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The Apple Watch

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501 pointsbenigeri836 comments

While someone else already made the reference to this quote, it's hard for me not to recall Commander Taco's (in)famous dismissal of the original iPod when I browse these comments.

Personally I don't know that there's any watch that would really get me to start wearing watches at all again -- I never liked them that much to begin with. But this knocks down an awful lot of the criticisms I've had of existing smartwatches. The smaller Apple Watch is 38mm, certainly not small but by no means an irrationally huge behemoth. (Even the larger is only 42mm, I believe.) When you consider the three lines, two sizes, and multiple bands, there's dozens of combinations available. You may personally not like the fashion sense, but other than the Moto 360 this is the first smartwatch that's had a fashion sense to criticize. (And guys, the Moto 360 is 46mm, so let's not pretend it's svelte, either.)

But what's really interesting to me is that Apple has clearly put a lot more thought into how interactions on a device like this should work than anybody else. Yes, I'm sure every single component has an antecedent you can point to, just like the iPhone's interaction model. Except that nobody put it all together like that before the iPhone. And nobody put it all together like this before the Apple Watch.

I'm not so glib as to say that catcalls when Apple introduces a new product are a sure sign of success (I remember the iPod Hifi, thanks). But again, it's hard not to see a few recurring patterns in the responses: oh, look, it doesn't do everything that it could (or that competitors already do!) and it's too expensive. If it sells well, it'll only because of the Apple faithful buying everything.

And, of course, if it sells well, than within a year all smartwatches will adapt its interaction model. Other manufacturers will come out with variants that Apple isn't making, and we can move onto the evergreen phase of dismissing Apple as a company that just copies everybody else.

it's hard for me not to recall Commander Taco's (in)famous dismissal of the original iPod when I browse these comments

You should also remember that he was hardly in the majority with those comments. Further he was technically correct, and the iPod succeeded because of a synergy with other parts of Apple's empire (notably iTunes).

But what's really interesting to me is that Apple has clearly put a lot more thought into how interactions on a device like this should work than anybody else.

How so? Google put, it seems, enormous thought and effort into Android Wear. It is a whole interaction and ecosystem built specifically for smart watches. Because Tim Cook gives some trite speech about not using a smartphone OS on a watch (this was, it is worth noting, not long after celebrating how xcode now supports dynamic layouts...you know, the thing that Android did a half a decade ago, and was widely deridden as "running smartphone apps on a tablet")?

You've tried to cover every possible Apple defense, so you seem pretty committed, but you have to understand that a lot of people are derisive because we've been hearing the Apple faithful railing about these same attributes of competitor devices for months. Announcing before availability, large and bulky, needs to be tethered to a device, square, and so on...I have to imagine all of those once liabilities will suddenly turn into strengths.

I love my Apple products, but there is absolutely no doubt that there is a distortion field, and it really is hard to stomach.

>not long after celebrating how xcode now supports dynamic layouts...you know, the thing that Android did a half a decade ago, and was widely deridden as "running smartphone apps on a tablet"

The way Xcode (and iOS8) support dynamic layouts is nothing like Android.

Xcode 6 allows you to have multiple designs/constaints within the same UI file, for different screen sizes.

Dynamic layout a'la Android is "one size fits all", which is no way similar to what's Apple doing.

___

Since I'm getting heavily downvoted, I'd like at least a chance to clarify.

I'm perfectly aware that it is technically possible to create universal tablet/phone Android app, with separate layouts for each. However, that's not what's usually being done.

I believe reasons for this for two-fold:

1. Google's initial message after introducing tablets didn't push hard enough for separate UI (or didn't at all) 2. Developers mentality

@2: I think it's just a different way that the two ecosystem operates. When Apple tells developers to jump, devs ask how high. When Google tells developers to jump, they go "yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man".

Dynamic layout a'la Android is "one size fits all", which is no way similar to what's Apple doing.

Aside from CSS-type "responsive" design, Android layouts have always had resource tags, which means that you can set different layouts for screen sizes, orientations, pixel densities, cultures, text direction, and so on.

Apps that didn't demonstrate this on tablets were as they were because the developers were lazy or simply didn't care, not because of a limitation of the platform.

Maybe I should've added "as practiced", since all the apps I'm using are still pretty much blown-up versions of their phones counterparts.

I haven't picked up my Android tablet in like half a year now, does Twitter and Facebook have a proper tablet android app by now?

"As practiced" is key. The two systems have the same capabilities, and as far as I can tell are about equally easy to use "correctly". On Android, a lot of developers have used the system to build apps which just expand stupidly on tablets. Will Apple developers do the same, or will they be smarter? Either way, it won't be because of the underlying technology.

No, on Android, you create as many specific layouts as you want, based on combinations of screen size, density, orientation, language, etc. Within each of those layouts, you specify how you want the system to scale the UI up for those you don't specify.

> How so? Google put, it seems, enormous thought and effort into Android Wear. It is a whole interaction and ecosystem built specifically for smart watches. Because Tim Cook gives some trite speech about not using a smartphone OS on a watch (this was, it is worth noting, not long after celebrating how xcode now supports dynamic layouts...you know, the thing that Android did a half a decade ago, and was widely deridden as "running smartphone apps on a tablet")?

Have you ever tried android wear? I read/watched some reviews (even with the 360) and seems to me far to be a completed thing.

Don't get me wrong, I have an android phone (and the only one) however, I really don't get it. Seems to me that the only intent of google is avoid an Apple monopoly without trying to bring something on the table.

Android itself is barely okay, however if you add custom OEM modifications + carrier modifications (really carriers allowed to write software???) to me the matter become just about "flag".

"Have you ever tried android wear? I read/watched some reviews (even with the 360) and seems to me far to be a completed thing."

Yes, quite a lot. Have you?

Additionally, apple's device won't even be out for a minimum of 3 months (assuming it came out in january).

Which is the not completed thing again?

Truthfully, seeing what I saw, Apple's watch is just not a leap forward in any interesting way i can think of over android wear.

Maybe it'll win because of better marketing or whatever. But it's interface did not look appreciably better to me, nor did it have anything that i would consider "a killer app" that android wear does not.

(I mainly use my wear device to track my running and biking paces, display notes like shopping lists, and display texts so that i know whether i should pull out my phone to respond to the person)

They could have chosen some axis to improve upon - waterproofness (i can scuba dive with my pebble but not my wear device), battery life, screen[1], whatever.

They are trying "software". Sometimes this is good, sometimes it's not (again though, I also don't find the ipad interface so much better than the android one. For the things i do on these devices, the ipad is a slim win, but has a shittier software keyboard by far).

[1] Sapphire is not interesting to me. My watch does not sit in my pocket with things likely to scratch it. I woodwork, and have worn wear devices for 6+ months now, and while i've scratched phones from chisels, saw blades, etc, i've never scratched my watch.

A higher res display or something would have been cooler.

> Which is the not completed thing again?

Apple Watch is not available yet, so I don't see the point. I rather prefer to buy something within few months than a "prototype" at retail price.

