Apple Announces Smartwatch, Bigger iPhones, Mobile Payments

Today at Apple's September press conference, they announced the new iPhone 6 models. There are two of them — the iPhone 6 is 4.7" at 1334x750, and the iPhone 6 Plus is 5.5" at 1920x1080. Both phones are thinner than earlier models: 5S: 7.6mm, 6: 6.9mm, 6 Plus: 7.1mm. The phones have a new-generation chip, the 64-bit A8. Apple says the new phones have a 25% faster CPU, 50% faster GPU, and they're 50% more energy efficient (though they were careful to say the phones have "equal or better" battery life to the 5S). Apple upgrade the phones' wireless capabilities, moving voice calls to LTE and also enabling voice calls over Wi-Fi. The phones ship on September 19th, preceded by the release of iOS 8 on September 17th.

Apple also announced its entry into the payments market with "Apple Pay." They're trying to replace traditional credit card payments with holding an iPhone up to a scanner instead. It uses NFC and the iPhone's TouchID fingerprint scanner. Users can take a picture of their credit cards, and Apple Pay will gather payment information, encrypt it, and store it. (Apple won't have any of the information about users' credit cards or their purchases, and users will be able to disable the payment option through Find My iPhone if they lose the device.) Apple Pay will work with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards to start. 220,000 stores that support contactless payment will accept Apple Pay, and many apps are building direct shopping support for it. It will launch in October as an update for iOS 8, and work only on the new phones.

Apple capped off the conference with the announcement of the long-anticipated "Apple Watch." Their approach to UI is different from most smartwatch makers: Apple has preserved the dial often found on the side of analog watches, using it as a button and an input wheel. This "digital crown" enables features like zoom without obscuring the small screen with fingers. The screen is touch-sensitive and pressure sensitive, so software can respond to a light tap differently than a hard tap. The watch runs on a new, custom-designed chip called the S1, it has sensors to detect your pulse, and it has a microphone to receive and respond to voice commands. It's powered by a connector that has no exposed contacts — it magnetically seals to watch and charges inductively. The Apple Watch requires an iPhone of the following models to work: 6, 6Plus, 5s, 5c, 5. It will be available in early 2015, and will cost $349 for a base model.

Comments

Trust us with your payments

[NotDrWho]

After all, you trusted us with your nude photos.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Njorthbiatr]

It's not really like your credit card is that secure anyway.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Apple doesn't middle-man the banking/merchant transaction in their model.

Unlike Google/Samsung/Amazon, they are not collecting or monetizing transaction or location info of buyers. They limit their liability and focus on where they make real money.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[iluvcapra]

If we take the CEO and a corporate VP of Apple at their word, then this is how it works. Apple doesn't store CC numbers, they stay on the phone and all the transactions themselves happen with one-time codes.

If they're lying or they're misinformed that'd be a big deal

Re:Trust us with your payments

[afidel]

So if you lose or upgrade your phone you have to re-setup all your stored cards? That doesn't sound very Apple like. If not then they're storing it in your device backup and just like the nude pics it's open for hackers to retrieve from the backup image.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[iluvcapra]

So if you lose or upgrade your phone you have to re-setup all your stored cards? That doesn't sound very Apple like.

If it works like everything else on it's on your backup, which, if you're smart, you only do locally. It's a good question if they'll put it in the cloud backup -- I don't use the Cloud backup features.

Reimporting the cards doesn't seem to be a big deal, you just have to take a picture of it with the camera, frankly I wouldn't mind doing that every time I get a new phone.

Given what we know, if Dread Pirate Roberts made me choose between having my wallet stolen or my phone stolen, TAKE THE PHONE. It's clear that the information in phone form can do a lot less damage.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[i kan reed]

Right. Because... Actually I don't even know what conspiracy you could imagine someone engaging in.

Like I can't even come up with a sarcastic story for what's going on in your head.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[rjstanford]

Actually, they're not - they're storing a newly created token that represents the combination of the card and your phone's "fingerprint" (pun intended). Due to the way that the NFC card payment handshaking works, its useless without the phone (or an emulator for the phone) and can be trivially marked as invalid.

To put it bluntly, while it isn't perfect its an order of magnitude better than an unchanging magstripe is, which is why Apple is rumored to have convinced Visa et al to approve "card present" rates for Apple Pay transactions which will greatly increase adoption - especially with the combination of app purchases and card-present rates. That's huge.

Once again, its not about the technology, its about combining the technology with a smashingly good business relationship.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[IamTheRealMike]

It probably doesn't. This Secure Element+rotating CVV thing is the same as what Google Wallet uses/used, and it's just not the same technology as EMV. Similar concept from what I understand but not actually the same. EMV requires merchants to upgrade their backend infrastructure because they fundamentally aren't just passing around credit card numbers anymore, whereas this is designed to let merchants skip all that and pretend they're still charging regular credit card numbers, with the last three digits changing per transaction. One question in my mind is what happens after you made 1000 transactions: presumably the CVVs start being reused? Or perhaps if they're semi-random they start colliding before that.

At any rate, the big question is whether VISA/MC/the banks will interpret this half-assed non-EMV thing as being as secure as regular EMV. I don't see how it can be, myself, but I've never looked at this in depth. The 2015 date refers to the liability shift. It doesn't imply an actual flag day or widespread deployment of EMV. The idea is after that date whoever has the weaker technology pays for fraud. If the bank hasn't deployed EMV and the merchant has, the bank pays. Otherwise it's vice versa. But I'm not sure how that works here - banks aren't issuing iPhones to people, so when does the merchant win? If the user doesn't have an iPhone? Seems tricky.

Anyway don't expect this to work outside the USA. Not only is the tech different but it's also fundamentally useless. Contactless EMV cards are being rolled out around the world now and they're convenient because you don't have to type in the PIN for small amounts, whilst still being secure. For larger amounts, the PIN is still required. But the cards don't require batteries, can be dropped on the ground, slide inside a wallet, can't be hacked, make payments in just a second or two etc. So it's not clear why you'd want to use a phone instead of a card for this.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[John Bokma]

And you know it's wrong because ... ?

Anyway, for one the photos were collected over months and only of a hand full of celebs. If iCloud was breached there would be terrabytes of data on the piratebay. But maybe I should just hold my breath a bit longer?

Re:Trust us with your payments

[necro81]

So if you lose or upgrade your phone you have to re-setup all your stored cards? That doesn't sound very Apple like.

