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With the Apple Watch Series 4, Apple introduced a new, larger display. It now has rounded edges and thinner bezels. And the company took advantage of that display to introduce new fire, water, liquid metal and vapor faces. Apple didn’t use CGI to create those faces — they shot those faces in a studio.
Many companies would have rendered those effects on a computer given the size of the display. But those are actual videos shot with a camera.
Cool Hunting shared a video of the actual process, and it’s insane:
As you can see, Apple used a flamethrower against a transparent surface, exploded a balloon at the top of a basin of water, made a color powder explosion in a cylinder and rotated a small puddle of metallic liquid.
It says a lot about Apple’s design culture — they don’t take shortcuts and they have a lot of money.
Here’s the introduction video for the new Apple Watch:
iOS 12 is still brand new, but Apple is already testing iOS 12.1 with a developer beta version. Steve Troughton-Smith and Guilherme Rambo found references to a brand new iPad that would support Face ID.
First, there are changes to Face ID. You can find references to landscape orientation in the iOS 12.1 beta. Face ID on the iPhone is limited to portrait orientation. Chances are you didn’t even notice this limitation because there’s only one orientation for the lock screen and home screen.
But the iPad is a different story as people tend to use it in landscape. And even when you hold it in landscape, some people will have the home button on the left while others will have the home button on the right.
In other words, in order to bring Face ID to the iPad, it needs to support multiple orientations. This beta indicates that iOS 12.1 could be the version of iOS that ships with the next iPad.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s a new device codename in the setup reference files. This device is called iPad2018Fall, which clearly means that a new iPad is right around the corner.
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously indicated that the iPad Pro could switch from Lightning to USB-C. This would open up a ton of possibilities when it comes to accessories. For instance, you could plug an external monitor without any dongle and send a video feed to this external monitor.
As for iPhone users, in addition to bug fixes, iOS 12.1 brings back Group FaceTime, a feature that was removed at the last minute before the release of iOS 12. If it’s still too buggy, Apple could still choose to remove the feature once again. Memojis could support iCloud syncing across your devices, which would be useful for an iPad Pro with Face ID.
Amazon’s Echo Dot may have been a bestseller on Prime Day, but Google’s Home Mini device is now the top-selling smart speaker worldwide, according to a new report out this morning from Strategy Analytics. The analyst firm says Google’s small speaker accounted for 1 in 5 smart speaker shipments in Q2 2018, edging out the Echo Dot with its 2.3 million global shipments compared to Echo Dot’s 2.2 million.
Combined, these two entry-level smart speakers – the Echo Dot and Home Mini – accounted for 38% of global shipments, the firm found.
In total, 11.7 million smart speaker devices were shipped during Q2, with 4 out of the top 5 devices coming from either Amazon or Google.
Following the Dot, was Amazon’s flagship Echo device with 1.4 million shipments, then Alibaba’s Tmail Genie (0.8m), and Google Home (0.8m).
Apple’s HomePod wasn’t ranked in the top five, but took a 6% share of the shipments in Q2.
However, HomePod’s premium focus and higher price tag allowed it to take a sizable chunk of smart speaker revenue during this period.
While the Home Mini and Echo Dot combined accounted for 17% of smart speaker revenues, Apple’s HomePod alone took a 16% share of wholesale revenues. And in terms of devices above the $200 price point, the HomePod had a 70% revenue share.
Strategy Analytics’s report also indicated this growing market is still in flux, thanks to expected new arrivals which could impact the shares held today by existing players.
“The number of smart speaker models available worldwide has grown significantly over the last twelve months as vendors look to capitalize on the explosive market growth,” said David Mercer, Vice President at Strategy Analytics, in a statement. “Heavyweight brands such as Samsung and Bose are in the process of launching their first models, adding further credibility to the segment and giving consumers more options at the premium-end of the marker,” he added.
Roughly two-and-half minutes into my run, the watch kicks in. There’s a haptic buzz on my wrist.
“It looks like you’re working out,” the watch face reads. That’s followed by a big, yellow button, suggesting I start an indoor run. I tap the neon button and the clock starts, comping me a reasonable approximation of the time it took for the Watch to be sure what sort of activity it was detecting.
I wasn’t actually planning to test the feature on this particular run. In all the stretching/music picking/treadmill setting pre-run ritual, I’d just forgotten to set the damn thing. It feels like a small thing, but, then, most of the updates are relatively small in the grand scheme of things. In the case of the Apple Watch, radically departure would almost certainly be a bad thing.
