Why I have finally taken off the Apple Watch
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
First, the fact that its "E-paper" display is always on means it works well as an old-fashioned watch so I can instantly tell the time. (I still find it crazy that the Apple Watch display is off by default!)
Pebble's notification support works really well with Android so I can see at a glance whether a new email or WhatsApp message is something I need to respond to on my phone. Most of the time I don't, so I spend less time fiddling with my phone.
The feature that I most appreciate that I hadn't anticipated is that the Pebble vibrates and shows who's calling when someone calls me. Which means I can keep my phone on silent all the time but never miss a phone call.
So I'm definitely a fan of the Pebble Time. Its UI is really simple and well thought out, especially compared to the Apple Watch, and there's really nothing else I need it to do, apart perhaps from being more physically attractive.
Basically, they can look more impartial by saying we think X is better, but we also sell Y if you really need Z. Much like how Amazon sells Fire and Kindle with some versions of Fire costing less than any version of Kindle.
You do it by building up features from user story primatives (e.g. I want to glance down and see who's calling). Then shipping with enough primatives covered to be useful.
So not right now then
Because astroturfing.
Mainly got it because the 6s+ is just too big for my pockets so ends up being left on the desk (at work) or counter (at home) a lot more than the 5s I had and I wanted to get notifications for various apps/calls for these times.
I think they strayed from the path with Round because it sacrificed so much battery life. It looks like Pebble 2 is going to be 7-10 days again though.
The key advantages of a Pebble over other watches were always battery life and minimal-but-useful functionality. Take away the battery life and cram more fruit into it and you just have an underpowered copy of the mainstream smartwatches.
Straying from the path is a pretty derisive way to characterize expanding a product line, even if the new product isn't for you.
Obviously (my) taste is very much personal.
I think the idea that all watches need to be charged nightly and are a pain to use just isn't true anymore. Its a shame the Moto 360 and the Apple Watch became the first big e-watches. In retrospect, they were both fairly poor efforts, especially in terms of battery life.
This is funny because it was the Apple iPod that defeated other mp3 players by its simplicity.
The killer app was driving with the Apple Watch (not what I would have expected). I found the GPS vibrating prompts, a glance at the watch for next turn really awesome features and I try not to drive anywhere unfamiliar without it. This is one area that's super subtle but really well thought out.
Again useful during driving, I also found the ability to skip music with my hands still on the steering wheel to be incredibly helpful. Feels safer than taking my eyes off the road to fumble my phone.
Would I pay for the next Apple Watch? Maybe. But I definitely no longer consider myself an Apple Watch hater.
Also 2016 C-Class is probably not a good investment if that's your killer feature ;-)
Seriously though, some of us are frugal and won't spend our money on new cars. Bluetooth connectivity is nice but not really worth the investment in a vehicle if you already own one in good repair. A watch is orders of magnitude cheaper.
I get that the vibration is useful to tell you to pay attention, and maybe current map software can't just provide a quick ping sound without screwing up music playback. But I'm not sure why glancing down at your hands is a good idea.
Also, sometimes I play Slacker radio from the phone too, which the phone does a decent job of interrupting the music and speaking the instruction for.
Also I have the Automatic OBD plug which audibly alerts me when I'm speeding and a bidirectional dash camera that fits over my mirror, you know just in case an accident or something.
Hmm, after writing all this out I'm thinking I might have over done it with car gadgets.
Well presumably you take one hand off the wheel or have a really long tongue?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/nosy-apple-watch-users-discover-...
I'm an apple watch user but I've not perfected the schnozz technique.
I can have my phone talk to me when driving and tell me when to turn. There are so many mounts available I can put it anywhere.
Besides, if its killer app is GPS there is something seriously wrong with other apps then.
Me, when it becomes my phone I will be happy. As in, when its not a slave device.
I now have a Microsoft Band 2 and with Google Maps I get the same functionality, so it turns out I didn't lose anything by selling my Apple Watch.
I feel like that's significantly less important nowadays, with literally every single new car offering bluetooth connectivity and music controls directly on the wheel, you can use them without even looking.
It's a sign of how broken and far behind automobile tech is that Alexa was first developed for the kitchen and not the car.
