MacRumors

ABC News this morning revealed an exclusive behind-the-scenes video of Apple's testing facility for the upcoming Apple Watch, showing off dozens of Apple employees covered in various sensor-tracking technology used to gather data for the health and fitness areas of the wearable device. Apple executives Jeff Williams and Jay Blahnik accompanied ABC on a tour of the facility.

Employees of the company, from engineers to managers and developers, have volunteered to participate in the tests for nearly two years, not knowing of the reason behind the facility until recently. Wearing masks that measure changes in breathing and other various statistics, the volunteers were put through various workout regimens including rowing, yoga, and running, in order to collect data for the Watch.

“[The employees] knew they were testing something, but they didn't know it was for the Apple Watch,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of operations. “We hooked them up with all the masks and so forth, but we would put on an Apple Watch covered up.”

The lab even included "climate chambers", which allowed Apple to simulate varying environments, from hot to cold, without having to physically leave Apple headquarters for testing. The company did so anyway, visiting drastically different locations around the globe to put the Watch through the most strenuous environment testing they could.

“We have traveled to Alaska and gone to Dubai to really test Apple Watch in all those environments, but we also wanted to be able to have a controlled environment here where we could see those extremes,” said Jay Blahnik, Director of Fitness and Health technologies at Apple.

“I think we've amassed already what may be one of the world's largest pieces of data on fitness,” he said. “Our view is, we're just beginning. We think there's a lot to this fitness thing...the impact on health could be profound.”

Dr. Michael McConnell, a professor in cardiovascular medicine at Stanford Medicine, told ABC News the Apple Watch has great potential to drastically change the cardiovascular technology field. He points to the ease-of-use in Apple's product to take measurements and surveys, thanks to the help of Apple's new medical-focused ResearchKit as well as HealthKit, which would offer them "a new way to do medical research."

The pre-launch buzz surrounding the Apple Watch only continues to grow as the April 10 pre-order date, and official launch on April 24, draw closer. Most recently the wearable has been spotted in numerous fitness and fashion magazines, with third-party manufacturers announcing everything from charging stands to carrying cases to secondary battery options for the wrist-worn device.

The segment, which premiered earlier this morning on Good Morning America, is a small preview for a larger piece airing tonight on Nightline at 12:35 AM EST.

ResearchKit, Apple's new open-source medical framework, was one of the unexpected announcements during the company's Spring Forward media event. Dr. Stephen Friend, one of the key members of the ResearchKit team, talked about the potential genesis of the project in a new interview with Fusion (via iMore).

In September 2013, nearly one and a half years before ResearchKit was unveiled, Friend was at Stanford's MedX conference giving a talk about the future of medical research. He explained how he envisioned an open source system where users could upload their medical data to the cloud for researchers to use in trials.

Sitting in the audience that day was Michael O'Reilly, M.D., the former Chief Medical Officer and EVP of Medical Affairs at Masimo Corporation, a pulse oximetry company. O'Reilly had just left Masimo to join Apple, and wanted to build something that could "implement Friend's vision of a patient-centered, medical research utopia and radically change the way clinical studies are done."

After Friend’s talk, O’Reilly approached the doctor, and, in typical tight-lipped Apple fashion, said: “I can’t tell you where I work, and I can’t tell you what I do, but I need to talk to you,” Friend recalls. Friend was intrigued, and agreed to meet for coffee.

Shortly after his meeting with O'Reilly, Friend started making frequent trips to Apple's HQ in Cupertino, meeting with scientists and engineers. He also organized a DARPA-funded workshop exploring how biosensors could potentially help doctors and scientists understand Parkinson's Disease.

Euan Ashley, a Stanford University investigator behind the myHeart app, told Fusion that Apple largely acted as a "facilitator", building the ResearchKit framework in the background as the researchers designed and built the first ResearchKit apps by themselves. However, Apple did go meet with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration three months before the Spring Forward event to talk about medical research and smooth over any potential regulatory concerns.

