Indo-Asian News Service, Washington, March 10: Apple on Monday unveiled its much awaited Apple Watch that lets one make calls, read emails, control music and keep up with one’s workout regimen, all from one’s wrist.
Unveiling the watch at an event in San Francisco, CEO Tim Cook talked about the watch’s time capabilities, choices of finish and watch faces and a series of features called “glances”. The watch will notify a wearer with a “tap” when a new email arrives.
Apple tapped supermodel Christy Turlington Burns to try out the Apple Watch with a video showing her running a half marathon wearing the watch. Fitness features include reminders to start moving when you have been sitting for too long.
A new workout app will offer weekly summaries and goal suggestions for the upcoming week. Cook described it as “having a coach on your wrist”.
Cook also showed off a new MacBook, which he said “reinvents the notebook”. “We took everything we learned from creating the iPhone and (the) iPad to make something amazing and bold,” he said.
The new MacBook is thinner than the MacBook Air and weighs only two pounds (nearly one kg). Apple marketing executive, Phil Schiller, described it as the thinnest and lightest laptop Apple has produced. It promises all-day battery life, with nine hours of wireless web use, or 10 hours of video playbook, Schiller said.
The event kicked off with the announcement that HBO’s streaming service will debut on Apple TV and devices exclusively next month.
Cook also announced that Apple TV’s price will be lowered from $99 to $69 (about Rs 6,200 to Rs 4,326).
Cook announces ResearchKit
He also announced ResearchKit, which will make the iPhone a diagnostic tool for medical researchers through open-source software.
Countless owners of smartphones and wearable devices are already using their devices to track their sleep, exercise, blood pressure and other measures of health.
With ResearchKit, biomedical researchers could have an easier time recruiting these users to collect and share their data as part of large-scale clinical studies, the scientific journal Nature reported. The first five apps built with ResearchKit are designed to study asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular health, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.