The Apple Watch landed in seven additional countries on Friday and announced plans to expand into three more later this summer.
Apple's first wearable is now available for purchase at boutique shops and various Apple store locations in Italy, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan. These countries join the first wave of countries that carried the Apple Watch in stores, which included Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.
The company also announced plans to launch the device in the Netherlands, Sweden and Thailand on July 17. This will bring the total count of countries selling the Apple Watch to 19.
Shoppers line up outside a boutique in South Korea to get their hands on the Apple Watch.
IMAGE: APPLE
International shoppers, who posted pictures on Instagram and Twitter from stores throughout the day, were able to walk in and pick up an Apple Watch in person. Apple has been criticized for how it handled the initial launch, which forced customers to wait weeks or even months for their watches to ship.
The new launch, paired with the next round of countries getting the watch, hints that Apple is catching up to demand. While the watch is now available in stores in the U.S., it's still hard to find. The good news, however, is that the wait time for shipments is much less than it was a month ago, ranging now from one business day to two weeks.
The Apple Watch claims to be many things: stylish timepiece, wrist-based communicator, mobile payment solution, fitness instructor, and, if you cough up for an Edition, embarrassing luxury item. But is it also a gaming platform?
The jury is still out on whether you’ll want to game on a tiny screen with limited controls and battery life, but this isn’t stopping the gaming app gold rush. Plenty of Apple Watch games are available on launch day. Which should you try? Start with these five.
What’s the most downloaded game of the year so far? That’s an easy one: It’s Trivia Crack. Challenging players to answer crowd-sourced trivia questions from across the globe, Trivia Crack is an unmitigated hit on both mobile and social platforms.
The new wearable version can be played entirely on the Apple Watch — no need to look at your phone — through simple taps to answer questions. You can post or accept challenges from other players, and you’ll receive a notification on your wrist when it’s your turn. The game also includes animated colorful characters and millions of user-submitted questions. Should you get it? It’s free, so we’ll answer that with another question: Why not?
Gamers looking for something a little deeper should consider Runeblade, a fantasy role-playing game from Everywear Games.
The single-player campaign puts you in the formidable boots of a War Mage challenged with stopping an ancient, evil menace from overtaking the realm. OK, so the backstory is trite, but the game promises tons of locations to explore, mythological beasts (and bosses) to destroy, and unlockable spells and abilities to earn as you level up over time.
It’s also designed to be played in short, 30-second sessions, though the game increases in depth and complexity over days, weeks, and months of game play, says the developer. We’ll see if that holds up.
One of the more intriguing offerings sneaking onto the Apple Watch is from U.K.-based indie developer Bossa Studios, best known forridiculous games like Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread.
In Spy_Watch, you’re the head of a spy agency that has seen better days. To turn the agency around, you must train spies, send them on secret missions, and use earned cash to improve their abilities.
This ambitious Apple Watch game is played via short bursts of real-time notifications between you and your agent in the field, which take place in two- to five-second rounds. You’ll need to make strategic decisions on the fly that will ultimately affect the success of the missions, be they related to time, resources, or locations. Think a spy-flavored choose-your-own-adventure game and you get the gist, though no guarantees you’ll look as suave as James Bond while tapping at your wrist on the bus.
With the iOS version taking home multiple award nods — including an Apple “Best of 2014” pick — Rules! was one of the first games announced for Apple Watch.
It’s a good match. Rules! is something of a cross between Simon and Memory. You’re tasked with tapping tiles based on an increasing number of rules for each level, such as “Tap numbers in descending order,” “Tap green,” and “Tap animals.” You have to remember each rule in order to progress, and a countdown timer keeps the stress level pretty high.
The Apple Watch version includes a daily mini-game challenge playable on the wearable, but with only 4 tiles instead of 16 due to the limited screen real estate.
That’s a bit of a bummer, but this isn’t: Rules! is free right now, if you know where to look.
Instead of paying $2.99 at the regular App Store, first download the freeApple Store app, which is primarily used to help you shop for Apple products or make appointments at the retail stores. Confusing terminology, I know, but bear with me. Open it up, and scroll down until you see a banner that says “Download Rules! Free.” Tap this, and you just saved three bucks.
What four-letter word comes to mind after spending $17,000 on an Apple Watch?
From Australian developer Right Pedal, Snappy Word places four random letter tiles on the Apple Watch face. Your goal is to see how many words you can create in 30 seconds. It’s accessible and smartly tailored for the Watch, plus it includes a real-time player-versus-player mode, or you can compete against others through a Game Center leaderboard.
