Apple Watch Adoption
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But it also ONLY tells the time and the date, and the date will be wrong if you don't stay on top of it because it doesn't know which months have 31 days and which are shorter.
It's super cool, though, that this object still works just as well as when it was new in 1978.
But I stopped wearing it (and my other mechanicals) all the time precisely because of their limited featureset vs. a good and attractive smartwatch.
Your last sentence isn’t often correct either: I have a 2012 Toshiba TV. The hardware is in great shape but of all of the apps it shipped with only the Netflix and Vudu apps still work because everything else broke when Google, Yahoo!, etc. stopped SHA-1 support. I agree that no new features is a reasonable policy but at a minimum you need basic security & compatibility support for 5-10 years.
1. We’re talking about hardware vendors 2. Why is the tech industry magically different from everything else? I get safety recalls on things which are 5-10 years old but e.g. Lenovo can’t seem to ship Android security updates which Google gave them more than 1-2 years after release.
> Sadly, on Apple platforms there is no way of doing paid upgrades so there goes that.
This is why developers use advertising, in-app purchases and subscriptions, or releasing major versions as new apps.
The point wasn’t that the status quo is perfect but that it’s extremely wasteful and needs to change. The tech industry has a lot of people who thought that cycle of rapid growth was innate but are starting to realize that things are saturating in most segments. Buying a new device every 2 years only works if they’re very cheap or dramatically better.
From the standpoint of hardware I definitely agree that it should not be made with a 2-3 year lifespan in mind, especially because of the toll it takes on the environment.
> This is why developers use advertising, in-app purchases and subscriptions, or releasing major versions as new apps.
None of these are a good replacement because they do not solve the problem. If you wish to have an old version of the app available for users which did not update the only option is releasing a new app but then you can not give a discount to old clients. In app purchases and subscriptions pull everybody into the release cycle.
The current status quo is not good but from the software perspective I do not know how it could change. The prices were pulled down so far that supporting old platforms is not sustainable, unless you are one of those companies which get their money somewhere else.
I expect my Rolex to last a hundred years and my Apple Watch to last as long as my phone. Especially since technically that is what it largely is. A small phone on your wrist.
It's a 10 year old computer that can take full advantage of my gigabit home internet connection (940Mbps up and down) - something only dreamed about 10 years ago - can run the latest OS and can be upgraded to have the same amount of RAM as most computers that are sold today.
In 2008, a 10 year old computer would have probably had these specs and be unusable as a modern computer.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266641-28-average-1998-com...
To sum it up, a decent compy around 1998/early 1999 could look likte this:
400Mhz P2 64mb sdram running at 100 mhz one or two voodoo 2 cards (90mhz core, 8 or 12 mb EDO VRAM) a 2D card (voodoo 2 was a 3d accelerator only) ATA-2 HD
In 1998 a 10 year old computer would have been less usable.
How fast improvements come to the smart watch will slow down in time but it's a brand new product.
o Your Plex system is a home server, which have always typically been lower powered desktops even 10 year ago (I know because I was building home servers back then. In fact 10 years ago I was running ZFS off an old desktop PC with some really budget consumer RAID controllers)
o and you're comparing that to a gaming machine which are systems which are typically at the higher end of spectrum). To put things into perspective, in 1999 I most certainly did not have a 3D accelerator. Yet I was still using my computer for software development and web development (including, by the way, 3D markup via VRML). In fact I don't think I even had a P2 considering my upgrade a few years later was to Celeron. I have a feeling my '98 PC was a Cyrix.
o It was really common even in the 90s to run old PCs. Even in 1995 I was still seeing 386s and even the occasional 286 in use running Windows 3.x.
o Lastly you cannot really compare a watch to a PC. Sure, smart watches are basically just computers these days; but the point the OP was making was peoples expectations are different for watches. I mean we have digital watches from the 80s that still work as well today as they ever have done, yet smart watches made 2 years ago are already junk. Before people comment on the difference in tech, yes I already know. But that's not the point. The point is people's expectations - which frankly I think are more than reasonable. If there's anything we have learned in the last 20 years it's how to futureproof our products.
The Plex Server has to transcode all types of formats to H.264 in real time. My old 2006 Core Duo 1.66Ghz Mac couldn't handle it. It is still being used by my parents running Windows 7. I also tried using a 2Ghz Pentium Dual Core.
* (I know because I was building home servers back then. In fact 10 years ago I was running ZFS off an old desktop PC with some really budget consumer RAID controllers)*
They weren't transcoding 1080 video to H.264 real time in 2008.
o and you're comparing that to a gaming machine which are systems which are typically at the higher end of spectrum). To put things into perspective, in 1999 I most certainly did not have a 3D accelerator. Yet I was still using my computer for software development and web development (including, by the way, 3D markup via VRML). In fact I don't think I even had a P2 considering my upgrade a few years later was to Celeron. I have a feeling my '98 PC was a Cyrix.
Would you still be using that computer in 2008? Could it run the latest version of Windows? Could it take advantage of the fastest speed internet that was available to home users in 2008?
o It was really common even in the 90s to run old PCs. Even in 1995 I was still seeing 386s and even the occasional 286 in use running Windows 3.x.
My 2008 Core 2 Duo can run the latest software and the latest version of Windows well. Could those 10 year old computers run Windows 98 in 1998?
Lastly you cannot really compare a watch to a PC. Sure, smart watches are basically just computers these days; but the point the OP was making was peoples expectations are different for watches.
How is a watch that runs a phone OS that makes phone calls not considered more of a phone than a watch?
