Apple Watch Nike+ preview: It’s time to start running

Apple has announced a new version of the Apple Watch at its Special Event in San Francisco on Wednesday. The new Apple Watch will stay virtually identical in design, but have a big overhaul in terms of specs such as a faster processor, brighter screen, GPS, and now waterproofing up to 50m.

Like its partnership with Hermes for the fashion focused watch wearer, Apple has teamed up with Nike to create a fitness focused watch. But can it turn the Apple Watch into a fitness device? We had a preview of the new watch and a chance to see some of the dedicated Nike features at in the demo area after the main event.

Pocket-lint

Apple Watch Nike+: Designed to be sporty

The Apple Watch Nike+ is based on the company’s Sport edition with a few tweaks – mainly that you’ll get two specific Nike watch faces with dedicated buttons, and an exclusive option of four different straps that will only be available with the Watch Nike+.

Those straps use the same design language Nike used when it partnered with TomTom to create the Nike Sports Watch, and it’s nice to see it reappear here some 5 years later.

The Nike Sport band is crafted from the same strong, flexible fluoroelastomer material as the original Apple Watch Sport Band, but now it’s perforated, presumably for better ventilation and sweat management.

The band is available in four vibrant, two-tone colour combinations that are unique to the collection including our favourite a neon yellowish colour striking out from beneath a dark greyish strap.

It certainly looks the part. The bold lettering on the Nike app and Nike watch face ties in nicely with Nike’s design aesthetics and it has a real sense of motion and movement about it. It says: I run, rather than I just like to keep moving.

The beauty here, unlike the original Nike Sports Watch from TomTom is that you can change the straps to something a little more “boardroom” if you aren’t trying to show off your fitness credentials.

Pocket-lint

Apple Watch Nike+: Better app integration

Beyond the funky looking strap, Nike has worked with Apple to create a better fitness experience and in particular a quick way to access runs or other activities.

There are two new watch faces, a bold digital number one and a more refined traditional clock face, but both offer quick access to the Nike+ app.

Not that you need to press anything, it comes with support for Siri so you can tell it it’s time to go running.

Once you’re in the app it will count down the start and then you are off. The display gives you time, distance, pace, and BPM and you can jump through the relevant details at the press of a the screen.

At the end the watch spews out your data to see, and because of the now included GPS, you’ll also get given a route of where you went including elevation.

Better still, because you’ve got the on board GPS, you don’t need to worry about carrying your phone with you. Peace on the open road at last.

The app looks really good, and like the bands, is very reminiscent of the TomTom Nike Sports Watch, a watch that for a long time was the Pocket-lint go to running watch.

Beyond the running tracker and timer, Nike and Apple have also included in the Nike+ Run Club to try and push you further within the community.

For those that need it, the Nike+ Run Club app offers daily motivation through smart run reminders, challenges from friends and even alerts informing when the weather is right to get outside.  

When you do get out for that run, the training data, including pace, distance and heart rate can then be shared to troll your friends by allowing you to send fist bumps to each other right from the wrist. Yes, that’s supposedly going to be a thing.

Pocket-lint

Apple Watch Nike+: More than running, swimming too

The other major new feature Apple has added beyond the GPS is that the Apple Watch Nike+ is also waterproof upto a depth of 50m.

The waterproofing, which apple likes to refer to as “swimproof” means that you’ll be able to jump in the pool or the lake to track your session.

We weren’t able to test this in the desert of the demo room at the Apple Special Event, but it certainly looks interesting. There are two swimming modes, indoor and open water, and for the indoor you can set things like pool length so you can track your laps. Swim outdoors and the GPS will track your movement in the lake too.

We are certainly looking forward to getting it wet to see how it works in greater detail.

Pocket-lint

Apple Watch Nike+: Still an Apple Watch

The good news is that Apple hasn’t taken anything away from the new Apple Watch Series 2 with the Apple Watch Nike+. You still get the new WatchOS 3, you get the ability to change straps, and you get the processor speed bump that is afforded to the new model. The screen brightness is certainly noticeable and that should prove handy on those gruelling sunny runs you’ve got planned. 

First Impressions

The Apple Watch Nike+ looks great, has a really sporty feel, and feels really comfortable on the wrist. We like the design language of both the strap and the app, and are looking forward to giving it the full review treatment when it comes out in October.

