Apple's March 2015 event roundup – Hungry Geeks

After months of waiting, the Apple Watch is finally going to be released, along with a number of other nifty stuff! Here is a roundup of the highlights and biggest news from Apple’s event today in case you were asleep or having laggy livestream.

Apple TV’s exclusive HBO Now

Apple CEO Tim Cook started the event by calling out the HBO CEO to announce that HBO’s standalone streaming service, named HBO NOW, which will be exclusive to Apple TV at launch. The service cost $14.99 a month (first month is free) and will arrive alongside the premiere of Game of Thrones this April.

To entice you more with HBO NOW, Apple also lowered the price of the Apple TV down from $99 to just $69.

iPhone 6 and Apple Pay is gaining momentum

Within months after the release of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple announced that it has recently sold its 700 millionth iPhone. They also bragged that their Apple Pay is expanding to 700,000 retailers and 2,500 banks due to popular demand. They added that Apple Pay-able Coca-Cola vending machines are coming soon.

Apple releases ResearchKit

To enhance the HealthKit, Apple has released an open-source ResearchKit to aid medical institutions and facilities gather data for diagnostics and research. You can use ResearchKit to send data to various medical research facilities without the need to physically show up for research.

Medical partners are located worldwide. Apple promises to allow users to decide how their data is shared without seeing your personal medical information.

Ultra thin GOLDEN MacBook

After the constant growth of the MacBook these past few years, Tim Cook announced a refresh of the MacBook with a 12-inch laptop, packed with a Retina display that’s just 0.88mm thin. The whole laptop is only 13.1mm thin almost 25 percent thinner than the latest MacBook Air.

The keyboard now has a butterfly mechanism that stretches closer to the edge and grants a brand-new typing experience. Each key now has an individual backlight.

Apple also featured the trackpad with a “Force Touch” technology that comes with haptic feedback and extra sensors so you can click anywhere on the trackpad and get the same pressure from all the corners. You can also set up the touchpad to understand how hard you press.

The new MacBook will be available on April 10 starting at $1,299. It comes in silver, space grey and gold. MacBook Air and Pro will receive some hardware upgrades as well, starting today.

Apple Watch released

The main highlight of the event: The Apple Watch will be released on April 24, starting at $349. It boasts an 18-hour battery life and various builds, from stainless steel to aluminum to 18-karat gold.

The Apple Watch allows you to swipe up to view “Glances” of your most commonly used apps, like news, notifications and weather. The buttons on the side brings up your contacts, and you can interact with your friends’ watches by tapping, drawing and heartbeats.

Most of the features announced today are just recaps of what Apple unveiled last September 2014’s event. Apple Watch will be available in three collections: Sport, Standard Edition, and Apple Watch Edition. The Apple Watch Edition features an 18-karat gold build and starts with a whooping price of $10,000.

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