Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth's Weekly Web Roundup

Big, beautiful photos of all 22 models of the Apple Watch

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-pictures-of-every-model-version-2015-4



David Pogue reviews the Apple Watch

The Apple Watch: Half Computer, Half Jewelry, Mostly Magical

The Apple watch is many things. It’s a timepiece, a fitness tracker, and a compact billboard for incoming messages, mail, and phone calls. If you have the right credit card and you’re at the right kind of shop, you can pay for things by waving your wrist with it. It runs very, very tiny apps and games.

And, of course, it sells iPhones. You can’t use an Apple Watch without an iPhone, just as you can’t use an Android Wear smartwatch without an Android phone.

Once you get to know the watch, you realize that Apple carefully observed its rivals’ failures and adjusted its product accordingly. 

instead of vibrating like a phone, the Apple Watch taps. When it wants your attention — an alarm, an incoming text or call — it actuallytaps you on the wrist. It’s the wildest, strangest thing. It’s subtle but unmissable.

Apple is right about one thing: You’ll have to charge this thing every night.

This is not, of course, entirely Apple’s problem; no full-color smartwatch lasts more than a day.

The Apple Watch is light-years better than any of the feeble, clunky efforts that have come before it.

You don’t need one. Nobody needs a smart watch.

the Apple Watch is, above all, a satisfying indulgence. It’s a luxury.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/the-apple-watch-half-computer-half-jewelry-115815015484.html



Apple Watch Review: Bliss, but Only After a Steep Learning Curve

It took three days — three long, often confusing and frustrating days — for me to fall for theApple Watch. But once I fell, I fell hard.

It was only on Day 4 that I began appreciating the ways in which the elegant $650 computer on my wrist was more than just another screen. By notifying me of digital events as soon as they happened, and letting me act on them instantly, without having to fumble for my phone, the Watch became something like a natural extension of my body

unlike previous breakthrough Apple products, the Watch’s software requires a learning curve that may deter some people.

If on-body messaging systems become more pervasive, wearable devices can become more than a mere flashy accessory to the phone. The Apple Watch could usher in a transformation of social norms just as profound as those we saw with its brother, the smartphone — except, amazingly, in reverse.

What’s most thrilling about the Apple Watch, unlike other smartwatches I’ve tried, is the way it invests a user with a general sense of empowerment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/technology/personaltech/apple-watch-bliss-but-only-after-a-steep-learning-curve.html?emc=edit_ct_20150409&nl=technology&nlid=11893479



Dear Diary: My Week Wearing an Apple Watch

The Apple Watch also has another, hidden benefit: It is far less immersive than a phone. There just isn’t that much to do on such a tiny screen, so you rarely feel yourself getting sucked in and lost.  (Consider this: The Apple Watch has no web browser).

that, to me, is the biggest difference between this device and a phone. The watch, for now, is all business, aimed solely at improving your productivity. For some users, that alone might be worth several hundred dollars.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/technology/personaltech/dear-diary-my-week-wearing-an-apple-watch.html?emc=edit_ct_20150409&nl=technology&nlid=11893479



Apple Watch sells out, but not because of strong demand

It was actually limited supply.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-watch-sells-out-but-not-because-of-strong-demand-2015-04-10



What it was like inside Apple's flagship store when the Apple Watch launched

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-5th-avenue-store-launch-2015-4



The truth about the Apple Watch

The initial demand for the Apple Watch isn't terribly surprising. Apple's built-in fan base, combined with the company's earned reputation for excellence, guarantees an initial surge of sales.

But after the initial wave of sales, what happens to the watch? Is it the next Newton, or the next iPad for Apple?

The first wave of watch reviews were mixed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-truth-about-the-apple-watch-2015-4



The Apple Watch reviews are (quietly) brutal

once you start getting into the details of what the reviewers say, it's clear: the reviews are brutal.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-reviews-are-bad-2015-4



The Apple Watch is a misunderstood bridge to the future

All in all, it seems like reviewers were confused.