You see, there are smartwatches and then there’s the Apple Watch. That’s not so much a tacit endorsement of the product, so much as an objective analysis of the numbers. Numbers from IDC earlier this year show Apple leading all wearables on the strength of its single smartwatch.
In fact, the company accounted for more than half of smartwatch shipments last year. Simply put, the Apple Watch has long represented a rare bright spot in a flagging wearables category. The device has been successful enough for long enough that analysts are once again bullish on the category going forward. That’s an impressive feat by any measure.
So what’s a market-dominating smartwatch maker to do? For Apple, the answer is two-fold. First, improve upon the overall experience without altering anything too much. With the Apple Watch Series 4, that means subtle hardware improvements like a larger screen while maintaining a similar form factor, as well as tweaks like the addition of haptic feedback to the Watch’s crown.
After all, Apple’s success doesn’t lie in any single standout feature. Rather, as with the iPhone, the company has excelled in providing an overall hardware and software experience that makes it possible to use the product mostly without thinking — as evidenced by the above workout feature.
Second, show the world precisely how committed you are to health. Even with the existence of cheaper fitness trackers, health and fitness have long been understood to be the primary drivers in smartwatch sales. For Fitbit, that means pivoting much of the company toward health care.
For Apple, it’s finding ways to have the Watch taken more seriously as a health-monitoring device. While it’s true that the product won’t be replacing medical products any time soon, the wearable has the decided advantage of constant monitoring.
That means, unlike hospital equipment and other pricier technology, it can be worn as a kind of safeguard. New features like the ECG (electrocardiogram) monitor on the rear of the device and automatic fall detection aren’t aimed at replacing doctor checkups. They’re safeguards for those times when users aren’t in a doctor’s care.
Analysts have bet much of the category’s future growth on Apple’s ability to identify and target new markets. Having cornered techies and a younger demographic, older users and those with health problems present a clear way to expand the Watch’s existing base.
Day to day
I wear a lot of smartwatches. It’s a byproduct/perk of the job. Between reviews, however, I always come back to the Apple Watch. For one thing, while I switch back and forth between Android and iOS handsets, my primary phone is an iPhone. One of Apple’s biggest appeals has been its ecosystem. The products just work well with one another to a fault — and once you’re locked in, it’s hard to get out.
That’s not the sole reason, of course. Google, Samsung and Fitbit all have iOS apps now. And while integration isn’t perfect, it’s certainly usable. The fact is that the Apple Watch is an elegant solution from both a hardware and software standpoint. It walks the key wearable line of being engaging when necessary and fading into the background the rest of the time.
Contrary to early reports (and speculation over that event invite), Apple stuck with the squircle (it’s a real geometry term, look it up) this time out. The design was a bit polarizing early on, but I suspect most users have since come to appreciate the things it affords, including the ability to fit more text on the screen.
The face of it
Of course, that’s doubly the case here. The clearest difference on the hardware side of the increased display size, which, like the iPhone X, Apple managed to increase the screen without making much of a dent in the overall footprint.
The Series 4’s case is slightly larger and wider than its predecessor, but it’s not really noticeable unless you happen to have two side-by-side. Even with the slightly larger surface area, the Apple Watch remains one of the more wearable wearables.
If you’ve used an earlier version with any regularity, on the other other hand, the increase in surface area is pretty readily apparent, especially when an email notification comes through. It also means app developers can jam in more detail and the Watch’s faces can feature additional complications (a descriptor I suspect makes Apple designers die inside a bit every time they have to utter it).
With the 30 percent larger display, you can add things like the Breathe app to the face for easy access. It’s a rare instance of the company pushing to bring more detail to a surface, but with the limited real estate afforded by a smartwatch screen, you take every precious millimeter you can get. The fact that the bezels are smaller also means app designers don’t have to lean as heavily on black backgrounds to help mask the unused space.
On the case
Apple also managed to make the new watch thinner than its predecessors. The benefit there is obvious when it comes to making a product designed to be worn on the body. And the slightly larger case size means Apple was able to accomplish this without having an impact on battery life.
It’s an interesting choice, given that much of the competition has zeroed in on battery life with recent upgrades, including, notably, the new Galaxy Watch, which Samsung rates at “several days.” With good reason — battery has long been one of the biggest issues with smartwatches.
As with earlier versions, Apple rates the Series 4’s battery at “all day,” which certainly lines up with my own testing. Even so, I would happily trade a millimeter or two of thickness for some additional mAhs. As it stands, you should be able to get through a day’s use without worrying about finding a charger, but the peace of mind of more battery life is always welcome.
