Apple Watch features you maybe didn't know about

SAN FRANCISCO - Calling Dick Tracy! Your Apple Watch is ready, 80 years later.

Owners of Apple's $349-and-up smartwatch, which is due in stores early next year, will be able to take and make calls by speaking into it in the fashion of the 1930s comic-strip detective.

Apple Watch has a small microphone and speaker designed to augment other features of the wearable tech gadget. The mic lets you access Siri, Apple's digital personal assistant. A speaker allows you to hear a fellow Watch wearer's transmitted heartbeat, for instance. But together they do allow for phone calls in quiet locations.

Other details on Apple Watch functionality and its interactivity with iPhones:

* It will feature an as-yet-undisclosed storage capacity allowing photos and music to be loaded onto the device, which can be accessed regardless of whether an iPhone is present.

* It can be used to buy things through Apple's new Pay system, in case you're out on a jog without your phone and want to buy a drink at Whole Foods or another Pay-participating vendor.

* All accelerometer-based fitness functions of the watch remain operative regardless of iPhone presence, which is required for any actions involving a cellular connection.

* Apple Watch does have Bluetooth capability, allowing wireless headphones to play music or take a call.

* It also has Wi-F-fi capability, used primarily to allow for faster information transfer speeds between a user's iPhone and the watch.

A lot about Apple Watch clearly has yet to be worked out. For example, Apple is developing a 'Hold Call' function. When pressed during an incoming call, it will trigger a voice message to the caller indicating that you're aware the call is coming in but need a moment to get to your iPhone.

'There's so much Watch can do that we haven't really even talked about,' Apple CEO Tim Cook told USA TODAY Tuesday shortly after he unveiled it to the world at the Flint Center in Cupertino, Calif. 'We're still working on so many features.'

One is dubbed Walkie-Talkie. If two Watch owners - with iPhones in their respective pockets - want to connect briefly, they can access this feature through the Friends screen which in turn allows for short bursts of conversation to ping between Watches.

Walkie Talkie is part of the product's Digital Touch suite of features. The idea is that Apple wants to find ways to help people connect through their product that felt more personal than a text message. To that end, the watch has the ability to let users send each other small drawings using their fingernails, or gently tap each via a sensor in the watch.

Lastly, lefties need not despair. Watch can be set up for them, too, simply by rotating the device and locking in the screen direction, admittedly leaving the multi-function crown in the lower- as opposed to upper-left of the body.

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