Can I ask you what is the android "wear", the only one I read some good things is the 360 (also announced 3/4 months before selling it) but it's not 6 months old.

"Apple Watch is not available yet, so I don't see the point. I rather prefer to buy something within few months than a "prototype" at retail price."

Uh, what makes you think it also won't be essentially a prototype, like the iphone's first software basically was (web apps only), etc?

"Can I ask you what is the android "wear", the only one I read some good things is the 360 (also announced 3/4 months before selling it) but it's not 6 months old. " Android wear is the name of the device operating system for the android watches.

As for hardware, I've actually tried literally all of them. Right now, a samsung gear live happens to sit on my wrist most of the time. The retail 360 is not 6 months old, that is certainly correct. I can assure you i have worn wear devices for > 6 months :)

As for "what you read good things about", i don't know what to tell you. I actually tend to try things out more than just believing whatever the internet happens to think on a given day, which is heavily influenced (in all directions).

I own a Pebble Steel, and am quite interested in a Moto 360. I'm guessing you've tried the former too? What are your thoughts on the two? I'm trying to decide if I should switch my mobile back to Android and get a 360 instead of my iPhone + Pebble Steel :)

I have a Pebble Steel too, silver one, and if you've gotten used to the battery life of that, I have a feeling after reading Ars Technica's review that you'd find the Moto 360 less to your liking.

I absolutely love the always on epaper screen on my Steel, plus how classy the whole device looks and feels - and the functionality it offers me. None of the new smartwatches have any appeal to me as having to charge them daily doesn't float my boat. If I need more functionality I'll just whip out my Samsung S5.

Pebble Steel owner here since early shipments, and traveling without a charger is meaningful. The U i beats the rest! and the look does too.

That said, it seems like Apple has taken each category of wearable, advanced it in some meaningful way, and merged all of them, for a device more than a sum of the others. Really depends how it feels as to whether that's true.

I'm guessing these could get derided as "fondle-wear" because the interactions seem intended to be touchy-feely. Reaching out to "tap" someone, or "sketching" instead of texting your S.O., these offer a human/device bond of some kind. Clever.

It depends heavily on what you want out of life :)

To be frank, for what i was using it for at the time, my Pebble worked wonderfully. It showed my running pace and my text messages, and when i was about to miss a meeting. That was pretty much what it was good for (I know it theoretically has an app ecosystem, but i gave up on things like evernote for pebble within about 3 minutes).

Once I got the wear, i expected to just use it as a color version of that. But i don't. While I do all those same things, I actually find myself using it to look at notes, to navigate with walking directions, and when nobody is around, I ask it to do stuff for me when my hands are busy or my phone is not around. I often leave my phone on the counter when in the shop or outside, and if i wanted to respond on the pebble, I had to run back to grab it. If i want to respond on my watch, i can just talk to it for the most part. I basically use it as a companion device like i used to use my phone. It fulfills most of the basic purposes.

So, all that said, if you are happy with the iphone + pebble steel, and there isn't anything you are hankering for, i personally doubt i'd change ecosystems just on a lark. But, certainly, i've found myself doing a lot more with my watch since i moved away from my Pebble.

(I guess i should point out i just don't give a crap about some things, like charging daily or not. I have to charge my phone anyway. So when i go to bed, and put my phone on it's charger, i put my watch on it's charger. At least for me, it's not the deal-killer others seem to find it. Certainly, not worrying about charging the pebble as often was nice, but i have to charge other stuff anyway, so it's not a big deal)

Apple's execution on what came to be core "built-in" smartphone features with the iPhone 1 was arguably better than any other implementation that had ever been on the market. It's not reasonable to refer to it as a "prototype".

It's germane to this discussion, because even though I'm as baffled as you are by the thought of the Apple Watch as a fashion accessory, there's some evidence that if Apple can nail the basics of the device and has the market targeted right, this will be looked at years from now as a successful product iteration. Not the Apple Watch in general as a product line, but this particular version of it.

as far as i'm concerned, anyone who dismisses sapphire crystal on a watch as some kind of useless feature isn't to be taken seriously about watches, smart or otherwise.

"as far as i'm concerned, anyone who dismisses sapphire crystal on a watch as some kind of useless feature isn't to be taken seriously about watches, smart or otherwise."

Compared to gorilla glass, on a watch that lasts 3-5 years? Why?

What do you think sapphire buys you? Have you ever done tests (I know for a fact that at least one of the very high end watchmakers didn't)?

In any case, high end watches last 30 years. Sapphire makes sense on that.

It's nice, don't get me wrong, but i don't see it as a prerequisite to having a good smartwatch that lasts 3-5 years.

There is no way the watch will last 3-5 years. The original iPad lasted two years in terms of software updates, the original iPhone had one more year. But most importantly, the watch is about fashion, and as soon as v2 or v3 is only half as big as v1, everyone carrying a v1 will look like a clumsy nerd from the past.

I think the v1 will only look fashionable for at most two years.

sapphire's selling point is scratch and crack resistance, i.e. strength. the ability to last 30 years is a byproduct of that strength. you can put unused pyrex on a shelf and it'll last 30 years. but try dropping it on your kitchen floor.

every single non-sapphire watch i own has scratches on the glass. i've broken the screen on every single generation of phone to date. however, none of my sapphire automatics have a single flaw - the glass is still perfect after years of very frequent use, dropping, hitting against things, etc.

you just sound like a person who hasn't worn a watch for very long, or don't have a range of watches to compare against each other.

and i disagree with your fundamental point, which is that sapphire has no value on a device that lasts only a few years. of course it does - it's extremely strong material that withstands impact.

first, "strength" is not a thing. You need to be very specific what you are talking about. Scratch and crack resistance are very different things (one usually measured by taber, and the other by various other methods), and combining them is meaningless.

So is "crack resistance". Do you mean when someone tries to indent it? DO you mean when flexed in some other specific way? Do you specifically mean when dropped?

Materials have very different properties depending on what you are asking.

You can't just combine these very different things into some measure without some actual methodology for doing so.

"you just sound like a person who hasn't worn a watch for very long, or don't have a range of watches to compare against each other. "

I have done both.

"and i disagree with your fundamental point, which is that sapphire has no value on a device that lasts only a few years. of course it does - it's extremely strong material that withstands impact. "

This is just fundamentally false. Sapphire does not withstand impact compared to gorilla glass (or almost any glass). Sapphire is also very well known to be brittle.

But you don't have to take my word for it, it's been tested:

http://www.ubreakifix.com/blog/sapphire-screen-drop-test-the...

Sapphire cracks at 3ft drop, gorilla glass doesn't.

Additionally, my little materials science book on moh's hardness actually says:

"Brittleness basically indicates how resistant the material is to plastic deformation. A very brittle material will, when placed under stress, break/fracture rather than bend. In the case of a sapphire crystal versus a glass crystal, the sapphire is considerably more brittle. As a result, a sapphire crystal is more likely to chip or crack than is glass counterpart if both are subjected to an equally hostile stress (banging, etc.)."

