Apple Releases Four New Apple Watch Ads Showing the Device Used in Daily Life

Apple today released a new series of Apple Watch commercials on its YouTube channel, depicting the Apple Watch being used in a number of ways in the daily lives of the people featured in the videos. Each of the four videos centers around people who use the watch’s functions while traveling, while working out, and while communicating with and interacting with family. Apple has a knack for creating ads that are informative while being touching and funny, and its four new videos are no exception.

Two of the videos, “Berlin” and “Beijing,” show the Apple Watch in use as a tool to discover new places to visit while exploring the cities. Two women are seen using the app to get directions to places, look up nearby restaurants, and discover new sights as soft music plays in the background of each video. One woman uses the sketch tool in the Apple Watch to write “SOS” to let her friend know she needs help getting out of a conversation with a guy she isn’t interested in.

The third video, “Closer,” shows the Apple Watch being used by parents and children, playing tic tac toe, starting up music, and communicating with family. A grandmother receives a sketch to let her know the sex of a baby that was just born, a tired mother accepts a call on her wrist without needing to put down a screaming baby, and a father and son duo play simple games on the device.

Apple’s fourth commercial is focused on fitness and shows the Apple Watch encouraging people to be more active. Individuals in the videos struggle through their workouts during fitness classes, runs, and martial arts lessons. One man tries to do pushups while his dog barks at him, while another is slammed to the ground at a martial arts class. The video wraps up with a man getting up in the middle of the night to fill his exercise ring with some late night jumping jacks.

Today’s ads follow in the footsteps of the first human-centric Apple Watch ads Apple created to promote the device, which were released in April. “Rise,” “Up,” and “Us” focused on time management, health and fitness, and communication.

Apple to Face Class Action Lawsuit Over Off-the-Clock Employee Bag Checking

Apple will face a class action lawsuit brought against it by retail employees in California who were subjected to ongoing bag checks that often caused them to remain at work for 10 to 15 minutes after their shifts had ended, reports Reuters.

Employees allege Apple subjected them to mandatory bag checks that were “embarrassing and demeaning,” and were conducted off the clock, leaving them uncompensated for their time. The group is seeking damages for unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, and other recompense.

The lawsuit was first filed in 2013 and after some legal hurdles that included a 2014 dismissal, it was granted class action status today by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco. Class members participating in the lawsuit include more than 12,000 of Apple’s current and former employees in the state of California.

Amanda Friekin and Dean Pelle, the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, claim Apple’s bag checks were mandatory each time a sales rep left the store and were put in place to discourage theft. Several employees subjected to these bag searches emailed Tim Cook in 2012, writing that managers were “required to treat ‘valued’ employees as criminals” and that the searches were often performed “in front of gawking customers.”

Over the course of the past two years, Apple has argued that the case should not get class action status because not all managers conducted bag searches and that the bag searches that did happen took so little time that compensation was not necessary. Now that it has received class action status, the lawsuit will go to trial.

Apple Predicted to Beat Expectations in Third Quarter on Strong iPhone Sales and Growth in China

Less than one week before Apple’s third quarter fiscal results are released on July 21 at 2:00 PM Pacific, multiple research firms and analysts have released earnings previews for the three-month period ending June 30. The consensus is that Apple will report another quarterly earnings beat based on stronger than expected iPhone sales and continued year-over-year growth in China.

Apple provided third quarter guidance of revenue between $46 billion and $48 billion, gross margin between 38.5% and 39.5%, operating expenses between $5.65 billion and $5.75 billion and other expenses of $350 million, while the consensus among analysts was an EPS of $1.79. Apple is expected to beat both that guidance, which is purposefully conservative, and street expectations.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley analyst Neil Cybart published his 3Q15 earnings preview on Above Avalon, predicting Apple earned $50.9 billion revenue, with a gross margin of 40.9% and $1.97 earnings per share (EPS), based on sales of 49.3 million iPhones, 10.1 million iPads, 4.9 million Macs, 4.3 million Apple Watches and $9.3 billion from other products and services.

Creative Strategies principal analyst Ben Bajarin estimates that Apple Watch worldwide sales were 4.7 million during the June quarter, topping the roughly 1.1 million iPhones and 3.3 million iPads sold in their respective launch quarters. Bajarin’s estimate is based on supply chain output tracked by his market research firm, and is 400,000 units higher than Above Avalon’s estimate.

Apple has not publicly disclosed any official Apple Watch sales figures to date, and will be grouping the wrist-worn device under its “Other Products” category in quarterly earnings reports. The combined category includes sales of iPod, Apple TV, Beats Electronics and Apple-branded and third-party accessories, which will inevitably lead to predictions about how many Apple Watches make up the total units sold.

Investment banking company UBS also forecasts that Apple will have above-consensus earnings results based on a higher iPhone average selling price (ASP) estimate of $660 vs $636. The firm predicts Apple will report $52.5 billion revenue, with a gross margin of 40.9% and $2.00 EPS, based on sales of 51 million iPhones, 10.6 million iPads and 3 million Apple Watches.

RBC Capital Markets is more conservative with its estimates, expecting that Apple will report $49.3 billion revenue, with a gross margin of 39.3% and $1.78 EPS, based on sales of 46.5 million iPhones, 11.3 million iPads and 4.6 million Macs. The firm did not estimate Apple Watch sales and expects scrutiny from investors in regards to Apple’s iPhone unit sales globally, but particularly in China.

MacRumors will provide live coverage of Apple’s third quarter results on July 21.