I mean we have digital watches from the 80s that still work as well today as they ever have done,
The difference is that my 10 year old computer can do the same thing as a modern computer - run the latest OS and software, has just as much memory and storage (HDD vs SsD) and has a slightly better display (1920x1200 vs 1930x1080). Can that 10 year old digital watch do the same as a modern smart watch?
If there's anything we have learned in the last 20 years it's how to futureproof our products.
The only reason that my old Core 2 Duo is "future proofed" is because useful improvements have slowed down dramatically in the last 10 years. In 1998 the typical computer was coming with 32-64Gb of RAM and couldn't be upgraded to 4GB. My computer from 2008 came with 4GB RAM, the same amount as some low end computers today and can be upgraded to 8GB.
My 2008 computer has gigabit Ethernet. Which is still the fastest consumer internet connection.
I have four Core2Duo tower computers that I bought last year for $10 each. Three of them have 8GB of RAM and the other has 4GB. Each one has an Nvidia 1050 or 1060 GPU in it and they run TensorFlow just fine, though the computers are PCIe 2.0, so I'm "only" getting a little over 5 GB/s data transfer between the cards and the CPU. Gigabit ethernet makes that mostly irrelevant.
For the most part, when the GPUs are running all-out on something, the CPU is 75% idle or more.
That that's more than 10 years old. Your original point was that you're using a 10 year old system.
> They weren't transcoding 1080 video to H.264 real time in 2008.
Again you're comparing apples to oranges because most people wouldn't have had a need for transcoding 1080p videos from home servers back then. Most broadcasters still weren't sending HD streams or had only just started to. So a 10 year old PC in 2008 doing HD would be like a 10 year old PC in 2018 doing 4k.
>* My 2008 Core 2 Duo can run the latest software and the latest version of Windows well. Could those 10 year old computers run Windows 98 in 1998?*
The examples I gave were from around 1994/5 and as I had already cited they were running Windows 3.x (Windows 95 hadn't been released at that time). So yes, the latest OS.
> How is a watch that runs a phone OS that makes phone calls not considered more of a phone than a watch?
I'd already address that point as well. One word: "expectations". I don't expect a watch to be obsoleted after 2 years regardless of the tech it includes. If said tech means my expectations cannot be met then I simply will not buy any more watches made by that company. After all, I already have a phone; what I need is a watch.
> The difference is that my 10 year old computer can do the same thing as a modern computer - run the latest OS and software, has just as much memory and storage (HDD vs SsD) and has a slightly better display (1920x1200 vs 1930x1080). Can that 10 year old digital watch do the same as a modern smart watch?
I've already addressed that point too. Watches are not PCs (forget the technology and thing about it's form factor and what it's actual usage is). Thus comparing the two doesn't make much sense.
>* The only reason that my old Core 2 Duo is "future proofed" is because useful improvements have slowed down dramatically in the last 10 years. In 1998 the typical computer was coming with 32-64Gb of RAM and couldn't be upgraded to 4GB. My computer from 2008 came with 4GB RAM, the same amount as some low end computers today and can be upgraded to 8GB.*
Nope. I've already demonstrated that software likes to keep up with hardware. This it as true now as it was 10 years ago (even 20). What's changed is:
o we've moved back towards a time sharing model where processing is offloaded to the cloud
o we've learned lessons about security after the mistakes of the 90s and 00s where PCs were basically just honeypots for malware. Granted we still make lots of mistakes even now (particularly around the area of IoT where we seemed doomed to repeat past mistakes) but in terms of actual PCs the groundwork was put in 10 years ago.
o software development processes have matured and also include better automated testing frameworks making it easier to detect problems and test on a wide range of platforms
o Microsoft also got their fingers burnt with the whole "Vista Compatible" thing on backstock Intels that clearly weren't capable. So invested more in the future releases of Windows to ensure that didn't happen again.
You could also argue that the pace of "useful improvements" in OS development has sped up over the last 10 years because more time has been invested in making platforms stable, secure and performant instead of just throwing new shiney feature after new shiney feature.
>* My 2008 computer has gigabit Ethernet. Which is still the fastest consumer internet connection.*
Another meaningless comparison because my 1998 computer had 100Mb ethernet, which was several orders of magnitude faster than the then fastest consumer internet connection. If anything I think the state of networking gear has stagnated because I was handling gigabit switches back in 1998 (with AppleTalk - yuk), which took forever to reach consumers and still many ISP routers only offer 1 complimentary gigabit port. Yet most offices / server rooms are still only on gigabit switches some 20 years later and most home users are probably on WiFi or Powerline adapters (neither of which will come even close to 1GbE). So I guess the real question is, how fast does one actually need their LAN to be? Either way, it's wildly off topic.
My 10 year old computer is doing real time transcoding in 2018.
The examples I gave were from around 1994/5 and as I had already cited they were running Windows 3.x (Windows 95 hadn't been released at that time). So yes, the latest OS.
Again. That's the point. My 10 year old computer is running the current latest OS in 2018. A 10 year old computer in 2008 couldn't run the latest OS.
My major point being that in the first few facades of PCs, technology was moving so fast that to run the latest software, you had to upgrade your computer more frequently. Now, a 10 year old computer can run the latest software.
The smart watch and the phone to a lesser extent is still seeing the type of rapid improvements that you saw in computers until 10 years ago.
An electronic watch from 10 years ago can't do everything a modern smart watch can. A 10 year old computer can.
As far as the actual usage. A modern smart watch is used for a lot of things that a 10 year old watch wasn't.