Snappy Word’s dictionary is made up of nearly 4,000 words, says its developer, but my favorite is its price: F-R-E-E.
Apple is offering free workshops to help educate Apple Watch owners.Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET
New owners of the Apple Watch can enroll in free workshops at Apple Stores to learn how to use the wearable device.
As of Thursday, the websites for some Apple Stores have been displaying an Apple Watch Basics class among their list of free workshops, as spotted Thursday by blog site MacRumors. The description for the class asks you to bring your Apple Watch and iPhone to learn how to get started with "glances" gestures, watch faces and more.
"Glances" display small slides of information that you access by swiping up the face of the watch. Gestures allow you to navigate the watch's interface by swiping or tapping. And Apple offers a variety of faces for its smartwatch, many of which are customizable.
Some stores are also showing a second class called Stay in Touch with Apple Watch, which is geared more toward using the device for communications. This workshop will show how to respond to messages and mail, share location, take a call and send a heartbeat to someone you care about. The Heartbeat feature lets you send your actual heartbeat to someone using the watch's built-in heart rate sensor.
Apple offers free workshops on other topics and products, including the iPhone, iPad, iCloud and the Mac. But the Apple Watch will demand some special training since it's an entirely new product category and packs a lot of features into a small package. Apple is offering short, hands-on demos of the watch available by reservation for consumers who want to check one out before a potential purchase. But people who end up buying the watch would likely benefit from more in-depth workshops.
The two workshops start April 24, which is when the Apple Watch goes on sale. But if your local Apple store is offering the workshops, you can reserve a spot now. I had trouble finding workshops at Apple Stores in the US. Only two stores that I stumbled upon displayed the Apple Watch Basics class; one of them also showed the Stay in Touch with Apple Watch class. But undoubtedly, more stores will start to list them as April 24 nears.
The workshops themselves take place every 90 minutes throughout the day and also are available on weekends. With heavy demand already popping up for the Apple Watch -- analyst estimates for preorders have ranged from 1 million to 2.3 million -- the workshops are likely to be a hot commodity. The problem is figuring out when to book the workshops, especially since you'll need your Apple Watch to attend.
Various Apple Watch models are now showing ship dates anywhere from four weeks to sometime in June. Either way, anyone who preorders an Apple Watch now certainly won't have one by April 24. In addition, it's possible that the device won't be available for in-store purchase until June. Up to then, all sales will be online.
The best bet for buyers may be to wait until you actually get the watch or receive a confirmed delivery date and then book a workshop. Of course, you can always schedule a workshop in anticipation of getting the watch on a certain date and then cancel or reschedule should it fail to arrive in time.
So far, so good on Apple Watch preorders, according to analysts.Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET
The Apple Watch basked in a strong opening weekend that could indicate success for the device, analysts say.
In an investors note Monday, Cowen and Co. estimated that total Apple Watch preorders worldwide reached about 1 million units during the first weekend of availability. Cowen, which has monitored Apple for years and scrutinizes the company's product launches, extrapolated the preorder number after analyzing preorders at Apple Stores in the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
"We found several dozen salespeople per retail store who each had several dozen Apple Watch appointments during store hours," Cowen analysts wrote. "Based on our discussions, these showings are translating into Apple Watch pre-orders 85-90% of the time. Extrapolating the frequency of appointments and conversion ratio metrics across Apple's retail footprint of the Watch's launch markets, we believe weekend pre-orders could easily be in the range of 1 million. We note iPhone 6/6+ pre-orders exceeded 4MM in just the first 24 hours of a multi-market three-day launch weekend in September 2014 but a 1 million Watch number would be respectable and even a little better than our model."
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster also estimated that Apple Watch preorders hovered around 1 million units over the weekend, according to Marketwatch, which obtained his note.
Apple Watch went on preorder Friday and will officially launch April 24. Within hours of starting preorder sales, the device's ship dates were pushed back months as heavy demand hit the company's online retail store. As of this writing, many Apple Watch models are showing ship dates of June for those who preorder the device, while others have a July ship date. Either way, anyone who preorders an Apple Watch from now until launch day will have no chance of getting it on April 24.
