With WWDC still underway, there’s a lot more news than what made it in yesterday’s article. First and foremost, Apple announced watchOS 2.0, which will bring native applications to the platform, as well as a feature called Time Travel that works much the same way as the timeline UI on the new Pebbles. It allows you to scroll into the future to see the upcoming appointments, the weather, and so on.
Apple is also merging its various developer programs. Instead of having to buy access to iOS and OS X separately, a single $99 fee will now net you access to iOS, OS X, and watchOS. Tangentially related: CarPlay now allows car makers to create applications that expand what CarPlay can do; e.g. control the climate control, radio, and other in-car features.
Apple also announced its new music streaming service, called Apple Music, which will be available for iOS, Windows, and Android. Speaking of Android – Apple has also made an Android application to help switchers move from Android to iOS.
The phrase “complication” is borrowed from watch horology, meaning some function that’s unrelated to the basic three functions of the watch, telling the hour, minute, and second. So things like stopwatches, day/date/month displays, moon phase displays, mainspring reserve power, spelling out the time with a series of chimes, that kind of thing. For a mechanical watch, you’re cramming in more and more functions into an increasingly small case, so more is more difficult and considered by some to be more admirable.
If you want to see the ultimate example of pre-computer watch design, the Graves Supercomplication is worth reading up on, with 22 functions on both the front and back of the watch.
I think I woke up in an alternate universe. Hope their Android software is better than, say, iTunes for Windows.
Well, it’s not like Apple would let all those Beats customers on Android go and not take their money.
That’s unpossible. Itunes is the best windows app!!!
http://www.zdnet.com/article/remembering-steve-jobs-launching-itune…
WatchOS 2 was a very interesting announcement. In normal Apple fashion, the AppleWatch was introduced to market with VERY limited functionality, just the basics with apps having to remain on the associated iPhone, etc. With WatchOS 2, the device will be broken open so that apps can be natively installed onto the watch, video capability will be allowed, and all sorts of “left-out” functions will be enabled. I really look forward to what comes from developers. Battery life will be a huge factor for sure, we will see what happens.
easy prediction, but nothing about better sound quality anywhere in that announcement, as i predicted.
apple still will not sell lossless music. apple bothers to accept 24bit files in their store but they won’t sell them. they won’t even sell 16/44 files. they will only sell lossy files, and of course they will only stream lossy files too.
or translated, you can deliver songs to apple at 4000k bitrate but they won’t sell them. even is you deliver CD-quality (1400k) they won’t sell anything bigger than 320k, even in 2015.
it’s a shame. the late steve jobs admitted even he couldn’t believe how popular the iPod and mp3 files got, how convenience so clearly won over quality in this regard.
i’ve moved on and have listened to my iPhone for about an hour since getting a ponoplayer last year. but i wish apple would lead here and bring back high quality music playback to the mainstream.
Slight correction, even the lossy files are 16/44 they’re just not 16/44 lossless.
true but if you are talking lossy there’s not much point in explaining the theoretical limit of the format, it’s compressed to high-hell.
that’s why i’ve preferred switching to actual bitrate of the file, ala MP3, since that’s the modern nomenclature.
in 1999 i had a lot of 192k digital music files
by 2006 half of them were 256k
by 2010 many of them were 320k
then i realized in 1999 i actually had a lot of 1400k digital music files, i just had to crush them to fit 1999 devices and networks.
now that i’ve discovered what bitrates of 2000k-4000k sound like when played on a proper device, i only buy those, and am encouraging every artist and label with things on tape to go back and reconvert at 24/192, or should i say at 4000k.
I bet if audio used simpler terminology people would undertand this.
320k > 192k. everyone seems to agree on that.
4000k > 320k. this one seems to give people trouble, i just don’t get it.
would 8000k sound better? i don’t know, mathematically it should, but there’s limits of the instrument, the recording rig, and the mix to need even more bandwidth. i doubt stereo music can get much better than what i’m hearing at 4000k bitrate.
Edited 2015-06-10 22:08 UTC