Apple Watch Fulfills Promise of All-Day Battery Life in Early Reviews

Apple lifted the embargo for large websites to publish their Apple Watch reviews this morning, providing us with detailed insight about various functions of the device. Battery life in particular has been one area of interest for several prospective Apple Watch buyers, and most early reviews found the Apple Watch to fulfill its promise of all-day battery life on a single charge.

Well-known tech journalist Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal offers one of the better looks at the Apple Watch’s battery life in her video of using the device in day-to-day life. The video keeps track of how much battery life the Apple Watch uses while Stern goes about her daily routine in New York, with the device fully charged at 7:30 AM and having five percent remaining at just past midnight.

Apple confirmed last month that the Apple Watch will have up to 18 hours of battery life with mixed usage, and last up to 72 hours in Power Reserve mode. Early reviews find the Apple Watch generally on par with, or falling slightly short of, those numbers based on articles published by Daring Fireball, The Verge, The Wall Street Journal, Techpinions and Re/code. We’ve compiled those findings in the roundup below.

John Gruber, Daring Fireball:

“After more than a week of daily use, Apple Watch has more than alleviated any concerns I had about getting through a day on a single charge. I noted the remaining charge when I went to bed each night. It was usually still in the 30s or 40s. Once it was still over 50 percent charged. Once, it was down to 27. And one day — last Thursday — it was all the way down to 5 percent. But that day was an exception — I used the watch for an extraordinary amount of testing, nothing at all resembling typical usage. I’m surprised the watch had any remaining charge at all that day. I never once charged the watch other than while I slept.”

Nilay Patel, The Verge:

“By the end of each day, I was hyper-aware of how low the Apple Watch battery had gotten. After one particularly heavy day of use, I hit 10 percent battery at 7pm, triggering a wave of anxiety. But most days were actually fine. Apple had a big challenge getting a tiny computer like this to last a day, and it succeeded — even if that success seemingly comes at the expense of performance.”

Geoffrey Fowler, The Wall Street Journal:

“The battery lives up to its all-day billing, but sometimes just barely. It’s often nearly drained at bedtime, especially if I’ve used the watch for exercise. There’s a power-reserve mode that can make it last a few hours longer, but then it only shows the time.”

Ben Bajarin, Techpinions:

“From my experience with battery life, Apple appears to have undersold it. The Apple Watch easily lasted a day, even a long day of heavy use. My Apple Watch battery never got below 20% and only once even got close to that. The day it did was a long day when I took it off the charger at 5:45am and used it frequently, including tracking my activity during a two hour tennis match, and I didn’t plug it back in until 10:30pm.

With my average usage, I tried to see how long I could go and several times over the week got nearly two days of battery life. This will obviously vary by person, but the fact Apple Watch users will not have to worry about battery life over the course of the day no matter how heavy it is used is important for the experience.”

Lauren Goode, Re/code:

“Apple has promised that the battery will last 18 hours per charge with normal use. It hasn’t yet died on me during the day, or even late at night. My iPhone actually conked out before the Watch did; this happened to Bonnie, too.

One day this past week, I woke up at 5:15 am, exercised for an hour using the Watch, ran Maps during my commute, made phones calls and received notifications throughout the whole day, and by 11:00 pm the Watch was just hitting its Power Reserve point.”

Apple Watch goes on sale April 24, with pre-orders and try-ons beginning April 10.

Apple Watch Fulfills Promise of All-Day Battery Life in Early Reviews

Apple lifted the embargo for large websites to publish their Apple Watch reviews this morning, providing us with detailed insight about various functions of the device. Battery life in particular has been one area of interest for several prospective Apple Watch buyers, and most early reviews found the Apple Watch to fulfill its promise of all-day battery life on a single charge.

Well-known tech journalist Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal offers one of the better looks at the Apple Watch’s battery life in her video of using the device in day-to-day life. The video keeps track of how much battery life the Apple Watch uses while Stern goes about her daily routine in New York, with the device fully charged at 7:30 AM and having five percent remaining at just past midnight.

Apple confirmed last month that the Apple Watch will have up to 18 hours of battery life with mixed usage, and last up to 72 hours in Power Reserve mode. Early reviews find the Apple Watch generally on par with, or falling slightly short of, those numbers based on articles published by Daring Fireball, The Verge, The Wall Street Journal, Techpinions and Re/code. We’ve compiled those findings in the roundup below.