Yes, I got that point. And I'm saying 10 year old computers in 2008 were doing transcoding as well - just with standard definition streams rather than HD (the "HD" part seemed important to you but I was making the point that you're not doing 4k transcoding in 2018 with your 10 year old PC so why fixate on HD recording in 2008 when HD was just as new as 4k is today)
>* Again. That's the point. My 10 year old computer is running the current latest OS in 2018. A 10 year old computer in 2008 couldn't run the latest OS.*
Maybe I'm not making myself clear enough because this is the 3rd time I've now had to say that I've used 10 year old computers both in 2008 and in 1998 - all of which were running the latest OS. Like I said, in 1995 I was still supporting Windows 3.x on a 286s.
> My major point being that in the first few facades of PCs, technology was moving so fast that to run the latest software, you had to upgrade your computer more frequently. Now, a 10 year old computer can run the latest software.
And I'm saying that is bullshit. I have first hand experience - originally as an owner and a support engineer; and then as a developer and systems administrator - with examples over the last 20 years that directly disprove your point. Examples I've repeatedly cited. Frankly if I've seen any trend it's people replacing hardware quicker now that laptops have gotten so cheap - which is the exact opposite of the point you're trying to make.
> The smart watch and the phone to a lesser extent is still seeing the type of rapid improvements that you saw in computers until 10 years ago.
I've repeatedly demonstrated that your argument about rapid developments in the PC landscape is completely baseless and given numerous examples why.
>An electronic watch from 10 years ago can't do everything a modern smart watch can. A 10 year old computer can.
Again you're comparing apples to oranges. A watch is not a PC. Hell why don't we just compare it to cars and have the same meaningless discussion: a digital watch is like a small hatchback and a smartwatch is like a campervan. What we've now proved is that smartwatches have running water....oh wait.
> As far as the actual usage. A modern smart watch is used for a lot of things that a 10 year old watch wasn't.
That is literally the only accurate thing you've posted. The real question is whether the other stuff is enough to make people want to upgrade their watches (as well as their phones) every two years. I don't think it is. I think those kind of people are the exception and most people wouldn't want their smartwatch to become obsolete so quickly. I think most people see their smartwatch as a digital watch on steroids rather than a PC. And thus I think most people's expectations would be for their watch to outlast their phone.
At risk of repeating myself (but let's be honest, you've missed the other points I made on 2 separate occasions) the hardware is irrelevant to most people. Most people aren't techy. Most people will look at a smartwatch and see "something-watch" not "computer-something" like you and I.
Turned out that it runs OS X El Capitan (= gets security updates) and supports 8 GB of RAM. You can upgrade the 2.5" SATA HDD to SSD. Basically it's usable as a modern computer, only the 1280x800 display resolution being modest by today's standards.
For me the term seems to be one of those which got twisted by marketing types to mean something wholly different to encourage this buy the new model mentality.
There are gadget lovers who get the latest at all ages, and tons of them are at the 'dad' age (30-40+), not younger.
This applies even more for watches.
As an indie dev* making a living from Apple Watch, I concur with the difficulty of having to debug these things.
For example, some arbitrary resource limit may have transparently been applied, leading to some unexpected behaviour in your app.
Now, make a minor change to code to diagnose this issue and deploy to device - could take 2-3 minutes to copy to device, and another 30 seconds to run the binary.
Series 3 still has its issues but it is 1000x better than the original.
* https://outcastapp.com, plus various others
But I don't use it! It gets no security patches.
If I wanted it for alarms, notes, etc it would be fine
I may be an outlier here because I came to the Apple Watch from the world of higher-end watches. My usual daily wear piece before was an Omega, e.g.
I started wearing the Apple Watch when I was training for a half marathon, because it worked really well for that purpose (when paired with Strava) -- and I discovered it was also so USEFUL for me that I wore it almost all the time.
After about 18 months, I realized I was really only taking it off when I felt I needed to wear something that looked a bit fancier -- but I didn't want to give up the Apple functionality. Then the series 3 was introduced, with actual water-resistance and the in-built cell capability, and that was that. I sold my initial one (a Sport model) and bought the next nicer model in steel with the sapphire crystal on the Milanese loop. I swap in a composite band if I'm being active, and wear the loop if I'm going to dinner.
I don't expect this watch -- about $750US -- to last 10 years, but I will be happy if I get 3 out of it before I want to upgrade. I also expect it'll still WORK at that point, and the driver for me will be new features or functions and not failure. I'm okay with that, because of the relatively modest cost vs. definitively high usability/duty cycle.
If I were the sort of person who would wear a sport model all the time, it'd be an even easier choice ($359 w/o cell; $429 with).
Wearable tech has already been around for more than 10 years. Whether it's raincoats with speakers built into the collar, or the digital watches from the 80s. The problem isn't so much wearable tech but rather current tech trends (eg the IoT revolution). To that end, I'd wager something like Pebble (baring hardware failure) would still work in 10 years since the only dependency that has is bluetooth.
I doubt it. The watch will still work, but the app needed to sync to the watch won’t.
I’ve been really frustrated with old “utility” apps not working anymore on iOS (due to not being updated to 64bit). I’m all for upgrades and new stuff, but it sucks when a simple app that did exactly what you needed is no longer able to run.
I think it's really about the cloud. I kept my last iPhone way past a typical phone's lifespan, and got to experience watching it slowly revert back to being a dumbphone. In the same way that smart home devices have a nasty tendency to stop working as soon as the vendor decides to stop maintaining some critical server the product needs to be able to ping just to turn on properly, apps eventually stop working with the latest OS your phone can run, and pretty shortly after that some service running in the cloud will stop being able to talk to whatever version of the app you're stuck on.
In the case of Apple's or AT&T's apps, this happened almost immediately after the first version of iOS I couldn't upgrade to came down the pipe. In the case of others, it was 6 months or a year later. The web browser died in its own special way, choked to death by more JavaScript than it could handle.
