“Apple posted on its developers site that starting on June 1 all new watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be native apps,” Chuck Jones writes for Forbes. “While everyone pretty much expected that this would be the case someday I suspect it is a bit sooner than expected since only the initial version of the Watch has been released.”
“This date is two weeks before Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is scheduled to start so you can surmise that this will be a major topic of conversation,” Jones writes. “There has been a bit of chatter of a Watch refresh in the next few months but if it doesn’t appear soon it seems like it will be in time for this year’s holiday season.”
“Findings from a survey done by Fluent indicate that Apple’s Watch is more successful with users than various pundits believe,” Jones writes. “A little under half (47%) of Americans agree that ‘the Apple Watch is a successful product,’ with Apple Watch owners (77%) and regular Apple product users (62%) being much more enthusiastic. Exactly half of the American public believes that the majority of their fellow citizens will own smart watches 10 years from now, and 75% of current Apple Watch owners do.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you don;t have an Apple Watch, chances are that you don’t exactly get it. That half of people who don’t fully understand the benefits of wearing an Apple Watch daily think the majority will be wearing them 10 years from now is quite amazing.
Again, if you don’t have an Apple Watch, you’re missing out.
Further untethered? As in an independent SIM card?
Still too expensive for my pockets, the way I look at it, it is more of an expensive accessory that is basically used to show off. If it was retailing for $99 with the plastic band, then I would have said it is worth buying it, right now its a no no, but not for many, I guess..:)
The product was killed the moment they paired it with the iPhone to get most of the functionality working.
The Apple Watch currently connects to the iPhone via Bluetooth for local communications between the base app on the iPhone and its extension on the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch also connects via the iPhone’s authenticated WiFi connection directly to the local network to gain independent access to the Internet.
I think what Apple is aiming for is that those third party extensions installed on the Apple Watch make use of their automatic WiFi connection and bypass asking the iPhone over Bluetooth for updates, and instead go directly to the Internet for their updates. Then, weather updates, etc., would be getting quicker refreshes. I’d guess that many of today’s complaints over the Watch’s responsiveness are due to the Watch apps trying to pull refreshes over the Bluetooth connection.
Of course, this won’t help when one’s out and about using the iPhone’s cellular connection for updates, but should make a huge responsiveness improvement when on a local WiFi network.
Expensive wrist-remote for an expensive phone. Just doesn’t bring anything to the table that I nor most iPhone users value enough.
Most of us are waiting to see what it can be.
Looking forward to buying an WATCH SPORT 2 as soon as it ships and installing watchOS 3 as soon as it’s out too. Have Space Gray 1 – want matt Gold Midnight Blue 2. 😍