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United Healthcare Offering Free Apple Watch

Posted on November 15, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical Leave a comment

What it is: United Healthcare is offering the series 3 Apple Watch for free.

Insurance companies are in business to make money so if they can minimize payments, they’ll make more money. That’s why health insurance companies like United Healthcare are looking at wearable devices such as the Apple Watch to help reduce costs. The idea is that United Healthcare will give you an Apple Watch series 3 absolutely free. The only catch is that you must meet regular physical activity goals.

The program’s walking goals are centered around frequency (walking 500 steps within seven minutes six times per day, at least an hour apart), intensity (3,000 steps within 30 minutes) and tenacity (10,000 total steps each day). If participants meet these daily goals, they can own the watch in six months.

United Healthcare is betting that people excited to get a free Apple Watch will be more motivated to stay active and healthy. The more healthy people United Healthcare has, the less likely they’ll fall sick and need payment from the insurance company. So companies like United Healthcare aren’t offering the Apple Watch solely out of the goodness of their heart but because it’s a pragmatic business decision.

Patients benefit because they stay healthy and get a free Apple Watch. The insurance company benefits because they pay less out and keep more of the premiums for themselves, so everybody wins. Expect more health insurance companies to start offering similar programs, giving away free wearable devices in return for meeting specific exercise and activity goals. If you can get a free Apple Watch just by improving your health, why wouldn’t you sign up with United Healthcare instead of another company that does not offer a similar program?

The main purpose of wearable computers like the Apple Watch is real-time health monitoring so anything that can improve your health will simply benefit everyone. If you want to stay healthy, using the Apple Watch (whether for free or not) will simply improve the quality of your life, and that’s something no amount of money can replace.

Blind Surfer Relies on Apple Products

Posted on November 9, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Blind veteran and surfboarder Scott Leason relies on Apple products to live independently.

While most people probably won’t need them, Apple products provide many assistant features to help those with visual, hearing, or physical limitations. Amazingly, by using these assistant features, those with physical disabilities can use an Apple product’s features just as well as someone without physical disabilities. This demonstrates Apple’s focus on usability for both novices and physically disabled.

Scott Leason is a blind surfboarder who uses his iPhone and Apple Watch to aid him in performing his daily tasks. “It’s a lot easier to navigate with the phone,” Leason said. “I think a lot of the visually impaired prefer the iPhone because they can do everything on it. And VoiceOver works pretty darn good.”

VoiceOver is a gesture-based reader introduced on iPhone in 2009, which made it the world’s first fully accessible smartphone user interface for the blind, according to Apple. 76 percent of blind and low-vision people using a mobile screen-reading platform choose VoiceOver.

Scott describes his reliance on the iPhone as giving him independence. The big question is if Apple products feature so many ways to help the physically disabled, what do rival products offer that meet the needs of the physically disabled? If rivals aren’t focusing on features to help the physically disabled, why not?

If a product can be used by the physically disabled, it should be easy enough to use for those without similar physical disabilities. That’s just a reflection of good user interface design. If you’re an app developer, look at how Apple designs their products for those with physical limitations, and then see how to make your app accessible to everyone. This will not only make your app easier to use, but ti will help your each a broader audience at the same time.

iPad Pro More Powerful Than Most Laptops

Posted on November 5, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: The latest benchmarks show the iPad Pro is faster and more powerful than most current PC laptops.

In the early days of PCs, mainframe and minicomputer users scoffed at PCs as “toys” because they weren’t as powerful as mainframe and minicomputers. As mainframe and minicomputers gradually increased in power, PCs dramatically increased in power until the cost and performance of a PC made them far better choices than mainframe and minicomputers. At that point, the corporate world embraced PCs and largely turned away from mainframe and minicomputers.

The same is now happening with tablets like the iPad Pro. Apple claims that the latest iPad Pro is now faster and more powerful than 92% of all laptops and the latest benchmarks back up this claim. With the iPad Pro faster, more powerful, and less expensive than PC laptops while offering longer battery life, it’s only a matter of time before the cost and power difference will favor the iPad Pro over laptops in the same way that it favored PCs over mainframe and minicomputers.

What’s holding people back from embracing the iPad Pro is familiarity with the keyboard and mouse interface of laptops along with the familiarity of desktop programs. Yet even that barrier is dropping as Adobe plans to introduce Photoshop to the iPad Pro and Autodesk is releasing AutoCAD for the iPad Pro. When all programs available on desktops are also available for the iPad Pro, why will anyone still want to cling to laptops that cost more, weigh more, offer less power and offer less battery life?

The simple answer is that they won’t, and when that happens, the laptop market will shrivel up. It may never disappear completely just like mainframe and minicomputers can still be found doing useful work, but for the majority of people, the iPad Pro will simply be a better alternative to a laptop. It may not happen today, it may not happen next year, but it’s going to happen eventually, and that’s the future of mobile computing.

The MacBook Air is the Past

Posted on November 4, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple recently updated the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro.