I admit I didn’t think much of the digital crown when Apple mentioned it on stage. If anything, it sounded like a sort of parlor trick. When I finally had a chance to try the device on at the event the other week, however, I was surprised at how much I dug it.
Spinning the circle really feels like turning a mechanical dial. And when there’s nothing on screen to move by spinning it, the feedback simply shuts off. Again, it’s a small touch, but a nice one, nonetheless. This is still probably the one spot where Samsung really has a leg up on Apple. The Galaxy (nee Gear)’s spinning bezel is still my favorite method for interacting with smartwatch menus (and the top reason to consider a Samsung model). Though the new digital crown is a fairly close second place.
For your health
Apple devoted a good amount of the Apple Watch’s stage time to health and wellness. And understandably so. The company firmly believes that the product’s capabilities as a health monitor are the way forward for the Apple Watch. Added sophisticated tools like the ECG also go a long way toward the company continuing to position the wearable as a premium product.
After all, budget devices from companies like Xiaomi represent the other key growth area in the fitness space. Apple has also seen a surprisingly successful competitor in the form of the $200 Fitbit Versa. Sure, the company got off to a rocky start, but its latest Pebble-esque smartwatch looks to be a bonafide hit. And it’s a pretty solid solution for those looking for a low-cost or Android-friendly solution.
ECG is an interesting addition, because for most users, it’s not an everyday feature. It’s a great addition for older users and those with existing conditions. Information collected day to day can be shared with doctors via the Apple Health app. For the rest of us, the product has the potential to flag irregularities and things like atrial fibrillation.
No one is suggesting an FDA-approved feature can or should replace a doctor, but if it helps shed some light on heart issues, that’s certainly a net positive. And that’s really where the Apple Watch thrives as a health care device — it offers potential insight into larger issues. That includes the addition of things like low heart rate notifications in watchOS 5 (which joins the high heart rate notifications from its predecessor) and the irregular rhythm notifications that arrive via the ECG.
The feature won’t be available until later this year, so I wasn’t able to test the thing. And when it does arrive, it will only be available in the U.S., likely due to the intricacies of different health regulatory bodies from country to country. When it does arrive, it will work as follows, per Apple: “Simply touch the Digital Crown to generate an ECG waveform in just 30 seconds. This data can indicate whether your heart rhythm shows signs of atrial fibrillation — a serious form of irregular heart rhythm — or sinus rhythm, which means your heart is beating in a normal pattern.”
That means the crown is essentially doing double duty, serving as one of two electrodes (the other is on the rear of the watch) for measuring heart rhythms. It’s a pretty novel addition to an existing feature.
Fall detection is the other feature I’ll readily admit I wasn’t able to properly test this time out. The feature is automatically enabled for users aged 65 and over. Everyone else will have to manually enable it via the iPhone app under the Emergency SOS setting. When it detects a fall, an Emergency SOS screen will pop up — not dissimilar to those Life Alert devices from the 80s. If the wearer is unresponsive for a minute, it will send out the alert.
I can, however, attest to the fact that I didn’t register any false alerts while wearing the device. Slamming your hands on the desk or collapsing into your bed won’t set it off. Apparently stunt people and others trained at falling won’t be able to set it off, either. I tried taking a few controlled spills into my rabbit’s floor pads, with no results beyond sore hands and a confused bunny. Don’t try this at home, kids.
Watch this space
There are other fun features scattered throughout. Walkie Talkie is a cool one. It’s more of a fun novelty than an indispensable addition. It’s a quick and easy way to communicate with fellow Apple Watch owners over Wi-Fi or cellular, sending through transmissions with the push of a button. It’s also a good way to take advantage of 50 percent louder speakers.
The Series 4 isn’t the kind of refresh that justifies upgrading from the last generation, especially given the $399 and $499 starting prices for the standard and LTE models, respectively. But there’s certainly enough here to keep the Apple Watch at the top of the smartwatch heap. The addition of serious health features like ECG and fall detection further lay the groundwork for a what the device — and category — will become, going forward.
Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, has been a controversial project since its debut. The need for the framework has been clear: the payloads of mobile pages can be just insane, what with layers and layers of images, Javascript, ad networks, and more slowing down page rendering time and costing users serious bandwidth on metered plans.
Even more controversially, as part of making pages faster, the AMP project uses caches of pages on CDNs — which are hosted by Google (and also Cloudflare now). That meant that Google’s search results would direct a user to an AMP page hosted by Google, effectively cutting out the owner of the content in the process.
