Apple Daily: Apple Sells Almost a Million Watches on First Day; Final Cut Pro Update [feedly]

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Apple Daily: Apple Sells Almost a Million Watches on First Day; Final Cut Pro Update
// MacLife

In today's Apple Daily, we learn that Apple seems to have sold around a million Apple Watches through preorders on the device's first day of availability alone. In addition, Apple released an update for Final Cut Pro X and its companion apps Motion and Compressor.

Research Firm: Apple Sold Almost a Million Apple Watches on Friday

On Friday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Watch preorders were "great," but the Cupertino company hasn't been forthcoming about actual numbers. Thanks to the efforts of research firm Slice Intelligence, however, we have a decent idea of what "great" might mean. According to the firm's data, Apple might have sold almost a million Apple Watches on the first day of preorders alone.

Slice Intelligence tracks e-receipts from a pool of 9,080 online shoppers who've opted in to have their data tracked, and judging by the frequency of receipts for the Apple Watch, they believe 957,000 pre-orders were placed on April 10 in the United States.

The site's data also reveals that around two-thirds of shoppers (62 percent) bought the Apple Watch Sport, and that 71 percent of buyers bought the larger 42mm case. Buyers bought an average of 1.3 Apple Watches, and the collective average expenditures were $503.83 per watch.

As the graph above shows, the most popular band was the Black Sport Band, which was preferred by 28 percent of buyers. The metal Milanese Loop followed not far behind with 24 percent.

Not surprisingly, the firm also discovered that Apple Watch buyers were loyal Apple customers, as almost a third had bought at least two Apple products within the last year.

In related news, AppleInsider learned from Timothy Arcuri of Cowen and Company that dozens of Apple retails employees from the San Francisco Bay area claimed that around 85 and 90 percent of customers who came in for a try-on appointment ended up preordering the device.

 

Apple Releases 3D-Focused Update for Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Compressor

While everyone's attention has been on the Apple Watch, Apple today released a significant update for a popular Mac program — Final Cut Pro X — and its associated apps Motion and Compressor.

According to the press release, Apple's latest update for its popular video-editing software brings user-friendly tools for the creation of 3D titles, along with a variety of templates for backgrounds and animations. The update also allows users to easily convert 2D text into 3D, and brings a wide selection of tools for lightning and simulating materials.

Final Cut Pro X users can also utilize more video files and view up to four video scopes at once when they need precise color grading. In addition, Shape masks can now be saved as presets, and working with RED RAW files should be faster.

The focus on 3D carries over to the update for Motion, which allows users to create custom environments and materials for 3D titles and to export them to Final Cut Pro X. As for Compressor, its update allows users to easily package videos for sale on iTunes.

You can buy Final Cut Pro 10.2, Motion 5.2, and Compressor 4.2 on the Mac App Store for $299.99, $49.99, and $49.99 respectively. If you already own them, you can get the new content in an update patch that should be ready for download on your Mac.

Follow this article's writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.

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