You can find plenty of research on both if you want unbiased sources. I'm a bit lazy to go look it all up for you, but start here for sapphire:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.2058.pdf

Short version: Sapphire is brittle. It fractures and chips when dropped or deformed in that manner. Most ion strengthened glasses are less brittle. Relative to sapphire, they tend not to fracture or chip when dropped or deformed in that manner

There are of course, materials that are even better for drops, but worse for abrasion resistance, like polycarbonate.

Additionally, once cracked or seriously scratched, the game changes for both, of course, as it's a matter of crack propagation, etc.

your provided links do not convince me more than my own experience of ownership of all of the materials on the market.

also, it's not good hn form to downvote someone you disagree with. i don't mind though, i have the points to spare.

That's not true; it's explicitly OK on HN to downvote disagreement. Downvotes are superior to empty disagreement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683#up_658691

i still consider it bad form. i don't do it. i think it's an especially petty way of expressing yourself.

Maybe people are also downvoting you for being too cool to capitalize?

-1 points by beachstartup 1 day ago | link

clearly i'm not that cool, with two entire downvotes

> As for hardware, I have actually tried literally all of them.

That's pretty much the summary of what I wanted to say. If they were quite good you didn't more than one within 6 months.

Anyway, tried a little the samsung (a joke) and the lg (another joke since you basically can't see it under the sunlight).

Moto 360 (I love Moto!) is quite nice although the os is not meant for a rounded display so many apps can't ... well ... simply show you everything (hence the "prototype" mark). However I haven't tried it personally, so maybe everything else can compensate.

"tried a little the samsung (a joke) "

This needs more words as to why you found it "a joke".

I had no trouble reading either the samsung, or the LG, under sunlight.

On the other hand high-end wrist watches have been using sapphire crystal faces for over 30 years, so there's probably something in it. I have one - my watch still looks perfect 8 years since I got it.

Sapphire is nicer on really high end stuff just for protection purposes. It's abrasion resistance is much much higher. If i was buying a smartwatch for 10 years, i'd agree it'd be a great feature. But i don't, i buy them for 3 years.

High end watches have it for the same reason - people expect them to last forever.

If people are expecting a smartwatch (apple's or anyones) to last them 10 years, sapphire is going to be the least of their problems :)

FWIW: The reason they likely didn't put it on phones is because they haven't solved the brittleness problem that nobody else has really solved that well. If you drop sapphire, it tends to shatter. If you drop gorilla glass, it tends to bounce.

It makes sense on watches because nobody really drops watches that often, since they are normally held on your wrists by bands.

Lifetime will definitely be shorter than a luxury watch but 'face time' will be far greater (time spent actually looking at the face). So still seems like an excellent feature to me.

Have you stopped working at Google?

Nope.

I noticed you took it out of your profile.

> Truthfully, seeing what I saw, Apple's watch is just not a leap forward in any interesting way i can think of over android wear.

Isn't this the whole point?

When iPod, iPhone and iPad were first announced, it wasn't immediately obvious (to everyone) that they were a huge leap forward. It's not until people actually use them and we have the luxury of hindsight that we can say how groundbreaking they might have been.

"Isn't this the whole point?"

"It's not until people actually use them and we have the luxury of hindsight that we can say how groundbreaking they might have been."

I'm not even sure what to make of this statement. There have been a lot of history rewrites on why the iPhone succeeded. If you want to say "we should wait and see", i'm fine with that. If you are saying "i'm sure they are amazing, and we are all just dumb for second guessing apple", this sounds a lot like the emperors new clothes. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Apple had plenty of failures in the past that get glossed over and disappear (remember their social network?). This is true even of hardware (remember the cube? whee) and other major features.

While I doubt they'd get called out over it in the media, it may just disappear the same way a lot of other things did that didn't work out.

So assuming it will be one of the revolutionary devices, despite it seeming like it won't be, is a little too much for me. Happy to be wrong of course (i'd love to buy one if it's truly better), but not going to put faith in them :)

> If you want to say "we should wait and see", i'm fine with that. If you are saying "i'm sure they are amazing, and we are all just dumb for second guessing apple", this sounds a lot like the emperors new clothes. Past performance does not guarantee future results. I'm kind of saying both. Of course, I'm holding off on judging until people actually use it. I know past performance does not guarantee future results, but it's hard not to see a pattern in Apple's products announcements.

I think that it's too premature to judge whether this effort is more justified technically and subjectively than Android Wear or any other competing efforts from independent vendors. Apple's device won't be shipping for another several months, and the demo given at the keynote today hardly scratches the surface of what the product could potentially do.

There needs to be an identifiable niche that these smartwatches could work with, and they ought to be marketed to that niche to really sell the idea of wearing a screen on your wrist. Similar to how Microsoft is positing that the Surface is intended to be an artist's easel, it's perfectly plausible for Google to market Android Wear to musicians, athletes, and early adopters -- but I haven't seen that effort from them yet. I get glimpses of this marketing approach from Apple's newfound moxie, but it still feels like everyone who makes a smartwatch is trying to sell it to everyone, which seems short-sighted given most people do not wear physical timepieces anymore.

There is potential -- but not now. Early smartphones were hollow and unfinished (yes, even the iPhone). Form and function will get better as time goes on, and there might be a legitimate use-case for devices such as these.

The iPhone has been used less than %10 of its time as a phone by me. Same thing with the watch as a watch. The other applications-- each of which may by itself not justify the price of the device, in aggregate make smartphones a steal, and may well do the same for the Apple watch.

I don't wear a timepiece and haven't for many years, however, I was considering getting one of those health monitoring bands and then decided to wait because I bet the Apple watch would be a better product for that need.

So, while the iPhone has eliminated the need for a watch, the thing on the wrist isn't so much a watch as a notification system and monitoring system.

Apple positioned this as an accessory to the iPhone and that's how I would use it.

I'm not sure whether I would wear something on my wrist again or just stop after awhile, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy one of these when they come out.

For me, the $350-$450 it will cost is a little high but not something to worry about and I know they will get cheaper over time, as well as smaller etc.

But I'm not just out of college and worrying about money like that anymore.

I think there's a large market of people like me. I would be quite surprised if there wasn't enough value in the device to make me very happy with the purchase.

Yes, there kind of is a distortion field, but I'd argue it's with notions like "Apple has never announced a major product months before availability" and "nobody has ever made a large square watch." Both of these are trivially demonstrated false. And I'm sure Google has put thought and effort into Android Wear, but what you dismiss as a "trite speech from Tim Cook" looks to me like a stake in the ground. Google says you can shrink smartphone UX to a smartwatch; Apple says you shouldn't, and you should do these other things instead. This informs a whole lot of things about the way the UX works. The Apple Watch's relationship to the Moto 360 looks to me less like the iPhone 6's relationship to the Moto X than like the original iPhone's relationship to other high-end smartphones of 2007: obviously a lot of shared DNA, but trying to address the same problem space in a measurably different way.

