Meet the Apple Watch
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Also it requires an iPhone.
But these are going somewhere interesting - they could end up replacing phones, 4g sticks / hotspots, usb sticks etc.
But those people don't have any money, or at least don't spend any money, and are consequently of no interest to the larger ecosystem that can be built around smart devices. A cynical view, perhaps, but a realistic one.
ps -- I don't bring my phone because (1) the gym is gross, (2) I sweat like a pig, (3) I don't want to kill it; I bruise myself enough that between bars, plates, dumbbells, kettlebells, etc, there is 0% chance I wouldn't smash it. My wrist just doesn't get smacked as much as my pocket / upper thighs.
I honestly don't think too many people will be using it to tell time, they'll be using it to chat back and forward in a fast, convenient way and to interact with apps they love - twitter, Facebook, etc.
When you go to a restaurant or bar, how many people put their phone on the table and glace at it constantly? All of those people would use an Apple Watch.
EDIT: Just found this which says the same: http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/09/apple-watch-digital-touch/
Remember, it's "chat" in the loosest sense of the word - it's more or less time wasting banter back and forward. It's not supposed to be productive or achieve anything, other than back and forth games.
The funny thing is that I stopped wearing wrist watches when phones started fitting in my pocket. So my phone, while having extra features, isn't very different from a pocket watch.
And if there are a lot of people like me, you can make the argument that the pocket (or purse) watch subsequently replaced the wrist watch.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying they'll completely replace smartphones, just that enough features can be moved to the wrist to make it worth wearing.
I'm afraid it's not quite so simple as that. It also has to be more than simply worth wearing.
* It has to be worth adding to the pile of devices that you're managing (remembering to charge, remembering to wear, connecting to your phone, security settings, etc).
* It has to be worth taking up another USB port in your charger (since it's not using a lightning or micro USB port)
* It has to be worth taking up more space on your nightstand for charging.
While I see a lot of benefits for sporty/health types and FOMO-afflicted notification addicts, I'm not so sure it's going to eat up the market the same way the iPhone and iPad did.
I've had a Pebble for the last year, and even its unfiltered notifications has been tremendously preferable over digging out my phone to see what's up.
I find phone notifications much more annoying. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, you have no idea if it's important or if it's someone liking your Facebook status (or equally inane thing).
On the Pebble I take one look and dismiss it, which is still time wasted, but a lot less time wasted than pulling my phone out, and less risky than simply ignoring your phone when it buzzes.
I would argue that these devices create even more noise, given how they are even more accessible than a phone in a pocket or sitting on a desk.
The market for a smartwatch isn't the same as the market for watches, in the same way that the market for smartphones isn't the same as the market of people who make phone calls.
Telling time is practically a formality on these devices, their selling point is basically everything else they do.
Whether or not Apple Watch is a competent entry into this category remains to be seen...
Repost: I was gifted a Pebble over a year ago and I admit I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at the time. I did however start wear it out of consideration for the person that gave it to me and the novelty of a new toy. :) (note too that I am an old-timer who still wears a watch regularly)
What happened however surprised me. I found the simple change of having notifications pop up on my wrist was saving me from pulling the phone out of its holder over and over during a day every time it chimed with an email or message. I get a ton of communication during the day but 70% of it doesn't require a response from me immediately... the remaining 30% however does. I was now able to filter incoming messages with barely an interruption to what I was doing at the time.
From there I expanded Apps to bringing up my calendar overview, putting navigation directions on my wrist, using silent alarms (wrist vibration) to alert me during meetings, etc. It allows me to be more connected to my phone, without being more connected to my phone, if you know what I mean.
I have since moved to an LG watch and I do like it. No more week long battery life but it will go well over a day easily. Lots more gimmicky applications like remote camera control, etc. but also useful things, like ticking items off my Keep grocery list as I wander the store... without holding my phone.
Is it perfect for everyone? Nothing is. But I will stand corrected for my early mocking of the form factor. I "don't leave home without it" now.
Edit: One other point I missed. I also wander around the house without carrying my phone anymore. The watch stays connected and I can get alerts without needing to have it beside me.
Two ways to navigate the interface (wheel for zooming, to avoid touching the screen, and panning by...touching the screen).
Tasteless misfeatures like customisable emoji [1] and drawing your own fail whale on a tiny screen [2], and most inexplicable of all for an expensive watch - very little attention paid to the actual watch face designs, which are not even adapted to the square frame, and some of which have numbering superimposed awkwardly over images like a butterfly or globe, or mickey mouse...ugh [3]
[1] http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple024...
[2] http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple025...
[3] http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple021...
Combining all that stuff with materials like 18 carat gold or brushed steel doesn't really make sense - it's as if they asked a different person about each feature included and then mashed it all together in some frankenstein mess. The fitness features look quite nice in contrast.
I actually think in future we'll all be using wearables like this far more than phones - little status bands or com badges or glasses/contact lenses, but this is not a glimpse of the future so much as a glimpse at the dysfunction in the current Apple design process, post Steve Jobs, and their inability to produce coherent products.
