WatchOS 2 And The Future Of Apps

With flashier announcements at this year’s WWDC, such as Apple Music or more hardcore developer news on the iOS 9 fronts, it’s easy to lose sight of a real game changer: watchOS 2, which is slated for release September 16. Would it be crazy to think this new OS could really make that big of an impact?

After all, despite the fact that the first nine weeks of Apple Watch sales exceeded initial sales for both the iPhone and the iPad, the larger wearable market is still relatively small; vendors reportedly shipped a mere 11.4 million wearables in Q1 of this year, compared to 334.4 million smartphones.

While wearables are still nascent, the reason the watchOS2 will be such a game-changer lies in its native development capabilities. With the iPhone, developers had the attractiveness of having plenty of digital real estate to work with, but the Watch’s small form factor has challenged them to create experiences in a very restricted space.

Further, being tied to the construct of the phone has limited their creativity. Need proof? Consider that as of early September, there were 11,469 apps for the Watch, which represents 274 percent growth since launch. That might sound impressive, but compare it to the iPhone, which saw 437 percent growth within the first three months. This indicates that while there is an appetite, developers need more incentive.

Developers will find that incentive in the watchOS 2, which I believe will cause entire new subcategories of apps to emerge — some even unimaginable with our existing mobile devices today. With native support, developers can now get even more creative and tap into the Watch’s unique features, like sensors and an accelerometer. This will make the Watch much more attractive for developers and expand Apple’s total addressable market.

How will this play out for both developers and consumers? We’ll have to wait and see for sure, but here are a few predictions…

The Body And App Merge, And Become Interactive
We’ve already seen the body and mobile devices becoming more intertwined thanks to apps such as Nike+, but we’ll see a whole new realm of possibilities now that developers can play with the Watch’s sensor capabilities. I expect to see new categories of apps designed for everything from meal planning to travel.

The level of interaction and personalization that will be born out of the Watch will make today’s smartphone experiences look generic and dated.
For example, there might be an app that improves your diet by suggesting what to eat, integrating with other connected devices Watch data such as calories burned and steps taken. Based on what the app learns, it could give you nutritious recipes to meet your goals, or even share locations of nearby healthy restaurants. If you want to stay home, it might even connect directly to food delivery services such as GrubHub so you can get the healthiest meals delivered right to your door.

While the watchOS 2 has the power to drastically improve what technology can do for encouraging general wellness, we are likely to also see apps that provides actual medical diagnosis by tracking your body temperature, heart rate and other biometrics. For instance, biometric analytics apps could provide realistic health goals and medical advice, and even discover previously undetected medical conditions. New smart attachments that integrate with the Watch, similar to Kinsa medical devices, could lead to apps that help with chronic conditions like diabetes and asthma.


Personalization Like You’ve Never Experienced
We’ll also see more personalized notifications emerge thanks in large part to the Taptic Engine. This new Apple Watch technology sends small tapping vibrations and nuanced audio cues to communicate with the wearer. Imagine a dating app that sends vibrations to help guide you to someone new. Or there could be apps that remind you of people’s names you’ve met previously but have since forgotten.

The heart rate sensor, accelerometer and Siri also offer new and exciting avenues for personalization. For those of you who struggle to stay fit, the Watch could lock leisurely apps such as Instagram, Facebook and Angry Birds until you’ve hit your physical activity goals for the day.
Traditional iOS developers can even use the Watch to personalize their own apps. Imagine if fitness apps like RunKeeper could integrate with Pandora or Apple Music to match a song’s beats per minute with your heart rate. The possibilities are endless.

A New Age of Apps

The level of interaction and personalization that will be born out of the Watch will make today’s smartphone experiences look generic and dated. What’s especially exciting about this shift is how it fits into the overarching movement toward the.Internet of Things (IoT)

While industrial IoT is alive and well, in the consumer market wearables are our best hope — before our homes or our cars. Given Apple’s immense developer community support and consumer affinity, Apple can dominate the market and watchOS 2 will play a major part in that. The result for consumers will be a complete overhaul of the apps we use and how they interact with — and improve — our lives.


While having a watch that communicates with all your other devices and automatically serves you experiences purely based on movement and biometrics might sound far into the future, in truth we’re just around the corner. By the time the next WWDC rolls around, we may already be halfway there.

