 support, Wi-Fi and Magsafe wireless charging. A custom-designed S1 chip has been used inside the Apple Watch. For all the details, click here.

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Apples shiny new MacBook: Here are the pros and cons of buying this $1299 laptop


A pple launched new MacBook at the Apple event, calling it the thinnest Mac ever made (it's only 13.1 mm thick) and it also comes in a golden colour. We take a look at the pros and cons of the Apple MacBook.We'll start with the Pros first.

Design and Weight

This is definitely the biggest pro of the MacBook. If you found the MacBook Air too underpowered and the MacBook Pro too heavy, well the new MacBook changes all of that.

It's only 13.1 mm thick and weighs 2.03 pounds, which makes it lighter than the MacBook Air. The 11-inch MacBook Air weighs around 2.38 pounds, while the 13-inch weighs 2.96 pounds. The Mac-Book Pro 13-inch with Retina Display weighs 3.48 pounds.

If you want a sharp screen and a laptop that is light and looks great, the new MacBook is your an-swer. Add the gold coloured version to this and it will appeal to a lot of people, especially in India and China. Of course, let's not forget that die-hard fans were disappointed because Apple once again denied them a black-coloured MacBook. Space Grey is a poor substitute, no doubt.

A sharper screen

The new MacBook has a 12-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Retina display which is 2304 by 1440 pix-els with a 16:10 aspect ratio. It's a much sharper screen than the MacBook Air (13-inch) which has



a 1440 by 900 pixels resolution or even the 11-inch MacBook Air which has just 1366 x 768 pixels.

In short, if you don't want a MacBook Pro but want sharp Retina Display screen, the new MacBook is the obvious answer.

Better speakers

This post on Mashable points out the new MacBook has stereo speakers and they do sound louder. "On the MacBook Air, the speakers are hidden in the vents near the hinge. On the new MacBook, the speakers are blasting sound upwards at you," says the report.

Keyboard and ForceTouch

Apple's new MacBook has a keyboard, which is 34 percent thinner and uses a new butterfly mecha-nism to provide keys that are four times more stable and more precise and according to Apple the stainless steel dome switches located beneath each key deliver a crisp and responsive feel when typing. Also each key is individually backlit with its own single LED, which looks quite nice.

The new MacBook also features the all-new Force Touch trackpad which has built-in force sen-sors that allows users to customise the trackpad based on the pressure exerted. Theres also a new gesture called Force Click, which is essentially a click followed by a deeper press, and can be set for specific tasks like checking the meaning of a word or seeing a map, etc. It eliminates the right click, which will be an interesting new feature to explore.

The cons:

Processor

The new MacBook comes with 1.1GHz, 1.2GHz, or 1.3GHz dual-core fifth generation Intel Core M processor. It also comes with 8GB of RAM and will come in 256 GB or 512GB flash memory stor-age options. Where speed is concerned, the new MacBook isn't the fastest, especially for the price that it commands ($1299).

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As this hands-on Laptopmag notes, "this is one of the first laptops in the market to use Intels low-power Core M processor." You should note that the MacBook Air 11-inch has a faster, 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5 processor, though for 8GB RAM you'll need to shell out more, whereas the MacBook starts with 8GB. Also the MacBook won't be ideal for gaming or video-editing as this piece on Wired points out.

Ports

So Apple got rid of all the ports and instead the new MacBook ships with a new compact USB-C port for data transfer, video out and charging in a single connector. USB-C supports higher watt-age charging, USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps) data transfer and DisplayPort 1.2 all in a single connector thats one-third the size of a traditional USB port.

All of this sounds great, except that if you want to say charge the MacBook and connect a USB drive at the same time, you'll need an adapter (which costs $$79 and $19 for the USB one). Thanks for nothing, Apple.

Also as this Mashable post notes no MagSafe charger means your precious MacBook will no longer be saved from crashing to the ground in case someone trips on the charging wire.

FaceTime Camera

The Apple MacBook has a 480p resolution FaceTime camera, says the official site of the Apple MacBook. In an age where 720 p front camera is standard (all other Macs have a 720 p camera in the front) this is not good news. It means that even though you'll spend $1299 on a new shiny laptop, your Skype calls will have a terrible resolution because Apple didn't give you a good enough camera. No HD calls on this shiny laptop is a raw deal indeed.

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Battery

Apple says the new MacBook comes with a terraced battery design that is layered in individual sheets and that the new Macbook has 35 percent more battery capacity than would be possible with traditional battery. What it translates into is this: up to 9 hours of wireless web browsing and up to 10 hours of movie playback.

That's not a lot of time if you consider the price of this laptop. The MacBook Air (13-inch) delivers upto 12 hours both for web and movie playback, while the MacBook Pro with Retina Display will give 10 hours web and 12 hours movie playback.