I get the economics behind why companies do this, but it's sad, all the same. A 35 year old Commodore 64 is every bit as fun as it was when it first came out, and every bit as capable, but a piece of tech that's only 3.5 years old probably has a blinking jewel in the palm of its hand.
I think you have odd perspective here, because you're talking about tech lasting for a decade, but you're also explicitly omitting anything with a computer in it ("run an operating system").
"A 35 year old Commodore 64 is every bit as fun as it was when it first came out, and every bit as capable, but a piece of tech that's only 3.5 years old probably has a blinking jewel in the palm of its hand."
The hypothetical 35-year-old Commodore, however, can't do most of the things I ask my 3 year old laptop to do. Durability wasn't the issue; the rapidly increasing capability of newer and more capable computing platforms was.
We're at a point now where Moore's Law & related phenomena seem to have slowed a bit. Ten or fifteen years ago I always upgraded my laptop every 3 years. Now I can go longer, and typically only upgrade when there's a compelling reason (higher RAM ceiling, e.g., or external factors like the economics of extended service plans). Phones are the same; in the earlier years of the cell phone era, I got a new phone nearly every year because that meant smaller and more powerful and therefore more useful. In the Smartphone era, two years became the norm, and nowadays it's routine to see folks with 3 or even 4 year old phones.
The tl;dr is that there's no conspiracy or malignant intent here; it's just that shit gets better, and so the upgrade makes sense for most people. I mean, maybe you can get a 35-year-old Commodore running as a novelty, but I sure wouldn't want to try to do my job with one.
No, but it can do all the things it promised to do when it was first sold.
By contrast, one of my old iPads is thinking about enrolling in a job retraining program to learn to be a trivet. This despite all of its components being in perfect working order.
I never suggested this was a conspiracy, just that it's a travesty.
FWIW I think developers should support old hardware as long as they can, but only the lastest operating system for each particular supported model.
To some extent, RMS is right on this subject: When your devices rely on the cloud, it means you don't really own them, because any cloud-dependent functionality continues to exist at the pleasure of others.
Yes, and no.
I have a launch-day iPad, and it became less and less useful over the years as the apps stopped being supported by their developers.
The last version of Safari for the original iPad is unusable if you surf anywhere but HN. It might as well be Lynx.
This time last year, my iPad was down to just e-mail, notes, streaming video from my satellite box, PBS video, and a great app from Panic called Status Board.
Now it's down to just e-mail and notes, so it spends more time in the desk drawer than propped up on a tiny easel on top of the desk.
I have an iPad Air 1, a device that is pushing ~5 years by now, that became abhorrently laggy with the transition from iOS 10 to iOS 11. Sliding up the multitask view or sliding down the cover sheet usually hovered around 5-20FPS, and sometimes came with a 1 second (!) delay. I don't know what magic the iOS devs worked with the upcoming iOS 11.3 (I run the beta) but both actions are fluid now, and the delay is gone. Besides that, my parents have an iPad 4, which is 'stuck' on iOS 10 but still is incredibly smooth and, so far, works perfectly well with iCloud.
I used to think that Apple didn't mind old devices being bogged down with big updates, since the unintended side effect would be people pushed to newer devices. However, with techniques like App Thinning, the way the 5S became smooth again going from iOS 9 to 10, and now the way they revived my iPad Air I'd say they seem to be reasonable in choosing when devices are too old and holding back iOS as a whole. Hell, with Apple your iOS device gets 4-6 years worth of big updates.. with Android, you're lucky if you get 2.
I wouldn't expect new features but I would expect vulnerabilities to be patched and any cloud dependencies to remain switched on.
I'll never understand the consumer dynamic that allows there to be a never-ending lineup of $800+ phones at every store that sells electronics. Congratulations, your [electronic device] was expensive and in about two years, you're going to need a new one, just the same.
Once I got a smartphone with a data plan, it turned out to have a fairly high value in my life. $2/day roughly covers my data plan and buying a new $800 phone every two years. The consumer dynamic is that having the latest phone is worth $2/day.
Dropping $800 recently on a new phone did make me feel something, but it was a positive feeling.
Non Smart Watches stop getting updates the moment they are manufactured. Apple Watches getting updates for 3 years, is good enough.
I’m saying this as someone who uses Watch Series 0 everyday.
Any more updates to this old watch and it’ll only get slower.
From a developer perspective also, there’s no point supporting such an old device when it wasn’t built for anything more than the current functionality.
For the price of a Rolex or an Omega, you can ‘probably’ buy a new Apple Watch every 3 years, for the rest of your life. It’s a personal choice.
I also don't completely understand the tone, this dev is measuring the installed base of different models. If their users are suddenly < 5% on the seminal model of the watch, then screw halting progress for 95% of your users just to hold on to that 5%. Expectations shouldn't be measured in years, it should be measured in adoption base, and optimizing for where your users are. And that number is going to wildly swing based on maturity of the tech, and that's going to change over time, so trying to throw out a year range as table stakes to apply forever is just a little crazy.
In fact, I'll probably be fine if third-party apps stop working on the series 0 entirely.
Third-party apps run so poorly on the series 0 that they're not really worth using. I'd rather developers invest in the work that will make later-generation Apple Watches worth the upgrade, than pour those resources into low-value results on a hamstrung platform. My current watch won't be any worse off than the day I bought it, and I'll have the option of a more compelling upgrade if I want one.
As a consumer, I don't expect a first-generation smartwatch, especially from 2015 when this was still a very new product category, to last 5-10 years. If it does last, I don't expect it to acquire new features every year. Other watches don't. Appliances that last that long tend to get worse over their lifetime.
