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Comment by rsp1984 | Hacker News Reader

rsp1984

When it comes to catching the next big wave, an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity may end up representing the single biggest game-changing device Apple has shipped since the original iPhone. It would be that big of a deal.

I don't think so. For that to happen there would have to be a quantum leap in user interfaces and right now I don't see any technology on the horizon that could provide that leap. Watch screens are too small for anything but displaying simplistic stuff, let alone letting the user meaningfully and fluidly control the device.

Voice interfaces have been tried for decades. They mostly failed. People are comfortable with them in very private environments (e.g. cars) but not when others are around (for good reason).

I think the author is right to conclude that Apple thinks we're still firmly in the smartphone era.

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The idea that cell connectivity on a watch is a good idea is just insane, for this reason:

You're going to carry your phone with you anyway.

Even if the phone did have a cell antenna and did have a battery good enough for it, and even if it had human-level natural language processing, you'll want a phone-sized screen for, you know, all the stuff that you use your phone for today, for examples including but certainly not limited to: reading anything longer than an SMS. Looking at a web page. Looking at a map. Playing games. Taking a photo. Showing pictures/video to other people.

The idea that we'll give up on having screens big enough to actually look at things is just crazy. We love our phone screens. The one thing that people demonstrably want their phone screens to be is bigger.

If you're going to be carrying a phone-sized screen with you 95%+ of the time anyway, why on earth would you make the expensive, difficult decision to jam a cell antenna into your watch. Much less all the valid points that people make about voice interfaces and battery and so forth.

> You're going to carry your phone with you anyway

The ability to not carry my phone is the only reason I'd be tempted to try a wearable device again (I had a gen 1 Apple Watch and sold it within a month). I'm not really interested in using it as an "always on" watch, but if I go for a run or take the kids to the park I'd love to be able to leave my phone at home and rely solely on my watch to stay connected. I wouldn't be using it for browsing or meaningful work, but to be able to receive calls, text messages and scan emails without carrying my phone would be great (cracked screens make the playground an expensive activity!).

People don't always carry their phones with them (if they're in athletic or formal wear that doesn't have convenient pockets). In those cases, they'll settle for whatever reduced internet-connected experience they can get, even if the ergonomics don't really make the full phone experience available.

Just like how yes, if you have your laptop on you, you'd almost always prefer to use that over your phone, but your phone can be with you in many more scenarios.

I think this is a very good point, thank you. I didn't intend to comment this but now I am reminded of the initial iPad release in which I believe a criticism was raised that there "was no use case for this device".

Sure, but those times (athletic and formal wear) are less than 10% of your life for 90% of all people. Probably less than 5% of your life for 50%+ of all people.

A product that sacrifices general utility in pursuit of a 5%-10% use case is a niche product. Nothing wrong with that, but Apple isn't looking to add a new niche product.

Now, obviously, if you could throw cell connectivity onto a watch for very little cost and very few compromises to the rest of the watch, then sure, you would. But in the real world, cellular connectivity for a watch would be an enormous additional cost both monetarily and to anything else you wanted the watch to do. It doesn't make sense for a product that's trying for mass appeal.

Devil's advocate:

The idea that a personal computer is a good idea is just insane, for this reason:

You're going to be connected to a mainframe anyway.

Even if your personal computer did have enough storage and power you're still going to want connect to the mainframe to access reports and data.

So if you're going to have a connection to a mainframe anyway, why bother with all that local computing power?

---

I'm not saying it's a good idea in the current ecosystem but there are advantages to the watch having it's own network connectivity, and in fact I believe the current watch does connect directly to your wifi access point using credentials shared by the phone when possible.

The main issue with watch cellular access at the moment, is cost of paying for a phone contract for a watch, when at least at the moment, you will probably want a phone too.

I believe that misses the point entirely. Forgetting the fact that I never even saw a mainframe until the late 90s, back in the PC day you were still using the same keyboard + monitor for both.

I like the mainframe PC analogy but I think in this case we are running up against ergonomics. People's hands are not shrinking and our eyes aren't getting any better. More interface may get offloaded to audio/voice, but we are such visual creatures. Until we are beaming data directly into our eyes, I don't think we will abandon the palm-sized display-- maybe foldable one like paper, or a tattoo, or my shirt sleave, but something.