We do have plenty of unanswered questions though that we are keen to find out. What’s the battery life like when you’re both running and using the GPS? How effective will Siri be in giving me data? Will it be able to give you audible alerts, how quick will it be to give you the data mid run, and other things like that.

What is clear, is that Nike and Apple look to have produced something that has the potential to make the Apple Watch a device that you would consider taking on a run, and considering the running experience on the first Apple Watch outing, that’s a massive improvement.

A $50 device and an app can easily steal your PC’s log-in

You’d think protecting your computer with a strong password can keep it safe, but apparently, all it takes to steal your log-in credentials is a $50 piece of hardware and an app. According to R5 Industries principal security engineer Rob Fuller, he was able to pilfer usernames and passwords from locked computers using a USB device loaded with a hacking app called Responder. The stolen passwords are encoded, sure, but once they’re in another person’s possession, they can be cracked. One of the small, Linux-powered computers he used (USB Armory) costs $155, but the other (Hak5 Turtle) costs only $50. Computers share log-in credentials with them, because they recognize the devices as trusted Ethernet adapters.

Fuller said the combination worked on all versions of Windows and even on El Capitan, though he still needs to check whether his Mac experiment was a fluke. He also said that the hack was so easy to pull off, he “tested it so many ways to confirm” since he had such a hard time believing it was possible.

He captured the process on cam, which you can watch below, and explained how it works in an email to Ars Technica:

“What is happening in the video, is the USB Armory is being plugged into a locked (but logged in) system. It boots up via the USB power, and starts up a DHCP server, and Responder. While it’s doing this, the victim is recognizing it as a Ethernet adapter. The victim then makes route decisions and starts sending the traffic it was already creating to the Armory instead of the “real” network connection. Responder does its job and responds to all kinds of services asking for authentication, and since most OSs treat their local network as “trusted” it sees the authentication request and automatically authenticates. Seeing that the database of Responder has been modified the Armory shuts down (LED goes solid).”

Of course, this is a non-issue if you exclusively use your computer at home, and there’s nobody living there you don’t trust. But if you tend to bring laptops to coffee shops and other places, check out this prevention technique Fuller recommends, or just make sure you never leave your computer unattended.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Rob Fuller

Colin Powell advised Hillary Clinton on email servers

We may be sick and tired of hearing about Hillary Clinton’s damn emails, but that doesn’t mean the issue is going away. The presidential candidate has been lambasted by Republicans who claim that her private email server was a risk to national security. They may not be so delighted to hear, however, that she got the idea from one of their own: former secretary of state Colin Powell. The State Department has released a memo from Powell to Clinton, just days after she became secretary, revealing how he ran his own email server — and how Clinton could do the same.

Powell explains that he had a PC hooked up to a “private phone line” that he used to communicate “without it going through the State Department servers.” The official admits that he used it to speak to both friends and “some foreign leaders” and senior State Department employees, using their personal e-mail addresses. He also gave Clinton tips on how to get around the security that was on offer since “their job is to keep you hermetically sealed up.”

Powell also justified the use of private emails (amongst other things) by saying that the security services couldn’t offer enough justification as to why he should’t. The former secretary recounted an anecdote in which he asked why he couldn’t bring this PDA into secure space for fear of espionage. Powell describes the response as “all kinds of nonsense about how [devices] give out signals and could be read by spies.” He also advised Clinton that, should knowledge of her BlackBerry be made public, her emails would “become an official record and subject to the law.”

CNN reports that Powell has subsequently pushed back against the suggestion that he alone was responsible for Clinton’s actions. He is quoted as saying that “her [Clinton’s] people are trying to pin it on me,” although he previously said that the conversation took place a year after it actually did. That said, the fact that Powell has not received similar criticism for conducting diplomatic business away from State Department servers suggests that there’s one rule for some…

Via: LA Times

Source: CNN, Independent, State Department (.PDF)

Stage your own ‘Star Wars’ battles with this new Air Hogs line

Spin Master has a great track record when it comes to making awesome Star Wars merchandise, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company has created two brand new Air Hogs products that you can actually use to recreate your own space battles.