Yes, Android had dynamic layout before iOS. And? Qt had it before everyone. As a general rule, everything everyone ever gets enthusiastic about can be safely dismissed as having first appeared in a Nokia product that all 27 Finns who bought it are still fanatical about. Also, it was probably implemented in Lisp.

I own an Android Wear watch, and the only thing it has in common with Android for phones is the name. "Google says you can shrink smartphone UX to a smartwatch" is a gross misrepresentation.

but I'd argue it's with notions like "Apple has never announced a major product months before availability" and "nobody has ever made a large square watch."

You've soundly beaten down notions that I certainly didn't state. Nor have I seen everyone else. However the narrative among the Apple camp was that competitors were desperately rushing to deliver vapour, and that their stodgy square mega watches were non-starters.

Yes, Android had dynamic layout before iOS. And? Qt had it before everyone.

Again, you've firmly argued against something not being discussed. No one ever claimed that Android was first, however Android was quite specifically criticized by Apple (as were, tellingly, larger smartphones, and smaller tablets, and people eat it up). Because it turns out that Apple just says today whatever benefits their contemporary product line, much like just about every other company. And that's fine, but somehow it turns into higher meaning.

Sorry but you keep bringing up dynamic layouts without having a clue why they were introduced.

It wasn't to create a "one app, run many" type system that Android has. It was merely to help developers support the different screen sizes within each category (iPhone, iPad). Apple still encourages developers to have UIs that are specifically tailored to the iPhone or iPad experience.

Apple still encourages developers to have UIs that are specifically tailored to the iPhone or iPad experience.

You mean exactly like Android.

Pretty remarkable having clueless people telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about: I develop in both Android and iOS. But please, inform me.

No. Android doesn't have controls that behave very differently on tablets versus phones (regardless of screen sizes) e.g. UIActionSheet or only exist on tablets e.g. UIPopoverController.

Apple baked into the SDK what it tells developers: iPhones and iPads are different devices that need different UIs. Android doesn't have this clear delineation.

What would be the point of behaving differently regardless of screen size? The screen size is the difference that causes different behavior between tablet and phone, or at least it should be so. If the screen size is the same, why have different UI?

I can't speak to Apple's intentions but it is what makes iOS fundamentally different to Android. It could be related to product marketing. People buy iPads for fundamentally different use cases than buying a phone (even a large one).

Edit: Because I am being downvoted so heavily for this let me be clear. I don't agree with what Apple did only trying to explain it. I would imagine that Apple never expected to be releasing phones and tablets that are so close in physical size to each other.

Okay, can you give me an example of a ui element that would be usefully different on a 6" phone vs a 6" tablet?

Unlock screen. Inactivity timer. Lockscreen alert message. Wifi configuration. Notification center.

Yes, those are OS elements. Not so much app widgets...

They are part of the UI. That's all the question asked.

Maybe I'm blind to evidence but why should they be different?

Phones are single-user, tablets can support multiple. Tablets are more often out when unused, phones are typically in your pocket. Phones are always with you, tablets are more likely to be left at home.

Ok for the multiple user support. I didn't think about that. However http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/06/android-smartphones-are-a...

Furthermore if the phone is as large as the tablet maybe your tablet is your phone or viceversa. There are tablets that can make phone calls with regular phone SIM cards. Example: the Galaxy Tab 3 which starts at 7". I've seen people doing that without a earpiece. An odd sight.

This looks like putting the cart before the horse to me. One can say "we have one-user UI and multi-user UI", etc. - that's good. But saying "this is a tablet so you always get multi user UI and this is a phone so you always get single user UI" looks wrong for me - the purpose of the user should be driving the UI, not the other way around. Of course, maybe the whole point of Apple is to drive user's choice and thus make them comfortable by not confusing them with too much variety and options. I see how this can appeal to some people though I am definitely not one of them. That's why the only Apple device I've ever owned - an iPad - has been collecting dust in a desk drawer since the minute I've got an Android tablet. I guess these are just two different models of user interaction that appeal to different kinds of people.

> Apple still encourages developers to have UIs that are specifically tailored to the iPhone or iPad experience.

iOS 8 introduces a concept called Size Classes, and the tl;dr is that the iPhone 6+ in landscape is considered a tablet.

"The Apple Watch's relationship to the Moto 360 looks to me less like the iPhone 6's relationship to the Moto X than like the original iPhone's relationship to other high-end smartphones of 2007: obviously a lot of shared DNA, but trying to address the same problem space in a measurably different way."

If you ignore the LG Prada.

The LG Prada was an impressive piece of hardware and certainly pointed in the same direction, sure, but it was essentially a feature phone -- a smaller, lower-resolution, grayscale display with no Internet capability to speak of. You had to use a virtual phone keyboard for text messaging, even. There was certainly nothing like Safari, for instance, or any of Apple's messaging applications.

Actually, I'd say that the best iPhone-before-iPhone was the Danger Hiptop (a/k/a T-Mobile Sidekick). Much more data capability than almost anything else, a reasonably good browser, and even an app store. It'd be interesting to see where that evolutionary line would have been in 2014 if it hadn't been killed by iOS and Android. (And by Microsoft buying Danger and mangling it to hell, of course.)

The standard definition of "featurephone" is not having the ability to install apps. Like the original iPhone, which intended you to use web apps apart from those built in.

As you say, others had app stores first. If Android had launched without the ability to install apps then some Apple blogs would still be talking about how it was fundemantally not designed for the current smartphone era and would never be as good as the iPhone, as they currently do based on misinterpretation of whether touchscreens were intended to be supported from the start.

> The standard definition of "featurephone" is not having the ability to install apps.

I disagree with that definition: For example all cheapest Nokia phones since a long time ago supported (roughly when they got color screens, some even before that) installing J2ME applications. Same for cheap Samsungs and LGs of the same time.

And these are definitely not smart phones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3410 ""Downloadable personal applications via Java technology""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Platform,_Micro_Edition

> Google says you can shrink smartphone UX to a smartwatch

Citation needed. As GP said, the Android Wear team has considered the UX for wearables from the ground up.

You're delusional.

I agree with your point, but there's no need for name-calling.

> Google says you can shrink smartphone UX to a smartwatch; Apple says you shouldn't, and you should do these other things instead.

The fact that you believe what Apple says about Google rather than taking the two minutes to actually look at how Android Wear works and see that that statement is completely false shows that the distortion field is in full effect.

I mean, this is the same company that, during the keynote today, repeated the lie that they're the mob that brought us the computer mouse. People just accept Apple's misstatements and half-truths and outright lies as fact now.

Did they actually say that? What's the exact quote? I thought they said something about all their products using innovative interfaces, not that the innovations were theirs.

Still, when they were talking about the digital crown, they did make it sound like they were trying to claim they invented the optical rotary encoder.

"Macintosh introduced the mouse." from the official liveblog:

http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept-event/2cd7d38c-f769-4fc4...

"Introduced" is a subjective word. The Alto had a mouse, but I don't think it was used outside PARC. It doesn't seem too far from the truth to say that the Macintosh introduced the mouse to the world.