The Apple Watch is only a watch incidentally, all indications seem to be that it's mostly a fitness tracker with a bit of notification monitoring thrown in. Yes, it does happen to tell time as well. I expect there to significant enhancements to the fitness/health tracking capabilities in the next 2-3 years (and then the 2-3 after that as well), some of us are fine with upgrading a fitness tracker every few years.
Anyway, the series 3 with LTE wireless is incredibly useful. I often don’t carry my phone when I want to be more offline, but I can get email and messages as needed. Works OK as a phone also. I like that it takes about 1 second to switch between normal and airplane mode when I don’t want to be interrupted.
I understand the article author’s viewpoint, but why not just write apps that only support later models? Doesn’t Apple allow that?
i.e. one may be able to only create a watch app for the LTE watch, if it requires that, but one cannot restrict to the faster models, so apps on slower models still have to run fast enough to be useful.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple don’t allow you to restrict to LTE watches, as I suspect their view would be that LTE is an improvement to usability, not a fundamental difference, and therefore apps should be able to function fully with no LTE. Not to mention user restrictions on certain apps due to data usage.
The classic example would be restricting iOS apps to only 64bit devices, only devices with Siri capabilities, only devices with the motion detection chip, etc.
I tried running with a smartphone for a while. I was constantly afraid I would drop it. I tried armbands, pockets, sometimes I just carried a stopwatch and logged all my data in a spreadsheet like some kind of neanderthal.
Eventually though I bought a watch. It can tell me how I'm doing on my split times and play music into a cheap bluetooth headband. It's super lightweight. It can even detect different types of weightlifting, and tell me I just did a set of five deadlifts, or squats. It somehow knows the difference. It doesn't seem to understand sprinting at all though and has all sorts of weird bugs because I assume it has a small userbase.
I'm not sure any of my apps aside from activity tracking and music make any sense on a smaller device, so that is kind of weird. It's like I strap a tiny phone to my wrist in the mornings, then I swap it out for a larger copy an hour later.
Maybe one day phones will be like other accessories and we'll have eight of them and complain both about having too many and how we want more of them. And each night we'll debate internally about which one to wear to a certain function, and judge each other mercilessly for being over- or under-phoned.
I've done it both ways. Keeping track of paper and pen and taking notes is more complicated than just having something strapped to your wrist that does it all automatically with an occasional swipe or tap. Both ways are pretty simple so I don't want to exaggerate, but having the thing automatically do the thing is definitely simpler.
The random quirks of software are complicated... that's the world we live in though. New stuff is developed to replace the old stuff before we've even worked out the kinks in the old stuff.
I don't use an apple or high fashion watch for this, and while GPS and payments work, I don't have LTE for messaging like many do. A lot of watches are just a step up from a fitbit. Fitbit with maps I guess. Hmm, maybe I should have just gotten a fitbit. :)
If I were still a runner, I would buy an Apple Watch in a heartbeat especially now that it has cellular. Heck I would buy it if I still went to the gym (as opposed to having my home gym) just so I could leave my phone in the car.
Apple watch just doesn't cut it. I own both (AW2 and Garmin 735xt) and I gave up trying to use the AW for any of the sports that I do. (Running, swimming, biking, gym, Triathlon)
There is no way to do all that properly with an Apple Watch as of today. Not to mention the pain that is to wait for the screen to turn on to see if you are running at the proper pace/HR vs a Garmin watch.
Fair warning though... It's brilliant in some ways and alpha in others. I can't seem to edit a set if I tap too fast and log it incorrectly. It guesses one rep too many in about 30% of sets.
On the other hand it knows when I'm doing pull ups (ie, without moving my wrist) and accurately counts them, which seems like magic.
It calculates an extrapolated one rep max for all your sets.
On the other hand the web interface is not exactly feature rich for data junkies. And I'm not sure there's an easy way to export your data to a more useful spreadsheet.
It's ripe for someone to make a great lifting app. But you know, watches are niche, so don't expect any customers.
[1] http://www.blazenfluff.com/mr-t-jewelry-starter-kit-golden-c...
[2] http://www.mobiletor.com/iphone-princess-plus-the-worlds-mos...
Except good judgement.
People should think better than using categories like "outdated".
Or "judgementalism" for that matter. Not sure when being able to judge things (a prerequisite for not going through life blindly) went out of fashion.
It's a mechanical, manually wound watch. Its movement was quite an old and inaccurate design even by mechanical watch standards. That is it does not meet official chronometer standards.
I've worn it almost every day since I first got it. I really enjoy wearing it for all sorts of reasons unrelated to its basic function that I'm not sure I can articulate in any form of convincing argument other than "Well, I like it anyway".
In other words, wtf are you talking about, you get to wear as much jewellery as you want. I mean, you're not obligated to, and limiting yourself to a watch is a nice, minimalist concept, but even then whether it will read femme, masculine, or anything else, really depends on the watch, and, uh, almost everything else. Including who's doing the reading.
Is it possible to store music for offline playback on the Watch and pair it with your Airpods for listening on the go? I'm not a fan of running/cycling with my phone so a Watch/Airpod combo sounds super useful to ditch the phone. I understand I'd need an iPhone for the Watch but I'm just curious if this use case would be possible.
Yes, and not only that but you can also stream Apple Music over LTE as well.
LTE with apple music works as well. Other streaming services such as spotify aren't yet supported without a phone.
It would be interesting to see adoption rates in countries with socialized medicine (not watches).
https://www.vitality.co.uk/rewards/partners/active-rewards/a...
Which, if you google it, is actually a model name. You can find repair guides, guides on upgrading, teardowns, etc using that phrase.
