The iWatch

The iWatch! Could it finally be on it’s way onto our super deserving wrists? Well, we think so. We’re almost as sure as we can really ever really be with an Apple product release, especially a completely new product release. Here’s a bunch of stuff we think we know about the iWatch.

Way, way back in 2008, Apple co-founder  Steve Wozniak confirmed to the Telegraph that “Apple’s future could lie in an ‘iWatch’.”

Then, in the midst of a thousand iWatch rumors, Apple trademarked ‘iWatch’ in Japan, Mexico, Russia and a number of other countries.

Tim Cook has said this about wearable tech:

“I think the wrist is interesting. I’m wearing this (Nike Fuelband) on my wrist…it’s somewhat natural. But as I said before, I think for something to work here, you first have to convince people it’s so incredible that they want to wear it.”

So we know it’s coming, and we know it’s going to be incredible, which is pretty exciting.

The iWatch is rumored to be out this year. Definitely, probably, this year. We think it will be if not announced, at least hinted at during the WWDC in June, and if not, definitely revealed  in the Fall, and released later in the year or early 2015.

The idea is that the iWatch will feature a small number of already established products combined into one, similar to the original iPhone when it came out.

It is said to be standalone with the option to be used in combination with your iPhone. It will most likely include watch, (duh) as well as fitness, health and phone functionality. Siri is a possibility, as is FaceTime capabilities, and maps, if not full iOS 8 functionality.

Fitness and health tech accessories were one of the big new industry product sectors at this year’s CES conference in Vegas. Many believe that it’s where the future of wearable tech lies.

Apple have recently made a bucketload of new roles rumored to be centered on the creation of the iWatch. Some of these are a little vague, others are quite telling. These include:

Sleep analysis experts who hold “several patents for integrating mobile devices with fitness equipment”

Biometric scientists.

Ben Shaffer (previously innovation leader at Nike) and Jay Blahnik, a health and fitness instructor who consulted on the Fuelband for Nike.

Sleep research expert Roy J.E.M Raymann, a scientist from Philips Research last month.  Raymann’s experience includes extensive research into non-pharmacological methods of altering sleep quality and in wearable sensors and miniaturization of sensors related to tracking sleep and alertness activity.

Nancy Dougherty was hired as a hardware engineer in late 2013. Previously she worked with technology-based medical products with Proteus Digital Health. Her work there included a health metric-reading wearable patch and ingestible, Bluetooth-connected smart pills for monitoring dosages and scheduling. Most recently, Dougherty worked as a hardware lead for Sano Intelligence, whose tagline reads ‘the API for the bloodstream,’ working on a wearable sensor system.

Apple recently advertised for an Exercise Physiologist to oversee cardiovascular fitness and energy expenditure tests at its main headquarters campus.

The ad read: Design and run user studies related to cardiovascular fitness & energy expenditure, including calories burned, metabolic rate, aerobic fitness level measurement/tracking and other key physiological measurements.

Michael O’Reilly, M.D. was recently added to the Apple team. Previously he was the  Chief Medical Officer of pulse oximetry (measuring the amount of oxygen in the blood)  for Masimo.

In the fashion line, Former Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Deneve, below, was hired last year to work under Tim Cook on a “special project”, and Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, joined Apple in a newly created position last year, as a senior vice president and member of their executive team.

Pretty promising stuff, right? So what else do we know?

A supply chain source indicated to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White in early October that it may also serve to integrate with home automation systems, allowing users to control heating and cooling, lights, and audio/video systems right from their wrists.

The design will come from the delightful brain of one Jony Ive (and his no doubt delightful team).

It is expected to have a 1.5-inch display, it will more than likely have a battery life longer than one day (Hi Galaxy gear!) and no one is brave enough yet to guess at a price.

What about competition? There are already a few smart watches, coming from the likes of Samsung with the Galaxy Gear  (1& 2), the Pebble, the Sony smart watch 2 and now Google who has confirmed to the Financial Times after filing a patent that they are indeed manufacturing a smart watch, possibly for release this year.

