5 Great Things Apple Watch Apps Will Be Able To Do In watchOS 2.
The WWDC keynote has come and gone, and along with it the inevitable adrenaline rush of new products, followed by the let-down as we come to grips with all the products that Apple didn’t show off. Apple famously keeps info about upcoming products locked down on a need-to-know basis, but that doesn’t mean it waits until hardware is fully-formed before creating software for it.Walgreens , recognizing in the Apple Watch’s form factor a perfect device to house tidbits of personalized information, has updated its iOS app to make it easier for consumers to manage their medication schedules from their wrists.The Apple Watch is set to become almost an entirely new device with the introduction of watchOS 2 this fall, but the changes set to arrive with the update seem like they’ll have extreme benefits for one group in particular: podcast aficionados, and podcasters themselves.
Of course, it’s impossible for the folks at Cupertino to announce everything that’s been rumored—there simply isn’t enough time in the day, for one thing. Walgreens , the giant drug retailer and U.S. partner of the Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., is but one of many companies trying to figure out just what to do with the Apple Watch. But as the dust settles, I found myself thinking about a few things that either didn’t make the cut, or perhaps still aren’t even on Apple’s agenda. The company begin experimenting with crafting Watch software in November, after Apple Inc. launched a special software development kit for its wearable. Two ways: support for local, long-form audio playback, and support for audio recording – including high-quality audio recording that could be suitable for use in content designed for a listening audience.
First, Walgreens developers had to throw out rules they had followed building software just for the iPhone, Nick Eby, lead iOS engineer for its mobile innovation program, told CIO Journal’s Clint Boulton. This means you’ll be able to do things like get concert or conference tickets via notifications from Watch apps and add them to your Wallet immediately, without any intervening step on your phone. After my experiences with the Amazon Echo, I’ve been hoping for a Siri that is always-on, able to take my voice requests no matter where I am in the house. Essentially, Apple thinks about the early stages of prototyping as a process best accomplished with as little investment of time and resources as possible, and as something you can do with very limited access to things like physical or software prototypes.
Long-form audio only outputs to a connected Bluetooth speaker, headset or pair of headphones connected to your Apple Watch, and never to the built-in speaker. Instead, the approach involves faking as many aspects of the device or app being created as possible, in order to help you learn as much as possible about how best to build either before you start committing actual resources to the project. After connecting with the Pill Reminders feature inside the Walgreens iPhone app, the Watch software will notify consumers to take their medication, and allow them to mark a medication as taken or skipped. That’s a sensible decision on Apple’s part, since it’s unlikely many people would even want to listen to longer content on the Watch’s tiny speaker, and even if they did, they should be prevented from doing so in the interest of those around them. So, for example, if you’re building an app for an Apple Watch that doesn’t even exist yet, you would start with a series of static images, and fake interactivity using basic animations in an app like Keynote, without any programming involved at all.
But it’s also now available without your iPhone present, which is great for runs, walks and other temporary outings where the distraction or burden of carrying a phone isn’t wanted. It’s another thing that we take for granted on the phone, but that might make the Watch more flexible and capable as a true ‘Dick Tracy’ device. The fact that an application can offer long-form audio in the background is key, because that means it can run while you’re using a workout app, or that you can use it in tandem with other content provided by the app offering the audio itself; imagine scrollable show notes, or occasional image assets that might supplement a feed, visible while the show is running.
For example, though it wouldn’t take much to have a Mac always listening for a “Hey Siri” prompt, Macs lack the seven-microphone array that makes Echo’s voice recognition so impressive. Walgreens staff visited Apple to seek advice. “Our underlying principle was: What would be the features that would increase convenience for our customers, reduce friction, and help them stay more adherent with their medications?” said Kartik Subramanian, Walgreen’s director of product management. The key to this early phase is that while you fake much of the mechanics and programming behind the app and the hardware it’s going to run on, you make the experience of using it as real as possible – which means using it in situation where the device will be used, and seeking the help of people who’ll actually be using it.
You can now reply to notifications from third-party Watch apps the way you could to text messages in watchOS 1, but a key detail with this feature is that developers can define the pre-set, canned responses on an app-by-app basis. The idea between getting as close as possible to real-world context is that you’ll learn things about how both hardware and software need to change that will influence product design, before you even produce any kind of physical prototype or code a single line. Apple has anticipated Watch uses beyond simple voice memos and messages with watchOS 2 recording powers; there are three distinct audio quality choices developers can use when capturing recorded content, including a high quality version that will probably provide serviceable raw material for podcast recording in a pinch.
Over on iOS 9, Siri has become more than just a pretty voice; Apple says the technology “powers” the intelligent search options that it showed off during the keynote, as well as the proactive capabilities that let iOS figure out what information you might want. This is where reflexivity enters the process; already, what you’re doing is influencing design of both software and hardware, and changes to one are prompting changes to the other, and neither thing actually even exists yet. Where iPhone users were accustomed to spending several minutes on apps, Walgreens assumed Apple Watch features had to be optimized for quicker tasks, such as viewing medicine alerts or other notifications. “It was completely new to us,” Mr. Some of those features have made their way to El Capitan as well, though not under the rubric of “Siri.” But that could mean we’re one step closer to getting a voice-based assistant on our Macs as well. Approaching it this way keeps the process cost-efficient, and more importantly, extremely flexible and easier to axe or dramatically change at any stage in the process.
