Apple Watch details: What we learned at the Apple event

It didn’t end up being called the iWatch, but Apple did indeed reveal its take on the smartwatch during the iPhone 6 event on Tuesday. Despite the fact that it was expected, it’s a bold move for the company into a tech category that hasn’t caught on yet with the general public.

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Of course, the same thing was said about tablets at the time the first iPad was announced, and we all know how that turned out. The Apple Watch is going to be a powerful entrant into the wearables category simply from the fact that so many people have the iPhones necessary to make them work (and they’ll be compatible with the iPhone 5 models as well as the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus), a fact that Tim Cook pointed out near the end of the device’s official unveiling.

Now that we know it exists, what did we learn about Apple Watch that we can dissect until its 2015 launch? Let’s take a look:

Apple feels a watch is more personal than a phone

Sure, you’ve been able to express your individuality through your iPhone or iPad with cases or covers, but until recently, Apple hasn’t been too keen on giving you lots of colors or aesthetic choices for your phone or tablet. Not so with the Apple Watch, which will come in three different tiers, offer six different types of straps and apparently let you switch between multiple faces.

If you can’t find an Apple Watch that fits your particular style and use case, you probably aren’t trying hard enough. A one-size-fits-most solution might work for other devices, but Apple is going in the opposite direction with its first smartwatch.

A lot of time was spent thinking about the interface

That came through during the initial video that demonstrated how the Apple Watch works and in the stage demo as well. There isn’t much screen real estate for a watch, so how would Apple handle the challenge of making it work as easily and intuitively as a phone or tablet?

Pretty well, it appears, thanks to combination of technologies. The first is the watch crown, which is a dial used for zooming in and out and scrolling on the screen, in addition to serving as the home button. The display also contains sensors that enable the Apple Watch to distinguish beteen a tap, a press and a force push, which some people are already predicting may make the physical button on an iPad or iPhone obsolete in the near future.

For notifications, simply raising the Apple Watch to look at it will display whatever is trying to come through. Even without Apple’s usual arsenal of multi-touch gestures to rely on, the watch should continue the company’s reputation for ease of use.

Fitness is a major area of opportunity

This hardly qualifies as a surprise, as the entire wearables segment has had fitness tracking as a prime focus from the start. Apple showed off separate Fitness and Workout apps for the Apple Watch, showing ways that both of them could be incorporated into a wearers daily routine, both of them tied to some nifty sensors built into the back of the watch that can track pulse rate and other data.

More importantly, the presentation emphasized that the apps were usable for people of all activity and fitness levels. That should eliminate the intimidation factor that sometimes comes along with fitness trackers, as consumers can easily feel like they’re only for people who make exercise a priority. The Apple Watch can even keep track of things as simple as how many hours a day you take a break from sitting, so its clearly not just for weekend warriors. If Apple can position it as a device that can help anyone improve how they feel, that will be a big win.

Its price seems right 

Buzz going into the event was that the Apple Watch would retail for $399, and the three tiers will no doubt reach that point and go past it. But the starting price for people to buy in is going to be $349, still higher than most of the smartwatches out there, but closer to the pack than one might have expected.

Apple has had no qualms about charging premium prices for its products in the past, but this seems to suggest that even it isn’t 100 percent sure if the masses know they want smartwatches just yet. The company has confidence in the Apple Watch, as evidenced by the fact that Cook used it as his “one more thing” and how breathlessly it was described as Apple’s “most personal” product ever, but the surprisngly low price could reflect that it’s hedging its bets just a little.