Apple Introduces The iPhone 6S And iPhone 6S Plus

Today, Apple has unveiled the latest generation of the iPhone in the form of the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus. Rumors have been swirling for the past few months, with suggestions that Apple would integrate a Force Touch Display, update the devices’ cameras, and use a more powerful processor.

But the moment of truth has finally arrived, so let’s get to it.

As can be expected from an ‘S’ year, the next-generation iPhones don’t look all that different from last year’s models. However, the innards have been significantly tweaked.

Design
Following rumors, the next iPhone will come in a rose gold color, and all iPhone models are made with a brand new Apple custom alloy, the same alloys used in the aerospace industry. The Apple team has also introduced a new type of stronger glass for the display.

3D Touch
Apple has introduced a feature called 3D Touch, which shows an extra dimension to the screen you’re used to. Using Force Touch, which is already available on the Apple Watch and on new MacBooks, users can hold down on various apps to both ‘peek’ and ‘pop’.

For example, you could lightly tap on the content of an email to peek at the content inside, and if you press harder, the content you’re peeking at will pop open fully.

As is standard with Force Touch, the iPhone will offer haptic feedback as a part of the 3D Touch experience.


A few examples of 3D Touch on the iPhone include: lightly tap on the camera icon to get camera options, and press harder to go straight into selfie mode, lightly tap on various app to choose to go into various parts of the app, lightly tap on a flight number and get flight tracking information as a ‘peek’, or Force Touch an address to get a preview within the Maps app.

It’s not just default Apple apps that use Force Touch — Instagram, Facebook, and others have integrated 3D Touch into their apps to let you peek and pop.

Users can also employ Force Touch to switch between apps instead of using the old double-tap on the home button. Simply Force Touch the edge of the display and swipe between previously opened apps.

This is made possible with the addition of an array of sensors added right under the display.

A9
The new A9, found in the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, is the third generation of the 64-bit chip Apple has been using, built with a new transistor architecture. It’s 70 percent faster than the A8 chip used in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and 90 percent faster graphics performance than the previous generation.


Alongside the new A9, the new iPhones will feature a brand new M9 coprocessor that is always on, to help detect motion for apps like Health. Thanks to the new processors, TouchID is twice as fast in the new phones.

Camera
For the first time in years, Apple is adding more megapixels to the iPhone camera, offering a 12-megapixel camera. That’s a 50 percent improvement from earlier generations of the iSight camera.

But in order to avoid trading off more pixels for lower image quality, Apple has introduced ‘deep trench isolation’, which separates photo diodes to help maintain accurate color quality and reduce crosstalk and noise.

The new iSight camera still protrudes slightly from the body of the phone, just as it does on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.


Beyond the still imagery, the new iSight camera is also capable of taking 4K video, which means each frame has 8 million pixels.

Plus, the front-facing camera has been upgraded to a 5-megapixel camera. And for selfie fans out there, Apple has added a new front-facing flash feature that uses the LED screen to mimic a TrueTone flash that you’d find on the back of the camera. The display also gets 3X brighter right at the moment of capture (similar to Photo Booth on OS X) so that there is enough light for your Kardashian-style shots.




Apple is also introducing a new feature called Live Photos. This works by taking a few extra frames of photos before and after you snap a photo, so that each of your photos have snippets of live action. With the introduction of this feature, Apple is providing APIs so that third-party developers can integrate Live Photos into their own apps, with Facebook coming soon.

Some Other Stuff
The new iPhones support 23 LTE bands up to 300mbps, alongside WiFi up to 866mbps. And if you’re thinking of jumping ship from Android to iOS, Apple is releasing a new app that will help you move over your photos, notes, etc. There are also a bunch of new iCloud storage pricing plans, with 50GB for $1/month, 200GB for $2.99/month, and 1TB for $9.99/month.

In terms of pricing and availability, the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus will come in the exact same prices and configurations as the previous generation, starting at $199 and $299 respectively for the 16GB model.

But beyond that, Apple is starting a new iPhone Upgrade Program that will allow users to get an unlocked phone that includes Apple Care and costs $32/month. Every year.


Everything goes live on September 25.