So you bought a smartwatch. Now what?

Now that smartwatches are actually useful enough for the general populace, setting them up isn’t as pedestrian a task as pairing with your phone and calling it a day. On the surface, customizing your new device may not seem like a complicated task, but people often overlook some of the tools that can potentially make wearables more helpful. From recommended settings to the apps worth downloading, here’s a walkthrough of what you should look out for when setting up your new wearable.

Basic setup

This part you probably already know. Turn on your watch, pair it with your phone and follow the onscreen instructions. If you’re setting up an Android Wear device, check to see if the company that made it, like Michael Kors or Huawei or ASUS, has its own app. These often offer more customizable watch faces (like Kate Spade’s New York Minute cab skin), along with tools like ASUS’ flashlight and compass.

Once you’ve gone through the installation, you’ll find a vanilla version of the wearable OS with a variety of preloaded apps. Start making your device yours by picking and tweaking your home screen. Choose the background, dials and hands that suit your fancy, and add widgets to show things like your daily activity progress, a weather report, calendar appointments and more, depending on the OS. (For Android Wear, you may have to download additional faces to get more options.)

Activating the complications (the alerts on the watch face) that you’ll use the most can save you a lot of accumulated time every day that you’d spend swiping through pages and apps to get a quick update. After squaring away these basics, you can play with additional tools to make your watch more useful.

Mobile payments

In addition to the obvious stuff, like queuing up your daily alarms and choosing which notifications to allow on your watch, you should also set up mobile payments. Whether it’s Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay or Garmin Pay, contactless payments aren’t just a trivial convenience — they can be helpful when you’re traveling very light or have your hands full. You’ll usually have to set a default card to use on your watch, so make sure to pick your primary account.

Millions of stores accept Apple Pay, and many also take Android Pay and Samsung Pay via NFC terminals. Fitbit Pay is accepted in most of the same places as Mastercard contactless payments. You can use Samsung’s Gear S3 at stores that accept only traditional magnetic swipe transactions (MST), which are more common than NFC-compatible locations.

Refine your messaging replies

Most smartwatch screens range between 38mm and 44mm wide, which is barely big enough to comfortably read your notifications on, let alone type out messages. Which is why most of these devices offer alternative methods of input, including canned responses, dictation and handwriting recognition. (The Fitbit Ionic does not let you reply to messages from your watch, so you’ll have to whip out your phone for that.)

It’s best to set a quick reply that succinctly explains that you’ve seen a message and will respond later. You can use the default options, of course, which are usually variants of “Yes,” “No” and “Can’t talk now.” They’re impersonal, but adequate. You can create something more human, like “Hey, saw ur msg, will reply later” for Apple Watches.

If you can’t use your hands, reading out your reply is a good alternative. Apple and Google’s voice recognition are accurate most of the time, although it does help if you enunciate carefully. Still, they’re not good enough to be your primary choice for input yet (unless you don’t mind sending messages with the odd misheard word here and there) and can sometimes take a while to process.

Connect your headphones and prepare your music

Most newer smartwatches can stream music to Bluetooth headphones, making it easier to go on a run or a quick errand without your phone. You should save your playlist on your watch in advance so you can listen without an internet connection, as this will prevent battery drain. For Apple Watch, Android Wear and Samsung Gear, you can sync playlists via the Apple Music, Play Music and Spotify apps, respectively, while Fitbit requires a more tedious setup involving either a Pandora Premium account or a connection to your laptop.

While you can’t natively stream podcasts from most watches, you can download a third-party app like Wear Casts or Watchplayer (for Apple Watch) to play them. You’ll generally have to use your phone to transfer episodes over to your watch, but the resulting convenience is worth the trouble.

Set fitness goals and reminders

Your watch likely came with a preset daily step goal, but those who are more conscientious about their fitness will want to tweak their daily objective. Whether it’s calories burned, distance traveled or steps taken, setting your activity targets right when you get your smartwatch is the best way to keep yourself on track. You’ll typically do this via the companion app on your smartphone, which is also where you can set the frequency of reminders to try and hit your goals.

