After many months of deliberation, Apple plans to confirm details about its upcoming gadgets. Apple announced on Thursday that it would be hosting a media event on March 9 at San Fransisco's Yerba Buena Center For the Arts. The event's tagline is "Spring forward," a clear reference to the month, and probably to the Apple Watch as well.
Most tech analysts expect Apple CEO Tim Cook to reveal more details about the Apple Watch, including final pricing schemes, release dates and hopefully an updated demo. However, that isn't the only possible gadget that Apple could talk about. There are also rumors that Apple could release a new Macbook Air, or that the press could get a look at Apple's to-be-announced redesign of the Beats music streaming service.
At this point, we don't have a lot of new information about the Apple Watch. We know that Apple plans to release three variations: The Apple Watch, The Apple Watch Sport and the Apple Watch Edition. The watch will come in two different sizes and will require a connected iPhone in order to work. The watch will come in gold, stainless steel and aluminum casings and will have up to six different watch straps. The screens will use either an ion-strengthened or flexible sapphire display, an HD Retina screen, an built-in NFC chip for enacting Apple Pay transactions, and sensors for tracking various aspects of the user's health.
The Apple Watch will act as an accessory, not an independent device. Users will be required to own an iPhone of some sort in order to operate the Apple Watch.
The device will use what Apple calls a "digital crown" located on the side of the phone that will let users zoom, scroll and access elements of the Apple Watch UI. The crown will also act as a "home" button. The Apple Watch will also use pressure-sensing tech that can determine the level of pressure applied and translate the touch into an contextually appropriate command.
While we do know a lot about the features above, we're missing a lot of other details about the Apple Watch. For example, what is the expected battery life? What is the price range? What kind of accessories will the device be compatible with? We can only hope that Apple will answer these questions on March 9.