The project has been led by Malte Ubl, a senior staff engineer working on Google’s Javascript infrastructure projects, who has until now held effective unilateral control over the project.
In the wake of all of this criticism, the AMP project announced today that it would reform its governance, replacing Ubl as the exclusive tech lead with a technical steering committee comprised of companies invested in the success in the project. Notably, the project’s intention has an “…end goal of not having any company sit on more than a third of the seats.” In addition, the project will create an advisory board and working groups to shepherd the project’s work.
The project is also expected to move to a foundation in the future. These days, there are a number of places such a project could potentially reside, including the Apache Software Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation.
While the project has clearly had its detractors, the performance improvements that AMP has been fighting for are certainly meritorious. With this more open governance model, the project may get deeper support from other browser makers like Apple, Mozilla, and Microsoft, as well as the broader open source community.
And while Google has certainly been the major force behind the project, it has also been popular among open source software developers. Since the project’s launch, there have been 710 contributors to the project according to its statistics, and the project (attempting to empathize its non-Google monopoly) notes that more than three quarters of those contributors don’t work at Google.
Nonetheless, more transparency and community involvement should help to accelerate Accelerated Mobile Pages. The project will host its contributor summit next week at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, where these governance changes as well as the technical and design roadmaps for the project will be top of mind for attendees.
Apple has finished wiring billions of euros to pay back illegal tax benefits to the Irish government according to Reuters. Overall, Apple has paid $15.3 billion (€13.1 billion) for the original fine as well as $1.4 billion (€1.2 billion) in interests.
In August 2016 the European Commission ruled that Apple benefited from illegal tax benefits from 2003 to 2014. In particular, the company should have paid more taxes in Ireland — a lot more. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that Apple’s effective corporate tax rate was much lower than expected.
At the time, many global companies used the Double Irish structure to pay corporate tax on a fraction of your actual profit. Apple claimed that everything was legal, and the Irish government sided with Apple — probably because the huge fine would be bad for business.
European governments lobbied to put an end to the Double Irish back in 2014. Apple moved some of its international cash to the tiny island of Jersey around the same time.
For now, the pile of cash is sitting in an escrow account. Apple appealed the European Union’s decision back in 2016. This process could take up to five years, which means that the Irish government won’t see Apple’s money anytime soon.
If you’ve been following European tax reforms, you know that France, Germany, Spain and Italy were discussing a reform to tax big tech companies based on actual revenue in each European country. This way, tech companies wouldn’t be able to report profit in just one country with a lower corporate tax rate.
But it looks like this reform is now stuck as some European countries disagree with this reform. You need everybody on board to pass this kind of reforms. For this reason, it’s unclear if it’s going to happen at all.
Spire’s Health Tags, the dark and tiny devices you stick on your clothes to gather all sorts of health data from your steps, heartbeat and stress levels is now available at your local Apple Store.
The company started out with a breath tracking device to detect when you are feeling tense and help calm you down. But four years in and its now all about the wearable “tags” you stick on items of clothing like your pants or sports bra.
Yes, yes, there are lots of gadgets out there to gather similar information — the Apple Watch will now even detect if you have a fall or something is wrong with your heart — but the Spire health tag is nothing like a Fitbit or Apple Watch, according to the company. For one, there’s zero need to charge the device. One tag’s battery will last a year and a half before dying out. They’re also machine washable. You just pick a few outfits and stick a tag on each of them.
Of course a few other startups out there are working on making smart, washable, data-gathering clothes. Enflux makes the clothing and then sews in the motion sensor to tell you if you are lifting correctly. Vitali is a “smart” bra with a built-in sensor to detect stress. Then there’s OmSignal, which makes body-hugging workout clothes that gather “medical-grade biometric data to achieve optimal health.” But these tiny health tags are different in that they allow you to choose the clothes you want to adhere the monitor to.
Like Spire’s first product, the Stone, which earned more than $8 million in sales, according to the company, the tags will also pick up on times of stress and help calm you down through a series of breaths and focus on the app.
“Continuous health data will revolutionize health and wellness globally, but early incarnations have been hampered by poor user experiences and a focus on the hardware over the outcomes that the hardware can create,” Spire’s founder Jonathan Palley said. “By making the device ‘disappear’, we believe Health Tag is the first product to unlock the potential.”
Spire’s Health Tags will be sold in Apple Stores as a three-pack for $130, six-pack for $230 and an eight-pack for $300, with additional pack sizes available on the company’s website.