It was the first PC that was widely available, that shipped with a mouse. There were mice before that of course. But the Macintosh was centered around the use of the mouse.

The Apple Lisa had a mouse so if we are looking for inaccuracies that is a better argument to start with..

During the keynote stream they retweeted someone saying the iPhone 6 Plus would render games at a higher resolution than next-gen consoles!

Marketing departments have always had a tenuous relationship with reality.

That's a real pity. It sours their other statements and makes them untrustworthy if even just one false statement is made.

They were the first company to make a successful mouse based computer. What are you claiming is a lie?

Didn't wxWidgets have dynamic layout before Qt? Also, didn't Gtk 1 rely on sizers too?

> but there is absolutely no doubt that there is a distortion field, and it really is hard to stomach.

Its... it's a consumer electronics brand. I'll truly never understand how this stuff gets people so riled up. I mean, I used to get all hot and bothered when I followed smartphones (2006 represent!), but nowadays we're at a point where every gadget is just a riff on another gadget, and that's fine. Now no matter what brand I'm using, things just work they way I want them too, and that makes me happy.

Its... it's a consumer electronics brand

Of extraordinary social and technological importance. I work in technology, and shifts in mobile technology have significant impacts on my life.

I can understand if this were a knitting board and someone made a comment like yours. In technology, however, it is extremely pertinent to what we do.

It may be pertinent to what we do and affect our lives and may have limited social importance in our social circles, but they are really first-world issues. People getting incensed or stressed about a new gadget does really pale into insignificance compared to the slaughter of people in wars around the world and the ongoing poverty around the world. Perhaps the social circles we frequent need to be less shallow if they are obsessed with gadgets?

I think the thing that many commenters miss is their perspective, and it is a sad missing factor. It also makes these discussions appear trivial and very petty; look at old Slashdot archives discussing new products and it is pretty sad.

Just a thought. Keep me in the loop with your knitting board.... :-)

I agree with you. I'll be seeing some of my friends tonight that own Samsungs, and I can already hear the derisive "hah Apple is playing catch up and ripping off Samsung again". Nearly everything is derivative in some way or another. I just don't care either way.

My personal preference is apple. I have other apple devices, I'm used to apple devices, and they are comfortable to me. But if you like Samsung, that's cool too.

And I don't like the meme that says I, as an apple device owner, criticise everything else "the competition" does yet celebrate it when apple do it. I'm not that person, and most people I know aren't that person.

> but you have to understand that a lot of people are derisive because we've been hearing the Apple faithful railing about these same attributes of competitor devices for months

I think this is unfair, it isn't Apple people railing against this, it is everybody. And they will be again, in a couple of days. A lot more was expected of Apple in this arena, and it looks like they have not delivered the watch everybody was after.

Pretty sure we go through this every year. People are 'disappointed' by Apple product announcements, people have a whinge about Tim Cook, then they turn out to be fairly successful and well received.

In the last 13 years, they've delivered three new platforms: the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. (I'm not counting Apple TV, since Jobs' "hobby" designation still very clearly applies). Each of these had extraordinary effects in areas that others either hadn't imagined, had imagined badly, or had imagined well but had written off as impossible to achieve. In every case, Apple's products - which went onto be world changing, industry revolutionizing, bazillion dollar successes - were widely panned at the time of their unveiling.

Not universally, to be sure. Some people loved the iPod instantly. But there were plenty of others who couldn't see past the $400 price tag and said "Sure, the iPod: idiots price our devices."

The iPad also landed with a thud, at least online. The people who got their hands on them said "no wait, you really have to try this, it's a totally new experience", but that had to compete with a loud chorus of "meh", which I certainly understand. Mine (an Air) may not be the most indispensable Apple product I own, but it's easily the one I love the most, and the one that gives men the best sense of where Apple is going. That said, it was also a gift, and not something I would have bought for myself. Not until I actually had it and had been using it did I see it less an an individual device, and more as the favorite interface for a (far from realized) cloud-based future of computing. My point is that the Apply routinely makes choices with a long-range logic that is far from immediately self-evident.

The iPhone came the closest to being regarded as revolutionary right out of the gate, but even there the excitement was shortsighted. It seemed like the biggest "breakthrough" was getting a handle on voice mail. There was still a lot of doubt about full-touchscreen vs. BlackBerry's then-dominant tactile approach. There was bitching about the lack of apps (third party development was web-only) and of course, the endless complaining about Apple's "failure" to include "basic" stuff like cut and paste. There was no GPS, no CDMA, and many of the individual components - from the phone itself to the camera to the battery life - were pretty crappy.

But all these problems resolved themselves with time. Meanwhile, the fundamentals remained astonishingly stable. So much so that in many cases, major updates were visually indistinguishable from their predecessors. It took most people a long time to recognize how far-thinking the essential design choices really were. And to be fair, it generally took Apple a while before their own development path realized the full scope of the platform's potential.

But that's what these are, platforms built for the long run. If the past is any guide three things should be clear. (1) They come with very well considered development plans (2) What come to be seen as fundamental features of the platform (e.g. the App store) go unannounced when the platforms launch and (3) the immediate negative reactions - of which there are many - tend to be very short sighted.

So no, I will not be buying an Apple Watch in 2015, and probably not in 2016 either. But if the past is any guide, I expect that Apple will be delivering on this for a decade, if not decades to come. By the time it's ready to untether from the iPhone, I can see buying in. I'm looking forward to it.

I remember using an iPad 1 at work. Very quickly I (and those around me) realised that you couldn't actually do a fat lot of work with it, and were pretty disappointed with it. We were expecting a PC.

BUT! give it to me for web browsing (and shopping???) and it was absolutely great. This bright realisation that many of our parents don't sit at home writing software or documents suddenly made sense; people had been buying computers for years just to go online.

And this influenced the entire market, such to the point that everyone is tagging on touchscreen this and touchscreen that, even where it isn't needed. Thankfully Apple hasn't done this and hasn't made the MacBook a touchscreen device.

Very clever. I am hopeful that this trend of influencing the market continues, and new Android watches with similar features come out. Competition is good.

"Thankfully Apple hasn't done this and hasn't made the MacBook a touchscreen device."

Ha. Also, I can't wait until they do. Seriously, I've become so used to / enamored with the full touch interface on the iPad that I find myself reflexively tapping the play button for videos on my laptop. And instead of feeling stupid I get irritated because it should work.

I keep a bluetooth keyboard paired with the Air. If I'm plowing through a batch of emails, I can switch between that and touch very seamlessly. Overall, it's just a really great experience. And now I want the same thing on my laptop.

I'm forever cleaning my MacBook screen WITHOUT using it as a touchscreen. I can only imagine how often I'd have to clean it if it was a touchscreen.

The touchpad on the MacBook is close enough to the keyboard that you can sort of use it with your thumb whilst your hands on the keyboard, and don't have to lift your arm if you need to use the touchpad with your fingers - you just move your arm backwards. If it was a touchscreen, you'd be constantly lifting your arm, particularly as the native window resizing via keyboard on OSX is non-existent. (At least on Windows you can use the entire system for the most part with the keyboard, including resizing, snapping windows, minimizing, restoring etc.)

