Tech writer Rod Chester tests out the new Apple Watch after its launch in the US.

APPLE unveiled its new Apple Watch this week, but there are several functions that went unmentioned at its launch event. Charles Firth reports

Location-Based Character Flaw Detection (up to 100 metres)

Apple claims that this is their ‘most personal device ever’. Many people have taken this to be simply a reference to the wide array of models and bands available — from a simple $499 “Sports” model all the way up to the gold $24,000 “Edition” model.

But it’s not just about looking good — it adds an extra layer of functionality. It allows people near the wearer of the watch to detect their character flaws to a surprising degree of accuracy.

For example, if you’re wearing a pink sports edition, with a fluorescent orange band, people in your geolocation will know within seconds of your walking in the room that you are about to start talking about your watch.

Conversely, if you’re wearing the most expensive gold model, it takes just 45 nanoseconds (that’s billionths of a second!) for people within a 100 metre radius to realise that you’re a pretentious ponce. And the time is reduced even further if you glance at your watch.

Insiders say Apple has plans to reduce ‘perception lag’ even further, which means that by the time of the Apple Watch 6 is released in 2021, people will be able to judge you for wearing a $24,000 version of a $500 watch at faster than the speed of light.

Advanced Expectation Management

Imagine this: you arrive at a bar, hoping to pick up, but you don’t know where to start. With an Apple Watch on your wrist, it can be set to instantly bring up photos of all the people better looking than you in a 50 metre radius.

This will allow you to instantly adjust your expectations for how the night will play out. It can even calculate your chance of picking up to three decimal places, so that you can either decide immediately to go home and eat ice-cream in front of the television, or lower your standards to that guy in the corner whose eczema is playing up.

Instant updates on marriage status

Much has been made of the ability for you to share the feeling of your heart-beat with another wearer. This is useful for couples in the early stages of their relationship, when intimacy is still desired.

But for those couples in long-term relationships, there are specialised functions too, to optimise the levels co-dependence, jealousy and mistrust that act as the ‘stabilisers’ of long-term relationships.

If you’re both wearing an Apple Watch, it can alert you if your wife is talking for too long with that chiselled guy she met at the gym.

And conversely, if you gaze too long at her best friend’s low-cut top even though you were actually just admiring her necklace, the Apple Watch will allow your wife to send an instant electric shock of pain into your wrist, without even needing to touch you, allowing you to live together happily ever after.

“Live A Better Day” Haptic Guilt

Much has been made of the “haptic feedback” in the watch, which allows it to tap you gently on the wrist instead of issuing audible alerts. For example, you can set it so that every time you receive an SMS or email, you can be tapped on the wrist.

But Apple says the intimacy of the feedback means the watch is perfect as a “personal coach”, allowing you to become a better person.

By integrating your personal calendar and Facebook feed with your personal movement data, the watch will optimise the best time to remind you of all the things you’ve failed to achieve in your life.

For example, it will give you a little tap just as you are slumping into bed to remind you that you haven’t walked enough steps today.

And then, a double tap just after your mum has gone to bed reminds you that it was her birthday today and you didn’t call her. You didn’t even try.

The Apple Watch can be set to suggest a different guilt trigger every day. For example, if you enable the “old friends” setting, every time you look down at your wrist, it will show you a picture of that friend who you haven’t called in over a year, even though you know that she’s been having relationship troubles, and you really should call.

And, by using its built-in sensors, Apple Watch can monitor how quickly your heartbeat increases, so over time it can learn which guilt triggers are most effective at undermining your sense of contentedness, so that you always strive to be better.

Over time, you will find yourself pacing around your home and office, wondering why you feel so inadequate, which will help increase the number of steps you’ve taken that day. You’re on your way to a better you!

In-attention Alerts

If you’ve been sitting enjoying eating ice-cream in front of a movie for too long without paying attention to your watch, it will alert you.

Using advanced fuzzy logic, it will make you look at it, at the precise moment Daniel Craig crashes his helicopter into the freight train, thus saving humanity from nuclear Armageddon.

Pay Apple

We all know about Apple Pay, which allows you hook your watch directly up to your credit card and bank accounts, so that you can use it to purchase, say, your antidepressants without having to get out your wallet, which might give you time to stop and think about why you’re feeling so awful in the first place.

But there is also the ability to set it up to allow Apple to monitor your bank account and, if the savings get to high, to automatically deduct money from your bank account, without you needing to even be notified.

They call it ‘Pay Apple’, and judging by the smile on Tim Cook’s face, this perhaps the most exciting of all the functions on the new Apple Watch.