Microsoft Sync got a lot of shit because from what I've heard, the touchscreen version was a total mess, but the voice only version before that in my car's been pretty solid.
> Voice commands on car entertainment systems was available all the way back in 2008, albeit in a $120k car
Voice command entertainment system are available in your run-of-the-mill $14k car nowadays. 2016 Ford Fiesta S model has Sync 3 voice command system built in.
I'd love to be wrong. But I doubt I am.
There is actually no more suitable place imaginable for performing those functions by voice than behind the wheel. I don't want a replacement for the dials on my dashboard. I want the breadth of services Alexa provides.
Because it is controlled by car companies. Software solutions for Automobiles have been around for a very long time. Lots of grassroots entrepreneurs have made attempts, but there is so much friction at the automobile level, that innovation literally is slow and frustrating.
I do not know too much about the culture there, but from the stories I gather from the people who work there, management is very smug about industry position, engineers are not very tech oriented, it's engineering heavy, software light, and have a mentality of tech-is-cool-and-useless.
Management and leadership are not very focused on integrating on these cool useless tech objects. And they have other focuses.
Other things that the watch has been a nice addition for - checking the weather over the next few hours by spinning the dial is very convenient. Receiving/reading messages while the phone isn't out.
The rest of it, not so much. The watch could be better at showing the time when you want to see it; I often have to tap the face. I rarely use Siri. I ignore calendar/mail entirely, phone works better. I dislike Apple Maps and use Google Maps instead. I could theoretically be in the market for a smaller/slimmer Apple fitness device.
Holy shit I have no idea why I never thought to do that, that's a great feature.
I agree that the watch is not a life changing tech upgrade like the iPhone was, but personally, I find the features on the watch that I do use to be convenient and compelling enough that I still put the watch on every morning.
Really, the killer feature I want is disable the god damn screenshot feature on the watch, or at least give me a button in the photos app to "purge all watch screenshots" because fully half of my photo library is accidental watch screenshots, and I haven't had the time to come up with a way to script it.
Oh yes, and apple pay when a vendor accepts it is just down right awesome.
If it does what I think it does, Garmin, Suunto and others have the same "killer feature" (in which case one should wonder, what is that feature killing? Not Apple's competitors.) Pebble doesn't, last time I fired my up a few weeks ago.
Other things that the watch has been a nice addition for - checking the weather over the next few hours by spinning the dial is very convenient.
A button push on my Garmin. One long push on Pebble, if you've set it up for that. Pebble has watch faces that show weather all the time. Haven't looked, but I'd be surprised if someone didn't do the same for Garmins.
The watch could be better at showing the time when you want to see it; I often have to tap the face.
This is where I think that Apple failed miserably. It's the main reason that I, as an iOS/Mac developer and all-around fanboy, didn't even consider the Apple Watch when it came out. Wanna know the time with a Garmin or a Pebble (or a Suunto, or just about any other smartwatch out there)? Want it to work every...single...time? Turn your wrist until the watch is in your line of sight. You'll see the time, guaranteed. (Caveat: if it's dark, might have to hit the backlight button. Though the Garmin on my wrist will light up at night when I turn my wrist with about 95% success.)
I was an Apple Watch naysayer until I bought one. Now I like it (I don't love it) but it's a useful addition. I disagree about the notification model. It means I can look at a message and decide whether it's important and for short responses reply from the watch.
And Apple Pay support in Australia is ... lacklustre. We only just got one bank behind it. If my bank supported Apple Pay it might be four stars.
If it were half the price (closer to ~AU$330), it would be five stars.
Apple Pay seems like the sort of thing that's needed in the US because of the woefully backwards payment infrastructure.
1) Don't have to touch or open my wallet to get at it
2) More secure than either debit or credit because it's a 1-time generated card number
3) Harder for the merchant to track my purchases because it's a different number every time
4) Isn't linked directly to my checking account so I can't lose money if there's a mistake or fraud
Plus not sure in the US but our contactless readers make it awkward to hold your wrist against them.
Phone comes out. Double tap home button. Damn, it just unlocked. Try again. Double tap. Fingerprint. Hold, recognised. Great. Hold my thousand dollar phone up to the reader. Vibrates. Works! Cool.
And then I never used it again.
