There’s a bunch of little pieces in the news about the Apple Watch, none of them really worth their own abstract. So we’re pulling them all into one briefing:
— Two hospitals will be experimenting with Apple’s HealthKit software, coming at the end of this week in iOS8. Stanford University Hospital is working with Apple on bloodlessly measuring glucose levels. And Duke University is incorporating HealthKit to track blood pressure, weight and other measurement into its treatment of cancer and heart disease.
— Jean-Claude Biver, who heads the watch division of luxury brand LVMH, told the German newspaper Die Welt that the Apple Watch won’t be successful because it looks too feminine:
“To be totally honest, it looks like it was designed by a student in their first trimester,” added Mr Biver, who heads up the brands Tag Heuer, Zenith and Hublot. Mr Biver predicted the much-anticipated device, with its square face and curved edges, would soon be outdated.
Biver has no known experience creating consumer electronics.
— Techhive carries a very even-handed comparison of the Apple Watch and Android Wear, based on the very little we know (and the somewhat more we can surmise) about the Apple device.
— The Connecticut Attorney General got a cheap headline wondering aloud about Apple’s privacy in light of its handling health-related data.
— The NFC chip on the iPhone 6 will apparently be restricted to working with Apple Pay, at least at the start. In the Apple Watch demo last week, CEO Tim Cook talked about a pilot program with Starwood in which the Watch’s NFC chip would be able to unlock room doors. The Cult of Mac points out that any limitation on the NFC chip is software-driven, so it appears that the restriction will be lifted after some pilot projects.