John Gruber, Daring Fireball:

“After more than a week of daily use, Apple Watch has more than alleviated any concerns I had about getting through a day on a single charge. I noted the remaining charge when I went to bed each night. It was usually still in the 30s or 40s. Once it was still over 50 percent charged. Once, it was down to 27. And one day — last Thursday — it was all the way down to 5 percent. But that day was an exception — I used the watch for an extraordinary amount of testing, nothing at all resembling typical usage. I’m surprised the watch had any remaining charge at all that day. I never once charged the watch other than while I slept.”

Nilay Patel, The Verge:

“By the end of each day, I was hyper-aware of how low the Apple Watch battery had gotten. After one particularly heavy day of use, I hit 10 percent battery at 7pm, triggering a wave of anxiety. But most days were actually fine. Apple had a big challenge getting a tiny computer like this to last a day, and it succeeded — even if that success seemingly comes at the expense of performance.”

Geoffrey Fowler, The Wall Street Journal:

“The battery lives up to its all-day billing, but sometimes just barely. It’s often nearly drained at bedtime, especially if I’ve used the watch for exercise. There’s a power-reserve mode that can make it last a few hours longer, but then it only shows the time.”

Ben Bajarin, Techpinions:

“From my experience with battery life, Apple appears to have undersold it. The Apple Watch easily lasted a day, even a long day of heavy use. My Apple Watch battery never got below 20% and only once even got close to that. The day it did was a long day when I took it off the charger at 5:45am and used it frequently, including tracking my activity during a two hour tennis match, and I didn’t plug it back in until 10:30pm.

With my average usage, I tried to see how long I could go and several times over the week got nearly two days of battery life. This will obviously vary by person, but the fact Apple Watch users will not have to worry about battery life over the course of the day no matter how heavy it is used is important for the experience.”

Lauren Goode, Re/code:

“Apple has promised that the battery will last 18 hours per charge with normal use. It hasn’t yet died on me during the day, or even late at night. My iPhone actually conked out before the Watch did; this happened to Bonnie, too.

One day this past week, I woke up at 5:15 am, exercised for an hour using the Watch, ran Maps during my commute, made phones calls and received notifications throughout the whole day, and by 11:00 pm the Watch was just hitting its Power Reserve point.”

Apple Watch goes on sale April 24, with pre-orders and try-ons beginning April 10.

Many Apple Watch Models May Not Be Available for April 24 Delivery

Following the circulation of Apple Watch reviews and news this morning, German-based Apple tech site Macerkopf.de [Google Translate] discovered what appears to be the shipping dates for every line of the Apple watch in Germany.

On the German version of Apple’s official website, every model in the Sport lineup features a 4/24-5/8 delivery estimate, which is up to a two week time frame after the Watch’s April 24 launch. For the middle-tier Apple Watch collection, the Sport Band, Milanese Loop, and Black Classic Buckle all feature the same 4/24-5/8 estimate. Everything else in the 20-Watch collection, including the Leather Loop and Link Bracelet options, denote a 4-6 week shipping estimate.

Complete shipping estimates:

– Aluminum Case with Sport Band: “Delivers 4/24 to 5/8″
– Stainless Steel Case with Sport Band: “Delivers 4/24 to 5/8″
– Stainless Steel Case with Milanese Loop: “Delivers 4/24 to 5/8″
– Stainless Steel Case with Black Classic Buckle: “Delivers 4/24 to 5/8″
– Stainless Steel Case with Modern Buckle: “Dispatched in 4 to 6 weeks”
– Stainless Steel Case with Leather Loop: “Dispatched in 4 to 6 weeks”
– Stainless Steel Case with Link Bracelet: “Dispatched in 4 to 6 weeks”
– All Edition Models Dispatching in May

To see the shipping dates, a Watch option must first be added into a user’s favorite list. The United States store has yet to showcase similar shipping dates to corroborate Germany’s estimates, though the exact same match-up of band option and dates can be found on the UK store currently. Interestingly, every version of the Apple Watch Edition only states a vague “May” shipping date, with no other specific frame of time mentioned.

Apple Releases iOS 8.3 With Emoji Updates, Wireless CarPlay, Space Bar UI Fix

Apple today released iOS 8.3, the third major update to iOS 8. Seeded to developers in February and to public beta testers in mid-March, iOS 8.3 brings several new features and design tweaks to the operating system.

iOS 8.3 is available immediately as an over-the-air download.

iOS 8.3 has a heavy focus on emoji improvements, bringing an updated emoji picker that organizes emoji into categories in an easily scrollable list, new diversified emoji with expanded family options, and emoji skin tone modifiers for changing the look of people emoji. There are also several new flags and updated phone, computer, and watch emoji that now resemble the iPhone, iMac, and Apple Watch.