The problem in Australia, where our contactless payment system is so ubiquitous (and has been for years), is that using a worthless plastic card is just so much easier and quicker. It's instant. There's no tap, no fingerprint. I don't care if I drop it. It's just easier.
You're doing it wrong :) You don't need to double tap the home button. Once you're phone is close to the card reader the Wallet will automatically open to your default card (it opens when you're maybe 10-15cm away). By the time your device is next to the reader it's ready to accept your fingerprint. The only time I do the double tap is when I'm using the London Underground so I can pre-authorise the fingerprint and get through the gates a bit quicker. I find it much faster than using my contactless card which requires me to get out my wallet, remove the card from my wallet (as I have multiple contactless cards), hold it to the reader, put it back in the wallet, put the wallet in my pocket. With the phone I pull it out of my pocket with my thumb resting on the reader, hold it to the card reader, and put it back in my pocket.
Those are your dimensions. If you do anything that compromises those product fundamentals, you are making a bad decision.
If Pebble came out with a good looking, waterproof watch with a week long battery, they would dominate the market. The fact that they have done so well against the marketing juggernaut that is apple, is a tribute to how close they've come to these core product traits.
I'm curious which one of those you think they currently aren't meeting, because they currently have the latter two, and the Pebble Time Round is a fairly attractive looking watch IMO.
* Apps suck 99% of the time
* Apps are slow
* The UI is hard to use (especially while moving)
* Siri is SLLLLOOOOOWWWWWWWWW
When siri does work it's awesome but I find myself just saying "Hey Siri" (to activate my phone) or holding down the home button for a second to activate it much more often. The watch is just too slow most of the time and nothing is more frustrating than telling it to do something, it failing, and then me having to go do it on my phone. Also when most people ask me about it I say "I like it but it's far too expensive for most people to justify, I even have a hard time self-justifiying it to myself now that I've had it". Notifications, weather, upcoming events, time, fitness/activity? All great and it's why I wear it daily but it's been months since I launched an app on it. I'll see where Apple goes with it but I'm very much so considering switching back to a Pebble Time or other Pebble device as they are cheaper.
Your Watch, or a better version of it, could monitor your sleep.
https://blog.cardiogr.am/what-do-normal-and-abnormal-heart-r...
"It’s that smartwatches are a solution in search of a problem."
Also not true. Health and safety are a huge reason most people will be wearing a smartwatch, or wearable, in the future:
https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo...
This article almost seems as clickbait... I could also write about how I bought a $500 coffee maker, and stopped using it after 9 months, because I actually don't drink much coffee. I just thought that having a nice coffee maker would improve my life.
I have a 50-year old Rolex Air King (way older than me, family heirloom) and I can't imagine switching to anything else anytime soon. It's simple, no-nonsense and a beautiful watch. I appreciate other, fancier watches and might wear something on the high end for a really posh event, but that's it.
How does this sound: never get past the fact that I appreciate phones for the calls they make
We have to come to accept they are watches in name only. And mostly remote controls for phones.
Along those same lines though, I don't want to wear two devices on my arm and the remote control has to compete (aesthetically) with the watch.
Both are mostly useless to me -- I already have a phone. I'm still going with the watch.
* Siri, set timer. (I just wish Siri was faster... it's pretty frustrating) * Locate my phone, this has been a life saver. As someone who runs a lot of events, I have a tendency to just leave my phone on a table and forget about it. * Having calls redirected to your wrist. This coincides with leaving my phone somewhere. Events are usually super loud so I wouldn't hear my phone anyways, but the pulsing vibration on the wrist is difficult to ignore.
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I purchased an Apple Watch for my mother who works in a more corporate setting with a shared desk. She's constantly on her feet and she has no pockets to keep her phone on her. The watch has been an incredible investment for her as she use to only check her phone during lunch and as she left for work. These days it's easier to get a hold of her in case of an emergency. When she's on the go, her phone is typically in her pursue, so you can imagine the benefit of the phone on her watch.
The Apple watch isn't for everyone, but there are certainly some people that benefit from it more than others.
But I picked up a Moto360 maybe a year and a half ago for $150 on sale and while its main uses have also been notifications, the occasional voice/tap command, and playing with making watch faces in Photoshop, I'm mostly OK with that.