At the same time, they dropped the original "Apple Watch (1st generation)" and replaced it with "Series 1", which as far as most users were concerned is basically the same thing, but it has a slightly faster processor than the original.
I wouldn't be surprised to see "Series 0" get dropped sooner rather than later. The iPad analogy is a good fit, the very first one is stuck at iOS 5, but anything newer than that gets iOS 9 at a minimum.
Re: terminology, "Series 0" is definitely not an official name for it, just a convenient shorthand that feels easier to understand than its official name to me.
So we end up with a classic fence-post error, where if I say I have the first model, most people could assume I mean Series 1. So we've taken to calling it Series 0 (a term Apple never used/uses). Otherwise if I just call it "Apple Watch", you have no idea if I'm implying a version number or not.
I get their problem. "Series 1" is less "2nd generation" and more "revision 1.1". If they'd called it a 2nd generation, they'd overpromise and under-deliver, which is never popular. But calling the 2nd revision "Series 1" is all kinds of confusion.
Series 1 was the orignal Apple Watch with a better processor and a price cut. Series 2 debuted a the same time and added more features like water resistance and a brighter screen.
It's a huge difference if you use your watch for anything other than a clock/notification machine.
I also have a series 0, and maybe I'm self-constrained because of its limitations, but I use it mainly for notifications, workouts, Siri, and messages. Works fine though a bit slow, but I can manage.
I also have a series 0, and maybe I'm self-constrained because of its limitations, but I use it mainly as a simple PDA in my wrist. Notifications, workouts, Siri, calendar, weather and messages. Works fine though a bit slow, but I don't mind
Are there really any other uses for the watch?
* sleep tracking * displaying todos on my watch face * Creating reminders * timers * pomodoros * step counting * music playing * phone calls * Logging my weight with the workflow app * apple pay * music and volume controls
You can probably do all those? The series 3 will just be a lot faster in all transitions. Also has connectivity even if you go phoneless. (Though not all apps work)
I'm in Spain, so no LTE for me. Otherwise I'd bought a Series 3 it in a heartbeat. Most important feature IMO.
Now that I have it, I love those features and would not want to go back. And I use the LTE less than I expected. But I am extremely glad to have it.
In November, I upgraded to an S3. The differences that matter to me:
* It's MUCH faster.
* Battery life is substantially improved. If I forgot to charge my old one, it would run down during day 2. This one can go 2 days with no problem.
* It's actually waterproof.
* Cell connectivity is surprisingly useful.
Apple's new marketing push showing health and life savings benefits to having/using a wearable is pretty compelling, but yet and again I have lived a few decades without ever wearing a watch. It would annoy me!
If Apple built health and life saving tech into clothing or shoes then it's a no brainer.
He used it for a couple of weeks, but I don't think I wouldn't have lasted more than 2-3 days having yet another thing I have to charge every day.
Do a lot of people actually use them and download and use apps? Why would I want to carry a smartwatch besides for exercising (where I'd personally want something much lighter and a lot cheaper) when I have my cell phone with me at all times?
I'm not making fun, just curious.
It's nice for calendar reminder and text alerts. It's also decent for outdoor runs (if you're not a super athlete, otherwise you probably have a Garmin).
I also use it to control my music on my commute, or when I'm playing music while doing something around the house, and if I have to head into my bedroom, where the blinds are always down, I can tell it to turn on the corner lamp for me.
It's massively handy to have Siri on my wrist while cooking: What's half a pound in grams? Also, start a timer for fifteen minutes.
I don't have to carry anything else around with me everywhere. I can head over to the store to buy milk and bread, and I don't need to carry my phone or my wallet, even if I want to listen to music on the trip.
Where did I leave my phone? I'll ping it from my watch. Where did I leave my keys? I'll ping my tile from my watch.
And, y'know, you can do most of this from a phone, that's true. But I do it from my watch, and I quite like it that way.
Doesn't it bother you to have to recharge it, though?
(a little, but it’s fine; i’m asleep)
I don't personally use an Apple Watch. I have a Garmin Fenix that I don't use much. (I usually just wear a $30 Timex.) But I can see why people might like them.
Much better to get a visual idea of the area, so you know where you are, distances to expect, and layout of the land... kind of like a normal map!
I get that looking at a map is not practical when cycling, but I think most cyclists know exactly where they and following familiar routes.
It's useful, when navigating, to be free of the need to stare at one's phone or a map the whole time. That's the boon here.
But, again, I note you're the guy who seems really invested in hating the watch -- even to the point of dismissing as invalid reasons another poster enjoys it! -- so it's not clear why I'm replying.
I listened to a couple of podcasts I had downloaded offline with Watch Player. Then I switched to streaming Apple Music. About 5 miles into the run I got a phone call from the mechanic which I answered, to confirm that I was still coming to pick up the vehicle. I also stopped in to a pharmacy and bought an energy bar using Apple Pay.
When I got to the mechanic, I picked up the car, and used Apple Maps driving directions to navigate home, while listening to Apple Music, connected to the bluetooth stereo in my car. I was also able to make a phone call to my girlfriend to tell her that I was on my way back and make dinner plans.
So yes, people actually use them, and download and use apps.
A flip phone and an iPod Shuffle cost me 100$, and a 25$/mo plan, unlimited talk/text, almost 15 years ago.
Now we have a flip phone + shuffle on your wrist, for 500$, plus you almost certainly have an iPhone - 50-100$/mo plan, plus what, 200-500$ flat fee for the phone? Oh, how much are those airPods? Add 150$ to that bill.