Do you think that voice and language will ultimately be the main way to interact with a watch, given the limited screen real estate?

I completely agree, having watched this year's Google I/O panel on smartwatch interaction design, it is very obvious that Google has put an enormous amount of thought into their watch platform. They came to a fundamentally different conclusion for what a smartwatch should do, and I really enjoy the experience. The contextual information from Google Now is incredibly useful and it feels like my watch tells me not only what time it is, but information personally tailored to my lifestyle. For example, I always go out after work on Tuesdays, and right now my watch is telling me that there is lots of traffic on the way to my favorite bar. In the morning, it tells me how long my commute will be and what the weather will be that day. I can start navigation from my watch with my voice and get every direction as I need it. I can control any music player with notification support. I don't run any interaction-heavy apps on my watch, and I can't imagine ever wanting to do so. The thought of browsing a photo library or sending my heartbeat to someone seem like features for the sake of having features but in reality are completely unnecessary.

Which watch are you using? I've been using a pebble and while it's good it doesn't have the level of interaction you're discussing.

Those are all Android Wear features, so any of a number of devices.

The LG G Watch.

Your comment has given me my first quantifiable measured sensation of feeling old. if you go out every Tuesday, you will learn the traffic patterns, and will naturally develop a series of contingency routes that you could take in the event of traffic. The watch is novelty more than useful. It will make you forget how you used to do things and in turn feel dependent on it, when in fact it is simply a novelty that distracted you so much that you forgot that what you were doing was fine.

Is it more likely thinking of use-cases for the device instead of the other way around? With new technology, some people make out that they cannot possibly live without it and give a list of scenarios where they would use it, but in reality do they really have those scenarios particularly when the novelty of a new material device has worn off?

^ This.

I was actually quite disturbed with the Apple unveiling of the watch, I know it has been expected and what not. But a device that is literally monitoring my heart rate constantly all day, guiding me down a street with "gentle taps like a person" to tell me which direction to go. I feel like a small part of humanity is being optimised away. It's an incredibly scary thought.

These kinds of things have been happening to the human experience for some time now. I don't need to ask anyone how to get anywhere, or figure out how to navigate there with the rise of GPS on devices I have with me all the time. I can have food brought to my doorstep without ever talking to anyone.

At the same time, it's enabling exciting new possibilities. I can meet people with shared interests in a huge multitude of ways. I can talk to practically anyone I've ever met within a minute. I can learn how to do almost anything at a basic level given some modest interest and an Internet connection.

I think people are only beginning to realize the all-encompassing nature of how technology is affecting how we live, because it has become so incredibly pervasive and is moving so quickly. The human experience is most definitely changing, but it's not all for the worse. It's easy to be sentimental about the past, but the possibilities are often too enticing to hold onto those relics in favor of new things.

The taps guiding someone down the street struck me as being useful to blind people. Imagine if white canes became museum pieces in our lifetime because the blind become equipped with GPS enabled wearables.

Well, white canes are more about locating curbs and fire hydrants and other people than they are about finding where you are on a map. But we can and should imagine a future in which blind people have prosthetic aids that give at least limited senses of sight to the blind, enough to avoid tripping and obstacles (and the white cane). That seems eminently within reach in the next couple of decades, if not the next five years.

Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis

I don't necessarily think that these advancements are entirely a bad thing; I just think that there is the strong possibility that they could encourage negative traits with future generations. Using technology to better peoples lives is a tremendous thing, but using it as a crutch to enable accidie is worrying. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist.

I couldn't up-vote this more! I just don't have a compelling reason to use such a device. Weather, traffic, map and such data is just novelty for me. If I question myself what can I do with watch that isn't possible otherwise there's just one or two (heart rate monitor and perhaps chat). Even those aren't really necessities as much as novelty. Perhaps app developers will come up with good problems to solve but I can't think of any use case right now.

It will be interesting to see @gruber's behavior with regards to the watch. He seems more or less condemned to buy and wear one all the time given who he is. Will he find it actually useful or more of a pain? I could see an over/under betting pool on the number of days it would take before he ultimately decides to give up on it.

Search for and read my reply elsewhere in this topic for my use case. I admit this isn't a device for everyone, but some of us find it to be incredibly useful.

But learning those things doesn't add as much value to the economy. Technology has an unintended consequence of squeezing every last drop of market-lusting value out of you.

This comment is a repeat of many similar comments on older technologies. I don't mean to say the sentiment is wrong, but technological assistance in small ways can potentially lead to a bigger impact. A book I'd recommend that relates to this topic is Smarter Than You Think which put a lot of this stuff in perspective for me.

Even if you go out every Tuesday, you can't anticipate anomalous events which may impact traffic. I use Google Maps even when I'm going to a known destination, because it will tell me if there is a traffic problem on my normal route before I encounter it and enable me to route around it easily.

Your comment doesn't resonant with me.

I have an hour commute in the bay area twice a day, I used waze(now owned by Google) every trip. It's rare that it routes me in the same route twice in a row, there are all sorts of dynamic conditions that affect traffic conditions, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Waze also alerts my departure time and accurate ETA to my wife, which is also pretty cool.

Google now is also really cool, if creepy. It sees the airplane ticket confirmation in my email, or a concert ticket, it computes realtime traffic information, then gives me a heads up that I may want to start thinking about leaving, without any input from me.

This seems like a much better system them relying on myself to set some sort of calendar event which is not at all reactive to any dynamic conditions and is predicated on me to remember to do so. It also does this without any input from myself. I see it as an actual step in the direction of "Personal Digital Assistant" that was promised to us so long ago and services like google now are just in their infancy.

Now saying all that, I have no plays of going to Apple, I don't like their close-ecosystem, and have little faith that the iwatch will be the cash cow that the iphone/ipad was for Apple. I have for quite a long time and still do feel that Apple pulled a one/two hit wonder by being in the right place at the right time with the right team.

Candidate for cloning!

The reality distortion field and the ability to spin those negatives as positives are features, though.

A watch is primarily a piece of jewelry. How well it tells the time or does other things is much less important than how fashionable it is. Branding is one of Apple's strong suits, and you can't take that away by adding features as if consumer purchasing decisions are based on some kind of checklist-like RFPs like corporate drones are used to.

My Nike+ SportWatch GPS is not primarily jewelry. It combined with Strava is primarily a fitness motivation and management tool.

Watches in general, obviously. There's an exception to every rule.

>>A watch is primarily a piece of jewelry.

Not actually though. A watch is still a watch. There are so many places where you can't carry or even have the opportunity to use your smart phone to check time. Students can't carry it to exam halls, people who are driving cars, workers, there many professions and use cases where a simple device strapped to your hand is indispensable when it comes to keeping track of time.

A watch is not just a watch to many people. Otherwise companies like IWC, Brietling, Rolex etc wouldn't be making as much money as they do.

