Apple CEO Tim Cook unveils Apple Watch in California

ANSWER calls, monitor your health and be fashionable? Apple CEO Tim Cook unveils the much-hyped smartwatch in California.

APPLE is supercharging its watch by announcing new apps that widen the device’s appeal while talking up its fashion allure.

At an event at the Yerba Buena Centre in San Francisco, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Apple Watch was “the most personal device Apple had ever created”.

Beginning on April 10, Apple Watch will be available for preview, try-on by appointment at Apple’s retail stores, and pre-order through the Apple Online Store locally.

But because of the declining dollar, you will pay handsomely for Apple Watch in Australia.

Apple Watch is available in three collections in Australia, Apple Watch Sport will cost from $499 and $579 for 38mm and 42mm sizes while Apple Watch will sell from $799 to $1629. Pricing will depend on the watch size and chosen band.

Apple Watch Edition, crafted from custom rose or yellow 18-carat gold alloys, will sell with a recommended retail price starting from $14,000.

Is it worth it? Here’s what you can expect from Apple Watch:

Operating system and battery

An updated version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS8.2, would include a new Apple Watch app that would give access to all the apps that could be loaded onto the watch. It will be available for download from today and offer a good overview of the watch’s capability.

Mr Cook said Apple Watch had “all day” battery life and in a typical day users could expect 18 hours of battery life but there wasn’t anything more specific than that.

The smartwatch connects to the user’s iPhone via Bluetooth 4.0.

Premium design

Mr Cook spoke of the material used in the construction of the three watch varieties, a standard watch, sports watch and premium design, including “jaw dropping” 18-carat gold.

He said Apple Watch was an incredibly accurate time piece, and a way to measure fitness and health. He said users could configure the various clock faces by adding their choice of visual alerts using Glances — the watch’s notification system.

Users were alerted to messages by a tactic vibration on their arm. They could respond from the watch and take calls from it also. It also handles emails.

He said pressing the side button brought up friends and users who could connect an Apple Watch to another Apple Watch so that a sketch you were drawing on your watch would simultaneously appear on your friend’s device. You could tap your watch to alert a friend or send your heart beat to them in the same manner.

Health and fitness

He said Apple Watch was a comprehensive health and fitness monitor and would track movements, exercises and remind you if you were sitting too long.

On a Monday, the watch would send you a report on how you performed the previous week along with suggestions on improving performance in the coming week.

“It’s like having a coach on your watch,” he said.

A second, workout app would show detailed exercise data including how many calories you were burning, distance and time spent.

The watch would also remind you to stand while you were at work and deemd too sedentary.

Notifications and apps

He said any notification you received on your phone could be displayed on the watch, including social media alerts.

He said developers already had created thousands of apps for Apple Watch.

Demonstrated examples included stock market information appearing on the watch, Sales Force data, top tweets, and upcoming flights you were booked on courtesy of the American Airlines app.

Pressing the watch’s crown brought up Apple’s personal assistant Siri. You could also say “Hey Siri”. Using voice control, users could reply to alerts. Apple showed a Weechat app. You could reply by tapping on the watch and selecting from a group of predefined reply stickers.

Apple Pay

When using Apple Pay, double tapping the watch’s side button brings up your credit cards and the user could make a payment by putting their watch next to a retail outlet’s scanner.

The watch also keeps you in touch with your phone when it’s in another room.

You can swipe the watch face to quickly see a group of photos using Instagram and scan through them using the watch’s crown.

Apple demonstrated calling a chauffeur/taxi on the new Apple Watch Uber app. At an airport, the watch would show flight ticket details and a bar code on it would help you get through airport security. A similar function would let a user pass through a lobby security and then use the watch as a room key.

Alarm.com’s app would let a user unlock a garage door with their watch. The app shows a live feed of the door opening.

What else is new?

On other matters, Mr Cook said Apple had opened six stores in China in the past six weeks and now had 453 stores with 120 million customers globally.

He said Apple TV was adding more providers and highlighted HBO and its star program Game of Thrones. The CEO of HBO Richard Plepler said HBO wold introduce a stand-alone streaming service and Apple would be its exclusive partner at launch, with access to all its past, present and future programming. The service, HBO Now, will only be available in the US.

Apple had sold over 25 million Apple TV units at $US99 — the price now would be $US69.

He said iPhone was now the top selling phone in the world with 99 per cent customer satisfaction.

He said Apple had more than 2500 banks supporting Apple Pay and in the first three months had tripled the number of locations throughout the US to 700,000. There was no news yet on its availability in other countries such as Australia.

They included 40,000 Coca Cola vending machines in the US which soon would be expanded to 100,000.

He said every major car brand was committed to CarPlay and 40 new car models would ship with it by the end of the year.

He said there were more than 900 apps that supported Apple’s HealthKit.

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