Other iOS 8.3 changes include wireless CarPlay, letting users connect their iPhones to their CarPlay systems sans Lightning cable, support for Google two-factor authentication that makes it possible to add Google accounts without the need for app specific passwords, and Apple Pay support for the China UnionPay network.

There are also minor changes to Passbook (dividing Apple Pay and Passes) and the Photos app (icon overlays for albums). Siri has gained new languages plus the ability to make calls using the iPhone’s speakerphone, and in Messages, there’s now an option to enable filtering to separate iMessages from friends from iMessages from Unknown Senders.

One of smaller but most notable UI changes includes an update to the space bar, which has been elongated to prevent users from hitting the period key in Safari when attempting to make a space. It’s also now possible to turn on a setting to allow you to download free apps without the need to enter your password. We have a full list of the changes in iOS 8.3 in our iOS 8 Features Roundup.

Previous iOS updates have included iOS 8.1 and iOS 8.2, with the former introducing support for Apple Pay in October and the latter bringing support for the Apple Watch in March, plus several minor updates. Apple is already working on the next big update to iOS 8, iOS 8.4, which may include the company’s upcoming revamped streaming music service.

Apple Releases iOS 8.3 With Emoji Updates, Wireless CarPlay, Space Bar UI Fix

Apple today released iOS 8.3, the third major update to iOS 8. Seeded to developers in February and to public beta testers in mid-March, iOS 8.3 brings several new features and design tweaks to the operating system.

iOS 8.3 is available immediately as an over-the-air download.

iOS 8.3 has a heavy focus on emoji improvements, bringing an updated emoji picker that organizes emoji into categories in an easily scrollable list, new diversified emoji with expanded family options, and emoji skin tone modifiers for changing the look of people emoji. There are also several new flags and updated phone, computer, and watch emoji that now resemble the iPhone, iMac, and Apple Watch.

Other iOS 8.3 changes include wireless CarPlay, letting users connect their iPhones to their CarPlay systems sans Lightning cable, support for Google two-factor authentication that makes it possible to add Google accounts without the need for app specific passwords, and Apple Pay support for the China UnionPay network.

There are also minor changes to Passbook (dividing Apple Pay and Passes) and the Photos app (icon overlays for albums). Siri has gained new languages plus the ability to make calls using the iPhone’s speakerphone, and in Messages, there’s now an option to enable filtering to separate iMessages from friends from iMessages from Unknown Senders.

One of smaller but most notable UI changes includes an update to the space bar, which has been elongated to prevent users from hitting the period key in Safari when attempting to make a space. It’s also now possible to turn on a setting to allow you to download free apps without the need to enter your password. We have a full list of the changes in iOS 8.3 in our iOS 8 Features Roundup.

Previous iOS updates have included iOS 8.1 and iOS 8.2, with the former introducing support for Apple Pay in October and the latter bringing support for the Apple Watch in March, plus several minor updates. Apple is already working on the next big update to iOS 8, iOS 8.4, which may include the company’s upcoming revamped streaming music service.

Apple Partners With Artist ‘HENSE’ to Commemorate New Lincoln Road Store Opening

Apple announced today that it is collaborating with internationally acclaimed artist HENSE to commemorate the upcoming opening of its all-new Apple Store at 1021 Lincoln Road in Miami, Florida. The relocated store is set to open April 24, the same day that the Apple Watch goes on sale in the United States, and HENSE will be painting a one-of-a-kind mural live from April 8 to April 12 to celebrate the opening.

“Miami is one of the most creative places on Earth. A big part of that creativity is expressed through its incredible street art scene. So to announce the upcoming opening of the all‑new Apple Store at 1021 Lincoln Road, we’re collaborating with internationally acclaimed artist HENSE. The mural he’s painting, like the store itself, will not only be inspired by the energy of Miami, it will also be a fresh source of inspiration for the city.”

Apple currently has a nearby retail store at 738 Lincoln Road that will close as the new, larger location opens down the street later this month. Apple also recently commemorated the opening of its West Lake store in Hangzhou, China with a calligraphy video, and we reported last night that the company will open a second retail store in Hangzhou on Apple Watch launch day.

Apple Watch Face Design Studio Showcases Detailed Photography Process

Wired earlier this morning posted an interview with Apple Human Interface Chief Alan Dye, in which Dye discusses a few lesser-known details of the Apple Watch, specifically giving Wired an inside look at the obsessive level of detail that went in to making each of the Watch’s customizable faces.

An Apple designer works to capture a jellyfish for a photograph in Apple’s design studio
During the interview, Dye elaborates on his team’s enormous talent, but says what makes them work so well is that they “really care” about what they create. Echoing back to Steve Jobs’ creative concern over every bit of minutiae within any one of Apple’s products, Dye begins discussing the process of capturing a simple flower bloom for one of the Apple Watch faces.

