Apple Watch comes in Sports and premium Edition varieties from $US349

APPLE has revealed the company’s new smartwatch. It’s not the iWatch, not even iTime - simply Apple Watch. And it does some quirky things.

APPLE chief Tim Cook finally has revealed the company’s new smart watch. And it’s not the iWatch, not even iTime — simply Apple Watch.

And it does quirky things. It lets you share your heart beat with a friend, whose watch will then vibrate in harmony with your heart.

From today’s launch, it’s obvious that Apple watch will look entirely different on each wearer’s wrist. There are three versions of it: Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sports, and the premium Apple Watch Edition, with 18 carat gold.

There’s also a choice of strap colours. The straps can be leather, metallic or suited to sports use, and users cannot just choose a clock, they also can personalise the information on their chosen clock face. Some bands have concealed magnets for fast adjustment.

You may decide to change the clock face from a digital clock to one more suited to monitoring a long walk, or a bike ride.

The fact Apple is producing a smartwatch was the world’s worst kept secret. And in appearance, it isn’t as space age as some may have imagined.

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The screen isn’t curved, it doesn’t wrap around the arm as some thought, but it looks elegant nonetheless, with a rectangular screen that is curved at the corners. The display is based on a single crystal of sapphire.

As rumoured, the watch will not sell until early next year. Australian pricing is unknown, but in the US it will cost from $US349.

For Mr Cook, the smart watch is the fulfilment of a long-held promise to release “some exciting new products” this year.

“I am so excited, I am so proud to share with you this morning, it is the next chapter in Apple’s story and creativeness,” he told media at a launch event in Cupertino, California.

He said the watch synchronised with universal time and was accurate to within 50 milliseconds.

Like smartwatches from rivals such as Samsung, LG, Sony and Motorola, the watch piggybacks off a smartphone using a Bluetooth connection. It can’t work independently of it. You’ll need an iPhone 5, 5S, 5C, 6 or 6 Plus to synch with the watch.

Like the iPhone itself, the watch has a home screen of apps, represented by small, colourful circles.

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The most ingenious feature of the watch is the “digital crown”, which looks like a traditional circular winder found on mechanical watches. Here winding the crown initiates a swag of content sensitive responses.

For example, when viewing a map on the smart watch screen, you can wind the crown or dial to zoom in and out.

Or if you want to reply to an SMS using a standardised answer, you can wind to the answer-of-choice using the crown and then select it.

You can also interact using taps, presses and voice recognition courtesy of Apple’s personal assistant Siri. The crown is also the watch’s home button, and offers a way to shift from the clock face to the apps — by pressing home as on an iPhone.

The watch has wideranging functionality. It acts as an activity and fitness monitor with functionality that might threaten the market share of existing activity device monitors. You also get a comprehensive picture of your day’s activities.

You can choose the notifications that will be relayed from an iPhone to the watch. Notifications appear as a swipeable list of cards — not unlike those that are available on Google’s rival Android Wear. You pan through them by rotating the crown.

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You can share watch sized sketches, conduct conversations with friends invoking dictation or reply by customising emoticons, or by sending your heartbeat which is replicated as a vibration on your friend’s watch.

Software on the watch can analyse text and determining the options for a reply. A “taptic” sensor can be made to vibrate as one means of response.

Apple is planning on developers using its WatchKit application programming interface to extend the watch’s functionality. Already Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and a BMW watch app are among apps on board.

Apple also has signalled that users will be able to tap their watches against a scanner in stores to make payments — however there is as yet no plan to bring Apple’s new Apple Pay system to Australia.

Analyst firm Forrester said that when fully launched an Apple Watch would dominate the wearables market through 2015.

“Consumers are eager for wearables. According to new Forrester data, 25 per cent of US online adults anticipate purchasing a wearable device in the next year, and 42 per cent are specifically interested in wearing it on their wrist — assuming it’s a service of interest, offered by a trusted brand,” Forrester said in a statement.

“And that’s why Apple will succeed where companies like Nike, LG, and Samsung have experienced spotty success.

“Apple will do what it does best and use its trusted relations with consumers and its second-to-none ecosystem and sell the wrist-based wearables category.”

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But Forrester said Apple couldn’t expect to remain the dominant player in the category without competition.

“Google and Amazon are both positioned to ride Apple’s coat tails, thanks to their existing digital customer relationships, and will reduce Apple’s share of units sold to less than 50 per cent during 2016. “

As for the other players: everyone else will struggle to become “anything more than the next Flipcam, Palm Pilot, or Nook eReader,” Forrester predicts.

Australian analyst firm Telsyte said it estimated there were 380,000 smart watch users in Australia at the end of June.

“Nearly 80 per cent of existing smartwatch users are currently on Android smartphones, therefore the market could substantially grow with the arrival Apple Watch,” managing director Foad Fadaghi said.

He said Telsyte believed the Apple Watch would help Apple retain and attract new iPhone customers.

“Its release in 2015 might be strategic, in that its release date might be to ensure it does not affect iPhone 6 sales during the holiday season”, Mr Fadaghi said.

* Chris Griffith travelled to Cupertino courtesy of Apple