Just because you're too sophisticated for emoji and Mickey Mouse doesn't mean everyone else is.
Maybe you're not the target audience.
It is impossible to tell until you have held the device in your hand.
The presentation however was awful.
Jobs took a very complex phone/internet/music playing device and made it seem very simple. I can still remember his three selling points. Its a phone. Its an internet device. It plays music.
These guys took something that should be simple, and made it appear complex. It is a fitness tracker... And something about apps that look like a pimply teenager.
I think they designed that presentation by committee.
This does not bode well.
1. They have customized size and band, while not the shape. I for one love round shape and hate the square shape, and I believe I'm not the only one with this preference.
2. They emphasized too much on the interaction with watch. IMO, watch is supposed to notify you new things, have you glance over it and do some quick responding. That's it. User should not use watch in the same way they use phone.
In Apple watch's demo, they have too much interaction showing there and the information on one screen is sometimes crowded. That's not a good sign.
I do like the new interaction pattern they introduced there though. Quite innovative IMO.
Nonsense. Would you have said the same thing about people using phones only to talk when the iPhone came out? Not an Apple enthusiast, but I'm impressed with their efforts in constantly trying to redefine how we use "established" products.
Not impressed by what is shown of the Apple Watch, by the way.
I entirely disagree. I would hate to use a tiny watch the same way I use a phone. Input is dramatically more constrained and expecting to use it the same way seems silly to me.
Not enough people will pay several hundred dollars for that. I'm a geek and heavy smartphone user and I wouldn't pay $50 just to get notifications on my wrist. It needs to do more or there's only a small market.
That said, I'm sure they can sell millions of watches per year. It's just not going to move the needle on their $170 billion in sales.
I think even now, the smart watch market is very, very, very early. As in, these products are ten years too early, at least. The technology needs to get so small, the watch stays primarily what it will always be about: fashion, and the technology becomes so small, cheap, and hidden away you don't notice that first and it doesn't get in the way of the primary role of a watch.
I think it's important to remember than most people under around 30 years old do not wear a wrist watch. So they probably don't have a specific strap or face style they like. They want something cool something that makes it easier to take selfies or send stuff to Facebook.
I think that we will look back on this like the first iPhone. Very cool but missing lots of obvious features. If they can sell enough of them they can afford to push the research to make them smaller, faster, and better and in a few years we'll have the equivalent of the iPhone 4 which is when I think the iPhone finally nailed it. But to get there you have to start somewhere. I think this is the right place to start. It's good enough, it's better than what's out there, and lots of people will buy it.
But on a more serious note, I won't underestimate the potential for a widely adopted device that is:
1) always visible to the user. Yes, in my opinion taking my phone out of my pocket and putting it back in again is one of those irritations you don't notice until it goes away and then you wondered how you lived for so long doing that dumb behavior. Setting your phone on the dinner table, constantly looking at it when you are trying to walk around town ... the watch could be subtly revolutionary for those thousands of glances a day.
2) always touching the user. I am extremely excited, or at least intrigued, by what is possible with persistent two-way haptic communication. Without having used the dev kit, and without feeling the actuators, I don't know how nuanced the communication can be. But there could be a whole new world here.
Just a thought from the "maybe they aren't idiots at Apple" perspective.
I can't wait to see it in action.
After clicking the link, I stared at a black screen containing nothing but the "Moto 360" logo and a throbber for about 10 seconds before the actual page content started to display.
Scrolling is just completely broken: moving the mouse wheel in any direction will scroll the page down. But there's no at-a-glance summary of product features, so you must scroll through the whole mess just to find out about the product. Animations and videos begin playing as soon as their section of the page is scrolled to, without being triggered by deliberate user action. One of the sections uses some sort of bloom effect on the text that doesn't work properly and makes the text unreadable.
So after wading through all of that, I started reading some of the copy on the page, and while I was doing so, I was spontaneously sent back to the 'loading screen' with the logo and throbber while more content downloaded for another 5-10 seconds.
I'm on a 10 MB/s DSL connection at the moment. The page took a whopping 228.85 seconds (that's three minutes and forty-nine seconds) to load over 13 MB of content.
And, after all of that, I still don't have a clear idea of why I'd be interested in the product. This is just absolutely hellish web design.
Unfortunately, the $350 price point is way too high for something like that.
300 ft.
> in a waterproof sack
Probably the one that contains your wallet and keys as well.
The Moto360 is water resistant and the Pebble is water proof, so if the Apple Watch isn't, it's seriously in trouble.
So if it's a sports/fitness accessory, it's primarily for use in the gym.
Really, this feels more like the Newton of smart watches, rather than the iPhone 1 of smart watches. A good start that will become indispensable to a very small number of people.
It's the same reason the wristwatch itself was invented. It was preceded by detached timepieces that were stored in coat pockets. The pocket-to-wrist chasm was enough to merit creating wristwatches, and I think it's enough to merit smartwatches.
Dead in the water. That's insanely expensive and too late in the smartwatch market in my mind.
I have to imagine that if third-party apps make good use of the features and interface, it'll be quite a useful device to have. The fact that you can make NFC payments with it is cool.