Engadget

Smart home remote control

If you’ve bought a smartwatch, chances are you’ve also invested in connected devices at home. Some of these can be controlled from your smartwatch, like Samsung’s SmartThing appliances via the Gear or the Apple TV Remote on the Watch. These are a little functionally limited right now — Apple’s offering works only with its TV, while Samsung’s feature isn’t live yet. Plus, the Gear watches will enable only simple controls like turning your lights on or off, whereas you’ll have to go to your phone to change things like brightness and colors. Still, it’s nice not to have to carry your phone around your home for little tasks like these.

But even if you’re not using an Apple or Samsung watch, you can still use voice control for Google Assistant or Siri from your wrist to interact with your home. That’s a nifty convenience if you don’t already have an always listening speaker at home to obey your commands, but bear in mind that smartwatches tend to be slower to react than speakers, since they typically use less powerful processors.

Install your most used third-party apps

Chris Velazco / Engadget

Whether you’re an avid runner or prefer traveling by Lyft, you’ll find that your favorite services already have an app for your watch. Fitness tools like Runkeeper, Strava and MapMyRun work with Apple Watch, Android Wear and Samsung Gear and integrate with other major fitness wearables. Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft have apps for Apple Watch, Android Wear and Fitbit OS, while Uber is also on Samsung’s Tizen OS.

You’ll also appreciate note-keeping options like Evernote and Todoist for Apple Watch and Android Wear, as well as Yelp, which is available on all platforms except Android Wear. Bear is a good note-keeping app for the Apple Watch, too. Frequent travelers should look for airline apps — having your ticket on your wrist means one less thing to keep an eye on in the chaos that is airport security. Smart home apps like Nest (Apple and Android) and Philips Hue (Apple only) are musts for those who own appliances from those companies, and you can also control your Philips Hue lights on Android Wear via the Google Assistant.

If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, use IFTTT to create custom recipes that automate how your gadgets behave. Set your lights to turn off when your smartwatch leaves your WiFi network, or create an alert for when you’ve left your phone’s Bluetooth range. IFTTT works well with Android Wear, but it also offers the Do Button app for both Google and Apple devices to build tasks that run when you push a button on your screen.

Seattle demands Facebook disclose campaign ad information

Seattle has launched the first attempt in the US to regulate political ads on the internet. According to Reuters, Seattle’s election authority is accusing Facebook of violating a city law that requires entities to disclose the identities of people buying campaign ads. It wants the social network to reveal info on the accounts that purchased ads for last year’s city elections, and it’s threatening to slap Facebook with penalties if it doesn’t comply.

Facebook VP Will Castleberry said his company already provided the info Seattle’s Ethics and Elections Commission asked for, stressing that the social network is a “strong supporter of transparency in political advertising.” Commission chief Wayne Barnett opposed that claim, though, telling Reuters that the details Facebook provided don’t “come close to meeting their public obligation.” Apparently, the social network only turned in partial spending numbers, but it didn’t provide copies of the ads that ran and the data detailing the ads’ targets. Seattle also asked Google to turn in relevant data for ads that ran on its network, but the tech titan asked for more time to comply.

A potential penalty of $5,000 per advertisement is a drop in the bucket for one of the biggest companies in the world. But refusing to comply would reflect poorly on the social network, considering its role in disseminating Russian troll ads during the 2016 Presidential elections. The company even had to roll out transparency tools and to require people buying campaign ads to disclose their identities after being hit by a wave of criticism following its Russian ads revelation.

That said, internet companies like Facebook and Google aren’t required by federal law to disclose the identities of people buying political ads in the way cable, TV and radio broadcasters are. The FEC is currently reviewing a stricter set of rules on campaign ads posted on social networks, and it’s hoping to move the rule-making forward within the 2018 midterm elections.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Reuters

Botched tsunami warning test is the latest false alarm

It’s only been a few weeks since a false warning told Hawaiians that a missile attack was headed for their state, but another mistaken alert has been sent out into the world. Earlier this morning, an emergency tsunami alert was issued to East Coast residents via the widely-used Accuweather service. According to various tweets, the alert stretched as far north as Portland, Maine; an Engadget editor much further south in Jersey City also received the alert. Accuweather confirmed in a tweet that the original alert was a “test,” though it certainly wasn’t presented to those alerted in that fashion.

