Following its worldwide debut in Australia last month, Apple Watch's GymKit feature launched Friday in the United Kingdom at London's Virgin Active gym near Mansion House.
Gatwick Airport, the UK’s second busiest airport after London Heathrow, has installed 2,000 battery-powered iBeacons for indoor navigation and passenger tracking.
Available across Gatwick Airport’s two terminals, the system is accurate up to three meters, much more reliable than GPS and enables an augmented-reality wayfinding tool so passengers can be shown directions in the camera view of their mobile device.
It could be used to inform passengers they’re running late and help them avoid missing flights.
Conceivably, Gatwick Airport could also take advantage of iBeacons for efficient queue management and to reduce congestion by being able to determine whether to offload luggage if a late passenger is far away.
According to the airport, they won't be collecting any personal data from the beacons with the exception of “generic information on ‘people densities’ in different beacon zones.”
Deployed in just three weeks, iBeacons form part of Gatwick’s £2.5 billion (about $3.1 billion) transformation initiative. The technology is currently being integrated into some of the Gatwick apps.
The airport is in discussion with other airlines to enable the indoor positioning and wayfinding tools to also feature on their apps and services.
According to Gatwick:
Airlines could go further—and with the consent of their passengers—may send reminders on their airline app to late running passengers, for example, or find out where they are and make an informed decision on whether to wait or offload their luggage so the aircraft can take off on time.
The lack of satellite signals makes road-based navigation systems, like Apple Maps, unreliable indoors. That's why Apple has developed inexpensive iBeacons, which are tiny battery-powered Bluetooth transmitters.
The British newspaper Evening Standard reports that Apple will be opening a “stunning new” campus in London’s iconic Battersea Power Station. The $11.7 billion project will create a new home for 1,400 employees in the brick “cathedral of power,” which had been powering and lighting London up to 1983.
As part of its Fare Free Mondays promotion, global financial services corporation MasterCard is now offering Apple Pay users free public transit in London for a limited time. The promo starts today, November 23, and is valid over the next four consecutive Mondays ending December 14, 2015.
During those Mondays, customers in London can take advantage of Apple Pay on their iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch to use London's public transit network at no charge. That is, up to £27.90 in daily fares per customer is included in the form of refundable funds.
Here we go again...
In what could only be described as a continuation of its miserable anti-Apple advertising campaign, Samsung has hired people to wear backpack-mounted banners advertising its Galaxy smartphones to folks who queued up for iPhone 6s launch this morning outside the Apple Store in London’s Regent Street, The Inquirer reported.
The banners promote Samsung’s latest Galaxy S6 edge and S6 edge+ flagships and carry the provocative tagline “The itch to switch just got bigger.” In addition, International Business Times is reporting that Samsung even gave queued customers bright blue pillows and bottles emblazoned with the hashtag #NextIsNew.
But wait, there's more.
Apple Watch advertising has been amped up quite a bit with news of a remarkable eye-candy floral display which promotes the wearable device at Selfridges, a chain of high end department stores in the UK founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge.
According to design outlet Wallpaper, two dozen floral displays that wrap around Selfridges’ flagship store in London sport blooming flowers and other floral motifs directly inspired by the Motion face on the Apple Watch.
Apple on Friday announced (via iGen.fr) grand opening for Apple Watch stores-within-a-store located in high-end department stores in London, Paris and Tokyo. The company's UK Retail website confirms that the Selfridges Apple Watch shop will open doors to business on Friday, April 10, at 9am local time.
Located on London's 400 Oxford Street, the Selfridges shop is just across the popular Wonder Room shopping hall where a bunch of watch brands and jewelers operate their luxury shops. Apple previously said pre-orders for the wearable device will kick off on April 10.
While making an unannounced visit to Apple's flagship retail store in London's Covent Garden, CEO Tim Cook dropped a few more hints about the upcoming wrist-worn device, expected to mark Apple's foray into wearables come this April.
As The Telegraph reported, Apple's chief executive said the Watch will replace your car keys, reward exercise, filter messages and more.
Apple has started to animate certain landmarks in a three-dimensional Flyover view in Apple Maps, The Daily Mail reported Thursday. Specifically, London's Big Ben clock and the popular London Eye now feature animated segments in Flyover.
The face of Big Ben's clock tower is being animated to show the correct local time while London Eye's rotates slowly when browsed in Apple Maps' Flyover view.