Anything you put on your body that is visible to the public affects how people see you. Whether you care about this influences if you think a watch is fashionable or purely functional.

He didn't say a watch is "just a watch", he said a watch "is still a watch".

Its a bit of both.

But when it comes to utility. A simple watch has not been replaced by smart phones yet. That is because there are places, instances and people where/who just can't pull out their phones and check time.

Why do you think anyone cares whether phones replace watches? How is that at all relevant to the purpose of watches?

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying we don't need watches at all? Or that some how modern day humans don't need to keep track of time? Watches started going out of fashion when mobile phones came along with Real time clocks, so people just didn't feel they should have a wrist watch when they check the time on their phones.

But that didn't cover all people and all use cases. There are many use cases where you can't use your phone to check time. And in such places a wrist watch is a indispensable utility.

The poorly dressed nerds you hang out with may not wear watches as often as they did in the 20th century, but that has little to do with fashion.

It is pretty funny how you continue to bring up timekeeping as if you believe that matters.

There are still professions where it's a requirement. Telling the time can be very important for divers, pilots, service men, etc.

And sometimes you need to use your necklace to strangle someone because the security people took away your garrote. It's nice that it can be used that way, but if you think that's what it's for, you're probably mentally ill.

Your examples are not really strong. Most cars have digital clocks, exam halls usually have wall clocks also cannot imagine plane without clock. I would say scubadivers, parashuters would need it but how many are there? There are also workplaces where you cannot wear jewelery and watches (working with food, machinery) but company phone is permitted or must. I would say that in places where keeping track of time is needed there are already placed clocks, otherwise it is not indispensable.

I would say that it is primarily a piece of jewelery.

> I would say that it is primarily a piece of jewelery.

Disagree. I've been too lazy to replace the battery of my 12EUR retro Casio watch for a couple weeks now and my girlfriend's getting sick of me asking all the time "what time is it". When I'm walking around outside or when on my bicycle, pulling my phone out of my pocket to check the time is a pain. When I'm in the shower I really want to know the time to the minute cause I know I have to leave the house at exactly 7:30.

So I would put you with scubadivers and parachuters so you are special case. If I take you and my four co-workers then it will statistically be primarily piece of jewelery. You are writing about yourself. That is why I described vast population of people who cannot wear watches while working as contrast to finding people who need. Besides I shown that a lot of those who were indicated as people who need watches, really don't need those. Like drivers who have dashboard clocks.

I use it to know when I need to start running to catch the bus. There are not so many clocks outside. Anyone who works outside or spends a lot of time outside and needs to keep track of time will find a watch useful.

>A watch is primarily a piece of jewelry.

or saying a watch is for time keeping is not very forward thinking IMO. Its like saying 10 years ago, a smart phone is just a phone. Less and less people actually use it to make calls and use it more for many of other functionality it provides.

That would be a valid point if people actually wore unfashionable smartwatches for their usefulness. Their lack of mainstream adoption up until now says that's not the case.

I wish that Apple would make their phone better as a phone. Calling my wife on her iPhone is a goddamn catastrophe, because she has never once in her life heard it ring, because its ring volume is roughly the volume of a very polite British salesperson saying, "Excuse me, ma'am," and its vibration is apparently made with the first concern being that it could be placed on delicate spun-sugar constructions without worrying that the harsh vibrational waves would cause a dessert collapse.

And I know, I know, it's so second-millennium of me to actually want to call my wife, but she doesn't hear the text notifications either, and sometimes I need to figure out whether we already have cinnamon[1] before I buy yet another container of it.

[1] We do. We now have about six hundred containers of cinnamon, a spice that we use roughly once a year. This appears to be a failure mode of my brain.

If you buy her an Apple Watch, she'll get haptic notifications when you call. Apple is solving your problem.

The wording in the video for the watch (narrated by Jony Ive) is full of strange phrases (I paraphrase): "the controls are vital"; "the watch is essentially..... (pause)...... a mini computer" (just like SIM cards then!) "The strap is infinitely adjustable" - that one made me chuckle, as it was referring to a strap that folds back on itself with a magnetic clasp. Of course, it isn't infinitely adjustable, as the strap isn't infinitely long.....

Interesting device though. Looks interesting.

Ive's voice is very robotic; It was like being told about the watch by Siri.

"Jony Ive is not available"

Turn on your wifi and he's there!

> "The strap is infinitely adjustable" - that one made me chuckle, as it was referring to a strap that folds back on itself with a magnetic clasp.

I believe Ive refers to the infinite points between the base and the end of the strap and not an infinite length of strap. Ask a mathematician how many points are between 0 and 1.

Even my Casio got this right with a velcro strap. I have a Citizen that is either too high or too low on my forearm depending on the number of links I insert. My only options are to gain or lose weight until

Yeah, but we live in the physical world where there are actually finite number of positions that the strap could attach. "Infinite" is just marketing speak here.

No, the "infinitely adjustable" comment refers to the Milanese Loop:

http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch/

It is, by definition, infinitely adjustable, since the band is sized continuously and attached magnetically (so that any part of the band works as a sizing point). It does not have discrete holes, like most watch bands.

I believe your parent was referring to the Plank Length when he said the physical world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length

Of course, that's being super pedantic, because 10^31 is practically infinite, or at least more than you'll have time to try in your lifetime.

10^31 different positions is no closer to infinitely many than 5 different positions.

The strap may be finitely long, but the adjustment is continuous. This still allows for infinite values.

There was another: "The simple leather classic buckle references traditional watch vocabulary".

Yes, that made me chuckle in a disappointed way. I wonder if they sit and think of things to say to brighten up the dullest of details / non-features?

Contact me off HN (it should be easy to find my email address).

I would argue with you on this point. A smartwatch is absolutely not jewelry first. There is literally no compelling reason to wear a smart watch unless you intend to use it for the "smart" purposes (information, navigation, communication, reminders, appointments, music, health). Otherwise, pick a "dumb" watch. Even I, who haven't worn a watch regularly since college (about 15 years ago), have grown accustomed to my Android Wear device. Not because it tells the time, which I frankly don't care much about, but because it replaces the need for me to carry a pad/paper for taking quick notes, let's me reply to Whatsapp & Hangouts messages via voice, shows me incoming email, alerts me to weather emergencies, gives me a way to easily fact check for my kids at the dinner table ("Ok Google... is buffalo mozzarella really made from buffalo milk?"), etc. You could certainly argue whether or not these things are valuable or important for the average person, but just like with so many other things, I think "smart" wearables will become ubiquitous in the next few years, just as cell phones (and no smartphones) have over the past decade.

The beauty of Android Wear is the absolute simplicity of enabling existing apps to have a Wear interface (http://developer.android.com/training/building-wearables.htm...). Perhaps it will be the same for iOS, but with the explosion of low end Androids in developing countries, my inclination is to think Apple is òn the path to slowly lose this battle.

That's only because smartwatches up until now have not been fashionable. That's also why they are so unpopular.