The National Weather Service Tsunami Warning this morning was a TEST. No Tsunami warning is in effect for the East Coast of the U.S.

— AccuWeather (@breakingweather) February 6, 2018

While the full details of the alert said it was a test, the notification that hit people’s home screens made no such notice of that fact. As such, it was understandably alarming to those that received the alert. Since then, various national weather service Twitter accounts also have confirmed that there’s no tsunami warning in effect, including the official NWS tsunami alerts account:

The National Tsunami Warning Center did NOT issue a tsunami Warning, Watch, or Advisory for any part of the United States or Canada this morning.

— NWS Tsunami Alerts (@NWS_NTWC) February 6, 2018

As of now, there’s still no word as to how or why this false alert went out. But the timing is particularly ironic: This morning, there’s a congressional hearing on the effectiveness of mobile alerts in emergencies. Between today’s gaff and the Hawaii missile emergency alert, it’s clear that things could stand to be tightened up with how these alerts are released.

Via: Gizmodo

Walmart’s latest acquisition shows it’s serious about VR

Walmart isn’t just interested in bringing tech into its stores — it might change how you shop at home as well. The company has acquired a virtual reality startup, Spatialand, to form the cornerstone of its VR initiatives both in stores and out. The team had already been working with Walmart’s Store No. 8 tech incubator and will be folded into that group as part of a new VR company, with incubator head Katie Finnegan serving as the VR firm’s interim chief. But just what will this company be working on, exactly?

Unfortunately, Walmart isn’t saying. Finnegan wouldn’t tell Recode what Spatialand staffers would be doing at Walmart, and didn’t expect to show the first fruits of their work for 12 to 18 months. There are some clues, however. The Store No. 8 team typically focuses on projects that might not go public for another 5 to 10 years, and Finnegan believed VR might qualify. Also, Spatialand’s focus has been on turning existing content into VR experiences, so this may be more about turning its store content into VR than creating something from scratch.

Whatever comes out of the project, it’ll likely be venturing into uncharted territory. Most current VR shopping experiences are novelties — they’re frequently about advertising more than helping you make informed decisions. If Walmart can make VR shopping practical, even in niche cases, that could be a significant step forward.

Source: Recode

HomePod Reviews: Outstanding Sound Quality, but Siri ‘Struggles at Smart’

Three days ahead of the HomePod’s launch in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, Apple has now allowed the first full reviews of the device to be shared online. While opinions regarding specific features of the smart speaker fluctuate among reviewers, it appears that one constant remains: HomePod provides great, high-quality sound that beats most devices in the price range, at the cost of an underperforming AI assistant and the user getting further tangled into Apple’s walled garden.

Image via The Verge
Nilay Patel with The Verge emphasized this feeling of being trapped in Apple’s ecosystem by stating that he thought the HomePod as one of the “loneliest” of Apple’s devices. He liked the audio and build quality of the speaker, which he said provided an impressive amount of bass that never overwhelms, and ultimately sounded “richer and fuller than almost every other speaker we’ve tested.”

Still, his recommendation for HomePod was specific: it’s only for those who live in Apple’s walled garden and “prioritize sound quality over everything else.”

All of this is why I started thinking of the HomePod as “lonely.” It feels like it was designed for a very demanding person to use while living alone entirely inside Apple’s ecosystem. It’s tied more closely to a single iPhone and iCloud account than any other smart speaker, and Siri has none of the capability or vibrancy of what’s happening with Alexa. Apple can try to move mountains by itself, or it can recognize that the HomePod is a little iOS computer for the home and let developers build on it as they have for so long and with such great success with the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The HomePod is a remarkable new kind of audio device. It does more to make music sound better than any other speaker of this kind has ever done before, and it really, truly works. But unless you live entirely inside Apple’s walled garden and prioritize sound quality over everything else, I think you’re better served by other smart speakers that sound almost as good and offer the services and capabilities that actually fit your life.

Joanna Stern with The Wall Street Journal noted that during her week of testing the HomePod, Apple’s device “nails the speaker but struggles at smart.” Stern noted that while Siri is a “good butler” for various HomeKit tasks, all of the usual issues remain when asking Siri other normal questions.

