Apple’s Spring Forward event took place last week, at which the new Apple Watch was given a release date of 24th April 2015. This will be Apple’s newest product since the release of the iPad back in 2010 which went on to be selected as one of Time magazine’s 50 Best Inventions of the Year 2010.
So other than tell the time, what does the Apple Watch do, we hear you ask? Well, once paired with an iPhone you will be able to access the Apple Watch App, which is automatically installed for free on all new and existing iPhones, as part of the latest software upgrade. While more apps will undoubtedly become available as the release date approaches, iTunes, Mail, Facebook and Twitter have already been announced as being compatible with the Watch.
Stepping away from social media, the Watch will also have a sensor attached to its rear, which has the ability to measure your heart rate. This can be used to give you a snapshot of your daily activity, providing you with statistics such as how many calories you have burned and how many minutes you have spent exercising. The watch even allows you to set your own daily goals, with your daily progress being shown on the device’s display. This puts the Watch in direct competition with some other fitness modules, currently available in the market.
There are currently three types of Watch available: the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Sport and the Apple Watch Edition. The Apple Watch Sport is made of aluminium and is the most reasonably-priced of the three gadgets, starting at £299. The next model up is the Apple Watch, made of stainless-steel, and starting at £479. Furthermore, for all die-hard Apple fans out there, you can pick up the Apple Watch Edition for a mere £8000, with prices extending as far as £13,500 depending on your choice of Watch strap. As some may demand from a watch of this price, the Apple Watch Edition is made of solid 24-karat gold.
Whilst spending thousands of pounds on a watch is not unheard of, unlike the timeless Rolex, the Apple Watch is comprised of technology which is likely to become outdated in a few years time. In light of this, it will be interesting to see how popular the Apple Watch Edition becomes when customers are aware that their purchase will shortly be in need of replacement. It remains to be seen if Apple will permit its range of watches to remain up to date by way of software upgrades offered for free, which is the current practice with its iPhone and iPad gadgets, or if it will release further models for existing owners of the watch to ‘upgrade’ to, for an additional fee.
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