“Earlier this month, Apple began inviting a select number of developers to an Apple Watch development lab in Sunnyvale, California, located near the company’s main Cupertino campus,” Juli Clover reports for MacRumors.Developers were invited to reserve a testing appointment to test their Apple Watch apps on actual Apple Watch devices to get ready for the device’s April 24 launch.”
“One of the developers who had a chance to visit Apple’s WatchKit lab and get hands-on time with the Apple Watch shared his testing experience with MacRumors and gave us some of his thoughts on the device after spending all day using it,” Clover reports. “The design and the feel of the watch were described as ‘absolutely amazing’ and software was described as ‘fluid’ and not like other smart watches available on the market. ‘Animations on the Apple Watch are really what separate it from its competitors,’ he said. Handoff works very well, letting users transfer tasks from the Apple Watch to the iPhone with ease, and Siri’s functionality was described as ‘absolutely phenomenal.'”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: April 24th is never going to get here!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
excellent
Another controlled leak by Apple to keep the hype going. I’ll be the judge of the Apple Watch as will the rest of the consumers when it’s out.
Then why did you read this?
That’s fine, Dftr. You have the right to maintain a level of skepticism until the actual product is shipped and you can judge for yourself. But Apple’s history of success over the last fifteen years indicates that your skepticism is likely unwarranted.
Dftr is an exceptionally righteous sceptic, unrelenting in his brutal assessments of Apple’s efforts and his scorn for mindless fanboys. This may be a troll but it excites real debate, always better than personal insults and name-calling.
Thanks Melanie. I want to keep people honest. My big issue is how people get so entranced and emotional over corporations. Further to this, how companies like Apple are pressured to grow, and Grow, and GROW with no end in sight. The effects of overconsumption by consumers and natural resource pillaging by big companies is yet to be understood.
Anyway, I think the Apple Watch is mildly interesting, but I’ve been here before. That was with the iPad. We’ve now seen what convergence does: I do not buy that iPad sales/tablet sales have cooled and in some cases declined soley because people are upgrading less. It’s also because laptops have gotten so much better since the iPad came out. Thinner, lighter, and now with “Retina” screens. People see less a need for tablets in the face of such a thing.
I’ve seen what people tried to do with their iPads: make them into laptops with ugly keyboard attachments and stands. When u look at it, people really just wanted a laptop more than anything. The iPad got overextended: it’s very limited in what it can do out of the box.
Smartphones are resilient because they are a concergence of so much functionality in one device. The Watch is going to be like the iPad, except it won’t have anywhere near the sales volume. It’s something that’s so limited in its practical uses, just like the iPad, except much worse, that it will get lost in the face of smartphones that will themselves continue to evolve into thinner, lighter, more powerful devices along with Siri advancements for “invisible, faceless” computing.
I think there is a place for wearables like the Apple Watch, but its functionality will be limited and some things need to be in place. Namely, battery life. I imagined something today. Going for a 1 week expedition to Mount Everest. Then I imagined what gear I would bring. Then I thought of how the Apple Watch would fair: 1 day battery life, and it also needs the iPhone for many things. Then I thought that I would get a standard digital watch with things like altitude and barometric pressure and temperature features, all with 1-2 year bttery life.
I don’t think people truly realize just how much of a problem 1 day battery life is going to be on a watch. As well as having to have an iPhone connected to it to realize its full potential. For these reasons, I’m confident the Apple Watch is not going to sell as well as the fanboys think and it’s going to be another few years before such a device even begins to make sense once battery life, sunlight resistent screeens, and many other things are in place. But even still, it’s still a very limited product category with a questionable future.
42 aluminum sport ..white sport band …for me
38 stainless steel with soft pink leather modern band … For the better half !
Thinking if two additional bands… Tan leather loop for me and sport lime for the better half.
Orders ready to go , one or two clicks at 12:01 apr 10th
Why would sombody down vote my post is beyond me !
We know MDN recently got the attention of some anti-Apple, pro-knockoff 💩Watch Chinese trolls. Apparently, they’re still hanging around, cluelessly dinging-down anything at all, but especially anything about the Watch. Pay no attention to the anonymous coward tardTrolls hiding behind the curtain.
Hiding behind a very RED curtain.
Yes, it seems some people feel extraordinarily threatened by the Apple Watch. Perhaps rightly so.
It was worse than that. On that fake watch story one of them wrote a very obscene and offensive anti gay post and put my name to it. (okay, my pen name I use here)
It was on there for more than a day before I saw it. I asked MDN to please remove it, they did.
Register your name and log in. That way people can tell the real from the fake.
I tried, many times but it won’t let me use spaces in the name.
Any ideas?
🙄 😛
I noticed they did the same to you Mr Currie with a couple of awful posts Probably resulting fomr you gleefully goaded them
Mobie devices suck with their tiny keyboards and so called spell check
I had not noticed the nick forgery. Thanks melanie!
I don’t know but perhaps some readers are not impressed with someone bragging about being first in line. Yay for you, but nobody really gives a damn what you do at 12:01 April 10, 2015.
My note: buying an intimate piece of apparel/jewelry/electronics/whatever without hands-on time sounds a bit foolish to me. Why wouldn’t you take the time to feel which model and band feels and looks best on your wrist?
Well three counterpoints:
1. If you “have to” try it on first, you will have to wait longer to get it because of demand
2. I went shopping a couple years ago for a nice TAG Heuer CARRERA watch. Would have been 4 grand at a jeweler, instead of 2 grand on Amazon. But I tried anyway. Had to find jewelers that carried the line, then none of them had the model I was interested in anyway. Just saying, this is not just an issue with getting an Apple Watch.
3. One can always return items that are ordered. Do it all the time with apparel/jewelry/electronics, sometimes intentionally (i.e. buy a couple different sizes, return the ones that don’t fit)
I too will wait until I can try it on, but I have no problem with people ordering the moment they can. There’s no real downside. If you don’t like it you can either return it or perhaps even sell it at a profit, if supplies become constrained (as seems likely).
You’re a jackass. He’s just excited about Watch. I am too. Go ahead and criticize me. I’m planning to buy a 42mm Watch Sport with a blue band, and an extra band in black. I don’t know exactly what time I’ll place my order, but it will be very early on 4/10. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.
You my friend have some issues!
I’m getting the 42″ Space Black steel, but even though half the value is wrapped up in the band it comes with, I actually want the $149 black leather loop.
cost, not value.
The silver band as a stand-alone goes for $449, and the silver watch with the same band goes for $100 cheaper than the black. It’ll go for that on eBay even without supply constraints.
What the heck does that mean “Paul”?
Agreed! That date should have passed months ago
A Steel Milanese 42mm for me, and a 38mm rose gold rose leather band for you know who.
Instead of engagement rings, people will start popping the question with Apple Watch Edition.
Tru dat! 💥😃💰😜💰😱💥🎈🎉