By John Moltz
January 6, 2023 3:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Physical challenge
This week Apple would like you to get physical (HARD PASS) while we take pity on the lost souls at CES and look aghast at Apple AR headset rumors.
Apple features Fitness+ front and center on Apple.com
It’s January, a new year, and it’s time once again to pretend that this is the year you’re going to finally do it, you’re finally going to get in shape. Luckily, Apple is here to help. This week the company dedicated its home page to Fitness+ ringing in 2023 with the banner “Welcome to the year of you.” Gosh! I was Time’s person of the year back in 2006, and now I get a whole year of me?! What did I do to deserve all this attention?! (Other than all the whining, I mean.)
Honestly, thanks, Apple, but this isn’t my first January rodeo, to use a clumsy metaphor. I’m way past kidding myself about my ability to stick to resolutions.
Hang on, did you say “sleep meditation”? I can just… lie there and fill my rings?
Nah, I probably still won’t do it. Nice try, though! You almost had me.
CES is back, baby
Believe it or not, it’s also time for CES, so please, this week, spare a thought for those damned souls who are currently in Las Vegas stuffing business cards in fish bowls and vainly trying not to catch communicable diseases or incur hangovers. Look, this is the job. It’s fishbowls, being sick, and, uh, being sick again. Just live with it. Or die trying. I’ve never been to CES but I did go to a few Macworld Expos right after the holidays and it was always an exciting if exhausting time. I kind of miss strolling the showroom floors and seeing what vendors have come up with-
“Withings Debuts iPhone-Connected Urine Reader That Goes in Your Toilet”
Actually, you know what? I’m good. I don’t miss it as much as I thought I did. I’d rather be sitting on my couch eating Fiddle Faddle, watching a Star War, and not catching anything.
That device must make for quite the showroom floor demo, though. Really makes you think.
As much as you try not to.
Fanny packs are in
The release of Apple’s AR headset may have gotten kicked down the road a bit, but The Information has some piping hot rumors about the device, some of which are a little surprising.
For example, the headset will use small motors to automatically adjust its lenses
I’m looking forward to Siri asking “Better A… or B? … A? … Or B?”
The headset will also feature a dial akin to the Digital Crown on the Watch, however the rumors take pains to note that it will not have haptic feedback. But… we didn’t ask about that, rumors. Why would you got to such lengths to detail a feature that’s not in the device… unless you’re not rumors at all?!
[pulls mask off rumors to reveal an angry Tim Cook]
“You meddling kids!”
It would not be the first time Apple has planted fake information in order to identify loose lips within the company. I’m not saying that’s what this is, but some of this sounds a little sus.
A waist-mounted battery, connected via a magnetic…
A battery pack you wear on your belt… Wait, is this some other company’s headset? Did some clerical error get Magic Leap’s peanut butter in Apple’s chocolate?
At least we’ll always have magnets.
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]