If you lose or upgrade your phone you have to re-setup your TouchID information. Apple contends, and I haven't seen any research to contradict their claim, that the TouchID information resides solely on the device, not in the device backup, not in the cloud. So there is precedent for something that may not ordinarily seem "Apple like."

It's not like it is that hard of a procedure to re-enter your credit card information. How many cards are we talking about here? How long does it take to enter that information? One minute per card?

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Jane Q. Public]

Apple doesn't middle-man the banking/merchant transaction in their model.

Unlike Google/Samsung/Amazon, they are not collecting or monetizing transaction or location info of buyers. They limit their liability and focus on where they make real money.

From a different security standpoint, it hardly matters. I am simply astounded that Apple chose to support NFC in their new phone.

NFC was cracked before it was even commonly available in phones by the same researcher who read (and cloned!) RFIDs from passports in the pockets of passersby from his car 10 meters away, in San Francisco.

He later proved that it was possible to gather "secure" information from NFC-equipped phones from 10 feet away, using concealed-on-person equipment that cost less than $200, even when they weren't engaged in a transaction! They just had to have NFC turned on.

NFC is not secure, and as long as it uses radio -- even radio at minuscule power -- transactions can be followed and cracked from a distance.

I haven't turned on the NFC on my phone since I bought it, and I don't really have any reason to.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[jo_ham]

The bank has your card number.

The way I believe it works, based on the video today, is that you take an image of your card with your phone and it combines it with a device ID and then creates a hash, then you need to do something with your bank to have it added to the apple pay system. Cue said something like "verify" - but he did not give specifics. I assume that this hash is given to your bank somehow during this step. From then on, payments are made using this hash, and it's a direct transaction between merchant and bank.

They were very clear that the card number is not stored on the phone itself - he said specifically "if your phone is lost or stolen then you can use find my iPhone to disable payments made using it and because your card details are not on the device, the thief doesn't have that either".

Re:Trust us with your payments

[iluvcapra]

They are still storing your credit card number somewhere. How is that different from storing a photo?

Just this year Apply wrote a very long, detailed white paper about exactly what the difference is. The short story is that, on a 5S, things like your password keychain, the unlock password itself and the signatures that sign the system and certificates is kept either in a secure enclave chip, or on a block of the flash media that the secure enclave can read and write, but the regular flash controller itself cannot address. This is a security tier itself that sits above the normal full-disk encryption of the phone (where your photos live), which is done with your unlock password.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[ewibble]

They don't have to be, although simply taking a picture of a card and being able to make purchases through an actual terminal is actually quite scary.

Credit card should always do a challenge response even over the internet, that is "plug" the credit card into the device, make the transaction.

An even simpler solution would be for the bank to txt/inform your cell phone as soon as possible that a credit card transaction has been made.

Frankly the only computer I am happy for my credit card details to be stored on is the banks, basically because I have no other choice, well actually they only need the public key as well.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Anubis IV]

You do realize that they already have credit card numbers for over 500 million customers, right? And practically anything at all is more secure than what the US uses right now for retail payments. Based on what they said in the keynote, the phone stores your information in a dedicated hardware chip that's separate from the rest of the system, never transmits it to Apple or the retailer, makes use of one-use codes for actually making the payment, and secures it all behind a fingerprint scan. Given that my current options are either cash or a plastic card that can used by others if it's ever copied, memorized, stolen, or skimmed, this seems like a step in the right direction.

(also worth noting: the nude pics things affected pretty much all of the big tech players, not just Apple, and stretches back for years, though it obviously only just came to light in the last week or two when the images actually leaked into the general public)

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Maury Markowitz]

> Apple doesn't middle-man the banking/merchant transaction in their model.

*THAT* was the big takeaway from the announcement. They're not doing PayPal, they're simply providing tokens to the bank, like any NFC credit card.

That said, the film about the payment process falls on deaf ears anywhere outside the US. I did about four transactions today, three of them were tap-to-pay, one was cash. Having all my cards in one place and eliminating my wallet (I *rarely* use cash, maybe twice a week) is something worth paying for.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

It's a chip'n'pin style arrangement - with your phone as the "chip" for all cards. Lose your phone? Disable it.

Home Depot and Target breaches wouldn't have been possible with this tech.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[rjstanford]

Its a very different proposition to have an "always on" proximity-activtated chip (such as those embedded into your credit cards) and one that's only active for a single transaction based on a physical finger-swipe. The whole point is that even when (not if) the communication is intercepted, what you end up with is like sniffing SSL traffic - you could replay the "Please pay Target $20 to fulfill exactly this invoice" conversation, certainly, but that's not particularly useful to a thief. Having the physical TouchID in the middle also ensures that the phone isn't chatting to just anyone at random times.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Maury Markowitz]

> So if you lose or upgrade your phone you have to re-setup all your stored cards

Ummm, what do you do if you lose your wallet? Re-set up all your cards, very rapidly, using a *phone*. Then you wait for days while they arrive. Or you go in person to a *bank* and get a new one.

Whereas with this you simply take another photo of your card.

> If not then they're storing it in your device

Wow. Did you even bother reading ONE SENTENCE about how this works before coming here to complain?

Really, this is just making you look foolish.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I appreciate your concerns about NFC. But NFC is really a transport, not a privacy control. If simple privacy controls were implemented, relying on limited NFC range for reducing attack opportunity? That's a problem itself.

I am lead to believe that intercepted transactions with the Apple payment model are nearly useless. They may ultimately reveal predictable sequences, to establish later unauthorized transactions - but this is speculation. The transaction is privacy-protected with its own cryptographic tokenization and handshaking in the application design, which include having the device for 2-factor, not the SIM or IMEI, etc. Handshakes and transactions are one-time, limiting usefulness for spoof, replay, reuse, etc.

I'd be more worried about the twisted-pair or local wifi for in-store magstripe readers, than I would Apple payments.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[ColdWetDog]

I trust no one with nude photos.

And we collectively breath a sigh of relief.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Altus]

particularly when you enter the data by taking a picture of the card.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Anubis IV]

Because Apple confirmed it was the case, security researchers confirmed their claim by investigating the hacking circles responsible for this stuff, and Apple wasn't the only one whose platform was hit (Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, and others were also affected). All of which has been readily-accessible public knowledge for over a week now.

https://www.nikcub.com/posts/n...

Re:Trust us with your payments

[teg]

. It's a good question if they'll put it in the cloud backup -- I don't use the Cloud backup features.

