Apple Watch pricing, the lightest MacBook ever and ResearchKit: Everything that Apple just announced
Everything you need to know about today's Apple announcements.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Aaaand we're back at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a favorite venue for Apple's announcements, after the more intimate setting of its headquarters for the iPad and company announcements last December. Today the company filled us in on pricing and availability of its new Apple Watch, a brand-new lightest-ever MacBook and a mighty interesting offshoot of HealthKit called ResearchKit.
Of course, there were the requisite numbers to impress the analysts. TL;DR: Growth everywhere, including expanded Apple Pay support, and every major car manufacturer is now committed to delivering CarPlay .
Apple TV finally gets HBO in the form of a standalone streaming service, HBO Now. It will work with any Apple device, not just Apple TV. You'll be able to get it in early April for $14.99 a month. It also lowered the price on Apple TV to $69 (£59 in the UK and AU$109 in Australia). Plus, it heralded the news with a "="" trailer"="" shortcode="link" asset-type="article" uuid="3ea253e3-732f-4568-b261-11c3991dd103" slug="new-game-of-thrones-trailer-crashes-apple-watch-event" link-text="" section="news" title="New 'Game of Thrones' trailer crashes Apple Watch event" edition="us" data-key="link_bulk_key"> .
Here are our highlights of the event -- or all our videos, if you prefer.
Apple Watch
Of course the big news -- albeit expected from an event named "spring forward" -- are the details on the pricing and availability for the Apple Watch initially announced at Apple's iPhone 6 event in the fall of 2014. Apple trotted out Christy Turlington Burns as the celebrity endorser, the duties of which include a weekly blog on Apple.com.
And yes, its high-end Watch Edition will cost you $10,000/£8,000/AU$14,000 -- to start. With 18K gold, in limited quantities, available in select retail stores. Preorders start April 10, and you can see them in stores then, and they will ship April 24. Only in select countries, though.
You can direct connect to other Apple Watches through Digital Touch, which will let you send sketches and heartbeats, and customize the watch faces. Since the WatchKit rollout in November, thousands of Watch apps have been developed. Lots of time was spent recapping the myriad things you can do with the watch and how easy it is to use. The company says the battery will last 18 hours.
We also heard about new partnerships for Watch apps. You download Watch apps via the iPhone, in a dedicated app store, which are available in iOS 8.2 -- available today.
Do you agree that " With Apple Watch, wearable tech may finally start living up to the hype"?
Today's surprise: MacBook 2015
You thought the Air was thin? Apple reinvented its lightest model. Get ready for the MacBook 2015 (oh, that name isn't going to confuse anyone). It weighs 2 pounds and is 13.1mm thick. It's got an all-metal enclosure, edge-to-edge, reengineered keyboard, an 0.88mm 12-inch Retina Display -- unfortunately at a nonstandard 2,304x1,440 pixels. It uses 30 percent less energy, though. There's a new touchpad, called the Force Touch trackpad with a glass multitouch surface that uses tap feedback (its Taptic engine) rather than clicking and can use pressure -- Force Click -- for control.
Apple's new 12-inch MacBook has Force Touch trackpad and USB-C port (pictures)
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It's the first fanless MacBook, but to do that Apple had to use an Intel Core M fifth-generation 1.3GHz CPU and a smaller, denser logic board. Then it filled the rest of the unibody with batteries, and Bluetooth and 802.11ac. But Apple expects it to have no wires; it has a new single USB-C connector that supports everything. You'll see it in silver, space gray and gold. With 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD, it starts at $1,299 and will be available April 10. For the UK and Australia, prices are £1,049 and AU$1,799 for the entry model and £1,299 or AU$2,199 for the upgraded version.
As we expected, there were performance upgrades to other MacBooks. You can get the full scoop here.
A new 'Kit: ResearchKit
HealthKit has seen uptake in medical research, prompting Apple to coordinate with tons of big players in that community to develop ResearchKit, a really interesting open-source HealthKit offshoot designed to help solve communications issues. Researchers can create apps that turn an iPhone into a diagnostic tool that can send data back to researchers. And before you ask, Apple claims it doesn't see your data. It's going to be released next month.
See CNET's archived live blog, and check out our complete coverage of the Apple event. Then vote: What's the best news out of Monday's Apple Watch event?