But the difference is that the original iPhone was vastly better than everything else on the market in 2007/2008. It took a few years before we saw real parity from its competitors.
This Apple Watch appears to be a little bit better than its current crop of competitors, not vastly better.
Also, I'm guessing that the "Edition" watches are going to sell for 10x that. And there'll be a months-long wait to get one.
I can imagine Roger Moore and Christopher Walken wearing one in "A View To A Kill".
(There are optical heart rate sensors that are made for exercise, and they have much brighter LEDs and specially designed case for shutting out exterior light)
Where did they announce the brightness of the heart rate LEDs?
> specially designed case for shutting out exterior light
Well, it's sitting right against your wrist, pressed against it. I think that'll block out enough light.
Good job, Apple. While I'm sure there will be some adherents who will buy whatever you will produce, the Android watch makers will already be on their next iteration AND will have seen your specs to boot. Never thought I'd say this, but Apple has fallen WAY behind in terms of product design.
You could've said that about phones and PDAs pre-iPhone.
As a more or less leftie, wearing a purely non interactive element on the left hand as it is custom for watches is ok, but having to interact with that crown thing using my right hand feels wrong.
I could probably get used to it, but then, I can doost things with both hands, but I can imagine some left handed people having trouble with this (or obscuring their display when using it with the left hand)
I need to see this in person.
Overly not impressed by the crown control... people who wear watches that need to be wound rarely do it while it's on their wrist. I would need to feel this "dial" control to be convinced this is a good idea.
If it's a single element/app, it will just transition to a more detailed mode.
If it's a 2D canvas, it will be the center of that canvas. Kind of like how the zoom widget on Google Maps works today.
1. No word on battery. This has been a huge problem for other (sometimes larger) watches. Does it have to be charged daily?
2. More expensive than the competition ($350 Vs. $250 and $150, for the Galaxy Gear+Moto 360/Pebble+Sony Smartwatch).
3. They release in "early 2015" so miss this Christmas holiday season which MIGHT negatively impact adoption (or not, dunno).
4. iPhone only. I understand their reasoning but this will definitely limit adoption somewhat (not really too surprising however).
The battery question is the biggest ??? hanging over this. A watch that can barely last a day (e.g. Moto 360) is a huge negative to a lot of people, myself included.
That's one area where the Pebble really excelled. With its eInk display, the screen was always "on" and it would run for several days on a single charge. We need a combination LCD/eInk panel to get the best of both.
The high-end customers you desire will never abandon their shiny Swiss watches for this.
The low-end customers will (once again) be claimed by Samsung.
I didn't really like him, but Jobs was indeed a visionary. Apple is losing ground (alarmingly rapidly, I might add) after him. May he rest in peace.
The Gear S smart watch is stand-alone (or tether), has 3G cellular, wifi and looks far better than the Apple watch. It will probably cost about the same as the Apple watch too.
I would've been fine with less functionality app-wise, a nicer overall look and a lower price. I don't need to watch photos and read twitter on my watch (it still needs an iPhone for that, right? So what's the friggin' point?)
The wireless things like payments and opening hotel rooms are kinda cool, though, but then again, I'd probably be too lazy/paranoid to enter the data into the watch than to get out my wallet/hotel room key.
I wonder if they'll find a market for this.
Not a fan of those animated emoji at all. Not sure why they included those tbh.
I would love for this watch to be able to be able to clone all the various NFC-type items and building access cards people carry around. I suspect there are considerable technical and legal obstacles to this, but hey, there's an API!
Even assuming this watch becomes insanely popular, will it really drive more iPhone sales?
This should probably go without saying, but a bill of materials is probably not very representative of the real costs of this product.
Ion strengthened glass.
18K Gold developed to be twice as hard as standard gold.
Did they really say that? Ha! Who knew my 9K gold stuff was vastly superior to higher grades.
"crafted from 18-karat gold that our metallurgists have developed to be up to twice as hard as standard gold."
Given how many things they make out of metal, they've probably had metallurgists for years. I'm not sure what you find nauseating about that idea.
(I'm not Che or Maradona, so I'm not ditching my analogue watch for a smart watch any time soon, even if I can pay with it..)
And also, it is said that requires an iPhone. Does it have to be nearby it? Are the phone and the watch always connected?
(Full disclosure, I'm a current Garmin employee but I don't work in the fitness area)
Mine is for development. I see 10x returns easily, possibly 100x.
I also think a handful of other fun apps could be profitable, like using the local communication thing to send shock images/reaction gifs/dumb sticker packs.
The first IAP Tamagotchi-type game will make a million dollars easily.
I'll probably stick to focusing on health and performance, but plenty is possible.
What I think is interesting, however, is what the apple watch will look like 5 years from now.
With all the compromises in size and battery life, this is what you would gain in return for it. Instead, it was sold as a "me too", complementary device, just with Apple magic thrown in there.
So now in the end, I don't need a mini-iphone on my wrist or do I want one. I can just as easily pull the phone out of my pocket as it takes the same amount of time.
Such a shame really, because it's obvious that Apple had their brightest engineers work long hours on it.