Passwords are only part of the backup if the backup is local and encrypted with a password - iCloud does not back up that part. You can, however, enable the iCloud keychain.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Grizzley9]

He later proved that it was possible to gather "secure" information from NFC-equipped phones from 10 feet away, using concealed-on-person equipment that cost less than $200, even when they weren't engaged in a transaction! They just had to have NFC turned on. NFC is not secure, and as long as it uses radio -- even radio at minuscule power -- transactions can be followed and cracked from a distance.

He addressed this by saying each transaction is not the card number but a special one time use number. So even if it was "sniffed" during the transaction, you wouldn't have any valuable info.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[shmlco]

You take a picture of the card and that information is used to confirm with the bank that you're the card holder. The phone then gets a digital certificate that stored in the encrypted enclave and the photo is zapped. No credit card data is stored on the phone, nor on Apple's servers.

When you go to buy something the phone uses the cert to generate a one-time token and security code that's given to the merchant terminal via NFC and unlocked via TouchID.

The merchant doesn't get a name, doesn't get a card number, doesn't get a security code, and doesn't get a pin number, and as such, the thing is about a million times more secure than the existing magnetic swipe card system.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[the_B0fh]

According to Apple's documentation, TouchID is so secure that even Apple can't get your fingerprint information out.

http://gizmodo.com/apple-final...

Re:Trust us with your payments

[iluvcapra]

If the NSA wants your credit card number they're not going to get it from your phone. If law enforcement has a warrant they'll just ask your credit card company.

In the particular case of the TouchID data, the actual fingerprint image is only stored in RAM,and while it's in RAM, it's AES encrypted with a one-time session key known only to the TouchID hardware, the CPU does not have this key and cannot read it, it's stored in a secure enclave and made available only to the TouchID hardware. The collection of approved fingerprints is stored, encrypted, in a reduced and vectorized format that cannot be used to reconstruct the original fingerprint image.

The TouchID hardware does the actual work of fingerprint comparison, on an ASIC that doesn't share memory space with the CPU and only communicates with the CPU through the secure enclave.

Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Square, less space than a Nomad. Lame

Re:Lame

[neoform]

Those chargers are incredibly wasteful. Placing the magnet right on the back of the watch is going to use a lot less electricity.

Re:Lame

[Jarik C-Bol]

Actually, I suspect that this is more efficient than "toss it on the pad" simply because the variables are closely controlled. The watch goes onto the charger in a particular way, which means all the magnetic fields are aligned precisely allowing for as much optimization as is possible. Besides, this opens up a market for fancy stands to hold the end of the charger, allowing you to have a little holder on your nightstand that you put your watch on, letting it double as a bedside clock or whatever. trust me, there will be all sorts of hipster "hand crafted bamboo AppleWatch charging stands" within a month or so.

Re:Lame

[fortfive]

I get the joke.

But the truth is, the thing is, in fact, lame. I had a nomad when the iPod came out. And my next device was an iPod. Because it was *awesome.* The interface was awesome, way easier to use in the car. It looked cooler. It was more portable. It had better sound quality and a better shuffle/random function.

The watch I wear, when I wear one, is 60 years old. It tells accurate time, but it's largely a fashion accessory for me. I knew why I had, and wanted better, portable mp3 players. I have no idea why I want a computerized watch. The *only* use which as been at all seemingly valuable is that it might alert me to notifications I might miss when my phone is in my pocket. But I check my phone frequently enough that it's not really an issue for me.

Now, when a watch can *replace* my phone, well, we'll really have something. As in, those holo-phone things in Star Wars. Even if the floating display was just 2D.

Also, while I'm ranting, I'm sore displeased that both iPhone options are bigger. It's fine to have the big one, I get why people like that. But have the smaller one be truly smaller. Heck, I think the iPhone 5 is too big.

Re:Lame

[Kielistic]

The charger for the Nexus5 is magnetic and holds/helps place the phone in the proper location and has some new-agey sticky crap on the bottom that allows it to be fixed in pretty much any position.

Re:Lame

[Altus]

honestly, if I have to take the watch off it does't matter how it charges. Still, it had to be something that didn't require an opening in the watch since it pretty much needs to be water resistant.

Re:Lame

[Electricity Likes Me]

A great watch is expensive and made in Switzerland. That's how watches work. Nothing about them makes any sense because the product is fundamentally not about time telling technology, except in an abstract "it's pretty awesome this is just gears and springs" sort of way.

This is not a good smartwatch at $350. It's a bad sportswatch - because it doesn't standalone from the iPhone, doesn't have GPS, and yet is in the same price bracket.

My personal opinion is that on deeper analysis the whole smartwatch thing is a deadend which is being pushed because it's looks achievable, rather then innovative. But there's some fairly obvious problems with what Apple has on display - and they're the same ones as every other smartwatch.

After All Those Lawsuits Against Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

The new iPhone looks like a Samsung Galaxy. Considering I have been putting off upgrading my iPhone 4S till now, I'll be sure to express my indignation by asking the Apple Sales Genius about the new Galaxy 6 and how it compares to the Galaxy 6+. And every time they correct me, I'll look confused and say, "No -- that's clearly a Samsung Galaxy, you can tell by the rounded edges and the shape of the Main Button".

Re:After All Those Lawsuits Against Samsung

[viperidaenz]

That's what I've been telling everyone since the rumours it was going to get a 5+ inch screen. it's the Apple Galaxy S6.

Worst annoucment ever....

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve was so proud of how small the iPhone was. Only apple fanbois who wear cargo shorts need a giant phone. A one inch screen that goes on your wrist and does nothing without your phone.

Re:Worst annoucment ever....

[NotDrWho]

I think they were right to go with a larger phone. Let's face it, times have changed. And a lot of people (myself included) really like the idea of a 5.5" phone. My large fingers make a larger screen a godsend, and it's a lot easier on the eyes.

Re:Worst annoucment ever....

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

Let's face it, we all agree with the assertion I'm about to make. Everyone does.

Re:Worst annoucment ever....

[rasmusbr]

I think they were right to go with a larger phone. Let's face it, times have changed. And a lot of people (myself included) really like the idea of a 5.5" phone. My large fingers make a larger screen a godsend, and it's a lot easier on the eyes.

As someone who has fairly big hands I had a hard time adapting from a 4" Android phone to my current 4.95" Nexus 5. I tried to use the big phone in the same way that I had been using smaller smartphones in the past, by holding the phone firmly in my hand and moving my thumb around the screen. The problem is that my thumb only reaches about 4.2 inches, so I kept trying to reach further than I could by over-reaching with my thumb. It got to the point where I had to switch to using my phone with my left hand out of fear of permanently injuring my right thumb (feel free to joke...).

