Apple launches Apple Watch

Los Angeles, March 10, (dpa/GNA) - Apple launched its first new product line since the iPad Monday, entering the emerging wearables market with its Apple Watch - and in the process, underscoring the company's transition from computer maker to luxury brand.

The Apple Watch is in essence a tiny computer that interfaces with an iPhone while strapped to the wrist. But functionality shared top billing with fashion at Apple's launch event at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts.

The watch that Apple chief executive Tim Cook called the "most advanced timepiece ever" starts at 349 dollars for a basic aluminium model and ranges unapologetically up to 17,000 for a solid 18k rose gold version.

It's billed as a fashion accessory as much as a smartwatch, infinitely customizable with a variety of cases, bands, face designs and features. Its launch was complete with its own supermodel spokesperson, Christy Turlington Burns, who was conspicuous as the only woman on stage.

But the Apple Watch is, in fact, more than just a pretty face - or array of faces. Tethered to the iPhone with Bluetooth or WiFi, it can do many of the things an iPhone can do: send and receive messages and calls; display app and social media notifications; surf the web and take dictation through Siri, Apple's voice-controlled virtual assistant.

It can store music like an iPod, and credit card information for Apple's cashless payment system Apple Pay.

The Apple Watch's battery is built to last 18 hours, Cook said, longer than the iPhone but still requiring a recharge every day.

But to use all of the Apple Watch's iPhone-like features, users will need to have an iPhone, too. So why do they need the Apple Watch?.

"The Apple Watch is the most personal device we have ever created," Cook said. "It's not just with you, it's on you."

The device is Apple's most interactive yet.
Instead of sending an iPhone-like beep to alert users of a message, the Apple Watch taps them on the wrist.

Built-in next-generation sensors make the Apple Watch a very smart digital fitness bracelet, tracking vitals and exercise, sending fitness reminders and acting as a virtual "coach."

The physical sensors combine with the watch's communications features to enable users to communicate physically as well as digitally, sending each other physical taps on the wrist and even virtual heartbeats.

Apple technology Chief Kevin Lynch demonstrated the Apple Watch's new tricks by using his finger to draw a flower on the watch screen and send it to his wife.

"Now I can call her, send her a message, or use a digital touch," Lynch said. "So that way she knows I'm thinking of her."

Whether these features will be enough to tempt consumers remains to be seen. Smartwatches have so far been a tough sell, with only 4.6 million sold worldwide in 2014, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. The firm predicted the Apple Watch would quintuple the world smartwatch market this year.

But a survey by Accent Marketing of 1,000 people who planned to buy some form of wearable technology in 2015 found that while 54 per cent thought the Apple watch was "an exciting use of technology," 80 per cent did not plan to buy it.

The watch will go on sale April 24 in the United States, Britain, China, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong, Cook said. Stores in those countries and in Hong Kong will begin showing the watch and taking orders April 10.

GNA