Friday Grab Bag: Apple Watch, Smaller Surface Tablets?

The New York Times has reported that Apple is developing a watch that will run the same operating system as its popular iPhones and iPads, iOS. That is about the sum total of the information provided but it is fun to think of all of the interesting things that you can do with such a device. I suspect schools will not be looking forward to students having access to answers via such a device.

Smart watches have been in vogue for the last few years, with Kickstarter favorite Pebbles probably leading the pack. There is also a range of task specific watches for activities such as golf, biking and other outdoor activities.

Changes in 2020 Olympic Sports
What do wrestling, softball and baseball have in common? Well for one they have all been dropped as Olympic sports, with a final vote now pending to drop wrestling starting with the 2020 games. The other two sports were dropped in 2005.

Still there is a line of sports seeking to be allowed at the Olympics including baseball and softball, which are seeking reinstatement. Others include karate, roller sports, squash, sport climbing and wakeboarding while rugby and golf have made the cut and will be played at the next games in 2016.

Nike says no to Android
Users of Nike’s Nike+ Fuelband are being left out if they are also users of an Android smartphone as the company has said that it will not be developing apps for that platform in the near future, but will stay the course by continuing to support Apple’s iOS.

Nike tweeted the news, which was reported by a number of outlets such as Engadget, and said that it will be focusing both on the Apple side of things and that users can also use nikeplus.com to sync their activity.

Microsoft to have smaller sized Surface tablets?
Microsoft’s chief financial officer Peter Klein hinted that the company was looking at developing next generation Surface tablets in a wide array of new sizes at the recent Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, according to geek.com.

He said that the company was prepared to meet demand from its customer base and that anything from 4-inches to 13 inches are on the table. The company had slow sales for its Surface RT models but appears to have strong sales in the Surface Pro lineup, particularly at the high end.

Apple has iOS fix in the works
Users of Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices that have its iOS 6.1 operating system might have noticed that the operating system appears to have issues with Microsoft’s Exchange servers. Well it looks like Apple is acknowledging the issue and has a fix in the works.

Issues such as reoccurring calendar items and excessive calling back to the servers and thus killing battery life were two of the principal issues associated with the bug.