Mark Gurman:

New to the Force Touch experience, a user can look up a point of interest in the Maps application, and then Force Touch on the destination to immediately begin turn-by-turn directions. Currently, if a user wants to start navigating to a destination, she must search for the point of interest, click the navigation logo on the map view, then click another button to actually start navigating. In this case, the Force Touch gesture will skip two steps.

In the Music application, a user can Force Touch on a listed track to be presented with some of the most commonly-used actions. For instance, if a user deep presses on the listing for a song, a menu will appear to quickly add the song to a playlist or save it for offline listening. This Force Touch gesture would act as a substitute for clicking the actions button on the right side of each track listing in the Music app.

Another feature in testing, according to one source, are shortcuts that appear after Force Touching an app icon on the Home screen. For example, if a user deep presses on the Phone app icon, he could choose to shortcut directly to the Voicemail tab. This could also apply to deep pressing the News app icon and being taken directly to either the Favorites or For You tabs.

Some of the Force Touch gestures will come from Apple’s latest MacBooks. For instance, a user can Force Touch a link in Safari to see a preview of that webpage. The gesture also works for deep pressing on an address or contact name to see a preview of a map view or contact card, respectively. Similarly, a user can Force Touch a word to look up its definition.

A very welcomed feature for iPhone to make it easier for small hands to navigate large touchscreens.

Jonathan Matus:

We stand on the threshold of what can realistically be described as the largest and most important shift in transportation in a century. The benefits will be enormous: An 80+ percent reduction in the cost of transportation. Reduced pollution. Reduced stress and road rage. A dramatic decrease in accidents and traffic deaths. Gaining back time lost to commuting — and the associated increase in productivity. Freeing up two lanes on many urban roads by eliminating parked cars. Even the reclaiming of the space allocated to home garages.

Driverless, Uber-style fleets of electric cars will change the way we live. The same way the steam engine created cities and the automobile created suburbs.

Suddenly, all these reports/rumors of Google and Apple researching and developing driverless cars seems much more than just a cool side project.

MedCityNews:

Virginia resident Ken Robson, 64, had been visiting his son in the San Diego area in mid-June. “I had been noticing that I had been feeling weak and lightheaded,” he said. He also noticed severe drops in his heart rate. “Your heart rate doesn’t go into the 30s and 40s unless you’re an Olympic athlete,” Robson said. He knew something was wrong, so he went online and self-diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia known as sick sinus syndrome.

Robson had a doctor’s appointment for shortly after he was to return home, but a day before he was scheduled to depart San Diego, he went to the emergency room at Scripps Mercy Hospital. “I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ on the airplane” who caused an unscheduled landing due to a medical emergency, or worse, who died in flight.

When he got to the hospital, Robson told staff that he had been tracking his heart rate on the watch, and had two weeks of back data. “Going in with the data certainly reduced my stay by a couple of days,” he told MedCity News. It also assured that he could have the operation nearly immediately.

Because the hospital could check his Apple Watch data, Robson did not have to wear a heart monitor for a week before the medical team at Scripps Mercy could confirm the diagnosis of sick sinus syndrome.

"Health Tracking" isn't exactly the sexiest feature that'll get airtime on TV commercials.

Often times, instead of making you go "WOW," the biggest innovations are the ones that you take for granted and make a difference when you need them most.

A security writer, loyal Android user, and self-proclaimed Apple-hater, Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, explains why he's saying goodbye to Android:

Google still has very little control over software updates, and Android users are basically at the mercy of their carriers and phone manufacturers when it comes to getting updates or new operating system versions. For example, it took Sony more than six months to push Android 5.0 Lollipop to its new line of Xperia Z phones, despite the fact that it had promised for a much shorter turnaround after Lollipop was released by Google. Just for comparison’s sake, when Apple released iOS 8 in September of last year, it immediately became available for all iPhone users, even those with an 2011 iPhone 4S.

