Apple Watch official

Here it is! The Apple Watch we’ve been waiting years for is finally official. Apple boss Tim Cook revealed the new intelligent timepiece live on stage this evening – we’ve got all the details and pictures on the sexiest smartwatch so far right here.

You thought the Motorola Moto 360 looked good? Get a load of the Apple Watch, Sir Jony Ive’s latest creation. It’s a beautiful metal timepiece with six different straps, and a surprisingly simple user interface that draws from, of all things, the classic iPod’s clickwheel.

Instead of going for fancy touchscreen controls (although it does sport a touchscreen, fear not), Apple have put navigation into the dial on the side, letting you scroll up and down or zoom in and out with a twist – while the icons are similar to those found on iOS, the honeycomb cluster layout is anything but. It’s a surprisingly old school touch, and one we can’t wait to try out. On top of that, the Apple Watch can detect force as well as touch, so it can differentiate between taps and presses to help you control apps.

Around the back, there are four sensors to detect your heart rate, as well as the wireless charging kit to allow you to drop it on a charger and juice up while you sleep. Perhaps best of all though, the watch itself comes in two sizes, large and small, as well as three editions (Watch, Sport and 18 Carat gold Edition) to cope with the vastly different wrist sizes we all have – an unusual solution, but a savvy one.

Notifications work in much the same way as they do on Android Wear smartwatches: you simply scroll down through relevant alerts, and dismiss them with a swipe, and reply to messages with canned responses or voice dictation. Photos you star as a favourite on your iPhone or Mac meanwhile will automatically appear on your Apple Watch to view. Star of the show however is Maps, which is much more powerful than its equivalent on Android Wear, letting you search for locations and see a top down view straight from the small screen on your wrist.

It’s not just first party Apple apps on the watch however: Apple is letting third party developers tap into the smartwatch with its WatchKit software platform, so services can provide image rich alerts and actionable updates (So you can reply straight from your wrist, or even unlock your hotel room door with a wave of the Apple Watch).

As you might expect though, the usual lock in applies with the Apple Watch. This isn’t a universal device in the same way the Pebble smartwatch is: you need a supported iPhone (iPhone 5 and up) to power your Apple Watch, so Android and Windows Phone users will be left out in the cold.

When the Apple Watch launches early next year, it’ll start at $349 (£216). It’s often said that Apple doesn’t enter a new product category until it’s absolutely ready, and that remains as true under Tim Cook as it ever was with Steve Jobs: if Apple can deliver on what it’s promised to today, we might just be looking at the new king of smartwatches. Stay tuned for more as we get it.