Apple Watch, which is launching in nine markets worldwide, represents an important new initiative for Apple. The device is the first from the company to enter the burgeoning wearables market and is widely viewed as the product that will make or break smartwatches. Other companies, including Pebble, Samsung, and Motorola, have all entered the smartwatch market but have been unable to break out of a small niche. Apple Watch is viewed by many as the product that could bring smartwatches into the mainstream.
"The Apple Watch will be instrumental in taking the wearables market to the next level of growth," chief of research Ben Wood at market researcher CCS Insight said in a statement in February. "If successful, it'll create a rising tide that will lift the whole market."
Apparently so far, so good. As Cowen noted, the Apple Watch already seems to be ahead of its own estimates. Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald echoed that sentiment, saying the device has "gotten off to a strong start." Likewise, analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets said that "Apple Watch preorders are off to a very strong start" and added that the company will more than likely "sell all of its production volume for at least the next three months." KeyBanc went so far as to say that Apple Watch could hurt the traditional watch market and lowered its earnings estimates on popular watch brands Fossil and Movado.
"After trying on the Apple Watch, visiting stores, and based on our field work, we are now more convinced that the Apple Watch will be disruptive to the fashion watch market," KeyBanc analysts wrote to investors on Sunday. "At a minimum, the widespread buzz may cause something of a standstill in the watch market."
The Apple Watch comes in two sizes -- 42mm or 38mm -- and three designs -- the aluminum-cased Apple Watch Sport, stainless-steel-cased Apple Watch and the 18-karat-gold-cased Apple Watch Edition. The aluminum comes with silver or space gray options, while the stainless steel comes in its namesake color or a space black version. The gold watch is available in 18-karat yellow gold or 18-karat rose gold. The price tag ranges dramatically from $349 to $17,000.
The KeyBanc analysts said that Apple is gearing up to produce up to 20 million Apple Watches this calendar year.
What's missing from all of this talk of Apple Watch shipments and preorders is an actual word from Apple. In the past, Apple has touted its product preorders in their first weekend of availability, but as of this writing, it is maintaining radio silence. The company has also not immediately responded to a request for comment on preorders.
Still, that hasn't stopped guesses from hitting the Web fast and furious. On Sunday, for instance, a company called Slice Intelligence, which claims to have the ability to track "e-receipt data" from over 9,000 online shoppers, stated that "each Apple Watch buyer ordered an average of 1.3 watches." The company said, based on its own calculations, that Apple Watch preorders hit 1 million in the US. By contrast, Cowen's preorder estimate is for all nine launch markets worldwide: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, UK and US.
THE GOODThe Apple Watch is a beautifully constructed, compact smartwatch. It's feature-packed, with solid fitness software, hundreds of apps, and the ability to send and receive calls via an iPhone.
THE BADBattery barely lasts a day and recharge time is slow; most models and configurations cost more than they should; requires an iPhone 5 or later to work; interface can be confusing; sometimes slow to communicate with a paired iPhone.
THE BOTTOM LINEThe Apple Watch is the most ambitious, well-constructed smartwatch ever seen, but first-gen shortfalls make it feel more like a fashionable toy than a necessary tool.
Apple will give employees a 50 percent discount on its first smartwatch.James Martin/CNET
It's a good time to be an Apple employee.
CEO Tim Cook on Monday sent a memo to employees saying Apple will give all workers a 50 percent discount on Apple Watch or Apple Watch Sport. The purchase has to be for personal use, and the discount, which starts at the time preorders begin on April 10, is only valid for the first 90 days after Apple Watch is available, the memo said.
"Our products enrich people's lives like no others, and we think Apple Watch is going to delight our customers in ways people can't yet imagine," Cook said. "We want you to share in that experience right alongside them."
Still, Apple's headcount has soared since it released iPhone, making it pretty expensive to hand out free watches (though its sales have also soared-- to record highs). In fiscal 2007, which ended September 29, Apple had 21,600 full-time employees. In fiscal 2014, which ended September 27, Apple employed 92,600 full-time workers. About 46,200 of those 2014 employees worked in Apple's retail stores.The discount is a generous one, particularly when compared to rivals such as Samsung and to the launch of iPad. Samsung gives employees minimal discounts, and Apple didn't give employees special pricing for the iPad when it first came out. Apple did, however, give all employees free iPhones when the smartphone hit the market in 2007 -- making a 50 percent discount a little less attractive.