The HomePod has an iPhone processor and pairs with your iPhone—yet it can’t make a phone call? To use it as a speakerphone, you need to start the call on your iPhone then select the HomePod as an audio source. You can, however, send text messages from the HomePod with just your voice.

There are more things the HomePod can’t do, despite being hooked to your iCloud account and iPhone. It can’t tell you your next calendar appointment. It can’t alert you to new emails or texts. It’s also missing crucial third-party apps like Uber and Venmo.

Matthew Panzarino with TechCrunch noted that HomePod’s ability to recognize commands at a distance, even while music is playing, is one of the device’s strong suits, but also explained that most of these commands are still limited by Siri. Panzarino provided a few further details of other parts of HomePod, favoring the attention that Apple paid to the flexible, braided power cord and “seamless” ability to move HomePod from room to room and have it automatically connect to “any network known by your phone” within a few seconds.

Image via TechCrunch
Panzarino also went further into details about the sound quality of HomePod, describing it as “precise.”

The sound that comes from the HomePod can best be described as precise. It’s not as loud as some others like Google Home Max or as bright (and versatile) as the Sonos Play 1, but it destroys the muddy sound of less sophisticated options like the Amazon Echo. To genuinely fill a large room you need two but anyone in a small house or apartment will get great sound from one.

The HomePod was the “best” sounding. It’s nuanced and subtle with great separation and clarity across all kinds of music. The Play 1, for instance, had decent mid range but an overly bright high end with just the out of the box calibration. At maximum volume, the Play 1 became shrill and painful where the HomePod maintained balance.

There are plenty of other reviews and opinions on HomePod coming out today, so below we’ll list a few other reviewers and a quick snapshot from their respective articles.

Megan Wollerton with CNET:

With the HomePod in the center of the room, for example, I heard distinct wedges of good (and less good) sound around the speaker. Sometimes the front sounded great and the back not so much. Sometimes the best sound came from 90 degrees on either side.

Apple says the speaker adjusts itself based on room position, and as I moved the speaker around I could hear the difference as it recalibrated. Overall I found that the HomePod sounded best placed against a wall or in a corner, which is fine since that’s where most people will probably place it anyway.

Jim Dalrymple with The Loop:

To be absolutely clear, there was no comparison in sound quality. HomePod offered so much more quality that it was quite literally laughable to hear the others. The only speaker that sounded decent was the Sonos One, but even it couldn’t compete with HomePod.

It’s hard to explain the sound of HomePod, but you get a feeling that the sound is enveloping you, even when using just one speaker. There is a sense that this is how the songwriter and producer wanted the song to be heard when they recorded it.

Brian X. Chen with The New York Times:

The result is a speaker with a deep bass and rich treble that is loud enough to fill a large room with superb sound. HomePod makes the Amazon Echo and Google’s Home sound muffled and tinny in comparison.

But Siri on HomePod is embarrassingly inadequate, even though that is the primary way you interact with it. Siri is sorely lacking in capabilities compared with Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. Siri doesn’t even work as well on HomePod as it does on the iPhone.

Other reviews: USA Today, iMore, Telegraph, Pocket Lint, The Independent, and iJustine.

Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
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HomePod’s Stereo-Like Sound is Called ‘FullRoom’ and Coming Soon, Multi-Room Audio Available Later

Apple has given a name to its technology that will enable a pair of HomePods to automatically detect and balance each other to create stereo-like sound following an upcoming software update: FullRoom.

Emphasis should be placed on stereo-like sound, as HomePod reviews published today confirm that users won’t be able to set one speaker as the right channel and another as the left channel. Instead, as Apple notes, HomePods will use advanced beamforming capabilities to create a more immersive soundstage.

Apple also confirmed that FullRoom is coming first, according to Matthew Panzarino, while the HomePod’s multi-room audio support via AirPlay 2 will be available at a later date. Both features are currently listed as “coming later this year” on Apple’s website, so it was assumed they would be released in tandem.

HomePod launches this Friday in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, and availability of the speaker is beginning to tighten ahead of time.

Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
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Amazon is developing a new ‘Conan the Barbarian’ series

Conan the Barbarian is getting new TV treatment. As part of Amazon’s push into the fantasy genre, the company is developing drama series Conan, based on the books by Robert E. Howard. This literary retelling of the classic 1932 tale will see our unlikely hero searching civilisation to find a place and purpose in a world that rejects him as a savage.

