We had a preview of the new watch and a chance to see some of the dedicated Nike features at in the demo area after the main event.
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There is still a rose gold color option for the Apple Watch, to be sure, but it’s not made of the good stuff. Poor battery life was one of the biggest disappointment when the first Apple Watch came out.
When Apple first announced the Apple Watch, the gold version captured much of the attention due to a price that was shocking even by Apple’s premium standards.
“The Apple Watch is the ultimate device for a healthy life”, said CEO Tim Cook. It is also the top sold smartwatch in the world.
Pricing is $369 for both the Series 2 and the Nike+ version. The design is similar to the Apple Watch 1, but the internals are very different.
The band is available in four vibrant, two-tone colour combinations that are unique to the collection including our favourite a neon yellowish colour striking out from beneath a dark greyish strap. But Apple has discontinued that particular high-end version of its Watch, opting instead for a ceramic version.
We weren’t able to test this in the desert of the demo room at the Apple Special Event, but it certainly looks interesting. The hardware evolution might be incremental, but this summer Apple detailed its significant overhauls of how it works, streamlining and simplifying WatchOS in ways that should make the device feel brand new in use, even if familiar at a glance.
Two of the biggest new features of the Series 2 Apple Watch are the inbuilt Global Positioning System and water resistance. It can track more accurate data and also show your route on the Maps.
Apple is also focusing on swimmers with the new Series 2, as the smartwatch is highly water resistant. You can take this thing down to 50 meters without worrying a bit. The watchOS 3 software, set to arrive September 13, is definitely more intuitive. Completely absent was any mention of the Apple Watch Edition branding, which Apple used previous year to launch a pair of $10,000-and-up Apple Watches that worked the same way as the cheap ones but were made out of actual gold instead of workaday, plebeian metals.
Apple Watch Nike+ will start at €449. The tool seems to be the reward of Nike to Apple for creating a stable and advantageous position in the aggressive wearable market. Interestingly, the Series 1 will now feature the dual core S2 processor.
The pricing for the Series 1 has also been dropped to $269.
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Not that you need to press anything, it comes with support for Siri so you can tell it it’s time to go running. What do you think of the improvements? Obviously the Apple Watch is of significantly higher quality than a FIT product and the question remains: if a person is already using the Apple ecosystem, and they are going to shell out $100 for a FIT product, what’s going to prevent them from simply bumping up to the next level in terms of quality, craftsmanship, and inclusion in the ecosystem and paying a bit more for the Apple Watch 2?