I eventually learned that you should sort of slide the phone around your palm to align it with your thumb. Now I could probably adapt to a 5.5" phone, but I think I would go for the 4.7" one if I was an Apple user.

It's going to be interesting to hear if iPhone thumb becomes a thing now that there are no longer any "thumb-sized" new iPhones.

Incredibly bad live stream

[ArcadeMan]

Whoever was in charge of the live stream are a bunch of amateurs, incompetent idiots and should be fired, publicity shamed and never hired again.

Interlacing problems with the image, video looping, audio with no video, chinese audio on top of the english one, a stream so full of errors that it froze my Apple TV.

I stopped watching and I'll try later tonight, after Apple has cleaned up that fucking mess. What a joke.

I may be an Apple user and fanboy, but this time the Microsoft and Android fanboys can rip into Apple for this clusterfuck of problems, I'll be cheering for them.

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[ArcadeMan]

Oh, the ISPs interlaced part of the video stream, did they? They made it loop? They added minutes of this image into the stream? They added chinese audio on top of the english one?

Like it or not, this was a total clusterfuck. Whoever modded my first comment above as flamebait is a blind Apple follower. And I say that as an Apple user. When shit happens, don't cover your ears and pretend nothing bad is happening.

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[iluvcapra]

ISP problem.

The stuttering I can attribute to an ISP or the raw demand. But the ISP didn't stick crosstalk of a Cantonese interpreter over the English audio for the first 20 minutes.

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[macs4all]

Whoever was in charge of the live stream are a bunch of amateurs, incompetent idiots and should be fired, publicity shamed and never hired again.

Interlacing problems with the image, video looping, audio with no video, chinese audio on top of the english one, a stream so full of errors that it froze my Apple TV.

I stopped watching and I'll try later tonight, after Apple has cleaned up that fucking mess. What a joke.

I may be an Apple user and fanboy, but this time the Microsoft and Android fanboys can rip into Apple for this clusterfuck of problems, I'll be cheering for them.

While I had some problems with the stream for about the first 1/2 hour or so, they eventually got it stable.

You do realize, of course, that that was likely hands-down, the most amount of streaming viewers of any single internet broadcast, right?

But I am pretty sure there are meetings going on right now at Apple, and some streaming "experts" are seeing another side of Tim Cook...

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[Russ1642]

The number of streaming viewers doesn't cause these kinds of errors. That's like saying "You exceeded the maximum capacity of your garden hose. That's why blood came out instead of water."

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[sootman]

I had all those problems with the stream too. (The interlacing, especially, made me LOL.) Tried to watch for about the first third, then gave up. It also jumped back in time repeatedly, sometimes all the way to the beginning. At one point it was JUST getting good, then it bounced back a few minutes to the middle of the game demo.

One more problem: the stream problems led to problems with the web pages themselves, if you were watching it in a browser. And since the stream was embedded into the apple.com homepage -- not jus the /live/ page but the homepage itself -- I now have a screenshot of an error right on www.apple.com.

Extra bonus funny: coverage at theverge.com got images up BEFORE I saw them on the "live" stream. Obviously the stream was buffered a bit, but DAMN those guys at The Verge were FAST. They're getting pretty good at this. Multiple text posts and pictures EACH MINUTE. I don't like much about the verge, but their event coverage is pretty great.

At least #livestream on twitter had a LOT of funny comments to pass the time with.

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[Grizzley9]

Thought I was the only one with problems. Noticed it via wifi and 3G. My Apple Tv froze up and blanked out numerous times. I think I unplugged it twice before it would be responsive. Then the 2nd asian audio overlay and the looping video was horrible, and that was when i could connect. For much of the first 1/2 hr, it was very spotty and then would error out.

So what exactly is the market here.

[Adambomb]

A gigantic set of the population is no longer even used to the concept of wearing a watch, because they have their phone. This device doesn't replace their phone. What exactly is the reason to have this as well, as opposed to pulling your phone out of your pocket?

Unless some company comes up with a functionally independent wearable device that replaces the need for keeping your phone with you I do not see the appeal. I don't understand what the pitch is supposed to even be. Literally every functionality can be responded to with "but i have my phone right here, it also does that and better"

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people are wearing fitbits, etc, for fitness? There's a lot of advantage for the fitness and health monitoring stuff to having something on your wrist.

Not to mention, for navigation, simple text messaging, seeing the time,... to be able to use 70% of the functional surface of your phone by glancing at your wrist is nice. Especially since women aren't allowed to have pockets and so the device is even harder to get to :P

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[godawful]

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[gstoddart]

Believe it or not, some of us still wear watches every day.

At any given time, I might have to track down where in the house my phone is. I also know I can go swimming in any of my watches and they'll be just fine.

So, I want neither the smart watch, nor to be tethered to my phone all the time.

I had lunch with a former co-worker a month or so ago ... and the first thing I noticed was he was wearing a Samsung smart watch. He seemed to think it was great and that he could be quite far from his phone. I couldn't see the point.

Some of us geezers will still continue to wear watches which don't do anything related to our phones.

But, hey, buy whatever toy floats your boat, it's not a one size fits all thing.

Me, when I'm actually wearing a shirt and tie, I'll stick with one of my old fashioned automatic skeleton watches or a spiffy chronograph.

Maybe one of these days I'll learn to tie a bow tie and get one of them fancy tweed driving caps. ;-)

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[chispito]

A gigantic set of the population is no longer even used to the concept of wearing a watch, because they have their phone. This device doesn't replace their phone. What exactly is the reason to have this as well, as opposed to pulling your phone out of your pocket?

The phone is big and needs to be unlocked to view texts/emails. I started wearing a watch again after 10 years without because I got tired of pulling my (dumb) phone out of my pocket. It's also a way for people who wish to be seen using Apple products to be seen using Apple products.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[kamapuaa]

Because right now, Apple faithful only need a single iphone. If it was possible, Apple would love to sell them a second iphone for their other hand, but that doesn't quite work due to usability issues. This technology boldly allows people to have an iphone for both their left and their right hand.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Uberbah]

People keep mentioning the Nomad.

They're quoting CmdrTaco, who used those exact words to describe the original iPod upon it's announcement. Damn kids these days....

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[rasmusbr]

What exactly is the reason to have this as well, as opposed to pulling your phone out of your pocket?

