Apple Watch won’t be exclusive to US, will roll-out to other countries in April, says Tim Cook

Apple Watch and Apple Pay won’t be restricted to the US and the company will roll them out in other countries as well, according to a report on 9to5Mac.
The report says that Apple CEO Tim Cook made the remark at the Berlin Apple flagship store and told “employees that the Apple Watch will not be exclusive to the United States”. He confirmed that April would see the watch launch in Germany and other countries.
The report also notes that “Apple has been heavily promoting the Apple Watch in China, so perhaps the wearable will launch to the Chinese market in or around April as well.”
It is, however, not clear whether the Apple Watch will come to India in the first wave of release, but given Apple’s track record in India, it seems highly unlikely.
Interestingly, the report also points out that employees asked Tim Cook if they would get free Apple Watches (Steve Jobs had given out free iPhones to employees when the first one was launched in 2007) and the Apple CEO said t hat he would consider the idea.
He also said that they plan to make Apple Pay, the company’s automatic payment scheme for consumers, a global program and said that Apple was “working to bring it out of the US.”

                        Tim Cook on stage during the launch of Apple Watch. AP

 

It was reported recently by a Korea paper The Electronic Times that South Korea’s LG Display Co Ltd and the display-making subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will supply screens for Apple Watch.
The report, which cited unidentified industry sources, said LG Display will be the sole supplier of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens for the Apple Watch that go on sale in April.
Samsung Display will also become a supplier for the next version of the smartwatch that is expected to go on sale either sometime in the second half of this year or early 2016, the South Korean newspaper said.
The Apple Watch is expected to launch on 9 March and Apple sent out invitations for a media event in San Francisco for the same. The company did not specify what the event will be about in the invitation which reads simply “Spring Forward,” a word play on the resetting of watches for daylight saving time.
The watch, which will let consumers check their email, pay for goods at retail stores and monitor personal health information, represents Apple’s first major new product introduction since the 2010 launch of the iPad.
The Apple Watch sports a squarish design instead of a circular one popularised by Motorola’s Moto 360. The Watch is crafted from custom alloys of polished or space black stainless steel (Apple Watch), space gray or silver anodized aluminum (Apple Watch Sport) and 18-karat rose or yellow gold (Apple Watch Edition).
The Watch also has Apple’s custom-designed S1 SiP (System in Package) miniature chip. It features Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 4.0 to pair with your iPhone.
But Apple has also introduced something called the Digit Crown. Essentially if you remember your watches of old, that little round button on the side which you had to tweak to fix the time, it’s there in the Apple Watch as well.
Except that tweaking and turning the Digital Crown is a new way to scroll, zoom in, navigate in the apps in the Watch. The cool thing about this that you don’t have to cover up the entire tiny Apple Watch Screen, as you try to zoom into an app. The Digital Crown is also the Home Button and a way to access Siri. The Watch is priced at $349 which comes to around Rs 21,000 when converted without taxes.