Of course, things like long-form audio have other potential benefits, including for audiobook applications, and recording as ample other uses, most of which will probably be much more popular. While the lack of the former didn’t surprise me—those content deals take a long time to iron out—I was disappointed that the latter didn’t come to pass.
The company plans to place server “pods” in co-location centers around the world, helping the online marketplace serve up dynamic content to users faster. “We’re looking at what we’re calling ‘pushing data to the edge,’” John Allspaw, the company’s senior vice president for infrastructure and operations, tells CIO Journal. Both internally, and externally with third-party developers, it’s crucial that Apple be ready with high-quality software experiences when its new devices have their initial launch, but not everyone building for these platforms has the luxury of working with final products, be they devices or apps. Milan Patel, former chief technology officer at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cyber division, has joined consulting firm K2 Intelligence as a managing director. These involve building your fake app or product, testing it with real users and gathering feedback, and then taking said feedback to inform the next version. The second-generation Apple TV debuted in 2010, and its third-party “apps” are still limited to the blessed few channels that mysteriously appear from time to time.
But the key ingredient is not actually doing any of the heavy lifting of coding, building functional hardware or networking devices until it’s actually required to advance the process; hardware can be simulated via software, and creative workarounds including hiding manual process as automated ones can take the place of building a proper programming layer. We’ll have to wait and see how pleasant this actually is to use in practice, but it will probably have a lot of media properties experimenting, given the current appetite for video content among online media companies today. Patel helped develop the first national cyber incident severity scheme, which outlines how and when the U.S. government will respond and coordinate during cyber incidents inside the country.
Eby said that because the Watch appears much larger in the software simulations used to test software, Walgreens opted to wait until the hardware became available to ensure that its app worked on the hardware. There are already some breadcrumbs that suggest that an Apple TV SDK isn’t too far off, and it can’t come soon enough, but a new set-top box is at the top of my list. In recent months I’ve switched much of my video consumption to the Fire TV, thanks to its support for services like Plex, its snappy performance, and features like voice search. Technology’s increased role in business has led to firms adding new IT-management roles, many with overlapping areas of focus and turf. “The resulting lack of collaboration can set back an organization for years,” CIO Journal Columnist Thomas H.
Davenport writes. “Now might be a good time for a moratorium on new CxO titles until we figure out how they all relate to each other.” Box posts stronger-than-expected results. A positive earnings report fueled Box Inc.’s arguments that its closely watched business model is starting to work, the WSJ’s Robert McMillan reports. But once Walgreens acquired the actual device, it realized that it wouldn’t work, due to limitations with the display’s brightness and the optical scanners within its stores.
In watchOS 2, Apple’s making those even more powerful by allowing third-party developers to have their own apps supply those complications on the watchface. The online file-storage provider, in its second-ever quarterly earnings report, raised its revenue guidance for the year by $5 million, saying it closed more corporate deals and boosted its base of paying customers. Box has more than 37 million registered users, but most don’t pay for the company’s services France says evidence suggests Russians hacked broadcaster.
French investigators suspect a group of Russian hackers posing as Islamic State militants were behind an April attack that crippled a French-language TV broadcaster, the WSJ’s Sam Schechner reports. Walgreens says it’s crucial to make sure it has a working knowledge of how to build Watch software at a time when customers are increasingly using the latest mobile devices and applications to browse and shop for goods. “I think the onus falls on companies like us to provide the right experience at that right mobile moment to them, on the appropriate device and the appropriate form factor,” Mr. When it comes to fashion, Apple is betting that there are enough people in the world like the fashionistas you cover — people who will pay for design and logos, who don’t mind being identified by products that define them. A group calling itself “CyberCaliphate” took control of computer systems at the Paris headquarters of TV5Monde on April 8, but investigators said they now think the true hackers were just misdirecting.
Researchers at security firm Kaspsersky Lab ZAO say they have traced spyware found in their offices to computers at three luxury European hotels that were the sight of closed-door talks between the U.S. and Iran in March 2014. Researchers say the spyware, an improved version of Duqu, may have provided intruders the ability to eavesdrop on conversations and steal electronic files by commandeering the hotel systems that connect to computers, phones, elevators and alarms. It can be annoying to set up and maintain for developers, they only display in very limited ways, and they can very quickly turn into a barrage for the user who doesn’t carefully manage them. I’m glad to see the company address the iPad’s vision problem, interested in whether Apple Music will finally convince me to pay for a streaming service, and intrigued to try iOS 9’s many new features.