Unless some company comes up with a functionally independent wearable device that replaces the need for keeping your phone with you I do not see the appeal. I don't understand what the pitch is supposed to even be.

I believe the pitch goes something like this: In a world populated by very lazy and impatient people, the Apple watch allows you to get much of the functionality of your phone without pulling your phone out of your pocket. It also has an Apple logo on it.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[frinkster]

Maybe one of these days I'll learn to tie a bow tie and get one of them fancy tweed driving caps. ;-)

Unless you're going someplace where people know what a real bow tie looks like, everyone is just going to think that your "bow tie" is falling apart.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[sribe]

I don't know about that. I see the argument, but, the whole "I'll just pull my phone out of my pocket" argument seems to me like it might only be accurate 90% of the time, for nearly everybody. So, how many people will buy it for that 10% of the time?

For instance, when I'm skiing mid-week but staying available for work such that clients don't even know... When my phone rings, just pulling it out of my pocket to check who's calling is actually kind of a pain in the ass--depending on temp and what gloves I'm wearing, sneaking a peek at my wrist is potentially much easier, and depending on what accessories come out, who knows, I might even be able to arrange to have it somewhere even easier to check...

Similar arguments might apply to running, cycling, rowing, etc.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[iluvcapra]

Those of us with 6-digit IDs remember. You see, there were once companies called Creative Labs, and Rio, and they made these iPhone like things, except they couldn't make phone calls and couldn't text, they just played music (and maybe they came with Breakout if you were lucky).

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Anubis IV]

I'm a major Apple fan, and even I don't understand what the pitch is supposed to be. It does do some things differently or better than the phone, and it also does some things the phone can't do at all (e.g. measure your heart rate throughout the day), but by and large, I just don't get it yet.

It kinda reminds me of the iPad, where you could tell that they thought they had something special, but that they hadn't yet figured out what all it could do or why it would appeal to people. The advertising focused more on the emotions and feel of the device, rather than on specific use cases. A year later, and the ads were more focused, as was the language they used to describe it in keynotes and other communications.

I think they believe the same thing is true here: they believe they've created something different that developers can use as a platform to make all kinds of cool new things using the cool new sensors it has, but they don't know what those things will be. But they're clearly excited by it, so maybe they know something I don't.

I get the sense that I'll either need to get my hands on one or else listen to a lot of people who have their hands on them before I'll have any concept at all of whether or not it even might serve a purpose in my life. The most exciting feature for me was mentioned in a throwaway line right at the end of the keynote, where they rattled off a handful of random uses some of them have had for it, and mentioned controlling an Apple TV from it: something other devices can already do, of course, but I'd love to see a watch that can interact with smart devices around the home (e.g. locking and unlocking doors, turning on/off lights, dimming the lights when I sit down in the media room, etc.), including something like my media center. But I don't know which, if any, of those things it can do or will be able to do in the near future.

As things stand now though, it's definitely a, "Well, that's neat, but *shrug*" for me.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[sootman]

What is exactly is your threshold for when a product should be created? That it does everything? That everyone likes it? Apple will sell METRIC SHITLOADS of these and do just fine, thankyouverymuch.

MOST Apple products are a little overpriced and underspecced upon release. Look at the original iPod -- it was indeed expensive, had no wireless, and "less space than a Nomad." Then it TOOK OVER THE WORLD. The MacBook Air was a little slow and $1699 or $1799 at launch, and then OH LOOK, the WHOLE PC INDUSTRY tried to copy it with the whole "ultrabook" thing, and by the way Airs start at $899 now.

So yeah, the first batch will be sold to people who are willing to spend $349 to see texts without digging out their phone. Then they'll get cheaper, more powerful, and more useful over the next few years. There is LOTS that could be done here. Maybe they'll create the pico-SIM and you'll be able to use it without your phone, and they'll push telcos into supporting it for free since it uses so little data. Etc etc etc. THIS IS JUST REV ONE. Stay tuned. And if you don't like it, don't buy it. Get a pebble or a moto or a samsung or whatever. Or don't. Apple will do just fine without you.

And finally, "a gigantic set of the population" DOES still wear watches. Apple became the most valuable company in the world JUST A FEW YEARS after introducing the iPhone, the original target of which (as announced by Steve Jobs at MWSF, January 2007) was just 1% of the phone market. A product at which Steve Ballmer famously laughed. Don't worry about Apple. They'll do OK with 1% of the watch market, too.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Your.Master]

The watch doesn't seem very feminine, but it makes me think about how women's clothing often has nonfunctional pockets, so phones are stashed in purses where they are considerably less convenient.

I also immediately think of situations where I'm phoneless, such as when I'm swimming, or I'm carrying stuff (easy to turn wrist, hard to dig out of pocket), or I'm just wearing something that doesn't have pockets even though I'm not a woman, or even while I'm using the phone for something else like talking with somebody. There's also the fact that my watch battery goes out after years and my phone does not last so long, but I doubt the smartwatch can keep up.

We also have to recognize that wristwatches displaced pocketwatches, so it seems like the wrist form factor was generally considered to be an advantageous by much of the population, not matter how disdainful you are of virtually everyone over decades.

Doesn't mean I necessarily think watches have to be smart. I'd put myself in the "unconvinced" category.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[jfengel]

That's kind of an interesting thought: a new market for storing your phone close enough to your device to work but not necessarily accessible.

My first thought was a kind of belt; I use something like that to hold my phone when I run. But that would ruin the line of most dresses.

Next thought... a garter? It wouldn't fit under close-fitting pants but it would fit under a dress. It could even be a kind of fashion accessory, in a "Oops, I showed you my phone, how naughty" kind of way: make it frilly or colorful. Getting it tight enough to hold a heavy phone securely without cutting off circulation would be a challenge. I never did figure out how it was supposed to work on the upper arm, but people make it work.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Bogtha]

What exactly is the reason to have this as well, as opposed to pulling your phone out of your pocket?

I'm not inclined to wear a watch either, and I'm going to get one. My reasons are:

• As you said, the alternative is pulling your phone out of your pocket. It's more convenient looking at your wrist, especially with the larger iPhone sizes. Ever had an extended iMessage group chat? It's a hassle looking at your phone every minute. Also, when you're going for a run, the difference between looking at your watch and looking at your phone is massive.
• Apple Pay. It's convenient to just wave your wrist over a sensor to pay. It would be brilliant if this could replace Oyster cards for the London tube.
• Health monitoring. Decent heart rate monitors are fairly expensive for what they are and are often a hassle to wear. If it's something I'm going to be paying for and wearing anyway, that's better than the standalone option.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[sribe]

Seriously, if you feel you must have your phone with you while actually on the slope, then you don't understand the concept of "time off". If your clients feel they are so important that not getting back to them in an hour or two will cost you their business, then you are even worse off than someone living paycheck to paycheck.

