Updated with full event highlights leading up to the Apple Watch retail launch, which you can read about here. See how the Apple Watch stacks up to its rival smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy S, here. 

This morning’s Spring Forward event at Apple, Inc. headquarters in Cupertino, CA had been lauded for weeks as the official launch event for the Apple Watch’s retail offerings, but the show started with a slew of other product updates. While the show isn’t over yet and we hope to see the Apple Watch in a few moments, here’s the non-smartwatch highlights so far.

Stats, stats and more stats

Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the Spring Forward event with the intro to its new flagship retail store in China – China now has a total of 21 retail stores, with 453 Apple Retail Stores across 16 countries.

Apple Pay is now accepted in nearly 700,000 locations, and works with 2,500 banks.

Mac continues to grow its market share, outpacing PC sales. Mac notebook market share has grown 21 percent over the last year.

Apple TV price drop, HBO on-demand

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Starting with Apple TV, the price has dropped from $99 to $69, indicating a new model could hit shelves soon. HBO’s premium content is also now available on-demand via Apple TV, a milestone for the movie channel which previously required a cable or satellite subscription to access digital content. With Apple TV integration, HBO is accessible for $14.99 per month. For a limited time, you can get the first month of HBO NOW free if you sign up on your Apple TV, iPad or iPhone.

The timing couldn’t have been better for Apple TV’s landmark partnership with HBO, as the premium network’s popular program prepares for a new season. A trailer was shown at this morning’s Apple event.

Mobile App Ecosystem

Expanding its mobile app ecosystem, Apple has also announced ResearchKit for developers. Working hand in hand with HealthKit, ResearchKit is a platform designed for medical research applications in the health sector. Given the growing market for wearable health trackers and related mobile apps, ResearchKit is another indication of Apple’s goals to keep users on its devices with the promise of more real-world services.

To demonstrate Apple’s new ResearchKit efforts, the mPower app from University of Rochester and Sage Bionetworks was showcased for its work on Parkinson’s disease research. The app tests the vocal cords, gait, tremor intensity, activity level. other apps created using ResearchKit includes one for Parkinson’s, Diabetes, Breast Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease and Asthma.

New MacBook in Gold

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Apple’s new MacBook will be available in gold, weighing only 2 lbs and is 24 percent thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air. The new MacBook features a full-sized, LED-backlit keyboard with 17 percent larger surface area, and uses a new butterfly mechanism to make it more stable. The laptop also features a 12” Retina Display, reengineered to let more light through but use 30 percent less energy to produce the same brightness as other Mac displays.

The upgraded MacBook has a new pressure-sensitive Force Touch trackpad which has force sensors that detects how much effort you apply to it, and features a Taptic Engine that allows you to feel what’s happening on the screen. The Force click feature allows you to add new shortcuts to apps; for instance, force clicking a word pulls up the Wikipedia entry of the word, while force clicking an address pulls up a map.

The new MacBook is the first fanless laptop in its line up, which allows it to run in silence and allows for a thinner design.

It also has a custom-shaped battery that runs nine hours of web browsing and 10 hours of iTunes movie playback.

The MacBook also features USB-C to deliver power, USB data transfer, DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA capabilities all in one port. There’s support for reversible cable, much like the Lightning charger for the iPhone.

photo credit: Apple CEO Tim Cook via photopin (license)