Apple Watch is real, iPhone 6 coming September 19

by Blaine Kyllo on September 9th, 2014 at 1:45 PM

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Long rumoured, Apple’s Watch is a real thing, but it’s not called an “iWatch”. And while it won’t be available until next year, Apple announced the existence of the gadget you wear on your wrist at a media event in San Francisco today (September 9).

Apple Watch is designed to work with iPhones (series 5 and 6 running iOS 8, an update rolling out on September 17), so it will display notifications and messages, and is voice activated, so you can dictate notes and take calls. It can also “hand off” calls to your iPhone mid-conversation.

The Apple Watch comes in three flavours.

Tim Cook, the company’s CEO, called the gadget “the most personal product we’ve ever made”, and the watch comes in an array of colours, with a variety of straps, and in three models: the entry level Apple Watch, the sporty Apple Watch Sport, and the fashionable Apple Watch Edition.

The new Watch is also key to Apple’s foray into health and fitness hardware and software. Apple Watch has motion sensing capabilities and a heart rate monitor, and tracks calories burned, the amount of “brisk” activity you engage in, and how often you stand up during the day.

iPhone 6 and its bigger brother, iPhone 6 Plus

iPhone 6 and the bigger iPhone 6 Plus.

Meanwhile, the newest iPhones will be available before the end of the month. Available in gold, silver, and “space grey”, pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus begin on September 12, with the smartphones getting into hands the following week, on September 19.

Both will run iOS 8 on Apple’s A8 chip and with 64-bit processing, and both have upgrades to the iSight and FaceTime cameras, providing better low-light performance and better frame rates.

And both include the M8, a “motion coprocessor” which collects motion and geographical information from the devices and drives the new Health application that comes with iOS 8 and connects to other health apps and fitness devices users might already be using.

While the Retina HD display on the iPhone 6 is 4.7 inches (with a resolution of 1334 x 750), the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen (a resolution of 1920 x 1080).

Canadian pricing is as follows:

iPhone 6