Friend noted that even though his open-source ideals didn't totally mesh with Apple's view on open source at the time, he wanted to work with them rather than competitors like Google and Microsoft because Apple is a hardware company that doesn't need to sell data, and that he believed Apple when the company said it wouldn't look at the data being used in ResearchKit.

However, both Apple and Friend decided not to make the true origin of ResearchKit clear to Fusion. It's unknown whether the idea was Friend's or if Apple was developing it before Friend joined the team.

Thus far, ResearchKit has been a success for Apple, receiving thousands of sign-ups less than 24 hours after it was unveiled. In that time frame, 11,000 people signed up for one of the ResearchKit apps, myHeart Counts.

The rest of the interview also provides a good look at ResearchKit and can be read at Fusion's website.

Apple appears to be cracking down on "anti-virus" apps in the iOS App Store, in an effort to prevent customers from believing iOS devices are capable of contracting viruses and malware. Intego, a company that produces anti-virus software for Mac and iOS, recently had its VirusBarrier iOS app pulled from the App Store.

VirusBarrier was an app designed to scan external files stored in the cloud or attached to emails, to detect viruses that might be sent on to vulnerable devices.

Intego CEO Jeff Erwin announced the removal of the app from the iOS App Store yesterday, and pointed towards a larger culling of all anti-virus apps available on Apple's platform. MacRumors spoke to Erwin this afternoon to shed some light on why Apple opted to remove VirusBarrier after four and a half years in the App Store.

According to Erwin, when Apple notified Intego of VirusBarrier's removal from the App Store, the company told him the app's App Store description was "misleading" and could potentially cause customers to believe that there are viruses on iOS.

Intego filed an appeal and rewrote the App Store description with "obnoxiously" clear wording, and that's when the company learned about a wider crackdown on anti-virus apps. "We were as clear as we could be that this wasn't a scanner, that it was scanning email attachments and cloud files," said Erwin. The company "went up to the executive level" at Apple and described exactly what VirusBarrier does, but Apple was firm on the app not returning to the App Store.

Apple, Erwin says, does not want people to be misled into believing that there are viruses on iOS, a position that he understands. Even with an App Store description that stated VirusBarrier scanned email attachments and cloud files, Intego would still receive negative comments from people who didn't read the description and didn't understand the app's purpose.

I sort of get Apple's point. Even as clear as we were about what our product did, there were still customers who were confused as to why the app was scanning their iPad or iPhone. There are a lot of people who don't have a tech background and don't understand.

Erwin does not believe that Apple was singling VirusBarrier out, as several other anti-virus apps have also been eliminated from the App Store. Instead, he sees it as a wider removal of the category and he doesn't fault Apple for the decision. "It's unfortunate, but I understand Apple's position," he said.

Erwin says that Intego's iOS app was not a big source of revenue for the company, and the loss won't hurt financially, but it was a way to get the Intego name out in the world and connect with customers. People who have previously downloaded the VirusBarrier app will continue to get virus updates, but won't be able to download new versions of the iOS app.

It is not clear when Apple began removing anti-virus apps or how many have been pulled from the App Store, but a search for "anti-virus" today primarily brings up games, privacy apps, and apps for finding lost phones. There are still a couple of apps that advertise virus-detecting capabilities like VirusDetector, but those few remaining apps may be removed from the App Store in the near future.

The Apple Watch has already been spotted within the pages of several fitness and fashion-oriented magazines during the month of March as Apple makes an advertising push ahead of the device's launch, and as of this week, it's also scored a spot on the cover of Fitness Magazine.

On the cover, model Kate Bock wears an Apple Watch Sport with a white fluoroelastomer band. The Apple Watch feature in the magazine is all images, and doesn't offer anything in the way of details as other Apple Watch spots have done. Fitness had initially shared some details about the shoot with MacRumors that were used in this post, but has since asked us to remove the information.