Seriously, the fact that I can ski Wed - Fri nearly every week all season long, is great ;-)

Seriously, the fact that they don't even need to know what my schedule is, is great ;-)

Seriously, I've taken on some important obligations wrt supporting systems that are important to patient care, and I really need to be available during normal working hours. As far as my clients thinking they're so important, well, it's me that thinks that, not them ;-)

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[saleenS281]

So, here's an example: Every woman ever. Unless they're wearing jeans (and even then) women usually keep their phone in their purse. What happens when you're in a movie/church/important meeting and your phone starts ringing because you forgot to put it on silent? You get to scramble to try to find the phone and mute it. Having the ability to swipe at your watch would be a godsend. Is it worth $300? I suppose that depends on your income, but for a lot of people, absolutely.

Hell, as a guy *I* am considering it, just because in some situations I run into the exact situation (wearing a suit, phone in an inside pocket). Plenty of people with enough expendable income to justify a $300 purchase when it doubles as a beautiful watch. When you consider what most "premium watches" cost, you're getting the "smart" portion for free.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Just Some Guy]

N00b.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Nethead]

Get back in the house, son.

Re:Scan here for a free 'whatever' sucker.

[Noah Haders]

apple has had CCs linked to iTunes/icloud for a decade now, with no problems. the apple pay transmits a one-time code, not the CC itself, so if somebody hacks it then enjoy. it's actually a really well designed system.

Re:No Dick Tracy calls?

[toonces33]

I was hoping for a Maxwell Smart style shoe phone myself.

Disappointing

[khellendros1984]

I'm not a giant Apple fan, but one thing that I actually liked about their strategy up to this point was keeping their phones smaller. I've had a 4.7" phone, and that was almost too large for my (admittedly small) hands. I've got a 5" screen now, and it's notably difficult for me to use. I'm pessimistic about my future upgrade options at this point, if even Apple is jumping on the mega-sized-phone bandwagon.

Re:Disappointing

[John Bokma]

The iPhone 6 is 4.7", and might fit your hand better than the 4.7" phone you had.

Re:Disappointing

[Pascal Sartoretti]

I'm not a giant Apple fan, but one thing that I actually liked about their strategy up to this point was keeping their phones smaller.

Same here. My iPhone 5S is great, but I wouldn't want it to be bigger. I guess I will need to wait one year before seing an iPhone 6C (with "C" as in "Compact").

Re:Ah yes...

[NotDrWho]

In all fairness, this is /. We rag on EVERYONE.

Re:No "standard" iPhone size?

[ottothecow]

Yeah. While it is hard for me to visualize exactly what size the smaller 6 will be, I know a lot of people who have stuck with apple because of the consistent form factor.

As the android phones grew to massive sizes, they could just keep buying iphones that fit in their pockets (without having to wear baggy pants or cargo shorts).

Same thing happened with the Moto X for me I guess. I was ok with the form factor. Bigger than the iphone, but smaller than the competition...and still just (barely) small enough that I could reach all 4 corners of the screen with my thumb while holding it in one hand. Now the new Moto X+1 is getting even bigger and it is definitely not going to be my next phone. Luckily I am still loving the Moto X and have no reason to upgrade for another year...but I have zero interest in going bigger.

Hot Damn!

[lophophore]

They've caught up with last year's Nexus 5!

Re:Hot Damn!

[jellomizer]

Apple never has been ahead of their competition based on raw technical feature.

Apple wins by taking the modern features that have been proven and implement them in a way that is either unique or better perfected.

Any company and make a phone by placing a faster processor, and a bigger/higher resolution screen. However the details are what makes it a device that you play with for a few days and no longer use (like my old Palm-pilot 3 that I have, mostly due to the fact it didn't have a rechargeable battery). Apple does have a tenancy of putting a lot of though in subtle things that don't normally fall on the feature list.

However if you want big fast processor. Go with an Android phone. That is their market, you have more choice

Re:Hot Damn!

[Anubis IV]

For users who preferred larger screens, obviously Apple was lacking in that regard, but aside from screen size, let me ask a dumb question (I'm a recovering Apple fanboy, so you'll have to pardon me :P): in what other aspects of the hardware were they considered behind in a meaningful way, prior to today?

Obviously, that "meaningful" qualifier will mean different things to different people (e.g. most differences in pixel density don't matter to me, so long as they're beyond the threshold where my not-so-great eyes can distinguish individual pixels), but I'd be curious to hear some of Slashdot's take on which features mattered to them that the Galaxy 5 had and the iPhone 5s didn't. I know iPhones have been dinged for a lack of removable battery, lack of expandable storage, and their comparatively small screens, but I'm always interested in learning about what my blind spots are.

To follow that up, I'm aware of several areas that matter to me where they were (I believe) still ahead:
- 64-bit CPU
- Hardware encryption
- Touch ID (I know the Galaxy 5 has fingerprint scanning, but by all accounts I've heard, it isn't that great)

(There are more, but those ones immediately stand out to me.)

All of which is to say, even though you meant it as a joke, your comment got me wondering how much truth was in what you said.

Re:Hot Damn!

[lophophore]

They did have the first iPod, no doubt. But as far as the first portable MP3 player, no. Try PJB100, invented by Digital Equipment Corporation.

They did have the first iPhone, but that was not the first smart phone, no. Sorry again. Palm.

They did have the first iPad, but that was not the first tablet computer, not by a long shot. GRiD was first.

Oh yeah, that GUI they claimed to invent and sued Microsoft over? Yeah, not theirs, either. Xerox. Sorry.

Apple is a marketing company, not a technology company. They have brazenly stolen others ideas and (quite successfully) marketed them.

Enjoy your lock-in.

Re:Hot Damn!

[Totenglocke]

Nope, they just caught up with the Nexus 4 from two years ago.

Perhaps the iWatch market is the iPod market?

[Black.Shuck]

In a few iterations the Apple Watch will be untethered from the phone, have decent storage, and a slimmer form-factor than the monstrosity that was unveiled today.

In a world of tablets, smartphones and smartwatches, dedicated music-players are starting to look rather "quaint".