Except it was never the case in any country that ~70% of people had access to a mainframe at work, let alone home. If a much smaller percentage of people had smartphones and putting cellular on a watch was cheaper/more convenient enough to get the rest of the population on board, then your comparison would make some sense.

You really should have s/mainframe/cloud/

I think the idea is to combine glasses projecting an image to your eyes with body sensors for gesturing (watch?) and you won't need a screen anymore.

Yet google glass wasn't popular, partly because of camera-privacy, partly because it couldn't block light, only add it (though Magic Leap has apparently solved this latter problem.)

Tim Cook also pooh-poohed headsup displays as a barrier between people, instead of connecting them. But, since earplugs and people checking their phones already disconnect people, this seems like diversionary bs to me. Apple is surely working on this, as they work on many things.

Small displays are the problem, bigger phones are popular despite their awkwardness. Headsup displays solve both: large display, out of the way.

Not sure about input; gesturing to yourself is going to look even crazier than talking to yourself.

> Not sure about input; gesturing to yourself is going to look even crazier than talking to yourself.

In the early seventies I used to carry my Philips portable cassette player and headphones everywhere, people thought I was crazy until Akio Morita had the same idea and got Sony to create the Walkman. Now people wear headphones in the street and hardly anyone thinks about it at all.

My point is that what you think is crazy now might well be normal in ten years time, or perhaps even tomorrow.

Tim Cook also poo-pooed headsup displays

That sounds painful.

(The word you are looking for is pooh-poohed.)

thanks, it didn't seem quite right

How is that a word? Are we pre-schoolers now? Good lord.

To me, the contact lens type HUD in the Black Mirror episode "The Entire History of You" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You) feels like the ideal solution as it's discreet.

Wonder if it's technically possible...

As someone who wore glasses for many years before moving to contacts, I have no desire to wear glasses to replace a pocketable display.

Body sensors have the same problem as talking to your phone I think.

Not if you're exercising, which is a big use case for the Apple Watch and other wearables.

What kind of exercise? A modern smartphone is pretty light and easy to carry in all but the most extreme forms of activity. One of my friends takes her iPhone surfing.

Running? I wear loose-fitting athletic shorts; a phone swinging around in my pocket is really annoying. I'd have to get an armband.

Arm bands are cheap, much less than a smart watch.

I've had a very hard time finding an armband that fits around my arm, and fits an iPhone 6. They seem to all be designed for women.

Well you've found a new startup business opportunity: smartphone armbands for people with big arms. :-)

I for one am strongly in the smartphone-fatigue niche, and I think my camp will get bigger over time. I eagerly await an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity so I can be aware and undistracted.

Think about the watch for connectivity the AirPods for sound transmission and a wearable pair of glasses for the screen

Until multi-sensory AR becomes a functional reality. A set of glasses and a watch would fit smoothly into many/most peoples' lives. Add a set of indiscreet wireless earphones (and gloves?) and you're set.

It's handwavy Sci-Fi right now, but...

It is obvious Apple is headed for more and more autonomous watch functionality. A cellular radio would lie on this path. It doesn't need to match the functionality of a smartphone to be beneficial.

But battery and power draw constraints put this two to five years out, depending on aggregate data needs.

> I don't see any technology on the horizon that could provide that leap

What about above-device "floating" gestures, e.g. Project Soli [1]. Gesturing above instead of on the device means much more space in which to do things.

[1] https://atap.google.com/soli/

The problem with "floating gestures" and the like is that they're even less tactile than touch screens, which I would argue is the biggest downside to touch interfaces. With the smartphone, the touch screen offered a ton of potential and flexibility, but I don't think the same can be said of "floating" gestures.

Floating gestures might have more success with Theremin-esque[0] audio feedback. Imagine an interface that hums when you put your hand near it, and also makes other interaction noises as you use it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin

Now imagine a train or a plane packed full of people using Theremin-esque humming devices.

We're basically out of technology for the next innovation period. The truly "magical" next step is a direct neural interface, and we're an unknown number of years away from that.

Nothing else can improve on the hand-sized touch screen. The alternatives all come with serious compromises. Voice is too loud and public, portable floating holographic displays haven't been invented yet and may suffer from privacy issues, and there's not much else available.

In-eye projection is probably the most promising approach, but the product would have to be no heavier than existing glasses, and I can't imagine that being viable for five years at a minimum. A decade would be more realistic.