Fitness VP/Brand Development for Shape.com and Fitnessmagazine.com Betty Wong gave MacRumors the following statement on the magazine's collaboration with Apple:

"FITNESS, with our tech-savvy, goal-oriented female audience, is a great partner in helping showcase the Apple Watch. I hope to be able to get my hands on an Apple Watch Sport sample in the coming month and really put it to a sweat test for Fitnessmagazine.com to see how useful it is in helping our readers stay motivated to exercise, keep track of their physical activity, or connect with people and their to-do lists while out for a run.

With the Apple Watch positioned as Apple's first wearable accessory, it's no surprise to learn the company has been carefully curating its image and exercising control over the way it's portrayed in magazines. Apple wants people to see the Apple Watch as fashionable, sporty, and genuinely useful to the average person rather than as something geeky and technical that doesn't belong in the fashion world. Thus far, Apple's Apple Watch marketing efforts have been split between posing the Apple Watch as a fashion statement and as a fitness accessory.

On the fitness side, the Apple Watch has been featured in this month's issue of Fitness and it was on the cover of the March issue of Self magazine, on the wrist of Candice Swanepoel. Self did a full feature on the Apple Watch, highlighting its accelerometer, heart rate sensor, and more. Model Christy Turlington has also been promoting the fitness-oriented features of the Apple Watch, both on stage at Apple's March 9 event and on a personal blog on Apple.com. Turlington is using the Apple Watch as she prepares for the London Marathon in April.

On the fashion side, the Apple Watch has been featured in Vogue, Style, East Touch, and YOHO. Late last year, it was on the cover of Vogue China and it was shown off at an exclusive event at Parisian fashion boutique Colette. It will also be featured in a number of high-end exclusive popup shops around the world after it's released.

As the launch of the Apple Watch creeps closer, it's likely the device will continue to appear within an increasing number of magazines and newspapers as Apple attempts to market the device to a wide range of potential customers. The Apple Watch will be available beginning on April 24, but it will be available for pre-order and in-store try ons starting on April 10.

Update 5:21 PM PT: This post has been updated and revised at the request of Fitness.

At its Apple Watch event on March 9, Apple highlighted several apps that will be available on the Apple Watch, including an app from American Airlines, which will let users receive flight information, check in for their flights, and more.

Since then, several other airlines have also announced upcoming apps for the Apple Watch, giving us a hint at some of the ways the Apple Watch will be used to make our lives easier. British Airways, for example, has just announced a British Airways app for the Apple Watch, which will be available beginning on April 24.

Through a glance option, which is accessed by swiping right on the watch face, the British Airways app will display a summary of a customer's next flight, offering details like flight number, flight status, a countdown to departure time, and the weather at the destination. All of that information will be available at a single glance, preventing users from needing to rifle through emails and open up apps to access flight details.

The app will also support on-wrist check-ins for flights, and it will deliver notifications to direct users to their appropriate gates. At certain airport terminals, such as Heathrow's Terminal 5, users will receive welcome messages powered by iBeacon.

Earlier this week, VentureBeat asked several airlines about their plans for Apple Watch apps, which yielded information about two upcoming apps from Delta and United. The Delta app that's in development will deliver notifications about flights to users ahead of their flights, and it will give them access to the boarding pass stored on their iPhones.

Like the apps from other airlines, it will offer flight numbers, gate numbers, flight times, and other info. If a flight gets changed, for example, users will get a notification on their Apple Watch. There will also be a notification when a flight is approaching a destination city, with information about luggage pickup.

United Airlines wasn't prepared to share app screenshots of its upcoming Apple Watch app, but it did divulge some details about it. The app will offer at-a-glance information on upcoming flights, including gate numbers and status, plus it lets users view their flight reservations within the United Airlines Apple Watch app. It will also pull a traveler's boarding pass from the Passbook app, and it's able to alert users if flight times or gate numbers change.

Southwest and Virgin America told VentureBeat they were not working on Apple Watch apps at the present time, but the two airlines, along with other airlines, will likely create apps as they see their competition developing apps for the device.

