Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth's Weekly Web Wrap-Up

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: Apple Watch Edition

The Watch has major in-practice downsides though, the mother of which I'll call The Douchebag Factor. By virtue of the product's newness, and its cost, it's hard to wear the Apple Watch in public without feeling like that girl, the designer-handbag girl, the "I spent $400 to read my texts three seconds sooner" girl.

The Douchebag Factor is equally prominent in social settings ...... the Apple Watch inherently combines two of the rudest things you can do among friends-check your watch and look at your phone-and suggests that you do them incessantly. 

On the other hand, the Watch does have a trifecta of major selling points:
First ...... the integration on the watch is pretty well done.
Second, Apple Pay.  The ease with which the Watch works at participating retailers is almost surreal.
Finally, the Apple TV remote.

http://www.newsweek.com/how-lose-friends-and-alienate-people-apple-watch-edition-331213



After 3 weeks of using an iPhone, I'll never use Android again

http://www.businessinsider.com/switching-to-iphone-from-android-2015-5



Kahney’s Korner: Cultmaster lays down an Apple Watch rant

Pretty good video.

http://www.cultofmac.com/322719/kahneys-korner-apple-watch-rant/



The little red dot that saved me from my iPhone

seeing Apple’s ads for the Watch and actually experiencing the Watch are night and day — you really cannot appreciate what Apple has done here until you try it yourself.

Until I got the Apple Watch, I wasn’t aware of how important notifications were to me.

Interestingly, all it took to make me realize that was a tiny red dot.

When you look at the Apple Watch display, a tiny red dot can be seen at the top of the screen if you have any missed notifications.

http://bgr.com/2015/05/13/apple-watch-review-zae-pt-1/



apps are by far the most infuriating thing about the Apple Watch.

The first major problem with Apple Watch apps: Developers don’t yet know what to do with it.

the Apple Watch shouldn’t be a receptacle for bits and pieces of an iPhone app.

There are new and novel ways that apps can enhance the Apple Watch experience. Developers just haven’t found them yet.

But there’s another big problem with apps, and this time it’s Apple’s fault. Opening apps is ridiculously, horribly, painfully slow on the Watch, and it completely ruins the experience in the moment.

http://bgr.com/2015/05/15/apple-watch-review-zae-pt-2/



What's weird about the Apple Watch is how surprisingly unintuitive it is to use for before you learn how everything works.

Another strange thing about the Apple Watch is as a watch, it's really not great. Wearing watches all my life, I've grown incredibly used to just quickly glancing down and seeing what time it is. On a traditional watch, the time is always there, and you really don't realize how nice that is until you've got a device strapped to your wrist that requires a tap or a gesture to simply tell you what time it is. Worse yet, the gesture you need to do to make the Apple Watch turn on is very much the international sign for "You're really boring me, I've got somewhere else to be."

Getting a notification on the Pebble is a wholly different experience. An alert will get pushed out, and it'll just live on the screen of your Pebble until you have a chance to glance down and look at it on the persistent e-Ink screen. Using a Pebble feels like using a watch that does extra stuff.

Nearly all of the third party apps I've tried very much feel like they were obviously developed without really knowing how people were going to use the Apple Watch.

http://toucharcade.com/2015/05/15/the-apple-watch-review-week-1/



Security v convenience: Apple Watch's 'security flaw' is actually a feature

A security flaw has been revealed on the Apple Watch which means thieves can easily bypass the passcode on a stolen smart watch.

However, it's emerged that the ability to wipe the Apple Watch without knowing the passcode is a built-in feature of the smartwatch.

The Apple support site actually offers details for wiping your Apple Watch in case of forgetting the security code.

https://www.wareable.com/apple-watch/security-v-convenience-apple-watchs-security-flaw-is-actually-a-feature-1144



These old Apple devices are about to become obsolete

Apple has released a list of devices that will stop receiving repair and parts service in Apple Stores on June 9.

Apple considers devices that have been out of production for seven years “obsolete”.  This means that they will neither fix them themselves nor send out parts.

http://www.cultofmac.com/322908/these-old-apple-devices-are-about-to-become-obsolete/



My favorite Apple Watch apps this week include CloudMagic, Slack and Amazon

Wearing my Apple Watch throughout the day, I have noticed which apps I go to the most and which are just plain convenient to have nearby.

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2015/05/my-favorite-apple-watch-apps-this-week-include-cloudmagic-slack-and-amazon



Control Your Own Robot Army With The Tip Of Your Finger

How would you like your own army of tiny robots that you could control simply by swiping on a tablet? Thanks to Georgia Tech researchers, that robot army now exists.

Another example is using the robots for agriculture. Because the technology is simple to use, any farmer could use the robots to consistently check on crops without having to physically walk down each field, speeding up the process.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/52512/20150512/control-your-own-robot-army-with-the-tip-of-your-finger.htm

http://news.sciencemag.org/sifter/2015/05/watch-how-to-control-a-robot-fleet-using-a-smart-tablet



As a technology-law blogger, I monitor emerging developments in information technology. What's hot in IT today? Any short list would have to include social media, mobile, wearable technology, the Internet of Things, cloud computing and Big Data.

Here's my theory: They all reflect the ceaseless drive by businesses to collect, store and exploit ever more data about their customers. In short, those technologies are ultimately about selling more stuff to us.

With this unifying theory in mind, one sees how seemingly disparate technologies complement one another.

In the past, serious limitations existed on the ability of marketers to track our preferences. We might have given our name, e-mail and home address to a website; now, with social media, we routinely volunteer loads of personal information: our jobs, hobbies, special skills, taste in music or comedians, influencers, even our "relationship status." As a result, successful social-media companies have compiled huge databases about us - in Facebook's FB, -0.78% case, nearly 1.4 billion of us.

So that's my theory: The adoption of leading-edge technology is being driven in large part by the insatiable desire for businesses to gather and store ever-larger amounts of consumer data, and then use that data to more successfully market back to us.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heree-my-grand-unifying-theory-of-todays-tech-trends-2015-05-12



Google confirmed it had granted more than 40 percent of right to be forgotten requests.

Not surprisingly, three out of the top ten websites removed from the search engines were hosted by social networking sites where anyone can post about anything, including information that could harm other individuals. Most links removed were hosted by Facebook.

http://stgist.com/2015/05/google-accepted-more-than-40-percent-of-right-to-be-forgotten-requests-3144



Meet HeartMob: A Tool For Fighting Online Harassment Designed By People Who Have Been Harassed

http://www.fastcompany.com/3046181/tech-forecast/meet-heartmob-a-tool-for-fighting-online-harassment-designed-by-people-who-hav