But this could be because the reviewers — and probably the people making apps for the watch, and maybe even Apple itself — are still stuck in the current mindset of how we use computers. Call it the smartphone mindset.

look ahead a couple iterations and think of it this way:

• You walk up to doors — your house, your car, your office, your hotel room — and they automatically unlock.
• You get out of bed and the coffee machine automatically turns on. The lights turn on as you walk around the house.
• Your heartbeat gets irregular or stops for more than a second or two and the watch automatically calls your doctor, an ambulance, and your emergency contact. 

Love it or hate it, this is where personal technology is going.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-here-comes-the-future-2015-4



I’ve been using a smartwatch for months, and the Apple Watch makes mine look like garbage

I think it's worth noting that many reviewers criticisms are criticisms of wearables generally. This is a new way to communicate that lives with you, and it takes getting used to.

The best thing about owning a smartwatch is counterintuitive. You add an extra device to your daily life to make gadgets take up less of your time in general. I choose what notifications I see, I take them in easily, and make a decision of how to react sooner.

Based on what I've learned using my Samsung watch, I can tell the Apple Watch needs to get on people's wrists in order for them to see the real benefit of owning a wearable. I can see it becoming an irresistible device for anyone with an iPhone.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-review-reaction-2015-4



The Apple Watch has a unique signalling ability that will ensure it is a massive success

Apple Watch will be huge, for one obvious reason. Apple has once again launched a product that markets itself through product signaling.A huge part of getting people to buy a new product is to have the product advertise itself by repeatedly signalling its presence to others until it feels like "everyone" around you has one of these things except you.

The genius of all this is that while the Apple Watch is signalling itself and advertising itself all over the world, it will be dragging iPhone sales behind it.

the iPhone has stopped signalling its presence. Everyone has a smartphone now. The iPhone isn't that distinctive anymore.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-apple-watch-and-product-signalling-2015-3



11 surprises I learned about the Apple Watch

http://www.cnet.com/au/news/11-surprises-i-learned-about-the-apple-watch/



Why people will inevitably buy the $17,000 Apple Watch even though it's barely different from the $350 version

Luxury feels good.  It makes you feel special.  It lets you "show off" how rich you are.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-someone-would-spend-thousands-on-apple-watch-2015-4



The trickiest questions Apple will ask in a job interview

http://www.businessinsider.com/trickiest-apple-interview-questions-2015-4



Diagnosing a Syncing Problem With iTunes

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/technology/personaltech/diagnosing-a-syncing-problem-with-itunes.html



Google's Plan to Keep You On-Line All the Time

Google's business only works when people are online. It doesn't care how you get there.

Last month, the company revealed that it will soon offer its own wireless service.

Google wants to move you automatically from its network to whatever offers the best internet on-ramp wherever you happen to be.

.to travel across the US, the UK, Italy, Hong Hong, and Sri Lanka while paying the same fees for calls, text, and data-an attractive option for anyone who's ever carried a phone overseas (vs. phone company "Roaming fees in Europe and Asia can kill you," says Richard Doherty, an analyst with New York-based research firm Envisioneering).

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/googles-plan-keep-online-time/



Leaving Facebook for a couple of months made me realize how you can't escape it

This past winter, I stopped using Facebook for a couple of months.

It's really hard to not be on Facebook.

I used to really like Facebook.

I just realized I wasn't enjoying it anymore, and so I started checking it less until I stopped looking at it at all.

Once I realized I wasn't really looking at Facebook anymore, I challenged myself to see how long I could go.

But it's hard not to be on Facebook.

On Facebook, you're at the center of a network of friends, and friends' friends, and friends' friends' friends. On Twitter, you're just another user.

And so it's with mixed feelings that I report that for better or for worse, Facebook is the glue that's holding large portions of the web together, whether we want it to or not.

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-inescapable-2015-4



Microsoft at 40: How the company has changed, and stayed the same

The company's original goal was, "A computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software."

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/microsoft-at-40-how-the-companys-goal-has-changed-and-stayed-the-same/



7 easy ways to avoid being hacked

One of them is "Be wary of the Cloud".

Here's a good rule of thumb — if you don’t want people to access your information, don’t share it. This includes cloud storage. No matter how secure a platform says it is, you ought to keep in mind that you’re giving it to someone else to watch over.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-avoid-being-hacked-2015-4