Apple's first smartwatch, Apple Watch, hits the market April 24, and presales start April 10. The device comes in two sizes, three different models, a couple different finishes per model and with a variety of band options. The entry-level device, the aluminum and glass Apple Watch Sport with plastic band, starts at $349. The midrange Apple Watch ranges from $549 to $1,099, and the premium gold Apple Watch Edition starts at $10,000 and goes as high as $17,000.
But you won't be able to walk into a store to purchase an Apple Watch like you can with the iPhone andiPad. Instead, all sales will be made through a reservation system, Apple confirmed to CNET on Friday.And that's true for the indefinite future. Apple has no plans at this time to allow you to stop into a store and walk out with an Apple Watch, even after the device officially hits the market. Starting April 10, you can set up an appointment for an in-store fitting in one of more than 400 stores across four continents.
What will ultimately determine the success of Apple Watch are the apps offered on the device. Apple, at a press event in early April, showed how you'll be able to call an Uber car using the watch or unlock your hotel room door. You'll also be able to check in for a flight or turn off your house lights using a tap on your wrist. Initial watch apps are largely an extension of the main iPhone app, providing users with quick notifications and fairly limited abilities.
Cook's memo on Monday noted that developers submitted more than 1,000 Apple Watch apps in the first four days the App Store started accepting them, "and the rate of submissions has only been climbing since then."
"Some of the most innovative developers in the world are working on new experiences designed specifically for Apple Watch," Cook said.
9-to-5 Mac earlier reported the news about the employee discount for watches.
From CNET Apple Watch will feature thousands of apps, and some of those developers will also tweak their iPhone apps.James Martin/CNET
When building an app for Apple Watch, Mikael Berner and his team at EasilyDo quickly learned that their work could carry over to the iPhone.
The EasilyDo developers found it sometimes took too long for users to find the information they wanted in the company's namesake app -- which acts as a virtual assistant by managing your email, calendar, travel information and services like LinkedIn. When you're wearing a smartwatch, you need to be able to glance down and see what you're looking for without digging through menus.
Deciding that also made sense on the iPhone, the developers restructured their smartphone app to also be "more micro-moment," said EasilyDo CEO Berner, showing quick glances of information that's relevant to what you're doing at a particular time. If you're heading out on vacation, it won't display a menu with all of your travel information, as the phone app did before. Instead, EasilyDo will notify you about gate changes or pop up your boarding pass while you're in the airport. It then will display your hotel's address after you land or provide other information based on what you need in that moment.
"A large population is going to get used to the nibbling the watch lets them do," Berner said.Apple Watch hasn't hit the market yet, but its tiny screen is already changing how our iPhone apps look and feel. Some of the simple, "glanceable" functions found on Apple's first wearable will make their way to smartphone apps, as will more minimalist designs. And it's not just about making the phone and watch apps work together seamlessly, but actually incorporating watch features -- like new functions and different design schemes -- in the iPhone. The result, developers hope, is less digging through menus and a streamlined experience for users.
Not all companies will make tweaks to their iPhone apps that are obvious to users, but others, such as EasilyDo, American Airlines, BetterWorks, Citi and Evernote, are making changes to their main phone software because of the watch.
Apple Watch, which Apple first unveiled in September, costs $349 to $17,000 and hits the market on April 24. The device -- which comes in three models, two sizes, a couple metal finishes per model, and with various bands -- requires an iPhone 5 or later device to operate and can do very little when not connected to a smartphone.
EasilyDo's new iPhone app (right) provides a simpler, more glanceable interface compared to its old app (left).Screenshots by EasilyDo
Apple is counting on its first smartwatch to become a strong seller alongside the iPhone, as well as become a way to get people to buy more smartphones. Whether Apple Watch succeeds or fails is closely tied to the apps available on the device. While there's no clear "killer app" that makes Apple Watch a must-have device, Apple and its app partners have given users many reasons to at least consider buying the pricey wearable.
Apple made its case at a press event last week,showing how you'll be able to call an Uber carusing the watch or unlock your hotel room door. You'll also be able to check in for a flight or turn off your house lights using a tap on your wrist.
Initial watch apps are largely an extension of the main iPhone app, providing users with quick notifications and fairly limited abilities. Simplicity is key, and so far, there are few things you can do on an Apple Watch that you can't do with your phone. But features that were created for the smartwatch will also be trickling upstream to the iPhone.