Re:left

[OhPlz]

You're holding it wrong.

Re:Before and After

[iluvcapra]

And the cashier will never see the owner's name.... a NOT wonderful idea

I have "Ask for Photo ID" written on the back of all my credit cards. I'd say the cashiers do as they're instructed about 1% of the time. We can't rely on the merchants to enforce the security of the system more than bare compliance requires, they're not on the hook for the losses.

Tight pants

[oneiros27]

Have you seen what people are wearing these days?

This is so they can check what time it is without having to attempt to extract their new, larger phone out of the pocket of their skinny jeans, and then try to put it back in again.

Where it'd actually be cool is if it had a 'lack of proximity warning' ... eg, an alert of 'hey, you left your phone' when the two get out or range of each other. Not that it would justify the price (or switching to an iPhone), but it'd be kinda cool, as I just realized I left my phone in my car.

Re:Tight pants

[fnj]

without having to attempt to extract their new, larger phone out of the pocket of their skinny jeans

Miss, may I help you with that?

Re:pulse detection?

[rogoshen1]

disregard, 3 seconds of googling after posting this shows the error or my ways. =/

It was amazingly bad

[SuperKendall]

I would not have thought it was possible for a live video feed to go that bad. In addition to all the issues you mentioned, towards the end I had the video feed randomly flip between live content and content from an hour prior. It also froze for a while when the words "Image Stabilization" came on screen, a little too much stabilization!

Bandwidth issues I could almost forgive, or at least understand. But the technical issues they were so technically awful it seemed like they hired a first grade class to do AV and fed them jello shots beforehand.

Hope they can assemble a watchable video for viewing later, it was so bad you almost have to wonder if Chinese is not permanently embedded over Cook's voice in the master recording.

Re:Before and After

[Predius]

The merchant policies from Visa/etc actually instruct them NOT to ask for ID even if that's on the card. If you don't sign your card they're not supposed to accept it at all.

Re:Legacy Support

[Fnord666]

>We should be able to run all legacy applications back to MacOS 1.0

You want an OS to continue to improve, while being able to run 15 year old apps?

Good luck with that.

Cause it worked out so well for Microsoft...

iPod Classic

[typhoonius]

One bum note is that they are no longer selling the iPod Classic as of today, quietly ending thirteen years of scroll-wheel iPods.

That's too bad, as it's a much better music player than the iTouch and the iPhone, with its larger storage capacity and controls with tactile feedback.

Re:iPod Classic

[disposable60]

A 120+GB solid state iPod is way past due. No, I don't want an iPhone. No, I don't want to stream (and pay for that bandwidth).

One day battery life in Apple Watch too?

[Jupix]

I don't think they mentioned official battery capacity or battery life numbers, but they did say "very easy to charge at night". That tells me it has 1 day of battery just like the Moto 360.

Honestly, the battery is the worst part of smartwatches currently. It ruined the Moto 360 for me and it comes close to ruining to Apple Watch, if it actually is only 1 day.

I would settle for 3 days, my Sony sw2 goes 4 days without charging. I was expecting the same from Apple, looking at the criticisms of the Android Wear watches which are all focused on the 1-2 day battery life. I don't want to charge a watch every night!! I get it, it has a nice screen and it's slim, and it's running a lot of sensors and wireless transactions, but still... just awful battery life!

Re:One day battery life in Apple Watch too?

[Dixie_Flatline]

They're not launching until 2015, so I think basically they're hedging their bets that they might be able to get a slightly better battery in 6 months than they can right now. It's very much like Apple to play their cards close to their chest in instances like this. They won't be able to say how long it lasts for a few months because they literally don't know, and they won't make up numbers that haven't been validated in some way.

However long it lasts, though, it's not long enough. I'd want 5 days, minimum.

It's a pretty piece of jewellery, though. On that front, they're at the front of the class again.

Re:One day battery life in Apple Watch too?

[Bogtha]

I would settle for 3 days

I think this is just the 80/20 split. Almost everybody goes home and sleeps almost every night. For the vast majority of cases, taking your watch off to charge it once every three days is no better than taking your watch off to charge it every night. And the tradeoff to get to three days is either a) a battery three times larger, b) a watch that is three times more power efficient, or c) lesser capability. A three day battery life isn't worth the sacrifices you'd have to make to get it.

I don't want to charge a watch every night!!

Why? What's so much better about taking your watch off every three nights instead of every night?

Apple about face?

[DeathByLlama]

I feel like this is the time to recall not-so-old articles such as this one: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/... in which Apple is praised for purposefully leaving NFC out of their phones.

Re:Before and After

[afidel]

Touch ID is broken and will be until Apple uses a non-crap (expensive) fingerprint reader.

Any removable storage yet?

[_xeno_]

I only saw one brief bit of the stream, and it was where Steve Jobs Wannabe (Tim Cook?) was explaining how no one used camcorders any more because the iPhone could take better video. Which leads to the obvious question: does the iPhone have a replaceable battery and removable storage yet?

Because I still have a camcorder hanging around and I use it when I want to take a video that lasts longer than a couple of minutes. The entire reason I have my camcorder is so that I can take two hour videos. Then, when the battery dies, I can swap it out with a new one. And if I manage to run out of storage space, I can swap out to a new SDXC card.

Can't do either of those with an iPhone, making it a toy at taking pictures and video. Which is, to be fair, frequently fine. But Faux-Steve-Jobs's idea that the iPhone can replace a camcorder is just hilarious without those two very simple features.

Re:Any removable storage yet?

[praxis]

There are various purposes for various tools. A phone (Apple or otherwise) is not going to replace a proper camera for recording in situations in which you know you need massive storage, massive battery life or professional optics. You likely will also need good lighting and sound, but that's going beyond a camera now. What a phone does do well in, are situations where you had not planned on taking video. A camera you can carry everywhere that's good enough for many applications is the major use case and why dedicated photography and videography equipment is relegated more and more to situations that warrant it.

When my toddler is going to take his or her first steps, I might not be ready with a full recording setup, but I will have a phone at hand, for example.

If I am planning on recording my teenagers graduation, I will bring dedicated equipment that can record for hours at better resolution, for example.

Clearly the iPhone will not replace a camcorder, but it will serve as a suitable replacement for a camcorder in many situations. The market trends seem to support this view.

Re:Any removable storage yet?

[_xeno_]

And the fact that it is the #1 camera and #1 camcorder in the world is proof positive that they have succeeded.

I call bullshit on that. The iPhone isn't even the #1 phone in the world.