Apple will be looking to blow them all out of the water, obviously. This means that it has to be innovative in the same way that shocked the world with the original iPhone, and that all the components such as battery life, synchronization with other tech, wearability and functionality will have to be perfect.

So, no pressure, Apple. Also: hurry up, cos we really, really want one.

iWatch mock up photo by Brett Jordan Via www.adr-studio.it/site/?p=269 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The iPhone 6!

Are we excited for the iPhone 6? Huh? Huh? Duh! Rumors about the upcoming 9th generation iPhone to be released by Apple are running rampant already, and we couldn’t be more excited.

Here’s a rundown of everything we know about the iPhone 6. And what we think we know. And what we think other people might be potentially correct on what they think. And some things that probably aren’t true but some people think they are. Etc. All photos in this article are not real and are representations of what people believe the iPhone will be, or photos or purported prototypes.

Most people agree that one if not two new iPhones will be released this year, and following Apple’s recent naming system one of them more than likely will be called the iPhone 6. The main hardware difference that most people are solid on is that the new iPhone(s) will be thinner and slimmer, just like your New years resolutions!

Tim Cook has revealed that 2014 is a big year for Apple product releases, and people are optimistically expecting the release of the iWatch, possibly the iTV, and the next iPhone update(s!). These possible new product releases alongside other factors such as the possibility of dual iPhone releases will obviously affect when and exactly how fancily updated the new iPhone(s) will be.

Some people are speculating that the iPhone 6 will be, in fact, the iWatch and the current mobile iPhone will only get a new iOS update.

The more trusted and reliable thought is that the iPhone 6 will be its own separate hardware update, and because of the rumored new product releases set most likely for the Fall, it will be released early this year; think sometime in the 2nd quarter, June, or early Summer.  This is certainly a possibility – Apple released the first four generations of iPhone in June, before moving to an September/October launch schedule.

The other line of thought is that the iPhone 6 will follow the more recent iPhone release schedule and released in the Fall, leaving the Apple team plenty of time to make sure everything is perfect.

A lot of analysts believe that Apple will continue with their new 2 phone release model, this time featuring 2 differing size options. The sizing rumors range from 4.5 inches waaaay up to 5.7 inches. There is additional speculation that Apple will minimize or completely eradicate the bezels (the part bordering the screen) on the iPhone 6.

Arguments against the bigger screen sizes are backed up by Apple’s hard stance on one handed mobile use and their reluctance to provide a bigger screen at a loss to function just to compete with other smartphone companies. Tim Cook said this in April of last year:

“My view continues to be that the iPhone 5 has the absolute best display in the industry. We always strive to create the very best display for our customers. Our competitors have made some significant trade-offs in many of these areas in order to ship a larger display, we would not shop a larger-display iPhone while these trade-offs exist.”

Two new hardware components that are rumored to be allowing the iPhone to be thinner, lighter and more durable are Sapphire Glass and Liquidmetal.

Apple has exclusive rights to Liquidmetal, but have done for quite a long time. However, in November, five new Apple patents relating to Liquidmetal were published. Liquidmetal is a very strong and very durable material, which, if used, could make the iPhone 6 stronger and thinner as less material would be needed in comparison to Aluminum. According to some reports, the iPhone 6 could be just 6mm thick compared with the iPhone 5s’s 7.6mm. Below is a purported prototype from Sonnydickson.com

Sapphire glass is the material currently used on the iPhone 5S’s Touch ID Home Button the cover of the iPhone’s rear-facing camera. It’s more than twice as durable than Corning’s Gorilla Glass, and is “extremley scratch resistant. Apple has apparently spent $578 million to enter into a multi-year agreement with manufacturers GT Advanced Technologies to provide sapphire materials from a huge new Apple facility in Arizona.

The iPhone 5s incorporates a 64-bit A7 28-nanometer chip manufactured by Samsung. Apple’s iPhone 6 will reportedly incorporate a 20-nanometer A8 chip from TSMC, which will be both smaller and more energy efficient.