The Apple Watch will become available on April 24, with pre-orders beginning on April 10. Developers have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on apps ahead of the launch, with many even flying out to Cupertino for guidance from Apple, so there should be a wealth of third-party apps available to consumers right on launch day.

The Apple Watch is still several weeks away from making its official debut, but that hasn't stopped dozens of inventors from coming up with accessories for the device, and many of those ideas are showing up on crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Along with charging stands, band adapters are a popular category for crowdfunding campaigns, and several different projects have been started with the hope of creating solutions that will allow the Apple Watch to be used with third-party watch bands.

Earlier this month, we covered the Click Apple Watch band adapter, showing off a 3D printed prototype, and now that project has been further developed and launched on Kickstarter. Click is a band adapter aiming to make most 22mm watch bands compatible with the Apple Watch.

Click is a simple adapter that slides into the grooves of the Apple Watch, much like one of Apple's own watch bands. It supports several different pin styles, including spring bars, T-bars, and quick release bars, promising to give Apple Watch users more band options at an affordable price. It will come in two sizes and four finishes, to match all of the Apple Watch casings. Click also has plans to offer its own leather bands in nine colors.

Until now, there has been no affordable way to customize the bands on your Apple Watch. The current selection is small and very expensive. We want you to be able to express yourself in every situation, because you shouldn't have to change for your watch; your watch should complement you. With Click, you can truly personalize your Apple Watch without breaking the bank.

Another Apple Watch band adapter also promises to let users wear their Apple Watches with existing watch bands. The Adappt is very similar to the Click, with Adappt also pairing its adapter with watch bands in addition to selling it separately. Like the Click, it slides into the Apple Watch band groove on one side and the second side features a standard pin that's used by most watch bands.

Adappt will be available in plastic, anodized aluminum, stainless and gold plated steel, in colors to match each Apple Watch, and it will be available in two sizes.

Thanks to high quality materials, Adappt will match perfectly your Apple Watch. Our aluminum is anodized through an electro-chemical process that creates a porous surface, then coated with a dye, to look and feel exactly like the Sport edition versions, Silver and Space Grey Aluminum.

Adappt's bands will come in rubber, leather, metal, and are priced very reasonably at $9 to $18, adapter included.

The Adappt band was actually launched previously on Kickstarter as the Standap and later removed, leading many to believe that its disappearance was at the behest of Apple, but it appears that Apple has not yet taken a stance on these types of adapters that will allow the Apple Watch to work with any band.

In the weeks leading up to the Apple Watch launch, we'll undoubtedly see additional band adapters and other accessories designed for the device. The Apple Watch will become available on April 24, but it will be available for pre-order and in-store try on beginning April 10.

The Click Apple Watch band adapter is priced at $10 for early backers, with delivery set for May 2015. Later backers will need to pay up $15 for a June 2015 delivery.

The Adappt Apple Watch band adapter starts at $7 for a plastic version, and goes up to $250 for a gold plated version. Adapters and bands from Adappt will ship in June of 2015.

Swiss luxury watch maker TAG Heuer on Thursday at the Baselworld watch convention in Switzerland announced that it is partnering with Google and Intel to create a connected smartwatch. TAG Heuer will be responsible for designing and manufacturing the watch, which will have an Intel microprocessor and use Google's Android Wear platform. The smartwatch will be released later this year, at which point specific pricing and features will be revealed.

TAG Heuer has high expectations for its upcoming smartwatch, with CEO Jean-Claude Biver calling it his "biggest announcement ever" in 40 years of working in the industry. The executive also predicted that the product will be the "greatest connected watch" available, just weeks before the Apple Watch is released. "The difference between the TAG Heuer watch and the Apple Watch is very important," Biver said. "That one is called Apple and this one is called TAG Heuer."