As security expert Cem Paya put it, that was a conscious decision Google made when it created Android. Paya called it a Faustian deal: “cede control over Android, get market-share against iPhone.” Basically, Google was happy to let carriers put their bloatware on their Android phones in exchange to having a chance to fight Apple for in the mobile market. The tradeoff was giving carriers and manufacturers control over their Android releases, leaving Google unable to centrally push out operating system updates.

Some carriers and manufacturers are better than others, it’s true, but they all pretty much suck when it comes to pushing updates. There really isn’t a better way to put it.

As security researcher Nicholas Weaver put it in a (now deleted) tweet, ”Imagine if Windows patches had to pass through Dell and your ISP before they came to you? And neither cared? That is called Android.”

Some people look at the mobile landscape as a battle of brands/fanboys: Google vs. Apple.

Some people look at it as a battle of ideals: open vs. proprietary.

But really what it boils down to is a battle of execution. With a closed, proprietary system, Apple is able to execute their vision faster than anyone else. When Google wants to push security updates or new features to all Android users, they simply can't.

TechCrunch:

First, the songs get played on Beats 1’s primetime morning slots from 9am to noon PST, and start to appear on Apple’s Pandora-style iTunes Radio stations. Then artists drop them on the Apple Music Connect feed, which lets full songs be reshared on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. All of these channels are open to anyone on web or mobile without a $10 a month Apple Music subscription.

Apple’s editors can then push them into Apple Music’s For You or New tabs to score them even more plays from subscribers. Eventually in many cases, the singles get pulled back behind the paywall so they’re only available to subscribers to earn artists royalties, while the videos stay available for free.

What’s in it for the artist? To start, massive exposure. This is the modern Ed Sullivan Show, the Rolling Stone cover, the MTV Total Request Live. Smart musicians know that fame equals concert ticket and merch sales, sponsorships and licensing deals.

But rather than leave that relationship vague, this strategy gets people from around the web to follow artists on Apple Music Connect.

Mark D. Mill:

First, transit. Getting transit directions in China was far more important for Apple than getting US transit directions. Consider just a few numbers:

• The US has ten cities with a population over 1 million. China has 171.
• The US has 34 cities with a population over 500,000. China has 450.
• In 2014, China had 62M vehicles of all kinds registered, in a country of 1.3 billion. This is expected to reach 200M by 2020.

Most people in China get transportation by public transit. Having a mapping service in China without transit directions would be like having one in the US without driving directions. Apple hit this hard:

• Apple developed transit directions for just 10 cities in the non-China world, but over 300 cities in China.
• The non-China cities for which Apple has transit directions have a combined population of about 38M. Just the 9 listed cities in China have a combined population of over 130M.

Second, improved battery life & reduced OS upgrade size. These upgrades do not exclusively benefit China, but they were important upgrades in China. In the last years, as I’ve talked with non-Apple users in China, the number one reason they bought another brand was because of screen size, which Apple solved with iPhone 6/6+. The number two reason was poor battery life. Apple getting an extra hour of battery life was important; getting 3 more hours in battery savings mode is huge for the hundreds of millions of people who commute on public transportation without a power source.

Reducing the size of the OS upgrade, likewise, is important for China and the developing world, where the phone is often the only computer. When I didn’t have enough free space to upgrade, I could just upgrade via iTunes on my Mac. For many iPhone users in China for whom iPhone is their only computer, that was never an option. There are a lot of people still on iOS 7 in China as a result

Every once in a while, Apple puts out "Snow Leopard" type releases that are primarily filled with "boring" refinements. On the surface, people can look at that as a sign that Apple no longer innovates. But really, Apple uses these "boring" OS releases to add important updates that are actually huge to other specific markets.

In the past, Apple focused on features targeted at the enterprise market.

This time, with iOS 9, Apple is going all in on China.

After two years of speculating and writing about it, the Apple Watch is finally here! It’s been over a month since I chased down my UPS guy for my missed package, and now I have enough personal experience to share my thoughts on it.

