The embargo date on Apple Watch reviews has clearly lifted, and they are everywhere. My personal favourite is the one at The Verge. It's hard to say until I hold one, but it definitely seems like Apple has put in a solid effort for a version 1.0. I still predict these will sell in far greater numbers than Android Wear, because lets face it: Apple know how to sell products. Google's "Let's release it the second it's ready and get user feedback" approach is cute, maybe even admirable, but it's not a good way to launch anything.

Anyone that says the numbers will be 'disappointing' or 'low' is in for a bad time. That said I do have a few concerns:

• The glance to look at the time action. Most reviewers seem to comment that it can take a few moments for the screen to turn on, and occasionally it doesn't turn on at all. I had this exact experience with my Moto 360, and as odd as it might sound, it quickly became annoying. It probably only failed about 1 in 20 attempts, but those quickly add up. Watches like the LG G Watch R that have the ability to have always on, OLED screens are a much nicer experience. Basically when you're not looking at it, Android Wear goes into 'ambient' mode. In this mode you can still clearly read the time and any notifications you might have without needing to wake up the watch. Once you've had a watch that does that, you won't be able to go back. I'd bet that the second or third generation of Apple Watch comes with a similar feature. All that's really required to enable it are some SDK changes and slightly better battery life. The LG watch I mentioned still has more battery life with this mode on, than the Apple Watch without it.
• Battery life. Yes, yes, I know! "It's fine, I can just charge it every night!". I bet you think that's ok, trust me, it gets annoying. Again the Moto 360 has very similar battery life, once you've had a watch that lasts even just 2 days (which the latest batch of Wear watches manage), you'll realise just how much of a difference that makes. All it takes is one long night out, or staying over a friends house, or just playing with the thing too much and suddenly you have a dead weight on your wrist.
• Watch apps that run on your phone. This part concerns me the most. On Android Wear apps run on your watch, and for the most part they are snappy and very flexible in what they can display and do. I'm concerned about Apple's 'template' approach to watch app design, and how responsive that will be over a bluetooth connection.

After reading that, you might think I'm 'negative' or 'down' on the Apple Watch. You might even be thinking that I'm suggesting Android Wear is the superior platform. I'm not. I honestly think that Apple has the marketing muscle to ensure that developers rush to the Apple Watch and make really interesting things for it. This in turn will make the Apple Watch a far more interesting platform (in the short term at least). So I'm definitely bullish on it, I'm just gun shy about buying the first version. I suspect that version 2 of the watch will be something that ages far better and lives far longer.

Oh who am I kidding? I love new gadgets, I'll be here in under 10 hours time refreshing the Apple Store if you need me...

You’re 16. You’re in school. You’re sitting in class. You have a crush on another student — you’ve fallen hard. You can’t stop thinking about them. You suspect the feelings are mutual — but you don’t know. You’re afraid to just come right out and ask, verbally — afraid of the crushing weight of rejection. But you both wear an Apple Watch. So you take a flyer and send a few taps. And you wait. Nothing in response. Dammit. Why are you so stupid? Whoa — a few taps are sent in return, along with a hand-drawn smiley face. You send more taps. You receive more taps back. This is it. You send your heartbeat. It is racing, thumping. Your crush sends their heartbeat back.

You’re flirting. Not through words. Not through speech. Physically flirting, by touch. And you’re not even in the same classroom. Maybe you don’t even go to the same school.

Daring Fireball "The Apple Watch"

Translation: My name is John Gruber and I'm high as a fucking kite.

Or how it might actually go down...

You’re 16. You’re in school. You’re sitting in class. You have a crush on another student — you’ve fallen hard. You can’t stop thinking about them. You suspect the feelings are mutual — but you don’t know. You’re afraid to just come right out and ask, verbally — afraid of the crushing weight of rejection. But you both wear an Apple Watch. So you take a flyer and...no wait...you have no idea what their iMessage ID is or how to contact them. There's also the fact that neither of you have an Apple Watch, because they are so damn expensive. You go back to day dreaming about becoming a Youtube star, at which point you'll be able to buy both of you a watch! Then they'll surely give you their iMessage ID! Then you can send them some taps! "Yeah that's right I tapped them so hard" is what you'll tell your...

...your dreaming is rudely interrupted by your teacher. She's asking you for an answer to a question you're almost certain you didn't hear. Is this real life? Everybody is laughing at you.

As part of their March 9th event, Apple introduced a new framework called 'ResearchKit'. I've read a lot of glowing articles about it since, but one thing really bothered me. A lot of these articles sight it being 'open source' as proof that this is something truly altruistic that Cupertino is working on for the social good. I've talked to a lot of people since the launch, and the problem is no one seems to know exactly what parts of it are open source, or even what it does. Are the 5 iOS apps built to date open source? Is the data in an open format? Is it the server part that's open source?

Let's start with the question "Have Apple developed an open format for exchanging medical data between apps and servers?". The answer lies in a technical overview document Apple published here:

Keep in mind that ResearchKit currently doesn’t include:

• A defined data format for how ResearchKit structured data is serialized. All ResearchKit objects support NSSecureCoding, and sample code exists outside the framework for serializing them to JSON.

For the non-technical among us, that's a no. Apple hasn't defined a standard format, but they may in the future.

So what about the server infrastructure required to receive and store ResearchKit data? That also appears to be a no. On Apple's future todo list is "Secure communication mechanisms between your app and your server". Even that suggests that you'll still need your own server. This article seems to suggest that in its current form 'Sage Bionetworks' is running some of the servers for data collection, on the Amazon AWS platform. Is the code they are writing open source, or are they one of many collection providers that can be used? The answer to that seems unclear.

So what about the 5 apps written to date, are they open source? I couldn't find an answer to that one, but the same technical document referenced above does outline a bit about how you build a ResearchKit app:

This seems to indicate that ResearchKit, just like most other iOS frameworks is a set of tools for building an iOS app that simplifies some of the things you'd need to do to collect patient data. The intention of open sourcing this part of it seems to be to encourage developers to build modules for it which would all be iOS only as well. Apple states as much in their technical document:

...developers are encouraged to build new modules and share them with the community

So, currently at least, there's no open source server components, no open format for exchanging data and an iOS only open source framework that Apple want developers to build modules for. Don't get me wrong, this still sounds like a huge step forward for medical research data collection. What it doesn't sound like though is Apple's altruistic gift to the world from which they receive no benefits. They benefit by selling more iPhones, either directly to researchers or through positive marketing associated with this endeavour. That's not a bad reason to do something, especially if you're a company, but it does mean ResearchKit might not be the cross-platform neutral playground that the term 'open source' conjures up

There is an unfortunate climate of fear in the software community today.

- http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple

As harsh as this article sounds in places, it's a fascinating read. I agree with almost all of it. You can bet that it's causing all sorts of private discussions among developers around the world. I seriously doubt you'll see those discussions happening much in the open though. They'll be confined to Twitter DMs, iMessages and private Slack channels. It's one of those odd instances where if you don't see this article widely distributed, you'll know it hit a bit too close to home.

“We started reviewing all apps and games before they’re published – it’s rolled out 100%...And developers haven’t noticed the change."

- Purnima Kochikar, Director of Business Development for Google Play

File this one under "things I never thought I'd see in my lifetime". I don't know how I feel about this yet. The Apple review process is an insane PITA for developers to deal with, so all I can hope is that Google doesn't follow their lead.