John Gruber:

Further, I don’t think any of the stainless steel bands will be available for retail purchase. They’ll sell sport bands, which you’ll be able to use on any Apple Watch, but I don’t think any of the nicer bands will be available for retail purchase. Don’t hold your breath for a space black Link Bracelet to put on your $349 Sport model. The nicer bands aren’t accessories that Apple hopes you’ll tack onto your purchase; they’re signifiers of how much you paid for your stainless steel or gold Apple Watch. [emphasis mine]

Agree. This reminds me of how Rolex has two bracelets for their timepieces — Jubilee and President. Because Rolexes can come in three very similar-looking metals — stainless steel, white gold, and platinum — Rolex offers the President bracelet for only white gold and platinum. So when you see a Rolex with a President band, you'll know the wearer paid for more than a stainless steel Rolex.

It's great to see a smartwatch-maker finally thinking fashion-first, not technology-first.

This is exactly what I envision Apple will do with the iPhone. The iPhone matures enough to replace your PC and then you just wirelessly sling the interface to a variety of "dumb screens," whether it be a tablet-sized screen, a laptop-sized screen with a keyboard, a desktop monitor with keyboard & mouse, a TV, or even a car center console.

Then years down the line, the Apple Watch — or another computing device that is always on you — replaces the iPhone as the centerpiece of your digital life.

As for this Neptune Duo? It demos really well but A) it's too masculine-geeky for mainstream, and B) it'll be severals years until the technology is good & cheap enough to make this idea into something more meaningful.

Ben Thompson:

Apple is on the verge of leaving the narrowly-defined smartphone market behind entirely, instead making a play to be involved in every aspect of its consumers’ lives. And, if the importance of an integrated experience matter more with your phone than your PC, because you use it more, how much more important is an integrated experience that touches every detail of your life?

In fact, if there is a flaw in this vision, it’s that even pulling an iPhone from your pocket is too cumbersome. What if you could interact with your home, your car, retail, the cloud, or even your own body with something even more personal and accessible?

Phase I — Build a killer product that people will love.

Phase II — Build a killer software ecosystem around it.

Phase III — Build a killer hardware ecosystem around it.

Phase IV — Build your next killer product that will eventually succeed your current killer product.

AppleInsider explains Apple's recent patent application:

For example, if a user needed to visit the Department of Motor Vehicles, Apple's technology could determine which office has the shortest lines at any given time, and advise the user to visit that location.

In the event that the location cannot be changed, such as when the user has a flight scheduled, Apple's system could alert the user with reminders and give them a suggested time to arrive at the airport. Doing so would allow users accommodate for heavy traffic and help ensure that they arrive at their gate on time.

Apple's system would measure traffic by tracking data from a user's iPhone, measuring their movement over time. Those movements would be used to determine how long it takes for people to move through a specific location, estimating how long the lines might be at that particular spot.

"The server can determine how long mobile devices (and their users) loiter around locations of interest or remain in a queue," the filing reads. "For example, the server can analyze the indoor traffic information to determine how long (e.g., on average) mobile devices have to wait near a cash register location."

There is much more that can be done with indoor mapping than just mapping out shopping malls and having nearby stores push promos to your phone.

Apple may never catch up with Google Maps for outdoor mapping, so now, as I've said before, Apple wants to be the Google Maps (and Waze) for indoor venues.

John Gruber:

The conventional wisdom just two years ago was that Apple needed to create a low-priced iPhone — not just lower-priced but low-priced — to compete in “emerging markets” like China. That would be true if Apple were interested primarily in market share. But they’re not, never have been, and never will be interested primarily in unit sale market share. Far from hurting them, Apple’s commitment to the premium end of the phone market is helping them separate from the pack in China.

When talking about Apple's market share, there's a big difference between saying "only 20%" and "the top 20%."

Ben Thompson, emphasis mine:

The old hoary chestnut that “Apple only wins because its advertising tricks people into paying too much” was raised in my Twitter feed last night, and while the holders of such an opinion are implicitly saying others are stupid, my take runs in the opposite direction: it’s not that people are irrational, it’s that human rationality is about more than what can be reduced to a number. Delight is a real thing, as is annoyance; not feeling stupid is worth so much more than theoretical capability. Knowing there is someone you can ask for help is just as important as never needing help in the first place.

Apple spends an inordinate amount of time and resources on exactly these aspects of their products. Everything is considered, from the purchase to the unboxing to the way a webpage scrolls. Things are locked down and sandboxed, to the consternation of many geeks, but to the relief of someone who has long been conditioned to never install anything for fear of bad actors. Stores – with free support – are just a few miles away (at least in the US), a comfort blanket that you ideally never need. All of this is valuable, even though much of it is priceless, only glimpsed in an average selling price nearly triple the industry average.

Nailed it.