A Little Background

In the past few years, I’ve made a conscious effort to use my phone less. Specifically, to stop texting while driving, and stop fiddling with my phone when I’m out with friends. That means less documenting my life on social media and simply living more in the moment.

Did you know the average smartphone user checks their phone 150 times per day? That means two things:

1. People waste time throughout the day just reaching into their pockets/bags, pulling out their phones, checking notifications, and then putting them back into their pockets/bags.

2. People obsessively hold their phones in their hands (or at least keep within arms reach) at all times throughout the day.

Just look at Facebook and count how many photos include people holding their phones. People holding their phones at the dinner table. On the dance floor. While drinking with friends. At the swimming pool. Out camping. All because we’ve trained ourselves to disconnect from the moment just so we can stay “connected” to everyone else in the world over text and social media.

My First Smartwatch

Someone once said:

The desktop is meant to be used hours at a time. Phones for minutes at a time. Watches for seconds at a time.

That just made a ton of sense to me. I realized if I could just relieve my phone of push notification duties, all of a sudden I could drastically cut down my phone usage and just keep my phone in my pocket.

So last year, for my birthday, I went ahead and bought a Pebble smartwatch.

Why I Loved My Pebble Smartwatch

• I could stay on top of notifications while shooting hoops in my backyard.
• I could control the music on my phone speakers while showering.
• I could read push notifications while stuck in traffic more easily.
• When I woke up from a nap and couldn’t find my iPhone, I could hit the play button to make my phone play music.
• When I walked my dog, I could control my music while keeping my phone in my pocket.

Dislikes About Pebble Smartwatch

• It was ugly. As much as I loved the utility, I hated the way it looked, especially how it clashed with everything when I dressed up. It just screamed “computer nerd” to anyone who saw it.
• While getting notifications on my wrist was extremely helpful, I still needed to grab my phone to act on those notifications.
• It was fucking ugly.

Enter Apple Watch

Even before I got my Pebble, I knew the Apple Watch was coming. I knew it was going to look like a watch, not a fitness band, because of all the executives/creatives they were recruiting from the fashion industry. I knew it was going to offer tighter integration with the iPhone (and the entire Apple ecosystem), better than any other third-party smartwatch/fitness band will ever offer, because that’s just how Apple rolls.

For the first time ever, even before the product was announced, I knew I was going to get one.

I’ve always dreamed of having a Dick Tracy/Power Rangers watch as a kid. I’ve always loved the craftsmanship of timepieces ever since high school. I’ve always respected the simplicity and elegance of Apple’s industrial design since my first iPod.

And now, the Apple Watch is in my life. With over a month of hands-on time under my belt, here’s everything I learned:

Early Observations

• It is NOT a smartphone. It’s a dashboard and remote for your phone. Once I realized that, it became easier to manage expectations.
• It is not something you play with. It’s something you set and forget.
• It takes weeks to find the right balance of notification settings.
• It is best used in short bursts. Holding up my arm for longer than 5 seconds is not only uncomfortable, but really awkward in public.
• Taptic feedback is nice step up from standard vibration. It literally feels like it’s tapping you. Plus, Apple did a brilliant job complimenting taps with the right sounds. An alert that sounds like a bell ringing also feels like a bell ringing on my wrist.
• Battery life is much better than expected. I always have about 40% of battery to spare when I go to bed.
• Switching watch straps has a profound affect on the personality of the watch. I already own two sport straps (black and white) and plan on ordering a custom leather strap for formal occasions.
• I feel so naked without it now. There are those awkward moments in the morning when I look at my wrist to check weather and realize I haven’t put on my watch yet.
• My first Apple Watch sighting in the wild: a woman in her mid-40s. As a nurse, she bought the watch for notifications and messaging while she works.
• It’s showerproof! After watching videos of divers jumping off a high dive with their Apple Watches, I shower with my watch after working out with it.
• Having an accurate health tracker with a screen that displays graphs is much more motivating than a small Fitbit screen that only displays numbers.
• Battery life on my iPhone has improved noticeably since the screen no longer lights up for each incoming notification.