The price

The MacBook is priced at $1299 for 256 GB and 512 GB will cost you $1599. That's close to Rs 80,000 and Rs 1,00,000 for a machine that is underpowered and will definitely require adapt-ers if you want to use say a charger and a USB drive at the same time. Sadly the Apple Logo won't glow either in this new MacBook anymore, so that just makes the price seems worse. If you want a slightly more powerful machine, the MacBook Pro will make more sense for users.

What the MacBook has going for it is the design and the weight, along with its 8 GB of RAM. What doesn't go it justice is the poor camera and the lack of ports. But if you've always wanted a golden MacBook, then here's your chance.



Dell, Asus and Lenovo take potshots at Apples new MacBook on Twitter


F or many, the new MacBook seem to be the highlight of the event, rather than the highly anticipated Apple watch. But everyone doesn't think that the MacBook, golden as it maybe, is offering anything new or revolutionary like Apple would want us to believe.Several PC makers have taken to the social media to ridicule the 'light and thin' MacBook. Biggies like Dell, Lenovo and Asus have taken potshots at its '2015 technology', which they say is already available in their older models.

Comparing the new MacBook to its ZenBook UX305, Asus said that it is already slimmer and lighter than the new MacBook. Asus doesn't stop here, the company further talks about how it is also a value for money since their notebook is available for half the price of the MacBook.



On the other hand, Dell has taken potshots at MacBook's display, comparing it to the company XPS 13. The tweet reads, "Our #DellXPS 13's virtually borderless infinity display has 5.7M pixels - that's 2M more than a 12" retina display."



Lenovo has mocked the new MacBook for coming with specs seen in last year's devices and used the hashtag #SoLastYear.

Apples Spring Forward event saw the official release of the new MacBook, eagerly awaited Apple Watch, and the company also refreshed its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines. Here's a quick look at the new MacBook's pros and cons.

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This is no iPhone: Tech experts declare Apple Watch confusing


A pple unveiled their highly anticipated device, Apple Watch, at an event held last night. Though the device was first announced back in September, Apple did not al-low anyone to have a closer look at it, until now. So what's the initial verdict? We take a look.

To begin with the basics, the Apple Watch is available in two sizes -38mm and 42mm - which are specially designed for men and women, keeping wrist size and choice in mind. In terms of design, the company hasn't made any changes from when they revealed the device last September.

But neat-and-clean hardware aside, a few tech experts seem to have experienced some issues while using the device.

A hands-on article on the Apple Watch by Nilay Patel from The Verge complained that, "it is really confusing to have both the Digital Crown and the communications button next to each other on the side." He also added that, "As I

tried to navigate the Watch interface, I found myself pressing one or both several times, without knowing which one would take me to the home screen, back out of an app, or launch a feature."

He felt that not being able to intuitively navigate an Apple device was strange. The question he raises however, could be a critical one for Apple: Is it worth having this device on your wrist at all times?

Patel's doubts were shared by Business Insider's Matt Rosoff, who said his initial impression of the device was, "It's complicated". And this was despite the fact that he sat through an hour of watching Apple employees demonstrate the new Watch which was followed by a 15 minute demonstration on his own wrist. He says a lot of the confusion could stem from the fact that users will need to scroll up and down with their fingers and sometimes use the digital crown.

Rosoff is of the view that Apple Store employees

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will have to spend some real time with custom-ers explaining what the device can actually do apart from merely demonstrating it to the public.

He is not alone in this assessment of the device. Confusion seemed to be a common theme for most of the reporters who had the chance to try out the Apple Watch.

Chris Velazco from Engadget praised the Watch for its elegant design and occasionally its modes of interaction, but also added that the device was just not as immediately easy to wrap around your hand as the iPhone was. He was pleased to know that Apple is planning a very 'hands-on approach' in the trying-and-buying process for the Watch, given that he himself mostly found himself pausing from time to time while using the device.

On the contrary, TechCrunch's Darrell Ether-ington offered some positive insights for Apple's latest gadget, or as Tim Cook would call it, "a companion". He mentioned that Apples 'tap-tic' touch engine works wonderfully in the new wearable. He added that various apps such as the health and fitness software along with the camera remote make good use of the limited screen space and the input system ensures that you are never more than a couple taps away from sending messages to friends or loading up Apple Pay to use at a compatible retailer.

A very interesting point pointed out in the re-port was that, Apples biggest strength with the Watch is just how much it feels like a regular watch. He said that it was rather surprising how many smartwaches miss this seemingly modest target.

Apple Watch will be available to consumers in a month's time, which is 10th April. Only then will we know how useful and appealing it is to the crowd.

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