There are already a host of respected TV names attached to the project, including Ryan Condal from Colony, Miguel Sapochnik from Game of Thrones, and Warren Littlefield from Fargo and The Handmaid’s Tale. There’s no word yet on when it’s likely to hit our screens, nor who will take the role of the iconic character. He’s most famously been played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, so whoever it is will have some big furs to fill.

Source: Deadline

Watch SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch today at 1:30 PM ET

Today, SpaceX will attempt to launch the Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time. The launch window is between 1:30 PM ET and 4:00 PM ET. If you’d like to watch the launch (and trust me, you definitely want to), then you can livestream it below. The stream will go live about 15–20 minutes before the launch window opens. Because this is a demo flight of a new rocket, though, delays can and should be expected.

The payload for the rocket’s demo launch will be a red Tesla roadster, complete with a SpaceX spacesuit in the front seat. Because this is a test launch, there is no official payload; two more Falcon Heavy launches are scheduled for later this year. SpaceX will try to land all of the Falcon Heavy’s boosters; the two flanking boosters will attempt a landing near the launch pad, while the middle booster will head for a drone ship. Whether SpaceX encounters success or failure, tomorrow’s launch should be a thing to behold.

Twitter’s AR boss departs after 18 months

Twitter’s head of AR/VR, Alessandro Sabatelli, has announced he’s leaving the company after just 18 months with the site. His departure comes during a period of AR activity for Twitter’s competitors — Apple, Google and Facebook have all been busy showing off their AR/VR development platforms — while things have been relatively quiet for Twitter, whose most significant work in the area was its work on Live 360 video in Periscope in December 2016. With no word yet on Sabatelli’s replacement, or if he will be replaced at all, it seems likely that Twitter is now revisiting its plans for, and position within, the AR space.

After three and a half years I’m moving on from Twitter (actual elapsed time 18 months). It’s been an incredible ride and I’ve had the great pleasure to work alongside some amazing people! Together we managed to ship product while having fun. Thanks everyone #👊 pic.twitter.com/i0v9P9clrK

— Alessandro Sabatelli (@s4l4x) February 6, 2018

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Twitter

Apple’s Planned Flagship Store in Melbourne, Australia Faces Backlash From City Council Over its Design

In December, Apple announced its plans to open a new flagship retail location at the Federation Square shopping center in Melbourne, Australia in 2020. Since that announcement, many locals have come out against the store and the demolition of the existing Yarra building, arguing that the public space in Federation Square should stay that way and not be “given up” to a corporation.

This week, Apple’s planned store has faced new backlash in regards to its design, coming from the Melbourne City Council (via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). During a city council meeting on Tuesday it was reported that Apple’s design proposal for the location was “overwhelmingly” rejected by the community through about 800 public submissions disliking the look of the store.

Image via Federation Square’s website.
Melbourne councillors then “unanimously backed” a motion to lobby the government for a new store design and public consultation on the project, and now await to see if the government will accept or reject its proposal. Councillor Nicholas Reece was said to have described the proposed store as a “Pizza Hut pagoda.”

If the Government rejects the council’s proposal, then the administration will encourage Upper House MPs to disallow the planning scheme amendment enabling the project.

Councillor Leppert said the council lacked the power to block the development from going ahead. “This is one of the strongest positions we have taken,” he said.

“It reminds me of a Pizza Hut pagoda and I just think it’s like something that’s rolled off an Apple Store production line,” Cr Reece said.

Apple last month said the Federation Square location “respects the original vision for the plaza, with a bespoke design concept and extensive landscaping bringing increased opportunities for the community to enjoy this renowned cultural hub.”

Despite uniting against the design of the store, Melbourne councillors are reportedly divided regarding further commercial development in Federation Square. Councillor Reece mentioned “with the right design,” Apple’s appearance in the area “could be a good thing.” As pointed out by ABC in December, before becoming favored by the community today, Federation Square itself was a “controversial piece of architecture” when it was first built in 2002, “with many people dismissing it as ugly and strange.”

Tags: Australia, Apple retail
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