Apple Watch Home Screen layout
You will be able to change the layout of the Apple Watch home screen via a virtual view in the iPhone app.
Apple Watch clock functions
According to 9to5Mac, there is a new clock face feature called Monogram that will let you add an embedded stamp of 1-4 letters on your clock face. This is one way to personalise the clock face.
The iPhone app will allow you to set a red dot to appear at the top of the Apple Watch clock face whenever a notification is received.
You can also chose to track a stock and have the data appear on the watch face.
Apple Watch Messages
Users of the iPhone companion app will be able to make various tweaks to the way the messages function works on the Apple Watch. For example, users will be able to switch between Dictation and Audio Replies as your preferred means of replying. Users will also be enable to disable Read Receipts, set up default text replies, and choose not to receive alerts from certain people.
Apple Watch Maps
Users of the Apple Watch iPhone app will be able to enable or disable the Taptic Engine for turn-by-turn directions, determining whether the watch ‘taps’ you on the wrist, or not.
Apple Watch Accessibility
There are a number of accessibility settings that can be managed on the iPhone app, these include a VoiceOver feature, the ability to zoom in on the screen, and settings to reduce motion, control audio, reduce transparency, enable bold text, and more.
Apple Watch Passcode
Users will be able to set up a four number passcode for the Apple Watch. This needs to be set up in order to use Apple Pay (soon to launch in the UK, reports indicate). Users will be able to unlock the Apple Watch by unlocking the connected iPhone, according to 9to5Mac, but this will only work if the Apple Watch is connected to the body and if the code is entered incorrectly up to 10 times then the watch will wipe all its data.
Apple Watch Activity, Motion, Fitness
Via the companion app on the iPhone users will be able to activate fitness features including a reminder if they have been sitting for too long, or a summary of how much activity the watch has logged in the past 4, 6 or 8 hours.
Apple Watch About Screen
On the iPhone app users will be able to see the storage capacity available on the Apple Watch, how many apps and tracks are stored on the watch, Bluetooth and WiFi information, and more. 9to5Mac claims that there doesn’t appear to be any information about photo storage, suggesting that the photos may not be stored on the device itself.
Apple Watch & Apple's WatchKit: features
Apple has launched WatchKit for app developers, giving further insight into how Apple's first wearable, the Apple Watch, will work.
WatchKit is the framework that developers will use to create Apple Watch apps. It's available now to developers as part of the iOS 8.2 SDK beta, along with new design guidelines that demonstrate how Watch apps should behave.
In its release announcement, Apple names ESPN, Instagram and American Airlines as early partners. The developers guidelines also reveal new details on the hardware itself.
Apple left a lot of questions unanswered when it announced the Apple Watch in September, particularly on the topic of third-party apps. The new guidelines give a much better sense of what it will be like to use the Apple Watch once app developers get on board.
Third-party Apple Watch apps will have a few different modes at their disposal:
'Glances provide quick looks at things like sports scores, stocks and weather. They're non-interactive and must be confined to a single screen, so that users can swipe between Glances from different apps. However, tapping on a Glance can open a full watch app if it exists.
Notifications on the Apple Watch borrow heavily from interactive notifications in iOS 8, letting users take action on emails, social media mentions and other notifications without opening the app itself. Notifications will initially appear in a "short look" preview mode, and they'll go away if the user lowers his or her wrist. More details and interactive options will appear if the user taps on the notification or leaves his or her wrist up.
Full-blown apps allow for deeper interactions as needed. For example, users could open a to-do app to view and dismiss tasks, or open a music app to control playback.
In all cases, Apple emphasises the idea of quick, lightweight interactions. "A Watch app complements your iOS app; it does not replace it," the design guidelines say. "If you measure interactions with your iOS app minutes, you can expect interactions with your Watch app to be measured in seconds."
One other important note: At launch, all Watch apps will required a paired phone to operate. Apple says fully native Watch apps will be available later in the year.
According to Bloomberg, Apple expects that users of the Apple Watch will only spend 10 seconds at a time looking at their smartwatch, to get quick bursts of information rather than spending longer interacting with the device.
The design guidelines also reveal a screen resolution of 240x272 pixels for the 38mm Watch, and 390 x312 pixels for the 42mm watch. Apple says that apps should display the same content for both sizes.
Apple Watch: How many smartwatches will Apple sell?
Even before the Apple Watch launch event there was a lot of speculation about how many Apple Watches the company will sell.
Analysts have made various estimations about how many watches Apple will sell. From claims that a high percentage of existing iPhone users will purchase a watch, to assertions that the Apple Watch may sell fewer than the iPad did because the iPad didn’t require an iPhone, while the Watch does.
Analyst’s Apple Watch sales estimates for 2015 have ranged from 10 million to 60 million. That 60 million figure is a little extreme – to put things in perspective in the first year it was on sale the iPad sold 14.8 million units.
Respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has an excellent track record for Apple predictions, thinks Apple will ship 2.8 million Apple Watch units in the April to June quarter.
The Apple Watch could account for 36% of all Apple’s revenue growth in 2015, according to Evercore analyst Rob Cihra. He forecasts that Apple will ship 18.5 million Apple Watches before the end of the year, and another 22.9 million in 2016.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere has predicted that the launch of the Apple Watch will "mark the tipping point when wearables go from niche to mainstream." He referred to Transparency Market Research, which has predicted that the wearables market could see $20 billion in sales over the next few years.