As you say, the problem was in the gap between what was dangled — the “most personal product yet,” sold at elite fashion boutiques everywhere and introduced during fashion week — and what was in reality a product that seemed more about Apple than about me. The hardware, a plus-sized tablet designed to work with the upcoming Windows 10 OS and Xbox technologies such as the Kinect motion controller, will go up against traditional corporate AV setsups, including those from Cisco Systems Inc., says the WSJ’s Shira Ovide. But a $20,000 device seems at odds with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s stated mission to “zero in on the things customers really value, and Microsoft can uniquely deliver,” as he put it on an earnings call last year. And on another note, do you agree with one of the suggestions I’ve heard that this may get more nonwatch-wearing teenagers back in the habit, and hence be good for the traditional watch industry?
Wired reports on the Google Inc. effort to open source Borg, “the sweeping software tool that drives everything from Google Search to Gmail to Google Maps, letting the company carefully parcel computing tasks across that global network.” The effort was approved partly to encourage developers to support the company’s cloud service business. Several U.S. and European venture capital funds and angel investors have begun talking to Iranian tech entrepreneurs ahead of a potential final nuclear deal later this month, the Journal’s Friedrich Geiger and Rory Jones report. In the tech-inclined population of 80 million “there is potential unlike anything I’ve seen to date in emerging markets,” says Chris Schroeder, a U.S.-based angel investor.
And because I don’t have anything to compare it to, it doesn’t really bother me that the screen only engages when I tilt my wrist toward my face, Dick Tracy style. I know I sound like a rube, but I suspect this is how most teenagers and other nonwatch-wearers will encounter this gadget: genuinely amazed at a device that tells time rather than bummed that it isn’t always on, like a Timex. No huge news in and of itself, but analysts say the agreement hints at wariness, on the part of JDA’s retail industry customers, of any connection to Amazon Web Services. Changes planned for iOS 9 include content blocking extensions for the mobile version of its Safari Web browser that will let users block online advertising, the Financial Times reports. In addition to learning the time, I use it a great deal to find my phone (you tap a button, it gets your phone ringing — so handy!) and to peruse my coming calendar entries.
The still-vague initiative will target “cost of living, efficient transportation and energy usage,” among the issues facing the world’s 3.5 billion city dwellers. Electricity, phone bills and tax returns have all made steady progress toward online transactions, but America’s $2.9 trillion medical industry remains stubbornly addicted to paper, Bloomberg reports.
Many doctors aren’t signed up to receive electronic transfers, and hospitals, medical offices and insurance companies still require an army of workers to push all that paper and cash all of those checks. The high-end watch and the smartwatch fulfill different functions — arrival and insiderness versus broadly accessible techiness — and despite what you say about split attention, I actually can imagine them coexisting in a watch wardrobe (yes, that’s what we call it) pretty happily. With a young, increasingly busy and mobile audience, the allure of the dating app business can be intoxicating—and the market is big, the WSJ’s Georgia Wells reports. But I also admit that more useful than said old-fashioned watch would be an elegant accessory on my wrist that would alert me to an important call, text or email. It would give me enormous peace of mind without causing concern that I am offending my companions or colleagues with obvious phone-checking maneuvers.
I do have a friend, however, who just emailed me to tell me that he excitedly got his watch on Day 1 of deliveries, only to get so annoyed by the constant need to charge it, wake it up and calibrate the buzzing, that he sold it on Craigslist for a big profit. German auto maker BMW AG showed its new 7-series sedan, a $113,000 and up model packed with electronics such as remote-control parking that offers a glimpse into how technology is challenging horsepower, the WSJ’s William Boston reports. Traditional car manufacturers face new competition from startups like Tesla Motors Inc., and Silicon Valley stars including Apple Inc. and Google Inc. are also edging into the business. The challenge for Germany’s premium-brand manufacturers is to maintain their technology lead even as the race shifts away from the gearbox to information technology. The dispute started when ADP blocked Zenefits, which offers access to human-resources software, from accessing its payroll information on behalf of the startup’s customers.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is raising concerns over new policies from eBay Inc. and its payments subsidiary PayPal that may give the firms leeway to blast users with so-called robocalls, the WSJ’s Greg Bensinger reports. In separate letters Wednesday, the attorney general’s office sought more information about the policies, which are part of eBay and PayPal’s new user agreements, which would give eBay and PayPal the right to use “autodialed or prerecorded calls and text messages” to collect debts, or send surveys or promotions. Maybe in 10 years, when smartwatches will be capable of actually changing time, some tech billionaire will pay $50,000 for a vintage 2015 model as part of a charity auction.
Warren, a Senate Banking Committee member, has won popular support and gained influence in her party by openly challenging the size of large lenders and their political power. Chief economics commentator Greg Ip looks at why Greece, even if it avoids default at the end of June, is likely to continue struggling. “Blame that not just on the burden of managing its debt, now nearly 180% of gross domestic product, but on a fundamentally different economy: its export sector is small, undiversified and deeply uncompetitive.” The Morning Download comes from the editors of CIO Journal and cues up the most important news in business technology every weekday morning.