$150 for a computer-watch that can change its appearance and layout to match your mood, occasion, or tie is pretty neat. But I don't know that it's $500 neat. Kinda like Travolta's $5 milk shake in Pulp Fiction, the Apple Watch is a pretty cool gadget, but I'm not sure it's something I'd ever pay that much for. But once you get into the $100-200 range, they start to become more appealing.
And once the tech works its way downstream into cheaper products the way basic smartphones have, I think they'll be fairly popular.
In the weeks between getting the warranty repair, I began wearing the watch my grandad gave me before he passed away.
I found two things. 1. I didn't miss anything about the fitbit - the main thing I used it for was time, and the second most used feature - the step counter - wasn't used for much more than something of general interest. I didn't find that killer reason I needed the watch in my life, even though I live an active lifestyle.
2. I preferred wearing the old fashioned watch with sentimental value attached. A watch is so unique as it can be passed through generations and is worn daily by one person over a long period of time. Given the premium real estate of my wrist meaning there is only one place for a device, I'd much rather have something there which is something very special and dear to me, than a gimmick.
I'll admit that's a kind of pedantic little nitpick, and the Pebble is a great little thing, but I switched back to my old Invicta chronograph after awhile.
It sucks at being a watch.
I can check my Casio without flicking my wrist. I can even take it off and place it next to my keyboard and keep track of the time.
Not possible on the Apple Watch, even more infuriating by the inconsistent detection of the wrist movement.
The Apple Watch is a watch that sucks at being - a watch.
i also got mine for half the original price, at $75
i think they were smart to focus on the things smartwatches actually do well: notifications, and simple remote controls (i.e. for music, navigation)
having physical buttons makes it much more useful, since i can easily perform actions without even looking at the watch, or with gloves on
and only having to charge it once a week is wonderful
i personally don't use activity trackers, but the newest pebbles include that functionality
i think android wear and the apple watch both try to do too much, and end up being good at nothing
Being able to later go back and correlate all these things is awesome - even now I know that on days I get out and exercise more I'm happier, soon I should be able to give objective numbers on that, along with being able to determine things like the correlation between caffeine and happiness/energy levels over the day.
I'm pretty excited for the Pebble Core as well, especially since they announced Alexa integration, I think its got a lot of potential for drastically changing how we interact with mobile computing and moving on from the current interactive glass paradigm.
I always thought it was a mistake to use a power hungry screen on a smartwatch. I've not tried one but I'd suspect the Pebble would be better in this regard as they use eInk displays that can be left on without draining the battery.
Similarly I am very annoyed by smartv interfaces, I struggle to watch tv on my Bravia and every time my grandparents visit they keep annoying me asking all the time how to reach Brazil most popular free tv channel ( Globo ) and depending on the tv state sometimes I fail to figure it out too.
While it may not be life changing, I love it. I use it daily and for lots of things. The reminders and notifications are extremely useful. Siri works great for me. I send texts from it, I set timers while cooking, I check the weather and time and next event I have scheduled. When getting dressed in the morning, I immediately notice when I don't have it on because it's become such a part of my life.
So I guess your mileage may vary. It turned out to be just what I was looking for without even realizing it.
Being someone who does a fair amount of outdoor activity (cycling and hiking mostly), and knowing a few people who are crazy about their Fitbits, I ended up looking into some fitness tracker-oriented smartwatches, landing on the Garmin Vivoactive HR with it's HR monitor and built in GPS. It's a very attractive device for $250, especially if fitness tracking and mapping your workout is important to you.
$250 is maybe the upper limit of what I'd want to spend on a smartwatch, but the Garmin has been great for me as a simple intuitive device that knows what it is good at and doesn't try to complicate itself.
Though you can cram a surprising amount of information and interactivity in these devices, it goes against good sustainable user experience to make a wrist-top computer as robust as a smartphone. Smartwatches should be a bundle of sensors and quick intuitive bits of display information, not a surrogate to my smartphone.
The other smart phone things I really love are notifications about phone calls and alarms that make the phone vibrate. I almost always miss phone calls, so it's nice to have the option to pick them up. The vibrating alarm is much nicer than being woken by noise and also reminds me when I need to leave work to make it home in time to see my kids.