The same functionality from 10-20 years ago, should cost less, not more, if we are to use a little common sense. It feels like Apple's fantastic feel for aesthetics and horrid android offerings, have led people to believe it's reasonable to spend roughly a thousand dollars a year if not more, to do the same things you did 15 years ago for 1/5th if not 1/10 the cost. We're getting the same functionality, in a SLIGHTLY more convenient (arguable) wrapper, and it costs way more! This is the opposite of progress.
Before anyone jumps out and tells me how useful their 'smart'-phone is, let me remind you the most used apps on there are pure empty entertainment (social media, games), with very questionable long-term costs (I predict an epidemic of neck and shoulder problems hitting the developed countries in the next 20-30 years)
- iPod Shuffle weighed LESS than Apple Watch, and cost 1/5th the price. I think it had comparable battery life or better?
- Flip phone cost almost nothing 15 years ago, there has been no progress in the way we make phonecalls or send text messages over the past 15 years.
Now, iPhone does MORE than a flip phone, apple watch does MORE than an ipod shuffle.
How much more? 5 times more? Because the pricetag is 5 times more.
Now, progress, is when you pay LESS for the same thing you had 15 years ago, because it is now CHEAPER to produce, test, and deliver that same product.
So to re-iterate:
- Same functionality should cost the same or LESS. It should be BETTER for the same price.
- More convenient form factor and extra !!!OPTIONAL!!! features are great and welcome, I'd be willing to pay 10-15% more for them.
- Apple products have gone UP in price, while providing absolutely no extra UTILITY. You're paying incredible prices for nice-to-haves that most people do not need (heart rate monitor, better camera, more pixels, better pixels)
The market is the final arbiter of what makes a successful product. Not your perception of what constitutes value or utility.
I don't think it's the same experience as running with just a smartwatch.
There's less dread that you're going to drop and destroy an expensive heavy device if you focus on your run.
I also didn't and don't pay anything near your prices, and don't find Apple's aesthetics that great, or Android's offerings that horrible.
There's less dread that you're going to drop and destroy
an expensive heavy device if you focus on your run.
And again, 400 is a silly price to pay for small tech, but that's not a criticism of watches, it's a criticism of Apple. Did you see the teardown of Beats headphones and their cheap components? There are lots of lousy ways to conspicuously give Apple too much money without watches.
You could get a cheap smartphone and an entry level watch for a third of the price of some people's iPhones, and if you share my somewhat odd preferences, have a better experience for it.
The thought of having a watch that is better in all dimensions and is smaller is amazing. On top of that it has cellular.
I also tried running with just my phone using Nike+ GPS back in the day and quickly went back to my Garmin watch.
I'm coming from an Android Wear based Polar M600. It was nice, but Android Wear 2.0 was a bit of a dumpster fire and kind of ruined it (random battery rundown, Music removed on every f/w update, hard to sync Music, could not shuffle Music after Android Wear 2.0 update). In the end, I could not count on more than 8hr of battery life unless I put it in airplane mode with the screen off.
Before I settled on the Garmin, my Nexus died. I was seriously considering switching to an iPhone just to be able to use an Apple Watch. But then I learned that the AW3 has a battery life of only 18 hours. So I just updated to a Pixel and got the Garmin.
It seems like using Android / iOS for a watch OS may just be the problem. I was also considering the Fitbit Ionic, which has a comparable battery life to the Garmin. There just don't seem to be any Android Wear watches with a 5+ day battery life.
The traffic directions are pretty important when you’re driving in NYC during rush hour.
Battery life can drain quite rapidly if you leave your cell antenna on during a run. It seems like they should figure out a way to more intelligently toggle the antenna or define a different use case where I don't have to go remember to go turn it back on if I actively want to use data but in the meantime it remains disabled (and if I don't receive incoming calls that's maybe ok? Despite the example in my original post...).
I wish Yelp and some other apps would operate in standalone mode without the phone. This is likely related to the SDK limitations, but it's also a matter of app developer priorities of course.
* Clock functionality (duh!)
* Calendar - what's my next appointment.
* Check the weather before I step outside.
* Walking directions on maps - keep phone in pocket, get guided by discrete tap on my wrist.
* Fitness tracking (though, as you mention, there are other options)
* Notifications (the power of the watch is that you DON'T have to take your phone out of your pocket).
* Apple Pay (that's a big one for me. Much more convenient on watch than on phone).
* Automatically unlocks my macs when I sit down to use them.
A handful of these are third party apps. I use Trails to track my walks. The lyft widget seems kind of useful. Wunderground is better than Apple's built in weather app.
One example: I never use siri on my phone - it’s too slow and flaky and typing is so much faster. I use Siri on my watch all the time because they apparently have a better QA team and I don’t need two hands to use it which is really good on my bike or as a new parent, especially now that our son is jealous of attention going to a phone.
Some people use their phones more efficiently than others by combining tasks in the one session. More info can be read, more browsed on the large screen. On the other hand, some people use their phones in part to avoid social awkwardness, or fill in otherwise restful moments. This is significant because it's behaviour many wouldn't want to give up, even if we should.
It raises the question of how connected to things we ought to be, a watch means you are more "jacked in" permanently. I'm not sure I want that. When I put my phone away in my bag, I'm putting the internet away, I've "disconnected". A watch feels like it's always there ready to pounce.
Just for you, here's an angle that you'll see as "silly and bad"...
The name "Apple Watch" is a misnomer. It's not a "watch" in the sense of its primary function as a timepiece. If you insist it is a timepiece, then given the short battery life, it's the worst timepiece since the invention of the watch.
It's a device that does a few different things that happens to be strapped to your wrist.