We might have LCDs with holographic resolution by then, so all kinds of interesting things might be possible. But for now, hand-sized touch screens are as good as it gets - and will be for quite a while.

Of course there's still a lot you can do with a small touch panel. There's huge scope to make software much, much better and smarter than it is today.

Imagine a train full of people with giant paper displays, flapping the paper, hearing crinkle and crumple each time they so much as flip a page! What a racket!

> Now imagine a train or a plane packed full of people using Theremin-esque humming devices.

Great opportunity for a jam session!

On the other hand the biggest downside to touch interfaces is that you're essentially always hiding what you're interacting with.

If I could have floating gestures in front of my desktop I'd be very happy. Scrolling a page by waving my hand while leaning back in my seat. I think someone made something like this with Kinect.

That's more or less what you can get with a Leap Motion. Some issues with tracking quality, but for gestures it works. It's a lot harder to make good screen interactions in mid air than one might think, so I'm not convinced it's all that great for normal desktop use (Having virtual hands in VR is cool though!).

It has been a while since I've used one and got to that opinion, and apparently software quality has gotten better. so if you are interested in this kind of thing it's maybe something to look into.

Guaranteed Gorilla Arm. You'll rapidly tire of that UI paradigm.

It's about choice.

Currently I lean back, cross my arms and hold a wireless mouse when I read long articles.

I just reached up and brushed back my hair. If this gesture also sent my screen scrolling, I'd be very sad.

You want a trackpad?

Yes, floating gestures are great and they do have potential but they don't solve the display problem.

Floating gestures are great if you're not living in a world where the vast majority of your motions have nothing to do with controlling the device.

Cell connectivity is a big deal and will increase its usefulness. But a watch can't replace a smartphone. There are core functions of a smartphone that a watch can never replace: typing, reading, camera...

If you have paid attention, Apple has reduced the ambitions of the watch. It's targeted at health/fitness and notifications now.

I think the gap the watch won't be able to fill is always having a camera with you. Having that in your pocket at all times has become essential. I know some watches have cameras but I think it may be awhile before a watch has both a cellular radio and a camera that matches the quality achieved by the iPhone.

>People are comfortable with them in very private environments (e.g. cars) but not when others are around (for good reason).

In movies and books they all have dental audiotransmitters, both in/out. Whisper to siri, no one will notice.

Edit: if she will read messages and rss-like things to me only, I'll probably look at the screen much less often.

> Whisper to siri, no one will notice.

no one including siri

> Watch screens are too small for anything but displaying simplistic stuff, let alone letting the user meaningfully and fluidly control the device.

I wonder if you've seen the rotating bezel of Samsung gear s3 in action, it might change your mind. But the watch UI is not the bottleneck, the constant wearing of a watch is.

Thanks for the reference to the Gear S3, I haven't seen that. I stopped wearing a watch 15 years ago but this might convince me to start again.

How strange. Around me people without watches are exception not the rule.

What I would prefer is cellular connectivity in an iPad. Throw it in the backpack to use when I want a screen, but use watch/wireless headphones while walking around, or talking on the phone.

All of the current iPads comes with cellular connectivity as an option. However, unlike Android devices they can't be used to make phone calls.

I know it sounds a bit gimmicky (like using an iPad as a camera), but my father in law has a Galaxy Tab which is what he uses as a phone/tablet/computer. He just carries it wherever he goes.

It would help if they provided native language support, to start with.

Forcing people to learn foreign languages to talk to their devices is not a good idea.

Battery technology alone will rule out putting a cellular modem in a watch.

Even worse, you can't use your watch one handed. No way around that.

Ironically the apples watch sales are plummeting.

Tim Cook disputes that assertion.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-watch-idUSKBN13V0BT

Everything about that article and the reply isn't really disputing it, he just talks about something else.

From the article:

Cook's comments followed a report on Monday from technology research firm IDC estimating that the tech giant sold 1.1 million units of the Apple Watch during the third quarter of 2016, down 71 percent from the year-ago quarter.

Source?

71% YoY decline: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41996116

The problem with YoY compares is the Apple Watch was on an 18 month update cycle. YoY makes sense for something that isn't regularly updated, or that updates every 12 months.

Disputed

Likely http://www.pcworld.com/article/230151/idc_windows_phones_to_...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13118890

That was some great piece of analysis :)

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