I'd really recommend it as a relatively low cost thing to try For anyone who is interested in trying a smart watch but doesn't want to spend a lot of money.
Citation needed. Never found any of those assistants particularly impressive, never mind hearing anyone waxing lyrical about it.
This passage from the article jumped out at me. Is he saying that voice recognition is the missing killer feature in an Apple Watch, whereas Android watches hold the promise of adding such a feature because Google (and, irrelevantly, Amazon) are better at it?
Without getting into a technical debate about which tech giants are ahead in voice recognition and its applications, I am interested in the notion of conversing with a smart watch.
The obvious application is to provide the time of day to a sight impaired person, or (more trivially) to someone driving a car or operating heavy machinery who can't glance down. Probably it could be programmed to guide the sight impaired down the street, buzz if you veer off the sidewalk, etc.
Even there, it's merely a peripheral to the smartphone which can do all of that and more.
My Moto 360 was purchased on a whim because it was on sale, and indeed I wear it infrequently on a whim, usually when going to a tech event or a conference that requires strict adherence to a schedule, and then only for its obvious geek value. It's fun, my daughter loves changing the watch faces, and occasionally it's even useful for discretely screening calls and texts.
I just keep thinking that some brilliant kid is going to stumble across a killer application for these watches, and then we'll be off to the races. Still scratching my head on this one, for now.
What I'd love to see is a smart watch that comes in two parts:
1. A case
2. The "movement"
If a smart watch manufacturer released a case and movement separately and then committed to providing compatible movements in the future, suddenly you wouldn't have to feel bad about buying a nice case. Upgrading the movement every couple years would become relatively cheap. If the company made the case an open standard, you'd likely be able to get one from your favorite watch maker, making their smart watch a much more personal item, as mechanical watches are.
This has already been done with mechanical movements. e.g. Many mechanical watch manufacturers only make cases, and put ETA movements in them. Given how long mechanical movements can last, it's just bizarre that this hasn't been done with smart watches yet.
I had a first-gen Kickstarter edition Pebble and for all of its gimmicks, the knowledge that I would feel every notification and also never suffer from phantom vibrations was the part I enjoyed the most. Stylistically I didn't much care for it, and eventually gave it to a friend.
If someone were to just take a normal looking watch and make it vibrate when my phone does, with no other change whatsoever, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
I recall that at least one company does. I apologize, though, because such a device does not fit my personal use cases and therefore I haven't the first clue about telling you how to find it. (Does a quick search on "analog smartwatch" to prove his point...) Oh, well, I guess you could start here: http://www.wareable.com/smartwatches/best-smart-analogue-wat...
The notifications are genuinely useful but the rest of it is a mess. App startup times are long enough that it's quicker to pull out your phone, unlock it and search for an app. Not that the apps are useful enough to warrant opening them anyway. The data in glances isn't frequently updated so they are next to useless as well.
And overall the UI is slow with superfluous animations. At the gym and want to switch from indoor cycle to running. It takes 10-15 seconds.
And worst of all the rate of improvements is glacier slow so it could be years before it gets better.
The Watch has it's problems, and your complaints are legitimate, but it's hardly the weakest product since the puck mouse. Apple is just really good at making us forget about the bad products. Despite WatchOS being 2.0, it's still first-gen hardware, and everyone knows Apple is better on the second revision.
Casio A168W-1 Electro Luminescence Silver. 5 years old.
Ipod Classic. 8 years old.
Kindle Keyboard. Maybe 7 years?
I actively loathe my phone. I like my laptop when I'm on the command line.
I think the essence of what I am trying to say is that I like devices with low visibility connectivity.
We need to turn ubiquity into something much quieter.
Can anyone that has used both comment on whether this perception was true and if that mitigated any of the criticisms in this article?
I silence (no sound or vibrate) my phone and rely on the watch for all notifications. It's really quite peaceful for me and everyone around me.
- Does the fitness tracking really well - Have the GPS for walks, bike rides and running - Have notifications - Weather - Multiple devices: Android, Apple and Windows Phone - Sleep tracking - Watch - Cortana
I really need to have it on me all the time. I only take it off for charging while taking a shower.
took the fan boys nine months to figure it out
Until the Apple-Google merger. I for one welcome...