On Monday, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives spent the majority of their time during the press event held today talking about the forthcoming Apple Watch. The company finally iterated pricing for the device, one of the biggest mysteries concerning the debut, by saying the Sport version would start at $349 ($399 for the men’s model), while the regular model would begin at $549 to $1,040 ($50 more for the 42mm men’s watch size), and the deluxe Edition version, which features a solid 18-karat gold body, would be available from $10,000. The Apple Watch will officially open for pre-orders at retail on April 10, and demos are available at Apple Stores. It will debut on April 24 at retail.
One of the major portions of the event was given over to demonstrations of various apps that will be available for the Apple Watch on or near its retail debut. Among the apps demonstrated during the presentation (headed by Kevin Lynch, formerly of Adobe, who headed up the software team) were notifications from ESPN, CNN and Facebook, along with WeChat (a popular chat app in China), Apple Pay, Instagram, Uber, American Airlines, Starwood Hotels, Shazam, and an Alarm app, which was demonstrated as remotely opening a garage door at Lynch’s home to let in a child who had forgotten their key.
Cook elaborated officially on the power needs of the device, saying that while it would still need to be charged each night, it was expected to run “a full day” thanks to a number of power-saving techniques, such as not illuminating the screen until the device is brought up to view. He specifically claimed that with “typical use,” the watch battery would last up to 18 hours — a notable improvement on previous claims.
Cook also confirmed that the Watch would feature at least 8GB of storage in all versions, capable of holding up to 2,000 songs that can be played via Bluetooth headsets without requiring an iPhone to be within range. This allows runners to simply take only the Watch with them on a run, though they will sacrifice a certain level of data collection about the run. The Watch will be able to collect basic location information and other data like heartrate, which will augmented by the iPhone once the two are reconnected.
