Apple Watch Series 6 | Hacker News Reader

Apple Watch Series 6

apple.com

36 pointstosh26 comments

Feels like the gap between Apple Watch and competition is only only growing.

Apple's watch CPU is just so far ahead of the competition they have free reign here. That they can continue to ship their 3 year old Series 3 is just brutal for anyone trying to compete here.

By extension, this makes the whole iPhone/ Apple eco-system much stronger.

I like Apple, I like Apple devices... but the argument that they are becoming a monopoly in the US is growing. The integration between their devices simultaneously makes them collectively better, but locks people into the eco-system deeper and deeper. The watch is right in the middle of this.

I’m personally not impressed much by Series 6. I was expecting a lot more on the hardware front, like longer battery life (beyond a day) and some more health related features (beyond blood oxygen measurement). I do expect the Apple Watch SE to sell very well for kids, since Family Setup lowers the barriers to having an Apple Watch.

Family Setup is limited to the cellular models and isn’t available for the GPS (non-cellular) models. I wonder how this works in terms of setup complexity. The current Apple Watch cellular has an E-SIM but shares the phone number of the iPhone its paired with. The Family Setup model would provide the ability to have one main watch sharing the iPhone’s number and the remaining watches having their own individual phone numbers.

What health-related features other than blood oxygen monitoring were you hoping for?

Personally I'd love a glucose monitor. I have no idea if that's even possible but I can hope.

Right now (1:26 EST) this is a 404. I'm assuming it won't be for long.

1:29 EST still 404

Flagging this, it's ridiculous to submit pages that are 404'ing.

Fully agree, OP trying to hoard the early Karma?

It pointed to the livestream earlier. The URL changed.

Is this a good example of the fundamental attribution error? Given the equally-plausible explanations that the link worked-when-submitted, or that OP submitted a 404 page which was up-voted on title alone, why would we assume OP submitted a 404 page for Karma?

How could the submitter know that the page that was supposedly up at the time would 404 later on? Especially for a large company where you wouldn't expect such things to happen. Unless I'm misunderstanding the dynamic here and the page was never up to begin with?

It was working earlier - the title said "Apple Event" when I clicked on it and it took me here: https://www.apple.com/apple-events/event-stream/. Looks like the title and URL was edited later.

Livestream of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b13xnFp_LJs

The Apple stream is considerably ahead for me: https://www.apple.com/apple-events/event-stream/

I don't know why would someone buy this when they're selling Apple Watch SE for $279 with most of the features. Unlike flagship iPhone it's probably not going to look a lot different from the most expensive piece.

SE Features: https://livecenterimagesnorth.azureedge.net/livecenter-image...

The link is still a 404, so I'm not sure you can say that yet as we don't know what the features are.

Watching the event, it may only be the Series 6 that functions with Fitness+, so that's a huge differentiator.

It also measures blood oxygen levels, measures elevation, can call 911 if you experience a fall, etc.

Because they have the money.

I know I was willing to pay more when the ECG watch came out, and this one has a blood oxygen meter. That alone will sell a bunch of these.

It's also important to offer people different pricing tiers, because some people are value shoppers and some people want to buy a Veblen good.

when you decide to buy a watch SE over the watch 3, or no smartwatch at all, you already have disposable income to spend. $120 more for watch 6 is not that big of a deal relative to someone's disposable income level.

The comparison page just went up. Series 6 has both blood oxygen and ECG that SE does not. I would prefer Series 6 over SE. https://www.apple.com/watch/compare/

Is Apple Watch available on any prepaid plans yet? I'd love to use the cellular model for its intended purpose of reducing phone use but there seems to be no affordable options, at least in the US. E.g. the prepaid T-Mobile Connect plan costs $25/mo, whereas the cheapest postpaid plan with T-Mobile that includes the watch surcharge comes out to $60-70/mo and is on worse terms.

What I want is a health monitor watch that's built from open hardware and gives me complete control over and ownership of my data. I don't trust any profit-driven company, even Apple, with such private information.

It is still a while off, but here is one of the most promising developments in that space: https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/

Wow that looks great - thanks for the link!

press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-watch-series-6-...

Apple needs to partner with Rolex to create a watch with some real value retention

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