A 'minimalist approach'
Take BetterWorks -- an app that lets you set goals at work, monitor your progress and keep others in the loop. The company is incorporating some design changes in its iPhone software thanks to its Apple Watch work. In a future iPhone app update, it will include animations and new ways to present data it hadn't considered before, said BetterWorks CEO Kris Duggan. Instead of presenting long lists of goals, the app will take a more minimalist approach.
"It's a small design thing, but it's pushing us to think about ways to make information more concise, actionable and more easily consumed," he said. "We probably wouldn't have been forced to make those hard decisions without the watch form factor."
BetterWorks may even redesign the Web browser version of its program based on design learnings from the watch, Duggan said.
American Airlines, one of the app makers highlighted at Apple's recent events, has created an app that gives users flight updates and displays their boarding passes. One feature, called the "Travel Cue," includes a countdown to flights and pops up relevant information. The airline is changing one of the main displays in its iPhone app to also show Travel Cue, said Kevin MacFarland, American Airlines' director of mobile and online strategy.
"It's really just finding ways to ease that customer experience," he said. "It's all about the right information at the right time."
Evernote, the popular note-taking app, also has developed a new feature for its Apple Watch app that will make its way to the iPhone. A new personalized note list tries to predict the top five notes you'd want to see in a certain situation based on your location, calendar and your personal usage patterns. For instance, one of the top notes may be business card information for participants in a meeting you're about to attend.
"You can pull it up and say, wait, what's that guy's title again?" said Jamie Hull, Evernote vice president of mobile products. "For us, it was really about can we take your own content and bring it back to you in a way that's meaningful?"
The personalized note list will appear on Apple Watch and will also be integrated into the Evernote "today widget" that pulls down from the iPhone and iPad notification center. That widget previously just showed your most recent items but now will also include the predicted notes you may want. If users end up liking the feature, Evernote may expand similar functionality to other areas.
Developing for wearables also has gotten Evernote's team talking about whether it should rethink how it lays out all notes in the future, Hull said. If the company becomes good at making predictions, it may reorder note lists based on what it thinks you need, offering a special section in the Evernote app for you to grab the notes instead of performing a search.
"Trying to predict what users need before they need it ... is where we see the future of the app going in general across all of our platforms," she said. "This functionality is one of the first places we're trying it, but I absolutely anticipate it will inform what we do in all of our apps in the long term."
A more elegant app
Other early Apple Watch app makers -- including CNN, Expedia, Starwood Hotels Group and Trivia Crack -- aren't making noticeable changes to their iPhone apps.
Expedia hasn't done anything differently with its iPhone app, at least so far. Its Apple Watch app essentially provides you with an "itineraries experience," showing information related to flights, hotels and car rentals. That's something Expedia's iPhone app already does, though the information in Apple Watch is presented in a simpler way.
"We didn't want to take the iPhone experience and port it to the watch," said Jerald Singh, head of mobile product at Expedia. "We wanted a very new experience."
Citi's Apple Watch app includes a colored bar that indicates your spending limit. It turns orange once you've met 80 percent of your limit.Citi
CNN has made some tweaks under the hood to its smartphone app, allowing for more deep linking of content to send you to a live news video or stories related to a news blurb you see on your watch.
Designing for wearables may "inform the way we build phone and TV apps, but right now it's just more important they feel they're part of that ecosystem and [are] talking to each other in a substantial way," said CNN Chief Product Officer Alex Wellen.
But other app makers plan to completely redesign their phone software. In the case of Citi, the bank created an entirely new iPhone app to interact with Apple Watch, called Citi Mobile Lite, but it plans to discontinue that app after it redesigns its main iPhone app, Citi Mobile, said Heather Cox, chief of client experience and the digital and marketing officer for global consumer banking at Citi.
Consumers who are used to dealing with simple, elegant apps from companies such as Uber and Nest expect the same characteristics in their banking apps, she said. Citi plans to bring features of Citi Mobile Lite -- such as a bigger font, less data cluttering the screen and an overall flatter design -- to its main app in the coming months. It's something the company had hoped to do for awhile, and Apple Watch's release presented the right timing.
"It's our opportunity now to shift," Cox said.
Citi also created a new feature that shows you how close you are to reaching your spending limits. A blue notification bar on the watch app turns orange when you reach 80 percent of your limit. It changes colors again, to red, when you've reached your full limit. The spending limits feature will debut first in the Apple Watch app but will appear in the Citi iPhone apps shortly afterward.
"Nobody's quite sure where the wearables market will go, so we'll use this as our test case," Cox said. "But I'm quite bullish on it."