Marketing and having a strong brand will only get people in the door and maybe buy your product once; but it's good user experience that keeps people loyal. You can buy sales with a fat marketing budget, but you cannot buy customer loyalty.

Definitely check out the rest of his piece articulating the two other bad assumptions that people make about Apple.

August Mueller:

So when we watch the Microsoft keynote, we don't get excited because we know what to expect. We've learned from past behavior not to completely believe what Microsoft is selling.

And this is why so many people love what Apple delivers. When Apple gives demos of their new product, they aren't throwing in CG showing how they hope things will happen some day in the future. Instead they show the real deal. How it's being used yesterday. And it's those possibilities that get us excited. And Apple frames it so well. The product demos never show us at work (because who wants to get excited about work?), instead the demos show us how the product will be used in our life. How it can make the things we enjoy even better.

And that is probably the biggest difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple knows when it's time to show a new product. Apple knows when something is ready for real world use, and Apple won't rush something out the door because of market pressures.

Apple is your favorite aunt or uncle, who isn't talking about crazy future ideas, but is instead showing you how to hold a pencil correctly, or a tie your shoe. Something you can do today. Apple isn't flailing about trying to grab onto whatever it can so, yelling out for attention. Apple is solid, reliable, dependable.

As an introvert, I've always loved this about Apple. They don't announce anything unless they have something worth announcing, the same way I don't say anything unless I have something worth saying.

And when Apple does speak, they speak with purpose. They speak to set expectations. They speak not to build up hype, but to paint a picture of how their products will fit into your life.

AppleInsider:

Apple has taken two different but complimentary approaches to this problem. The first is the iBeacon system, which depends on small palm-sized Bluetooth transmitters placed around a particular space.

When an iOS device sees an iBeacon, it can analyze the signal to determine approximately how far away from that beacon it is. Using multiple iBeacons with known locations, developers can roughly triangulate the user's position.

This isn't very helpful on a large scale, however, since there is no central database of iBeacon locations — such data is by and large only usable by the owner of the beacons. To address the larger problem, Apple acquired small indoor mapping firm WiFiSLAM in early 2013.

WiFiSLAM's technology combines data from on-device sensors with Wi-Fi signal trilateration to plot a user's path. The Wi-Fi signals provide relative positioning, while on-board sensors record movement.

Here's an example: your iPhone could analyze the signal strength of Wi-Fi networks around your house to determine approximately how far you are from each access point. As you move around, the accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope on the handset measure forces exerted by maneuvers like turning left and then right again to avoid a coffee table.

Combining all of that data together over a period of time can bring detailed patterns to light; e.g. "there is an obstacle three feet from point A that can be avoided by moving left two feet." Extending that data capture and pattern recognition to many users — say, the thousands of iPhone owners that visit a shopping mall in a given day — allows for the development of detailed and highly accurate maps without the aid of overhead satellites or dedicated data gathering initiatives.

iBeacons, another "boring" feature announced two summers ago, will really shine when this indoor mapping system gains traction. Apple wants to be Google Maps, but for all indoor venues.

Benedict Evans:

One way to look at this is that iOS and Android have been converging - they arrived with more or less the same capabilities despite starting from opposite ends. Apple has given up control where Google has taken it. And of course Google has had to add lots to Android just as Apple had to add lots to iOS (and they've generally 'inspired' each other on the way), and just as Apple has added cloud services Google has redesigned the user interface (twice, so far).

But the underlying philosophies remain very different - for Apple the device is smart and the cloud is dumb storage, while for Google the cloud is smart and the device is dumb glass. Those assumptions and trade-offs remain very strongly entrenched. Meanwhile, the next phases of smartphones (messaging apps as platforms and watches as a dominant interface?) will test all the assumptions again.

Patrick Salyer:

Consumers have been longing to get rid of passwords for years. Ad nauseam, we’ve heard the clamors for the end of passwords because of the deluge of usernames and passwords we have amassed and the inherent security issues and frustration they create. Imagine never needing to create another user name or password again for any site or app by using your Apple ID. That’s what Touch ID promises.

Ultimately, Touch ID and Apple Pay are proxies for Apple ID, which is becoming paramount to what is sure to be a strategy to overtake other identity providers.

Consumers will love using Apple ID for authentication on sites and apps because of the seamless experience – imagine being able to authenticate quickly not only at point-of-sale systems and mobile apps using your thumbprint but also on third-party sites just by having your phone in close proximity to your computer.

Businesses, or relying parties, will love it because they’ll get more registrations, identify more customers across devices, and have lower shopping cart abandonment. Apple, in turn, will establish more permanence with users, further entrenching them into the Apple ecosystem.

I've believed the exact same thing since TouchID was announced.

I've also been bullish on the Apple Watch being key to killing passwords.