How I Use My Apple Watch

• I use the Workout app to track my heart rate and physical activity while doing basketball drills. I don’t stop until I at least fill the Exercise Ring.
• I’ve responded to texts using dictation while shooting hoops in the backyard. No more using my shirt to wipe dirt off my hands and touching my phone to respond. My watch gets a nice rinse when I shower anyway.
• I’ve answered a quick phone call on my watch in the middle of giving my dog a bath. No rushing to dry my hands since it’s showerproof.
• I thoroughly enjoy the freedom of walking around the house in my undies while my phone is charging. No pockets? No problem. Phone calls and iMessages get forwarded as long as I’m on the same WiFi network.
• I check into Foursquare with just a couple swipes and a tap.
• Every morning I get into my car, I start my podcast player, Overcast, from my watch.
• I control my Apple TV with my watch. No more searching the couch cushions for the Apple Remote.
• Because it’s power efficient and charges reasonably fast, I now sleep with my Apple Watch. When I wake up, I charge it for 20-30 minutes in bed while I catch up on social media and news feeds on my phone. By the time I’m done, I’ll have about 80% battery life, which has been plenty. At night I give it another 20-30 minutes of charging.
• When I’m out with friends, I keep sound notifications on to make it clear to others that I’m checking my notifications, not bored of their company. When I’m at work, I put it on silent and rely on the haptic feedback.
• Unlike a smartphone, I’ve found that the fewer apps, the better.
• The best workflow I’ve found for managing notifications: have all phone notifications forward to the watch but only have time-sensitive ones tap your wrist. When a notification comes in, swipe down to dismiss it. Otherwise, use Notification Center on the watch to catch up on any you missed and Force Touch to Clear All.

Minor 1.0 Annoyances

• 98% of third-party apps for Apple Watch suck…for now. But that’s understandable because no developers had an actual watch to test with. Now that developers have watches, they will move quickly to build apps that make sense on a wrist.
• It’s hard to auto-activate the screen when lying down (so I’ve learned to touch the screen instead).
• Back-swiping to go back a screen is very inconsistent across apps. On a screen this small, all apps should embrace gestures more instead of fully relying on tiny-ass buttons.
• Am I using a Glance or an app? Sometimes I think I’m using a Glance and swipe down to close it, but it’s actually an app and swiping down does nothing.
• When my phone is outside of Bluetooth range but still on WiFi range, I can still still receive iMessages and phone calls on my watch. Unfortunately, no other notifications relay the same way.
• While receiving heartbeats via Digital Touch are in real-time, receiving taps are not.
• I occasionally find myself swiping down to access Notification Center, but that gesture only works in Watchface mode.
• The side button really should be customizable. Right now it is used to open the Friends app, but for such a personal device, each person should be able to assign it to their most-used app.

The good news is, all of these annoyances can be fixed over time with software updates. Remember, once upon a time, the first iPhone didn’t support picture messages or even copy/paste.

Now that I have my observations out of the way, here are the most typical reactions I hear:

“I don’t want all my notifications on my wrist! I’ll be even more distracted!”

Some notifications are worthy tapping your wrist for your immediate attention (i.e. phone calls and emails from your boss). Other notifications definitely aren’t. There are plenty of notification settings to help you prioritize the important ones.

The great thing about having notifications on your wrist is it’s much more convenient to glance at than reaching into your pocket, checking your phone, and putting it back into your pocket.

Remember, the average person checks their phone 150 times per day. Seconds add up.

“Android’s had that for years!”

Smartwatches in general have been around for over a decade. The problem is, each and every one of them have been too clunky and/or too geeky to get any sort of mass market appeal.

