Skip to main content

New Apple Watch that makes calls turns comic book fantasy into reality

CUPERTINO: More than two years after releasing the Apple Watch, Apple Inc has finally been able to replicate 1940s comic strip technology, an advance that analysts say will spur sales.
The Series 3 of the Apple Watch, released on Tuesday along with the much-anticipated iPhone X, features wireless LTE connectivity. That means customers will be able to make phone calls or send text messages from the watch without needing to have an iPhone nearby, as they do with earlier models.The ability to make calls with a wristwatch has captured the imagination of tech enthusiasts at least since it was prominently featured in “Dick Tracy,” the comic about a private detective who, starting in 1946, used calls from his wrist to help bust bad guys.
“This has been our vision from the beginning,” Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said at the launch event. “Now you can go for a run with just your watch and still be connected. It’s really nice to know you can be reached if needed.”
To be sure, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has sold smart watches with mobile data connectivity since 2014, but the first devices were bulky and suffered from poor battery life because the data connection consumed extra power. They also require a separate phone number.
Apple claims its new Series 3, on the other hand, will have up to 18 hours of battery life and is just a fraction of a millimeter thicker that its previous Series 2. And it will have the same phone number as a customer’s iPhone, which is still required.
Apple said that all four major US carriers will offer service for the watch, and AT&T Inc and T-Mobile US Inc both said it would cost an extra $10 a month.Analysts generally believe the new connectivity could ignite sales, though there is little consensus as to how much.
At $399, the new Watch is only slightly more expensive than the previous model, the $329 Series 2, which introduced standalone GPS capability. That $70 extra buys much more useful capabilities – including the ability to stream music from Apple Music.
“The third time is the charm for the watch,” said Bob O’Donnell of Techanalysis Research.
What may hold some consumers back is the monthly recurring charge, which would far exceed the extra cost of the Series 3 over older watches over time, said Brian Blau, an Apple analyst with Gartner. “Yes, you do have to pay for that extra data plan, but it sounds like the carriers are at least going to make it relatively easy to do,” Blau said.
Apple does not say how many Apple Watches it sells. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi believes Apple will sell 12 million watches in its fiscal 2017 and 14 million to 15 million in fiscal 2018. Gene Munster with Loup Ventures predicted a much bigger bump, to 26 million units in 2018.Either way, Apple is putting new pressure on smartwatch rivals like Fitbit Inc and Garmin Ltd, which would be hard-pressed from a technical and business standpoint to match Apple’s wireless features. Garmin and Fitbit did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours.
The Watch will remain a blip in Apple’s sales, which were $215 billion last year. But it may be taking its place as part of a family of products that Apple loyalists cannot do without – all by making a schoolboy fantasy from the 1940s into reality for the masses.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

US drone strike kills leader of Pakistan’s Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militants: spokesman

                                DERA ISMAIL KHAN:  The leader of Pakistani militant group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, who planned some of the deadliest suicide bombings in Pakistan over the last year, died on Thursday of wounds sustained in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, a spokesman said. “Our leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, was wounded in one of the recent drone strikes in Afghanistan. He was wounded badly, and today he was martyred,” Asad Mansoor, a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesman, said by telephone.The killing comes ahead of American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit next week and is likely to further ease tensions between the often-wary allies, as Islamabad has been asking Washington for years to target militants who attack inside Pakistan and then hide over the border in Afghanistan. A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has in the past also backed Middle East-based Islamic St...

India’s bullet train project re-ignites debate on land for ‘public purpose’

MUMBAI:  Plans for India’s first bullet train, a $17-billion-dollar project, have sparked a debate on the definition of “public purpose” for land acquisitions which have become increasingly contentious. The 500-km- (310-mile-) long high-speed rail link promises to cut travel time between the financial hub of Mumbai and the industrial city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state by more than half to under three hours. The project, inaugurated earlier this month, will need about 825 hectares (2,000 acres) of land. The government has said it will complete the line by 2022, even as farmers along the proposed route held protests against giving up their land. They may have little say in the matter, as the state has a legal right to take private property for public purposes. But analysts say the definition of what constitutes public purpose needs revisiting, even for infrastructure projects. “When projects – airports, private colleges, bullet trains – benefit only a small percentage of ...

कुन प्रदेश को अस्थाई राजधानी कहाँ ? प्रदेश प्रमुख को ?

बुधबार ,३ माघ ( काठमाडौँ ) सरकारले आज सात ओटै प्रदेश को अस्थाई मुकाम र प्रदेश प्रमुख तोकेको छ | बुधबार बसेको मन्त्रि परिसद को बैठक ले सात ओटै प्रदेश को अस्थाई मुकाम र प्रदेश प्रमुख तोकेको हो | जसमा प्रदेश १ को बिराटनगर ,२ को जनकपुर ,३ को हेटौडा र ४ को मुकाम पोखरा तोकेको छ | तेस्तै प्रदेश ५ को रुपन्देही ,६ को सुर्खेत तथा ७ को धनगढी तोकिएको छ |  पदेश प्रमुख मा प्रदेश १ मा डाक्टर गोविन्द सुब्बा ,२ मा रत्नेस्वोरलाल कायस्थ ,३ मा अनुराधा कोइराला, ४ मा बाबुराम कुँवर, ५ मा उमाकान्त झा ,६ मा दुर्गा प्रसाद खनाल र ७ मा मोहनराज मल्ल लाई निउक्त गर्ने सरकारले निर्णय गरेको छ |