Apple launches smartwatch

CEO Tim Cook sought to prove that "innovation is alive and well" at Apple this week by launching the tech giant's first new product class in four years.

Apart from two new iPhone models with larger screens, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, consumers will be able to buy an Apple Watch next year. This is meant to be a lightweight complement to the iPhone, with many of the latter's apps, and it is also a fitness and health monitor.

Apple has also introduced Apple Pay, a digital payment service allowing users to make purchases by waving an iPhone in front of a reader. Ultimately, digital payment might imply the end of credit cards.

What the commentators said

Apple's eagerly anticipated press conference was a damp squib, reckoned Chris Owen on Telegraph.co.uk and not just because of the "terrible live streaming" and performance from U2. "It was all a little me too'."

Making smartphones bigger, digital wallets and smartwatches are areas that have already been explored by competitors. "The one area where there isn't an existing competitor is in sending your heartbeat to another wearer of a smartwatch however, this isn't a problem that is actually waiting to be solved."

You may wonder why anyone with a computer in their pocket would need one on their wrist. Then again, I've never believed that anyone really needs an iPad yet Apple has sold over 100 million of them. Apple managed to persuade people that they wanted them.

The Apple Watch "looks highly wantable". And given that millions of people still spend huge sums on stylish watches that do little more than tell the time, they could well splash out for "a stylish watch that provides several kinds of useful information".