All but one Android Wear device measure in at 46mm (with the lone exception being 42mm). Apple Watch comes in 38mm and 42mm and include a wide range of meticulously-crafted official straps that even luxury watch enthusiasts are applauding.

Good luck convincing millions of non-techie men and women that a one-size-fits-all 46mm chunk of metal is fashionable.

In the real world, when it comes to smartwatches, looks matter more than specs and features. Just look at #AndroidWear vs. #AppleWatch on Instagram and compare the demographics of each platform.

“It’s going to be obsolete in two years.”

A totally valid concern. The general assumption is the Apple Watch will be updated every year and redesigned every two years, just like the iPhone. But that is only an assumption.

Another possibility is the Apple Watch will be updated more like the MacBooks. Every year, the internals are updated but the actual device gets a full redesign every 3-5 years.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

“Should I get one?”

Depends.

If you are a techie, Apple enthusiast, mobile app developer, or early adopter with the disposable cash, definitely get one! I’d recommend the low-end Sport editions, just in case Apple launches a much better v2.0 next year and you’ll want to upgrade immediately.

To everyone else, I will give a more conservative answer — hold off for now. Wait until a really great watch app emerges from the App Store. There is no rush. The iPhone didn’t become a mainstream success until the iPhone 4.

If the Apple Watch is something that you have to save up for, save for v2.0. Historically, 2.0 Apple devices have been huge upgrades over the original models.

(If Christmas comes around and your girlfriend already has an iPhone and iPad, then sure, get a pair of Apple Watches for yourselves.)

As for me, I am one happy customer. This is a nice upgrade over my old Fitbit, a huge feature upgrade over my Pebble smartwatch, and I get an early glimpse of Apple’s vision of the future. Every time a big company launches a watch app, or a big chain adds support for Apple Pay, or a home appliance company adds support for Apple HomeKit, the Apple Watch becomes more valuable.

Consider this:

Back in 2008, when the iTunes App Store first launched, nobody had any idea we’d end up with phenomenons like Instagram, Snapchat, and Uber. What killer apps will the Apple Watch bring in 5 years?

I can’t wait to find out.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying putting my phone down, focusing more on the world around me, and living more in the moment with my dog, my family, and my friends.

Mark D. Mill:

Can Apple Watch do everything now? No. Can it replace your phone? No. Is it bug-free? No. Is there room for improvement? Yes. Are any of those expectations appropriate for the first generation of any product? Of course not. Apple Watch is not a perfect product, but many people are forgetting that neither was the first iPod, the first iPhone, or the first iPad. Rather than evaluating whether the product is already mature, a better question is to ask whether Apple has laid a foundation on which Apple Watch can grow. The answer, I believe, is a resounding yes.

9to5mac:

In order to avoid the sluggishness and bugginess that was most notably seen in iOS 7 for the iPhone 4, Apple has restructured its software engineering process to better support older hardware.

Instead of developing a feature-complete version of iOS 9 for older hardware and then removing a handful of features that do not perform well during testing, Apple is now building a core version of iOS 9 that runs efficiently on older A5 devices, then enabling each properly performing feature one-by-one. Thanks to this new approach, an entire generation (or two) of iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches will be iOS 9-compatible rather than reaching the end of the iOS line.

Great news. In addition to better performance on older devices:

• slow iPhone/iPad upgraders will be able to run the latest versions of third-party apps
• older iPhone/iPad users will get the latest security updates
• app developers can spend less time/resources on supporting older iOS versions
• third-party apps will progress faster

This perfectly encapsulates the entire range of first impressions that the Apple Watch is getting.

By far the most common complaint was how the Apple Watch requires an iPhone. Totally valid complaint. But once upon a time, the iPod needed a Mac. And eventually it grew into the iPhone.

Also, kudos to the kids who understand we don't need smartwatches, the same way we don't need a smartphone or a TV; we just want it the luxury because it delights us and makes our lives easier.