Apple Watch and iPhone 6 Announced: The Wrist in Apple's Future


CUPERTINO, Calif. - After three years as chief executive of Apple, Timothy D. Cook is starting to crystallize his vision for the company.


Apple on Tuesday introduced a highly anticipated smartwatch, which combines health and fitness monitoring with mobile computer capabilities like maps. The company also introduced two new iPhones with larger screens.


The smartwatch, named the Apple Watch, is a miniature computer strapped around the wrist and is the first product made under Mr. Cook's leadership that branches Apple into a new type of product: a device in the growing field of fitness-tracking computers that can be worn on or around the body.


'We've been working incredibly hard on an entirely new product, and we believe this product will redefine what people expect from this category,' Mr. Cook said. 'It is the next chapter in Apple's story.'


The new iPhones, which have much larger screens than past models, are significant upgrades for Apple's smartphone lineup, still by far the company's largest source of profit. They cater to a growing appetite among consumers for bigger screens on smartphones, similar to what happened with televisions.


And they are a rare instance of Apple's following market trends instead of creating them; Samsung, Apple's chief rival, has captured a major share of the smartphone market with large phones.


Apple displayed the new products in front of a packed auditorium here at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, the same spot where the company introduced the Macintosh in 1984.


Although the Apple Watch is the company's first wearable computer, it enters a crowded field. Samsung, Pebble and Sony lead the pack of companies producing these new devices, and sales are growing quickly. But the devices are nowhere near as popular as smartphones. IDC, the research company, estimates that 19 million smartwatches will ship in 2014, much lower than the 1.2 billion smartphones that it expects will ship this year.


And despite the fanfare with which the news media has greeted Apple's introduction of its first wearable device, analysts have expressed mixed views about its potential to become mainstream.


Apple said the Apple Watch would have a strong focus on health. It highlighted an app called Fitness that it made to track statistics for different exercises, like bicycling or running. An accelerometer tracks the movements, and a heart rate sensor helps measure the intensity of the workouts.


The wearable computer has a rectangular screen for a face with a flexible display and comes in two sizes. It has a crown on the side that acts as a digital dial, which can be turned to zoom in; tapping the crown returns to the main menu. The watch can be attached to six strap styles, including stainless steel and leather.



Similar to a smartphone, the smartwatch can run a variety of apps. Tapping on the home screen zooms in on a 'neighborhood' of apps. From there, the user can tap on the app. Apple demonstrated apps for a calendar, map navigation and a music player.


The smartwatch will rely on wireless charging to replenish the battery.


The watch will take advantage of Siri, Apple's tool for controlling the device with voice commands. Pushing down on the crown activates Siri, and a command like 'What movies are playing nearby?' will result in the watch loading show times for nearby theaters.


Apple also said it would release a toolkit for software developers to build apps for the watch. It said many companies had already made Apple Watch apps, including W hotels, Pinterest and BMW.


James McQuivey, a consumer technology analyst for Forrester Research, said the Apple Watch had already accomplished one thing, even though it will not be in stores for a while.


'It has firmly established the smartwatch as a category, one with unique properties requiring a unique solution as opposed to a miniature smartphone pushed down onto your wrist,' he said.



Apple said there would be three editions of the watch: Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch Edition. Pricing for the Apple Watch starts at $350 and requires one of the newer iPhones. The watch will be available next year.


The two new iPhones, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, measure 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches diagonally, much larger than the most recent iPhones, which measured 4 inches.


Both iPhones have an aluminum back. Even though their screen sizes are larger, their bodies are thinner than past iPhones.


To deal with concerns that a bigger phone will make using the phone with one hand difficult, Apple created the feature Reachability. Double tapping the physical button makes the picture slide down so that a user can reach over with one hand to tap something.


The processor inside the new iPhones is about 25 percent faster than the previous version, according to Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing. The iPhones have slightly better battery life than the previous iPhone, and they include new wireless capabilities to get faster Internet speeds from cellular networks.


In addition, they support making phone calls over a Wi-Fi network and have an improved camera with a sensor that reads light and does quicker autofocus.



The iPhone 6 starting price with a contract is $200, while the iPhone 6 Plus is $300. They go on sale Sept. 19.


With the new iPhones and watch, Apple is moving deeper into the world of mobile payments. Apple demonstrated Apple Pay, a feature that allows users to pay for things in retail stores with the devices. This feature relies on near field communication, or NFC, a technology that allows devices to exchange information wirelessly over very short distances.


The user's payment information is stored on a chip inside the phone while credit card information is added to Apple's wallet app, Passbook. Touching the phone's fingerprint sensor allows the user to pay. With the watch, the user simply taps it against a merchant terminal.


Apple said it did not track the payment information, including how much the purchase cost or where the purchase was made. Transactions are kept between the merchant and the bank.


Companies supporting Apple Pay include Walgreens, Duane Reade, Staples, Subway, McDonald's and the Apple Store.


Samsung, the No. 1 phone maker in the world, was the first to successfully sell smartphones with larger screens. Inside Apple, at least some employees have expressed concern about the threat that bigger phones posed to the iPhone, according to court documents revealed in the latest patent fight between the two companies.


Unlike smartwatches, bigger smartphones have already proved to be a big hit. IDC estimated that at least 20 percent of all smartphones shipped last year in China, the largest smartphone market in the world, were 5 inches or larger. It predicts that manufacturers this year will ship more 'phablets,' or smartphones with screens measuring at least 5.5 diagonal inches, than laptops.


The price of Apple shares was up 1 percent in afternoon trading on news of the new products.


The set of products should be the first of more to come this year. In May, Eddy Cue, Apple's head of Internet services, said the new products that the company planned to introduce this year made up the 'best product pipeline that I've seen in my 25 years at Apple.'


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