Apple Watch Has 8GB of Storage, Limited to 2GB for Music and 75MB for Photos

Apple confirmed that all three editions of the Apple Watch will ship with 8GB of internal storage, according to 9to5Mac. Apple Watch users will be limited to up to 2GB of songs and up to 75MB of photos that are locally stored on the device and can be listened to or viewed without a paired iPhone. Songs can be synced using the Apple Watch companion app on compatible iPhones running iOS 8.2 or later.

2GB of music works out to anywhere from 200 to 500 songs depending on the audio quality, while the report claims that 75MB of photos will equal to over 100 photos that are automatically compressed for reduced file size on the Apple Watch. A portion of the remaining storage capacity is likely allocated to the Apple Watch’s operating system, and will store application binaries and resources when a native SDK is released.

New MacBook Pro and Air Benchmarks Comparable to Mid-2014 Models

The newly refreshed 13″ Retina MacBook Pro announced on Monday is seeing comparable performance to the mid-2014 model, according to the latest Geekbench benchmark. The early 2015 model with an Intel Core i5 processor clocked at 2.7GHz achieved a single-core score of 3043 and a multi-core score of 6448, a minor variance from last year’s low-end 13″ Retina MacBook Pro single-core score of 3056 and multi-core score of 6554.

The latest 11″ MacBook Air, with an Intel Core i5 processor clocked at 1.6GHz, also performed comparably to its predecessor in Geekbench benchmarks, with its single-core score of 2753 and multi-core score of 5486 marginally higher than the mid-2014 model‘s scores of 2430 and 5291 respectively. Meanwhile, the new 13″ MacBook Air had modestly lower scores, although more benchmarks will need to be averaged before results are conclusive.

John Poole of Primate Labs, the makers of Geekbench, claims that the latest MacBook Pro and Air may see slight performance improvements after OS X Yosemite gets through first-boot housekeeping, so further benchmarks results will be needed for those models as well to determine accurate performance. Nevertheless, it is clear that this year’s refreshed MacBooks deliver only negligible improvements over the year-ago models.

The results are largely unsurprising given Intel’s focus on improving battery life versus performance with its latest Broadwell processors. The new MacBook Air and Pro lineups also have faster graphics and flash storage, two areas where improvements should be more noticeable over last year’s models. The refreshed 13″ Retina MacBook Pro in particular is up to 40% faster than the previous model with Intel Iris graphics.

Apple refreshed the MacBook Air lineup yesterday with Intel Broadwell processors, Thunderbolt 2 and Intel HD Graphics 6000. It also refreshed the 13″ MacBook Pro with similar improvements, including Intel Broadwell processors, Intel HD Graphics 6100 and all-day battery life. The latest MacBook Pros also gained a trackpad with built-in Force Touch technology that detects a small tap versus a deep press and performs a different action accordingly.

Apple Donates Over $50 Million to Increase Diversity in the Tech Industry

Apple’s annual shareholders meeting is currently underway at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, and one big item on the agenda, according to Apple’s human resources chief Denise Young Smith, is a plan to partner with a few non-profit organizations on an effort to bring more women, minorities, and veterans into the tech industry (via Fortune).

The deal is said to be a multi-year effort worth $50 million, and to start off, Apple is partnering with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a non-profit which focuses on supporting students enrolled in “historically black colleges and universities.”

The two will work together in expanding the role of minorities in the field, with Apple planning to donate over $40 million to the organization.

“Historically, other organizations have provided scholarship dollars or focused on whatever area matters most to them,” says Johnny Taylor, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. “What differentiates this partnership with Apple is that it hits on everything that we do—it is the most comprehensive program ever offered to an HBCU organization.”

The company will partner with a separate, female-focused non-profit, the National Center for Women and Information Technology, to help with increasing the presence of women in the field. Apple will donate $10 million to the fund, with a four year plan to double recipients of the organization’s scholarships and internship programs.

Tim Cook will allow Rev. Jesse Jackson a few moments to speak during the shareholder meeting taking place today, and USA Today met with Jackson beforehand. He noted that the start of a more diverse presence in the tech field, most notably in Silicon Valley, is just beginning.

“President Obama said in Selma (Ala.) this weekend ‘the march is not yet over,’” Jackson is scheduled to say in a statement. “In Silicon Valley, the march for diversity and inclusion is just beginning. Several companies are implementing new diversity and inclusion strategies, most notably Intel’s landmark $300 million diversity Initiative.

“Apple and this thriving Silicon Valley are solving the world’s most challenging and complex problems. Diversity and Inclusion is a complex problem — if we put our collective minds to it, we can solve it, too. (Apple CEO) Tim (Cook), with Apple and your creative leadership, sensitivity and commitment, we know it can be done.”

Jackson has worked with Apple in these regards for over a year now, and has attended the shareholder meetings of other companies like Google, Hewlett-Packard, Facebook, Verizon and eBay, in a similar capacity to what he has planned today during Apple’s meeting.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Google Launches ‘Google Calendar’ App for iPhone [iOS Blog]

Towards the end of last year, Google unveiled a new Calendar app for Android users. The Calendar was able to pull events from Gmail, suggest titles, people, and places to add to events based on past usage, and it had a Schedule View that offered photos and maps of calendar destinations.

At the time, Google promised to bring the app to iOS, and as of today, Google is debuting Google Calendar for the iPhone. The iOS app has all of the same features that were first available in the Android version of the app, including a clean design, the aforementioned Schedule View, and the ability to pull in events from Gmail. Google Calendaris compatible with all iPhone calendars, including Exchange and iCloud.

Get the official Google Calendar app for your iPhone to save time and make the most of every day.
– A new Schedule View – See your schedule at a glance with photos and maps of the places you’re going.
– Events from Gmail – Flight, hotel, concert, restaurant reservations and more are added to your calendar automatically.
– Assists to fill in your calendar – You can quickly create events with smart suggestions for event titles, places and people.
– Different ways to view your calendar – Speedily switch between viewing a single day to getting an overview of multiple days at once
– All your calendars in one, easy place – Google Calendar works with all calendars on your phone, including Exchange and iCloud.

Google Calendar can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]