Apple's official Spring Forward event happens March 9
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What's up?
Brian Tong here, and welcome to the applebyte for everything you wanna know, good and bad, inside the world of Apple.
Let's get to the show.
And Apple sent out it's official invite for it's next event on March ninth in San Francisco at 10 a.m.
Pacific.
There's still a lot more we don't know about the Apple watch that's expected to release in April but the Spring Forward event could also see the launch of the 12 inch Retina MacBook Air or refreshes of the MacBook Air line.
and possibly some news about their Beats music service.
We'll find out soon but if you look closely at the invite.
I think they might be releasing something with colorful leaves.
Tim Cook is on a global tour right now, making stops in Germany and Israel, and according to French website iGen, Cook told an employee at the Berlin Apple Store that he wears his Apple Watch all the time, even in the shower.
Now, remember when he said this.
It's a new.
Innovative, intimate way to communicate directly from your wrist.
Yeah, he wasn't kidding.
Now Apple's already claimed the S1 chip inside the watch is completely encapsulated in resin to protect it from the elements, so look for showerproof to be added as one of the key bullet points sometime soon.
Cook.
Also, Phil said he charges the Apple watch every night.
Now, a lot of people are still obsessed with how expensive the watch might be.
And if Apple is smart, they shouldn't reveal anything until the absolute last moment, now that it's become such a big deal.
Daring Fireball's John Gruber recently asked his Apple contacts if the $5,000 mark was too high.
They all responded with a confident no.
So, now he' flirting with the idea of a $10,000 watch and you add on a specific band or bracelet he says it could hit even 20,000 grand.
All this for a first gen watch that will last about a year and a half before the next gen.
And if there's any watch Cooper [INAUDIBLE] should be paying attention to it's the newest Pebble Time watch.
With a color e-ink screen and a battery that will last roughly seven days.
Now, they just put it up on Kickstarter, and it will retail for 199.
And, in case you're wondering, in two days, it's already past the nine $10 million dollar mark at the start of this shoot.
All right, in Apple Pay news if everything goes to plan, our European Apple biters will be able to use this service this year after Visa announced it's payment terminals will support.
Apple Pay's token-enabled system by mid-April.
There are still a lot of steps that need to happen.
Apple doesn't really seem to be in a hurry, and during Cook's tour, he said the company's goal is to have it running by the end of the year.
In better news, Apple is planning to launch Apple pay for my friends north of the boarder in Canada as soon as March.
Alright Apple recently released the latest OS 10, 10.10.3 prerelease and the newest beta for IOS 8.3 this week.
OS 10 gets an update to the photos app, while the IOS beta gets a new version for the Apple TV OS as well.
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But, the biggest update is the addition of new emojis.
See, Apple delivered on their promise and is finally bringing racially diverse character sets, which let's you pick from various skin tones on several different characters.
Finally, a darker skin Chinese guy can be represented by emojis.
And I, personally, thank you for that.
Now 32 new country flags are also part of it.
And Apple has changed the watch emoji to, duh, the Apple Watch.
The phone is now an iPhone 6 and the computer is an iMac.
Now also people are wondering what's up with the default super bright, yellow faces.
Asian people aren't actually that yellow, but it actually has to do with the standards created by the [UNKNOWN] Consortium for how different characters appear on different platforms.
Ultimately, it's up to the specific platform to choose the picture.
So, that default yellow Lego color is the same as the default yellow for a smiley.
So, people, you don't have to get all crazy about it.
But we finally have diverse Emojies.
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All right, in the quick bytes, Bloomberg reports that Apple is aiming to start their electric car production sometime in 2020 and pushing employees to have it ready to compete with similar cars by Tesla and GM coming out in 2017.
Again, Apple could delay or completely kill this project.
But if they need any motivation, the best quote this week comes from Mercedes-Benz chairman.
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Dieter Zetsche.
He says, "If there were a rumor that Mercedes or Daimler planned to start building smartphones then they, being Apple, would not be sleepless at night.
And the same applies to me." You know what, we will check back and see how he feels in five years.
And this Friday, the movie Focus, between Will Smith.
And Margot Robbie will be one of the first Hollywood films edited entirely using Final Cut ProX.
The directors said FCPX saved them time by automatically organizing their footage while edits were done on location with a Macbook Pro.
Now the entire project involved 61 days of shooting, 145 hours of footage, 11 months of editing.
With 117 scenes being edited at full resolution.
All right that's gonna do it for this week, I'll be out of town next week, but if you guys and gals are on your best behavior I'll pump out a show for you next time.
You can always email us at theapplebyte@cnet,com or tweet me @briantong, thanks so much for watching and we'll catch you next time for another bite of the apple.
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