Samsung will continue to be involved in the production, alleviating some of TSMC’s manufacturing workload. The A7 chip marked a 31 percent improvement over the A6 in the iPhone 5, and it is likely that the leap to a 20-nm A8 chip will offer similar increases in performance.

Apple’s next-generation iPhone should, and may support the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard that first began appearing in Apple products in 2013. 802.11ac, or “Gigabit” Wi-Fi offers speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks, reaching speeds over 1 Gigabit per second. It’s though that Apple have been waiting for external technology to catch up before they update their iDevices with the Wi-Fi Technology.

Wireless Charging is something that has been tossed around in the great big salad bowl of rumors, but we don’t think it’s coming- yet. Curved Glass is also a feature many are looking forward to- and would be be beautiful on the iPhone 6, but we wouldn’t be betting the house on it.

Holographic keyboard is the magic  feature everyone quietly and slightly unreasonably hopes for with each update. Will it be this year that their hopes are fulfilled? We think not, but there’s always a little hope. Meanwhile- they actually currently exist as an iPhone and iPad accessory.

According to a reports from The China Post, Apple will not be upgrading the resolution of the rear camera for the iPhone 6 later this year. Citing analysts from Nomura Securities, they indicate that while the iPhone 6 will have some camera improvements like enhanced optical image stabilization, it will continue to use an 8-megapixel sensor rather than a higher-resolution sensor in the 12-16 megapixel range.

Some people think that the Touch ID introduced on the iPhone 5S last year will be removed from future iPhone updates – we think this is pretty categorically not going to happen.  What we think will  happen is that Apple will, this year, introduce new payment methods using the touch ID.

Apple recently purchased PrimeSense, a firm specializing in the development of three-dimensional sensors for home appliances and mobile devices. This technology is similar to the gesture-detecting sensors of the Xbox’s Kinect controller. This purchase could certainly hint at a move to include gesture control on the next generation of Apple devices, although unlike Samsung, they would want to have it perfected before they release anything with gesture control.

The iPhone 6(s) will run on iOS 8. Yay!

So that’s it – so far. Everyday there are new rumors and people certain they know exactly what the iPhone 6 will be like. In actual fact, there’s very, very few people in the world who knows exactly what it will be like. This guy is one of them.

So if you see him, can you guys ask him for us?  Thanks.

Images courtesy of Unitedcats, dailymail.co.uk, bgr.com, Officetoocean.blogspot.com, sonnydickson,  usatoday.com, geeky-gadgets.com, pcadvisor.co.uk, Coolistuff.com, 9to5mac.com, & mashable

Only 50,000 Galaxy Gear Smartwatches sold!

Ruh Roh Samsung!

The Galaxy Gear, Samsung’s wearable tech effort has only sold around 50,000 units according to a report from BusinessKorea.

Launched a short time ago in September, the watch has not been received well by critics, or as it turns out, by buyers. It costs $299, it is not standalone, and this is what it looks like:

Samsung were (/are?) impressed with themselves for getting their version of wearable tech in watch form out first. Especially when the perception is that Apple usually play the role of tech innovators. This was their turn to create history with a first, but should they have waited?

The people say …mmmmmmmyeahprobably.

The customer and critical reviews of the Galaxy gear have mentioned that it is too bulky, it doesn’t sync with all of their smart-phones, and the battery life, at one day, is nowhere near good enough.

Apple is among other tech giants said to be working hard on their own version, named in the press the iWatch. A standalone gadget, it is said that a huge priority for the company is in trying to make the battery last at least four days and have a design aesthetic that will make people who don’t wear a watch currently, want to wear the iWatch.

So, kinda sucks for Samsung. But you know what this means, don’t you guys?

This can only be a fantastic thing for us, the consumers. Wearable tech, in this case specifically watches can and will only get better from here.