TAG Heuer joins Swatch, Breitling, Montblanc and Frederique Constant as one of several Swiss watch makers bringing electronic features to the wrist to compete with the Apple Watch and other connected smartwatches. TAG is the first traditional watchmaker to partner with Google, however, opening the doors for more Swiss luxury watch makers under parent company LVMH, including Hublot and Zenith, to collaborate with Silicon Valley on the next generation of wrist-worn devices.

Back when iOS 8 first launched, Launcher was one of the first apps to take advantage of the new widgets allowed in the Notification Center, and it introduced shortcut functionality that let users launch an app or complete a task like calling a specific person with a single tap.

Apple approved the app and allowed it to exist in the App Store for over a week, but then the company made the decision to remove Launcher from the App Store, calling it a "misuse" of widgets. Since then, Apple has gone on to make a series of questionable decisions about widgets, banning apps for similar widget offenses and then later changing its mind.

Up until now, Apple has not reversed course on Launcher, but that didn't stop Launcher developer Greg Gardner from continually resubmitting different variations of the app in the hopes of creating something Apple would find acceptable.

Earlier this month, a limited version of Launcher gained App Store approval (a version with only calling, emailing, messaging, and FaceTime access), and when Gardner asked for clarification on why that was acceptable when his original app was not, Apple reviewers opted to revisit the first Launcher app and stated that its functionality was now acceptable.

According to Gardner, he did not have to remove any of the original Launcher features to get it re-approved in the App Store. Apple reportedly told him that when a new feature first launches, they are conservative about what they allow, but restrictions sometimes relax over time. "That is what appears to have happened in this case," Gardner told MacRumors.

Due to Apple's decision reversal, Launcher will be available for download again beginning today. It's already propagating in some countries, and will be in the U.S. App Store tonight.

Launcher has retained all of its original functionality, which means users can download the app and use it to set up shortcuts that will appear in the Today view of the Notification Center. Available shortcuts are organized into four sections: Contact Launcher, Web Launcher, App Launcher, and Custom Launcher.

With the Contact Launcher, it's possible to create shortcuts to call someone, email someone, FaceTime someone, get directions to a specific place, Message someone, and more. The Web Launcher sets up shortcuts that will automatically launch a specified URL, and the App Launcher lets users open a specified app and works with both Apple apps and third-party apps. The Custom feature lets users create buttons for any installed apps and any other URL schemes.

Launcher also offers a few new features, including a much-requested option to make the icons smaller and hide labels for a more compact look within the Notification Center.

Launcher can be downloaded from the App Store for free, and the pro version is available as a $3.99 in-app purchase. The app is still rolling out to App Stores so it may take a short while before it is widely available to everyone. [Direct Link]

As we approach the launch of the Apple Watch, retail employees who will be demoing the devices have been sharing information with various rumor sites, including MacRumors and 9to5Mac, detailing what they're learning about the Apple Watch and how the upcoming try-on process will work.

Apple Watch employees have already been receiving training on the Apple Watch, but special meetings will take place at retail stores starting next week to give all retail employees a chance to go hands-on with the watch.

Many employees will see the watch in person for the first time at this point, and Apple will use the meetings to give them further training on the device. In its training materials, Apple has told employees they will "be the first to see Apple Watch, the first to try it on and the first to share it with the world."

After that training period, the Apple Store will be transformed overnight on April 9, ahead of the company's try-on and pre-order period, which begins on April 10. The store will be equipped with new Apple Watch tables, which feature the device displayed under glass. Tables will include areas where customers can try on the devices, and Apple employees will schedule 15 minute appointment times for each customer who wants to see the Apple Watch in person.

There will be employees on hand to show customers all versions of the Apple Watch, including the high-end Edition models at select retail stores. After trying on a watch, a customer will be able to place a reservation for the device, and it will become available for pickup on April 24, the official Apple Watch launch date.

In addition to scheduling appointments to try the watch on in store and make a reservation, customers will also be able to pre-order the device online beginning on April 10.