And let me try and make my point clear: Fake-Steve-Jobs was standing in front of a slide showing a camcorder being destroyed, saying that they were made completely obsolete by the iPhone.

And that's entirely bullshit.

Until the iPhone has a user-replaceable battery and removable storage, it will never replace a real camera or a real camcorder. It simply can't.

Re:Before and After

[istartedi]

Wow. I was rather embarrassed over not having read TFA and everybody pointing out the finger-print thing. After reading your post I think I'm standing up pretty good by comparison.

No metal. Less circular than a moto360. Lame.

[Lobais]

The Slashdot post I was expecting[1] ;-)
[1]: http://slashdot.org/story/01/1...

Re:No metal. Less circular than a moto360. Lame.

[geekoid]

One of my favorite posts in the thread:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Apple now a trend follower?

[purpledinoz]

I don't see a new 4" iPhone 6 in the lineup, did they just abandon this size? It's interesting that Apple is now following the trend, rather than making it. All the iPhone users I know say that they would hate 5" phones because they're too big. Now it seems they have no choice. Although I prefer a 5" screen, I could imagine people would prefer to give up a bigger screen for a smaller phone.

Re:Before and After

[meta-monkey]

No, they'll just hack off your thumb, too.

Cashiers never notice the old "dismembered bloody thumb authentication" trick.

Re:WiFi Calling?

[jbeaupre]

Yes. My flip phone did this 5 years ago.

The real problem was when visiting somewhere that had the necessary network port blocked.

You don't seem to understand security.

[Brannon]

It has nothing to do with perfection. It's about statistics.

Re:WiFi Calling?

[macs4all]

I suppose Apple had to join in on the 2009 smartphone market at some point. 5+ years too late, better than never?

They were "late" to the Music Player and Phone markets, too. And look how that turned out.

Re:Scan here for a free 'whatever' sucker.

[adamstew]

wow. really? If someone steals my phone and hacks off my thumb, then one of the last things that i'm going to worry about is them going to a McDonalds and hold up a bloodied iPhone and dismembered finger up to the payment system to buy a cheeseburger.

My main takeaway

[DrXym]

Apple have launched a smart watch which is technically indistinct all the other smart watches.

All smart watches suck. They suck for being tied to a phone. They suck for being tied to specific phone OS and models. They suck for their battery life. They suck for their displays which turn off to save battery. Maybe if someone was upgrading from a fitbit or similar they'd be useful but I just don't see the mass market appeal in these things until they fix these issues.

Apple is solidifing their fashion brand appeal.

[Qbertino]

Apple is solidifing their fashion brand appeal, no doubt about it. This is their single largest feat within the last 1,5 decades: They've managed to become the only tech company in the world that factually is a fashion brand in broad perception and a tech brand with a professional reputation. Brilliant, that's what.

Sad thing they've been pissing of us opinion leaders with golden cages and lock-in in recent years. I just bought my first non-apple device in 8 years - a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad. Couldn't say I'd by an Apple computer again. They're still good, Maveriks, hw integration and all, but having to sigh up just to get the FOSS compilers and all just doesn't scrub the right way with me.

My 2 cents.

Re:Apple is solidifing their fashion brand appeal.

[Just Some Guy]

Sign up for what? Xcode is a free download from the app store, and you can use it to install Homebrew and be a single command away from having gcc4[345789] installed. There's almost literally nothing they could do to make that easier other than shipping Xcode with OS X, but that would be a waste of storage for the 99.9% of users who wouldn't ever use it.

Re:Apple release a new phones that

[praxis]

behind other phones n the market. Like it always has

They were not behind in 2007, therefore they have not *always* been behind.

Won't somebody, please, think of developers!

[flabordec]

I seem to remember device fragmentation was a gigantic problem that made Android impossible to develop for (and the main reason why many people chose Apple over Android). How will those poor developers adapt now that Apple has three phone sizes and two tablet sizes (or maybe more?)?

This is great news for thieves

[Joel Cahoon]

Since the watch will require an iPhone to function, thieves will no longer have to wonder! All they have to do is spot the $350 device on my wrist to know that there's a $600 device in my pocket.

Re:Scan here for a free 'whatever' sucker.

[Xaedalus]

There's always Florida!!!!

Re:Scan here for a free 'whatever' sucker.

[Anubis IV]

You're moving the goalposts, but before I address your question, let's consider the alternatives that this is intended to replace: swipe or chip-and-PIN. Yes, Touch ID can be cracked, but it requires extended physical access to the device, a copy of the fingerprints, significant expense (around $2000 for the type of printer used and the various other consumable materials), and a day or so to go through the multi-step process of creating the fake fingerprint. All of which means it won't be done casually by unscrupulous cashiers or amateur thieves, which is something Americans face today (my parents are dealing with this right now, in fact). And by the time a person who's actually invested in this stuff manages to go through the whole process of creating a fake fingerprint, the owner of the lost device would be likely to have already revoked Apple Pay access remotely anyway.

Contrast that with swipe: if you compromise physical access to the card, you compromise everything. Or chip-and-PIN, which only adds the additional barrier of a PIN that can be procured by just looking over someone's shoulder at the right time. In comparison to either one of those, it's both more convenient and more secure.

So, to answer your question, no, it's not foolproof, but considering amateur card theft is still rampant in America and perfectly possible overseas, we can say that this system is significantly more secure than what we have now for payments at physical retail locations. It's also more private, since I never have to expose my information to the retailer. And it's more durable, since I don't need to worry about magnetic stripes failing due to wear and tear. And it's also more convenient, since it means less things to carry and less interactions necessary to complete the transaction.

Which is all to say, it's good to point out that Touch ID has been cracked and that that is indeed a vector for a possible form of theft, but let's put that fact in context and recognize that our current systems are significantly less secure and that this represents a massive improvement over them.

Re:Before and After

[mythosaz]

I have "Ask for Photo ID" written on the back of all my credit cards. I'd say the cashiers do as they're instructed about 1% of the time. We can't rely on the merchants to enforce the security of the system more than bare compliance requires, they're not on the hook for the losses.

We can't rely on cardholders to follow their cardholder agreement either.

The signature panel isn't for identification, it's for acceptance of terms and conditions.

Unless your signature is "Ask for Photo ID," then you've failed to accept the terms and conditions and any good merchant should tell you to pound sand.

Re:No "standard" iPhone size?

[AmiMoJo]

5" phones fit in pockets just fine. I don't know where this meme started.