And if you were one  of the 50,000 peeps who bought the Galaxy Gear, kudos to you! If things continue in the same vein, now you’re the proud owner of some rare tech. Rare tech is good for the wallet!

Images courtesy of Cheezburger.com & digitaltrends.com

New products coming in 2014!

GUYS GUYS GUYS!

There are still more products coming our way right from the magical world of the Apple production line! Next year! That’s like only a few tomorrows away!

A couple of days ago Tim Cook confirmed to members of the press, that Apple is definitely planning on introducing new product categories in 2014. Categories baby! That’s like, things we’ve never seen before. Woop.

According to Cook, Apple believes that it can use its skills building software, hardware, and services to create “great products” in categories that Apple does not participate in today. “We’re pretty confident about that,” said Cook.

Woop!

Things to look forward to  (probably) include the iWatch, the iTV and a little baby unicorn that makes all your dreams come true.

Probably.

Images courtesy of  Cheezburger & Playdom

New Motorola phone? Looks exciting!

Do you guys remember a lil’ while back when a video featuring a blocky, stack together futuristic idealistic mobile phone started doing the social media rounds?

This one:

If you haven’t seen it, definitely check it out. There are some really smart ideas in there, formed by some people really thinking about how to make the future of tech better.

The phone in the video above is designed by a group called Phonebloks, and it’s a design prototype; it’s not real, yet. Turns out Motorola has been thinking along the same lines as the guys from Phonebloks, and now they’re working together on a project that is super exciting.

The following is from the Motorola Blog, go here to check it out at the sauce.

Goodbye Sticky. Hello Ara.

Over the last six months, our MAKEwithMOTO team took Sticky, a truck wrapped entirely in velcro and filled with rooted, hackable Motorola smartphones and high-end 3D printing equipment, across the country for a series of make-a-thons.

On that trip we saw the first signs of a new, open hardware ecosystem made possible by advances in additive manufacturing and access to the powerful computational capabilities of modern smartphones. These included new devices and applications that we could never have imagined from inside our own labs. Open fuels innovation. See some examples here, here, and here.

After the trip, we asked ourselves, how do we bring the benefits of an open hardware ecosystem to 6 billion people? Meet Ara.

Led by Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.

Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it’s made of, how much it costs, and how long you’ll keep it.

Rundown on the iPad event on october 22nd

Hi!

Ok, our blog has been doing a little bit of this:

If you’re not sure what that is, oh by geez be thankful you’ve never tangled with the spinning wheel of death!

We tangled, and we won! And now we’re back! And we’re like this:

Click on these lovely blue links for all the info you want and need about the new and updated Apple Products!

iPad Air

iPad Mini with Retina Display

New MacBook Pro Retina

OS X Mavericks

AND check out the videos from the event here!

Images courtesy of bidorbuy.co.za & chicagonow.com.

iOS 7 is the besterest

iOS 7 is getting kudos and awesomeness from all kinds of places! Heck yes!

The guys over at Pfeiffer Consulting have released the results from their yearly Mobile OS User Experience Benchmarks (which smartphone is the besterest to use).

And guess what? Oh… yeah, it’s in the title.

iOS 7 was found to be the best user experience, scoring a total of just over 73%, with the closest competitor being iOS 6 on 60% and 57.25% for Android.

When conducting the study the company looks at the following:

*Cognitive Load

*Efficiency

*Customization

*User experience Friction

See all the scores below! Also, check out the full report here.

What do you guys think?

For realz, this is gotta make Apple feel like this…

Images courtesy of  9to5mac, cbc.ca & sfgate.com

Who wants to win a shiny Gold 5S? Anyone?

GUYS GUYS GUYS

Wanna win a brand new shiny iPhone 5S? In GOLD?

UH… D’UH? It’d be a bit weird if you didn’t, just saying.

The wonderful tech website 9to5Mac are teaming with a vinyl skin manufacturing company, dbranc inc. to promote their wares, which are all pretty awesome, and to give away an unlocked gold 64Gb iPhone 5S.

