Apple Watch Officially Launched, priced from $349 – Complete Features List

Apple has finally unveiled the most smartwatch of this year, company is calling it Apple Watch, dropping the “i” Branding, which is very surprising. The new watch from the Cupertino giant comes with a beautiful iconography as it sets some new standards, even better than the iOS designs has seen in growth period. The watch is priced at $349 and is only compatible with iPhone, which includes the models; iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, and iPhone 5S.

The price starts from $349 and Apple has also announced an Edition watch, the pricing of which starts from $10,000. Hefty, but that is more about luxury than features.

It will be available for purchase in early 2015, which is longtime to wait considering the Android Wears smartwatches will have a huge advantage of time interval. Though, it doesn’t matter as the new watch from Apple is focused to iPhone consumers only, though, it was believed that it will be compatible with other devices too.

Company doesn’t want it to be called a wearable, even though it is, but they want us to stick to just watch phrase. The new Apple device sports a square display and touts the curved edges, there’s an 18-karat gold version. Design sums up in these three phrases; Rectangular bezel, Rectangular screen, and the circular UI elements.

The crown of the Apple Watch is a dial that is called a digital crown and can be used to turn zoom in and out on a map as well as scroll a list. The digital crown is basically the primary interface controller of Apple Watch, then it better be pretty big and easy to grab. You can also press the crown and go back to the home screen on the Watch.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc., said that “What we didn’t do was take the iPhone and shrink the user interface and strap it on your wrist.” There is a new thing called glances, which allows you to swipe up from the bottom of the watch face. It has a sapphire crystal touch screen display, which also senses force, as it will be able to tell the difference between a tap and a press, there’s a taptic engine inside that has little speaker too.

All the innovation is packed onto the tiny little beard, sealed up to protect against water, though, the IPXX rating is not mentioned by Apple, that’s not the only details company forgot to mention, as it was showcased that the Watch will be coming in two display sizes (large and small), which were not mentioned exactly.

The device will be coming in three categories; Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch Edition. These three categories further comprise detailed collections to suit your style as you will have options to get different straps.

Beautiful UI

The watch will turn-on the display whenever you raise the wrist. The interface really seems to stand on its own, as it seems like the Apple Watch will be more than a notification receiving device. It allows you to dictate while replying to the messages and also shows you the messages, calls and emails, all tailored for easy access on your wrist.

It is a personal communicator, as users can also send quick sketches to each other, or even your heart beat. The traditional smartwatch things it can do are monitor your heart rate, track your location via GPS from your iPhone, MagSafe Wireless Charging.

On the software front, the device has a beautiful interface that involves scrolling around the homescreen, and then opening whatever circle/icon/dot that happens to be in the center of the display. There is one more arguably interesting feature called swipe-to-pan, which is seriously a slick effect, once you pan on the homescreen by swiping, you can rotate the crown to zoom out to the universe of apps, and then tap in to the neighbourhood.

There’s a new gesture here, being called as the force touch, it will let you choose or customize your watch faces, by the way which includes a Mickey Mouse too. The watch contains customizable pieces of information, like widgets, where you can get calendar stuff, music information, etc. You can just swipe down from any glance to get rid of them, and go back to your watch face. There’s a lot in common with the Android Wear in that widgets UI.

Apps: Maps, Fitness and Use of glances 

And yes, you can get turn-by-turn directions on the watch, with different vibrations depending on whether you should turn left or right. There’s a digital touch app, which is a dedicated communication app for this new Watch.

The Third party developers would be also able to make apps for the newly showcased Apple Watch. The plan is to initially show notifications only, but developers can extend that notification with something called WatchKit. That gives you actionable notifications and those informational glances that allows you to see more information with just a swipe from the watch face. WatchKit appears to be more advanced than Android Wear, but the apps here aren’t mind-bogglingly ahead of what’s happening on Google’s platform.

There are two dedicated apps for health: Fitness and Workout, which are going to monitor your fitness all day as well as remind you to workout or move whenever you should.

Some other noticeable integration includes tweeting from your Apple Watch, which should be should be fun. And other features like, getting airline flight information, unlocking your hotel room door by waving your watch at SPG hotels are few things that you would be able to do with the Apple Watch.

Price: Costs too Much for a Smartwatch

Though, the most important things that Apple did not mentioned was, No word on connectivity; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Integrated LTE or not. As well as the battery specifications was not revealed by the Cupertino company. At a price of $349, you get a long list of tightly integrated features, which sure makes you productive in your tasks as well as helps you in improving your health.