At an event in New York City this morning, T-Mobile unveiled its ninth Un-carrier initiative, which is aimed at business owners. T-Mobile CEO John Legere took the stage to unveil a simple new plan for businesses small and large, which is priced up to 40 percent lower than similar business plans from AT&T and Verizon.

T-Mobile's new business plan is priced at $16 per line for businesses that use under 20 lines, and at over 20 lines, the price drops to $15 per line. 10 lines (the minimum allowed), for example, costs $160, while 100 lines costs $1,500. At 1000 lines, the price drops even further, to $10 per line.

Each line comes with 1GB of data, and T-Mobile is giving businesses multiple options for purchasing additional data. Data can be purchased per line or pooled and distributed between many employees. Pooled data costs $4.75 per GB at a 100GB minimum and drops to $4.25GB at 1TB, but there are also options to purchase unlimited data for $30/line or 2GB of data for $10/line.

T-Mobile is also partnering with GoDaddy to give business customers a free domain and a free mobile site. This deal is available for any business customer with at least one line that has additional data. Through a second partnership with Microsoft, T-Mobile is offering customers a free custom email.

Customers who have a T-Mobile business line through work will be able to get discounted service for their families as well, using T-Mobile's new Business Family Discounts plan. With a standard cell phone family plan, the first line is the most expensive and the second line is less expensive. At T-Mobile, this works out to $50 for the first line and $30 for the second line. With Business Family Discounts, the person's work line counts as the first line, dropping the price of the first family line. According to John Legere, this can save families of two up to $438 per year, and it's available to all T-Mobile customers beginning today.

On the consumer end, T-Mobile's announced "Carrier Freedom," which is an expansion of the company's pledge to pay early termination fees. T-Mobile's early termination payments now cover device payments and leases, letting customers on plans like AT&T Next switch to T-Mobile. The company will pay up to $650 per phone to customers who switch carriers.

T-Mobile's final "One More Thing" announcement was the "Un-Contract," which ensures that customer's rates may go down, but they won't go up. All of the company's promotional plans are now permanent, and no unlimited data plan will change for two years.

Over the course of the last two years, T-Mobile has aimed to disrupt traditional mobile service with its "Un-carrier" initiatives. The company began with uncoupling device costs from service costs in 2013, and then went on to offer several additional incentives to encourage customers to switch to the carrier, including paying early termination fees, offering a JUMP! upgrade plan, unlimited texting and 2G data in 100 countries, free streaming music from Spotify, Rdio, iTunes Radio, and Pandora, one week free trials to test the T-Mobile service, Wi-Fi calling, and data rollovers.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster claims in a note to investors that Apple has a small team working in and exploring the augmented reality field. Munster believes that while augmented reality is still a decade away from broader consumer adoption, Apple is preparing for the next evolution in computing and will be able to offer fashionable wearables that people will actually want to wear.

"While it is limited, we believe Apple has a small team of engineers exploring augmented reality applications. We believe that at the core, the group is likely trying to understand a wearable interface that design would ultimately make fashionable/socially acceptable. At this point, we believe it is difficult to determine if or when these experiments might yield a product."

Google Glass is perhaps the most notable example of a wearable that, while revolutionary in many aspects, created some uncomfortable situations for those wearing the device in public. Glass Explorer Edition was quick to be banned from several public establishments, including movie theaters, casinos, restaurants, hospitals, sports venues, schools, banks and more due to its ability to discreetly take photos and record videos.

Munster remains skeptical about whether Apple's focus on augmented reality will result in a future product, as it is common for the company to research and develop new products and technologies that are never released to the public. Munster also has a less than impressive track record at divulging Apple's upcoming plans, so his predictions should be treated with a proverbial grain of salt.

Apple began allowing developers to release augmented reality apps on the App Store nearly six years ago, such as Google's mystery game Ingress. Apple also began exploring augmented reality for Maps in 2011, corroborated by a March 2014 report claiming that the iPhone maker still plans to add augmented reality features to Maps. Based on Munster's comments, Apple appears to remain interested in the field.