In the past, there was a clear distinction between a laptop and a tablet. A laptop was something you used to create content and a tablet was something you used to view content. While you could view content on a laptop and create content on a tablet, laptops were superior for creating content and tablets were superior to viewing content.

After Apple revealed new MacBook Air and iPad Pro models, that line is blurring. The future is no longer the laptop. The iPad Pro offers Apple Pencil support, an optional external keyboard, and a handful of professional applications porting from the PC world to the iPad including Photoshop and AutoCAD.

In addition, the iPad Pro is lighter and less expensive than the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is simply a stop-gap measure between laptops and tablets. For people who aren’t ready to make the leap to a tablet, a MacBook Air gives them a comfortable alternative. For people who can see the future and don’t mind the current limitations of the tablet, the iPad Pro is clearly the future.

If you’re a developer, focus on iOS. If you’re a consumer, ask yourself what might be better for you. One person might prefer the iPad Pro while another might prefer the MacBook Air. There is no right or wrong answer that universally applies to everyone. If the MacBook Air is better for your needs, then just watch the iPad Pro develop further until it does match your needs. The iPad Pro is getting faster and improving far faster than the MacBook Air or other laptop models from other companies. The laptop is a fairly stagnant device that has its roots in the desktop PC world. Just as desktop PCs are fading in relevance as people opt for laptops, so will laptop PCs fade from relevance as people opt for lighter, faster, less expensive tablets.

The iPad Pro may not meet your needs today, but it will eventually grow powerful enough to get your needs in the future. When that happens, there will be little need for laptops any more.

The Apple Pencil Gestures Foreshadow the Future

Posted on November 2, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple released a new version of the Apple Pencil and its gestures foreshadow the future of wearables.

The first Apple Pencil was kind of clumsy. You could plug it into an iPad’s Lightning port, but if you wanted to put it into a wall outlet, you had to use a tiny adapter that was easy to lose. Apple’s new Apple Pencil is different because it charges wirelessly, connects magnetically to the side of the iPad Pro so you can’t lose it as easily, and recognizes taps to give commands to switching menu options.

That last feature is the most interesting because by tapping the side of the Apple Pencil, you can convert it from a drawing tool to an eraser tool (and vice versa). Now take this tape gesture control interface and apply it to wearable computers such as smart glasses. Tap the side of the smart glasses frame and you’ll be able to control it. Slide your finger along the smart glasses frame and you should have another way to control it. Tap with two fingers compared to one finger and you have yet another way to control smart glasses.

Tap gestures in the Apple Pencil 2 foreshadow the use of tap gestures in smart glasses. Touch gestures such as sliding your finger along a smart glasses frame offers another way to control the device. With wearable computers, you can’t control it through traditional mouse and graphical user interface, so you’ll have to use touch gestures instead.

What we see in the Apple Pencil 2 is just a precursor of the future. The Apple Pencil is a useful tool for people who need drawing capabilities, but not necessarily useful for people who simply write or view content on an iPad. What is important is the user interface of the Apple Pencil 2. Watch the Apple Pencil evolve and notice how tap gestures evolve too, because when Apple introduces smart glasses, you can be sure those same tap gestures that control an Apple Pencil will be used to control smart glasses as well.

To learn more about the Apple Pencil 2, click here.

The iPad is the New Computer

Posted on November 1, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Benchmarks show that the latest iPad Pro is nearly as fast as the latest MacBook Pro.

The evidence is clear. The iPad is getting more powerful faster than laptops and desktops. The latest Geekbench benchmarks found that the latest iPad Pro runs nearly as fast as the latest MacBook Pro. Keep in mind that the MacBook Pro is a professional laptop and you realize that the iPad is getting close to the MacBook Pro’s performance.

Now toss in the fact that Photoshop, AutoCAD, and even gaming companies are porting their console and PC programs to the iPad and pretty soon there will be no difference in power between the iPad and a laptop. If there will be a difference, the iPad will soon be faster, more portable, and less expensive. Given these advantages, why would anyone want a laptop?

Right now people are choosing laptops because they’re currently more versatile and powerful than the iPad. Just looking at trends shows that the day will come when the iPad will be far superior to laptops. When that day comes within the next few years, there will be little reason to use a laptop.

Right now, people are wondering if Apple will try to get the Macintosh to run off their own A-series ARM-based processors by porting macOS to ARM processors from Intel processors. That’s a pointless discussion because why should Apple waste time developing a new Macintosh when the iPad is already becoming the new Macintosh of the future? Microsoft has already wasted time turning Windows into a table operating system, yet despite their efforts, few people buy a tablet that runs Windows. Most people buy a Windows PC to use as a laptop first with its tablet features being a nice feature but one that most people don’t care about. Microsoft is struggling to keep Windows relevant in the mobile computer age. This strategy is working now, but when the iPad starts offering vastly superior performance to a laptop, then the trend will simply shift to the iPad and leave laptops behind except for professional users who need and want the additional versatility of Windows, Linux, or macOS.

Today the iPad is close to matching a laptop. Tomorrow it will exceed it. Beyond tomorrow, it will replace it. The trend is clear and no amount of arguing will change this trend.