The recently revealed Air Hogs Star Wars X-wing vs. Death Star Rebel Assault RC Drones set comes packing both an X-wing and the Death Star, which can actually fly. It’s your job to pilot the X-wing and shoot down the Death Star as it hovers in the air on its own. You can’t control the Death Star yourself, but it sure will look cool floating in the air attempting to avoid shots from your infrared blasters.

Both drones have receivers and LED status lights so you can tell where you’re are in your homemade battles, and it takes three hits from the X-wing to totally sink the Death Star before it can take you out.

If the Death Star isn’t your thing and you’d rather recreate an X-wing vs. TIE Fighter battle in your living room, you can opt for that set instead, as it packs two flying X-wing and TIE fighter drones with infrared blasters and receivers like the X-wing and Death Star set. You can control both of them, so if you’ve got a friend to take control of the other drone, the set should make for some good, old-fashioned dogfights. You can either take to a larger area with the wireless controllers’ 200-foot range for bigger battles.

The X-wing and Death Star set is available for preorder as of September 9th and will retail for $130, and the X-wing vs. TIE Fighter set will go for $200. If you’re planning on celebrating the holidays’ release of Rogue One, these couldn’t be more perfect pieces of memorabilia.

Via: Gizmodo

Apple Will Not Release First Weekend Sales Numbers for iPhone 7 Due to Demand Outweighing Supply

Apple, in a statement provided to CNBC, has announced that it will not be releasing first weekend sales numbers for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, as it feels the results are “no longer a representative metric” due to demand outweighing supply.

“We expect iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be incredibly popular with customers and we are thrilled to begin taking pre-orders on September 9. Customers will receive their new iPhones starting September 16.

In years past, we’ve announced how many new iPhones had been sold as of the first weekend following launch. But as we have expanded our distribution through carriers and resellers to hundreds of thousands of locations around the world, we are now at a point where we know before taking the first customer pre-order that we will sell out of iPhone 7.

These initial sales will be governed by supply, not demand, and we have decided that it is no longer a representative metric for our investors and customers. Therefore we won’t be releasing a first-weekend number any longer. We are reiterating the financial guidance for the September quarter that we provided on July 26.”

In a research note last week, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said mass production of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus did not begin until the second half of August, later than expected, as Apple’s supply chain faced issues ramping up production due to challenging requirements for IPX7 water resistance.

The statement has ignited concern among some investors about potentially weaker iPhone sales numbers. Kuo himself revised his iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus shipments forecast to 20 to 25 million units in the quarter, compared to his original estimate of 30 million units. AAPL is currently down around 2% to $106.20 in intraday trading following the announcement.

Apple’s first weekend sales had increased sequentially for each iPhone launch between the iPhone 4s in 2011 and iPhone 6s in 2015:

• iPhone 6s and 6s Plus Sales Top Thirteen Million in Launch Weekend
• iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Sales Top Ten Million in Launch Weekend
• iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c Sales Top Nine Million in Launch Weekend
• iPhone 5 Sales Top Five Million in Launch Weekend
• iPhone 4S Sales Top 4 Million as 25 Million Users Move to iOS 5

Apple reiterated its financial guidance of between $45.5 billion and $47.5 billion in revenue for the fourth fiscal quarter.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: AAPL
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Best iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus cases: Protect your new Apple device

Apple’s latest iPhones are finally here and they are lovely. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus continue with the all metal body but they see a refinement in their designs.

The company has moved the antenna strips on the rear to just the top and bottom of the devices, offering a cleaner look, while the headphone jack at the bottom has been replaced with an additional speaker. The iPhone 7 has a single camera lens on the rear, while the iPhone 7 Plus has a dual setup, but both have a more seamless camera bump than previously.

You probably already know all of this though, because if you’re reading this feature, chances are you’ve already bought your new iPhone, or you are planning on buying one soon. As we always say with smartphones that offer a lovely design, it’s a shame to cover them up, but better that than your lovely metal handset look like you’ve beaten it up three weeks into owning it.

Luckily, there are plenty of cases out there to protect your new iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. Some will hide the design more so than others, some will offer more rugged protection than others, and some will be more interesting than others. We’ve rounded up the best iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus cases we have found so far but we will be adding to this feature as more catch our eye. 

Feel free to share in the comments if you have come across one you love. Sharing is caring when it comes to good cases.

Click here to head to the gallery to see the best iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 cases.