That’s right! You’ll also get a bunch of gold skins to use on any of your other devices to make them look fancy and shiny so they don’t feel all left out and jealous of your new phone.

To Enter: Make sure you’re following @9to5mac on Twitter and retweet the competition post or reshare it on Facebook.

Not this post, although, you can do that too, but it should be their post that you share. You’ll find it here.  And the share button is alllll the way down the bottom. 

Good luck! Actually, guess what we just decided. If we win, we’ll just give it to one of you guys. Deal?

Image courtesy of VH1, Sonny Radio & 9to5Mac

T-Mobile changing the way we travel with phones?

WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH WOOOOOAH.

This is pretty groundbreaking stuff, and we don’t want to startle you guys but, it’s pretty hella exciting.

T-Mobile has announced a new way of doing things. Something that (we hope) will change how other carriers do things in the future as well as change how we travel.

CEO John Legere has dropped a few hints on Twitter – “Today is the day! The day we change the way the world uses their phones!”

And then they did. So here’s the deal.

Starting October 20 for new customers and October 31st for existing customers, T-Mobile’s Simple Choice Plan, will include unlimited 2G data in 115 countries, free texts, and calls for only 20 cents per minute, all without signing an annual contract!

We don’t know about you guys, but this is something we are really excited about. 

Traveling internationally with your phone is always super useful and yet also really annoying.Previously, there has just been too many choices, and none of them were good.

Do you choose to try to buy a local sim in each country? Or one sim to rule them all that kind of works and costs a bajillion dollars? What about using your home sim and being really careful until you forget and start playing online mushroom wars drunk one night in Sofia?

Thanks to T-Mobile, now you don’t have to worry about it!

The international data comes at no additional cost as long as you’re on the Simple Choice Plan, and unlimited free texts and 20 cent phone calls will be an additional $10/month. This addition will also enable unlimited calling to landlines on over 70 international countries.

Take a look here to see what countries are included and all the extra details:

And remember, this means you can use your smart phone overseas, SAHWEET, but it doesn’t mean you always should. C’mon, don’t be that guy. Or the guy who travels with a guitar. We hate that guy. Sorry guy.

Next Apple Event October 22nd!

Thanks to AllThingsD, we’ve got a date of the next Apple event! With announcements of new products and upgrades and wheeee!

(so far unconfirmed by Apple, but that’s pretty normal.)

Pencil it in kids: October 22nd, 2013.

The event will most likely focus on all things iPad, although Mavericks OS X and the new Mac pro will also probably get a look in.

The fifth gen iPad is expected to be announced, with more than a passing resemblance to it’s little bro the mini, with a thinner, lighter design and smaller side bezels ( the bits beside the screen).

It is also expected to have  a 64-bit A7 processor and an improved 8-megapixel camera.

Sahweet!

According to up and coming tech leaker Sonny Dickson – these are leaked pictures of the 5th Generation iPad next to the current gen.

The mini is expected to have a nice little upgrade, with similar 64-bit chip and camera improvements as it’s big bro as well as a retina display. FANCY.

Just a word of warning- According to some, the iPad mini won’t have much availability once it is released. Because it’s fancy, ya see.

There have been leaks (unconfirmed) that the upgraded iPads MIGHT come in the gold color seen in the much sought after in the iPhone 5S, and/or equipped with the Touch ID also seen on the iPhone 5S.

Both the 5th generation iPad and the upgraded iPad mini should be offered in Silver & Space Grey, if not Gold as well.

With the announcement looking like it’s 99% on October the 22nd, we’ll probably be seeing the launch of the upgraded products on November 1st.

In the tech world, the date of Apple’s fall event coincides with both Nokia’s Innovation Reinvented showcase, and the retail debut of Microsoft’s new Surface 2.

What do you guys think, are you excited about the announcement or over it for the year?

Will you get a new iPad or iPad Mini?

Image courtesy of iftodayisyourbirthday.com , Sonny Dickson & Zazzle.