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Comment by Eric_WVGG | Hacker News Reader

Every nerd I know (including the ones who own Apple Watches) mirrors the comments in this thread — poor text entry, slow, half baked.

Every non-nerd I know who has one absolutely loves them. Last month, my parents came to visit and... - boarded their flights with the Delta app - paid for taxis with Apple Pay on their wrists - laughed at how much higher their “steps” were here than back at home - when my mother wound up in an accident, used Hey Siri to call us from her hospital bed when she couldn’t reach her phone.

We’ve been watching this industry for decades, unsure why it’s so hard for nerds to grasp that Apple doesn’t make products for “us”. But hey enjoy your Creative Labs Nomad...

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That's such a generalization that I can't believe I'm bothering to refute it, but:

1. I consider myself pretty nerdy and I love the Apple Watch. You now know me, at least through Hacker News. I made another comment in this thread extolling the Apple Watch, and there are others. It feels like you cherrypicked the negativity, because I actually see a lot of balanced feedback that is both positive and negative about the watch, many of which comes from fellow "nerds".

2. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like you're using your in-group as a signaling heuristic rather than for an empirical analysis here. What constitutes a "nerd" if you haven't found any nerds who like it and if you didn't notice the comments from fellow nerds who really enjoy it?

3. I haven't personally found any of the issues you're talking about, but I do believe you've had them if you say you have. I'd chalk that up to an "underspecified complaint", because I don't know what the context was that resulted in poor behavior from the device. In my daily usage I don't find those issues emerge. However, I'd also gently suggest your expectations might be miscalibrated here and that you could be nitpicking. The device is absolutely not perfect, but I'm surprised if you disagree that it's not empowering, even for your in-group. It may be that you don't want to take advantage of those features, but if that's the case it's really not fair to generalize to a blanket claim that Apple doesn't develop for nerds.

Again, speaking as a nerd, I feel Apple develops products that target me very well. I use Linux on a workstation as a daily driver, but I enjoy my MacBook Pro more than I enjoy any other machine. I had an Android phone for about a year and switched back to the latest iPhone because it's both more secure and has better integration. And being that I develop software, I can appreciate that Apple has developed very solid software and hardware even if it can't meet all expectations.

I often leave comments exactly like the one you replied to, so while I'm not the person you replied to, I might as well be.

HN loves to hate Apple and everything they do, and the Internet as a whole loves to hate Apple. Going back to the infamous "less space than a Nomad, no wifi, lame" comment. Now to be sure, there are tons of us who like Apple products, but there are a lot of loudmouths who need to shout from the rooftops that this Apple product isn't targeted at them and that's why it will fail. Is it the majority? No, far from it. That's why Apple products are almost always huge successes. Most of their customers actually like them.

But every thread about the iPhone you have people who feel the need to explain why they'd never buy one because they need a headphone jack. Every thread about the iPad you have people who need to tell you that an Android tablet is cheaper, but people don't need tablets and the fad is wearing off. Every thread about the Macbook someone has to say how the XPS is a better value for the money and actually has function keys.

So when you hear someone like me or the person you responded to saying "nerds love to hate Apple", it's hyperbole. Nerds love to love Apple just like everyone else in the world and that's why they make a shitload of money every quarter. Internet loudmouths love to hate Apple, and unfortunately Internet loudmouths are the ones who get upvotes. So it gives the impression that nerds hate Apple, which leads other people to think "hey maybe I should hate Apple too" and makes news sites run stories about how nerds hate Apple's latest products.

It's not true, but that's the impression you'd get if you read HN or /r/technology.

HN loves to hate Apple and everything they do,

...not all...

and the Internet as a whole loves to hate Apple.

...not all...

(Yes, I mean this whole comment as a reference! However, it's also a correction intentionally reflecting the structure of the parent and gp comments.)

Did you miss the part where I said "So when you hear someone like me or the person you responded to saying "nerds love to hate Apple", it's hyperbole."? I said that for a reason.

I restated the hyperbolic argument, then said "of course it's not all of the Internet, but that's how it seems sometimes" but the point still stands. Actually the reason the point stands is because not everyone agrees, but the people who hate Apple are always loud enough to drown out the people who don't. Go find any Apple product announcement and see for yourself what the top comments are.

>when my mother wound up in an accident, used Hey Siri to call us from her hospital bed when she couldn’t reach her phone.

I actually experienced this same thing last winter, and it was a life saver. I was taking out the trash and slipped on some ice on my deck. I hurt my back pretty bad and cracked some ribs. I wasn't able to shout to my wife inside because of the pain, and I wasn't able to stand up because of the pain. I was only wearing a pair of shorts because I wasn't planning on being out long, but the temperature was below freezing and the wind chill was below zero. I had no shirt or socks on and only a pair of slippers to protect my feet, so laying out there until my wife got suspicious and came to find me could have had some pretty bad consequences.

I didn't have my phone on me, but luckily I was wearing my watch and was within Bluetooth range of my phone. I was able to get Siri to call my wife and have her come out and help me back into the house. Kind of a nice feature.

I own an Apple watch, and I would agree with those sentiments..two years ago. Ever since watchOS 2 none of those things are really true anymore.

Text entry modes now include voice, quick replies, and simple glyph drawing. The speed of the gen 2 apple watch is pretty awesome, and with the advent of the "dock" you can have all your third party apps open instantly (up to 10, which for me covers everything I use on the watch.) Lots of iOS apps actually include a watch app, you would be surprised.

As a developer, it still annoys me because there are so many limitations. Complications on the watchface can essentially only be text or fixed images included in your app bundle. So nothing truly dynamic. Watchfaces still aren't open, likely just so they can control branding (Hermes for example.)

Personally I look at it like this, the apple watch is a fitness tracker, a notification machine, and a secondary display for the iPhone, in that order. If you don't want the first two, then you don't want an Apple Watch.

For me, the idea of a wearable computer just seems like a waste. And I think much of that comes from the fact that I've done most of work analytical work with pencil/pen and paper. So for me technology is the thing I use to do work I could never do on a notepad or in my own head. It took me years to finally accept the idea of a password manager so I would stop reusing the same set of passwords all over the web whenever I created an account. Heck, I didn't even have a smart phone until 2014 since I still prefer the flip phone form factor. And I'm only 37 so I do think technically minded people tend to like using their own mind to do the work much like an athlete or a farm worker likes to use their own body to do physically taxing work. It's just a natural fit in that regard. For everyone else, convenience trumps practicality.

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