I find it curious that the Apple engineer and another person in this thread has listed as their number one use of the Apple Watch "telling the time (duh)"... why add "duh"? If you use other apps primarily, the time may not be visible, or only in tiny digits, or even a blank screen. "Duh" is not needed because telling the time seems to be something the Apple Watch does only under certain circumstances like "have you recharged" or "is your wrist angled the correct way".
People are listing "telling the time (duh)" because it's OBVIOUSLY a watch. I guess I could assemble a face that doesn't include the time, but I certainly haven't wanted to. Obviously I consult it for the time several times a day. Obviously, that's the primary role of a wristwatch.
I suspect people here, like myself, have omitted "telling the time" when outlining reasons the Apple Watch is useful are doing so because, duh, it's a watch. It tells time.
Incidentally, there remain no small number of manual-wind watches in use that require daily winding. Are they also examples of the worst watches ever made?
Stop pretending you know what motivates my contributions, that's rude.
Bias? We're talking about a tech product, not immigration policy. I am not loyal to any brand, I own examples of most brands and will praise or criticise as needed, as anyone should. Brand loyalty is where you'll find bias, so perhaps take a look in the mirror.
"Duh" is a silly word to use on any occasion. When used as part of an answer to a question, you risk giving the impression the questioner has asked a stupid question. "Duh" does not mean "obviously".
If you're standing or sitting with arms folded then look down at the time, you may see a blank screen, therefore the primary role of your wristwatch is inferior to even those watches that require daily winding. And no, I would not describe a watch that requires daily winding as a great watch.
I look forward to vastly improved battery life in smart watches and more hybrid-mechanical or traditional digital watch design so that the watch part is not an "app".
It doesn't seem like you can discuss the product without going after the person, so hopefully this interaction is at an end.
Ah, the brave one, speaking truth when others are clouded by bias!
>this interaction is at an end
Thank God.
I'm still using my Series 0 on a daily basis. I use it for:
1. telling the time (duh)
2. as an activity tracker
3. unlocking my Mac
4. Apple Pay
5. Discreet notifications
As for battery recharging, it's a minor inconvenience but not a deal breaker. I thought it would be an issue but it isn't. A non-tech wise old man said "I'll just follow my routine and charge it by my bedside every night". Even if you don't follow the routine and forget about charging it, it recharges relatively quickly.
That's if you can charge it. I (and a couple of friends) routinely sleep out of our own home for a couple or three days on a whim. We can easily come by Lightning or micro-USB chargers if need be but we'd be hard pressed to find a smartwatch charger†, which means a dead watch soon enough.
† Qi largely isn't popular enough, and even then if it were an Apple Watch it's been walled into only working with Apple's chargers.
Sales are showing someone likes it.
Looking at the responses to your post there are clearly some fans here, I do wonder though how many are sat with a flat battery in a drawer somewhere.
I think that changes a bit with the series 3 and LTE support. I would be willing to deal with cumbersome interfaces more frequently if it meant I could leave my phone at home and still have access to essential functions (phone calls, text messages, etc). And I could see myself downloading a lot more 3rd party apps to have with me just in case (slack, 1password, authy, etc).
The only thing stopping me from getting the series 3 is the fact that I get cell service through a cheap MVNO that doesn't support the apple watch yet. Hopefully it's just a matter of time now before it is possible to use apple watch LTE service with MVNOs.
I discovered that if all you want is activity tracking, notifications and calendar, other brands of watch do this for far less money without the hassle of charging every day. Check out some of the newer Garmin or Fitbit watches.
-Mainly, it's a very handy, very low-distraction way of getting notifications. The vibration is a lot more noticeable/unmistakable than a phone through a pair of pants, so I find myself doing far less habitual checking of my phone (or watch, for that matter). You can really tune out of your phone/social media, but respond to an urgent text/call.
-IMHO, at work, checking my wrist is a much better "look" than scrolling through my phone notifications (and, tbh, often getting distracted and checking in on news).
-Having weather info available at a glance is surprisingly nice. I live in Michigan, so it's often consequential information - having it at the flip of a wrist instead of even opening an app or asking Siri is, believe it or not, a really nice benefit.
-Having a watchface with a rotating collection of Live Photos is a great way of showing off my kids to people without handing them my full photo collection.
1. My default face includes my next appointment from my calendar. This is really useful.
2. Notifications are GREAT. Meeting coming up? Call coming in? Text? Important email? Something else (yeah, okay, I even let a game send me watch notifications)? It's useful to me to have this on my wrist.
3. Even better: Being able to easily acknowledge or even reply to texts from the watch is super, super useful to me. A good chunk of the appeal here is that I'm a cyclist, so I can do this at a stop light without needing to pull my phone out of my jersey pocket, but it's also great generally.
4. Quick access to things like timers, weather forecasts, my calendar, etc -- again, without reaching for my phone -- is a real boon. The way Apple has implemented this is natural and easy.
5. My initial use case was running + bike notifications, because my OG Pebble had died (which I always used when riding) and I was training for a half. I tried a lower-end Garmin, but it was pants. The S0 Apple Watch + the Strava app was GREAT for this, though.
6. It's hard to overstate how useful the watch is for remote control of music on the phone. I use this the most when I'm on my cycling trainer, but it's also great just generally, because it's always RIGHT THERE.
7. Finally, I will admit that I use the "make your phone emit a pinging sound" feature VERY often, because I tend to misplace it in my house. My wife, bless her heart, is very nice about not pointing out how often the resulting chime turns out to come from one of my pockets.
8. Ah, forgot about ApplePay! It's SO convenient from the watch. Using it from the phone is good, and still faster than a chip card (US), but paying from the watch is nearly frictionless. I love it.