Yet what Dye seems most fascinated by is one of the Apple Watch’s faces, called Motion, which you can set to show a flower blooming. Each time you raise your wrist, you’ll see a different color, a different flower. This is not CGI. It’s photography.

“We shot all this stuff,” Dye says, “the butterflies and the jellyfish and the flowers for the motion face, it’s all in-camera. And so the flowers were shot blooming over time. I think the longest one took us 285 hours, and over 24,000 shots.”

The same goes for the jellyfish face, which was captured by the team after building a tank within the design studio and shooting a variety of different species at 300 frames-per-second with high-end Phantom cameras. The resulting 4096 x 2304 images were shrunk down to fit the Watch screen, Dye noting “when you look at the Motion face of the jellyfish, no reasonable person can see that level of detail. And yet to us it’s really important to get those details right.”

A look at Apple’s detailed process in photographing jellyfish, butterflies, and flowers for the Watch.
The Mickey Mouse face features a similar level of detail, with the popular mouse’s feet tapping in exact rhythmic beat to a one second count. Dye claims that if one were to line up 100 Apple Watches with the Mickey face on, his foot would tap in perfect unison on each one. The astronomy faces are some of Dye’s favorites, however, with the Apple chief noting how hard the team worked to perfect the Earth and Moon’s daily orbits and cycles.

Dye points out the subtlety of this face. “When you tap on the Earth and fly over the moon: We worked really hard with our engineering team to make sure the path you take from your actual position on the Earth to where the moon is and seeing its phase, is true to the actual position of the Earth relative to the moon.”

Wired interviewed both Dye and Apple vice president of technology Kevin Lynch earlier in April, with the two providing some behind-the-scenes knowledge on everything from the origins of the Apple Watch to the reasoning behind the look of the fitness-related medals.

Check out the full Wired interview here.

Apple Planning Major Expansion of Oregon Data Center [Mac Blog]

Apple is planning a large-scale expansion of its Prineville, Oregon data center, according to The Oregonian. The report claims Apple is likely to expand upon its current 338,000-square-foot data center with a matching facility and massive solar array this year, after Oregon governor Kate Brown signed a tax bill last week that will exempt Apple and other tech companies from facing millions of dollars in additional property taxes.

Apple’s data center in Prineville, Oregon (Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian)
Apple is now planning to move forward with its data center plans, according to Judge Mike McCabe, Crook County’s top administrator, although exact details surrounding the project are said to remain under negotiation. “They’re planning on a major, major expansion,” said McCabe. “They haven’t shared it with us,” he said, “and we haven’t seen the plans.”

Apple began construction on the first phase of its Oregon data center in October 2012.

OS X 10.10.3 With All-New Photos App Launching Later Today

OS X 10.10.3 with the all-new Photos app will be available Wednesday as a free software update for Mac users, according to The Associated Press. The news organization mentioned the release date as part of its in-depth review about the all-new Photos for OS X app, which it praised for making basic photo editing easy.

“Procrastinate no more. Apple’s new Photos app for Mac computers, available Wednesday as a free software update, makes it easy to organize and edit your pictures. The app, which replaces iPhoto, bundles professional-level tools such as granular color correction into one free consumer package.”

OS X 10.10.3 will be available through Software Update in the Mac App Store.

First Apple Watch Unboxing Video Surfaces [iOS Blog]

As the initial wave of reviews for the much-anticipated Apple Watch began flooding in this morning, French website Metronews posted one of the first unboxing videos for Apple’s wrist-worn device, showing off specifically what appears to be the 42mm Stainless Steel Case with Milanese Loop Apple Watch.

The video is short, but confirms that photos of the packaging shared yesterday were legitimate, with a squat, square box housing the MagSafe charging cable in its bottommost compartment and the actual Watch in its own plastic-looking box separate from the rest of the packaging.

Metronews runs through a few of the Watch’s features after the unboxing, showcasing some quick swipes through Glances and even longer looks at sending taps, drawings, and a heartbeat to another Watch user.

Along with its featured review of the Apple Watch posted this morning, Mashable debuted a Vine unboxing of the device, showcasing a stop-motion reveal of the link bracelet option slowly emerging from its packaging.

https://vine.co/v/eBnOEPIe5eT/embed/simple
The Apple Watch launch date of April 24 is getting closer and closer, with pre-orders going up as soon as this Friday, April 10 at 12:01 AM Pacific Time. Stay up to date on what all the major outlets are thinking of Apple’s newest wearable in MacRumors‘ Apple Watch review round-up hub, which we’ll update as more sites post their thoughts on the device.