We'll have to agree to disagree, I think. I don't see how something so impractical (daily battery charging?!) that forces a specific user interface and user interaction could ever be considered jewelry, except in some abstract pedantic way.

Ding ding ding. Apple is going to sell a shitload of these, because they are not only going to be something that does stuff you couldn't do before (since it's a smartwatch) but because they are going to look nice, be visible, and make a fashion statement.

Apple is approaching this just as much as a piece of jewelry as they are a piece of technology. It should be pretty revealing when it comes out to see it spread through the consumer market. My guess is that once it is out there you can expect people to crave these things more than they did the original iPhone, not due to the technical abilities or feature set but because they want to be the envy of their friends. If the thing is ugly, then it will bomb, but if it takes on the perception of an expensive, luxury watch then expect to see them everywhere.

If the thing looks good I can't even imagine how many of these things they are going to sell next christmas.

Smartwatches are unpopular because they suck. Nobody wants to carry and charge an extra device, that adds very little to their life. The Apple Watch will live or die based upon its perceived utility, not based upon its design.

Ties suck. High heels suck. Ironing clothes sucks. Cuff links may not suck, but are at best, pointless. Sucking has never stopped people from wearing things that look good.

People do not wear ties because they look good. They wear them because of antiquated social convention.

That's part of what it means to look good.

No, it's part of what it means to conform.

Literally the same thing.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to interact with someone who believes that.

You're welcome.

I wonder if they will become fashionable in part because Apple has released a smart watch, thus proving that they are not a fad. I wonder if other non apple smart watches will now become more fashionable and see increased sales too.

Normal watches are jewelry because they no longer have any other purpose for most people. Those who aren't interested in the fashion part of watches have largely stopped wearing them.

This seems similar to those who said that smart phones were for corporate e-mail when the iPhone came out. The iPhone changed the whole purpose of a smartphone.

> You should also remember that he was hardly in the majority with those comments. Further he was technically correct, and the iPod succeeded because of a synergy with other parts of Apple's empire (notably iTunes).

I think that's a very weak argument, as iTunes wasn't available for the PC market for years. The Mac market at that point was nascent and lots of people were buying iPods w/o the ability to use iTunes.

> The Mac market at that point was nascent and lots of people were buying iPods w/o the ability to use iTunes.

The iPod was supported on Windows before iTunes was available through Musicmatch Jukebox, which Apple bundled with Windows iPods. I don't think there were many people buying iPods before then just to look at. :)

He didn't say they were. You seem to be in violent agreement.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_ipod_sales.svg

Very few bought the iPod in the first two years, and it was a commercial failure. It was iTunes on Windows that brought it mainstream.

“the iPod succeeded because of a synergy with other parts of Apple's empire”

That is absolute crap. iTunes had no foothold to speak of in the marketplace. The notion of Apple having an "empire" at the time of the iPod’s release (or even at the time of the iPod’s mainstream success) was laughable.

It absolutely did. You may have forgotten, but the early success of iTunes/iPod was in being able to organize your music and get it on your device. iTunes/iPod was the first to really get this right on any kind of scale. And, compared to the competition of the time, they really nailed it. So, a phone that had that integrated was a really big deal, even if it couldn't run any apps (as the first iPhone did and couldn't).

GGP is talking about the iPod, not the iPhone. GP is right that iTunes had no foothold when the iPod was released, and Apple had no "empire."

How did this suddenly get redefined to "when released"? If that is the case, Taco's widely criticized assessment was dead on - the iPod was initially a failure.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_ipod_sales.svg

We know that it took off, but that was wholly on the back of iTunes - 0.99 tracks and much easier use than competitors sold the iPod, not some fundamental excellence of the device.

People forget now but while we revile iTunes generally now, at the time it was the killer feature of the iPod, and the initial iPhone success.

The first generation iPod was Mac only. The 2nd generation iPod was Mac + Windows but iTunes was still Mac only. Windows syncing was done with third party software (Musicmatch Jukebox)

iTunes did not have a foothold in the marketplace until after the success of the iPod was evident.

The ipod was a complete failure when it was Mac only, and it didn't start picking up steam until iTunes was on windows. When it did start picking up steam, it was ipod and itunes together that sky-rocketed in unison, which seems to lend credence to the idea that it was the itunes ecosystem in conjunction with the ipod hardware that created success for apple in that space.

As far as you "success of the ipod was evident" comment, that seems like solid case of hindsight on your part.

There was no "early success" for the iPod. It was a failure until the third generation, when it finally got PC support.

Even then, as I recall iTunes was widely bashed? Its UI was obviously Apple UI on Windows, ignoring all Windows UI guidelines.

Even then, as I recall iTunes was widely bashed?

Was?

iTunes is still the same trainwreck that it was 10 years ago.

Apple seems to work hard to keep it the same sluggish nightmare, no matter how fast the hardware becomes that it runs on.

I was being optimistic :-)

I don't use it on Windows anymore - and I only installed it on there out of interest! Same went for Safari on Windows.

It's a trainwreck on Mac too. I use my iPod only when I go on holidays, say 3 - 4 times per year. I dread the moment I have to use iTunes to fill my iPod with songs. It causes me nothing but stress, which is exactly the opposite of what Apple is about.

I only use it on the Mac to turn off the "automatic sync" feature on the iPod, and to do a manual backup of my wife's iPad. I must say that the backup interface for the iPad within iTunes is pretty poor. Not the feature - the interface. Mighty confused.

I use Floola to shove songs on my iPod. Might be worth a look? (Mine is a 6th-gen classic).

Floola looks perfect, will check this out at home. Thanks!

Wait, Windows had UI guidelines?

(Winamp was very popular on Windows, it had no UI guidelines whatsoever)

They didn't really use any of the Windows UI widgets. Tough to blame Windows for that.

The fact that Macs were a small niche was instrumental for the music industry to accept to put legal songs online after the Napster coup. It allowed Steve Jobs to convince them to support trying the model of all songs at the same price because the potential market was so small it didn't really matter if it worked or failed. By being able to conduct a business experiment in a way no one else could, Apple had a huge edge here. The music industry would not have accepted to try such a model directly on Windows at the time and Apple got a huge lead.

That's still quite early in its life. And before the iPhone. The iPhone then capitalized on iTunes' success.

The fact that it got to a 3rd generation implies it wasn't a "failure"

Sort of related to your comment: IMO the common thread in all (recent-ish?) Apple products is that the first iteration is usually rough around the edges and met with the most amount of criticism, then what always seems to happen is that Apple takes the feedback to heart and massively improves on subsequent iterations. Some examples I can think of:

* While the first MacBook Air was crazy expensive and nearly universally panned for lack of a DVD-ROM drive, the MBA was repositioned in 2011 as the ultraportable replacement for the MacBook and is now the best-selling Mac.

* The first iPhone was blasted for its absurd price (due in part to lack of carrier subsidization), lack of 3G, lack of copy and paste (remember how upset people got about this? lol) and no third party apps. By the time the 3G rolled around, most of the software concerns were addressed and the price drop made sales jump $10m from 2007 to 2008.

* The first iPad (also known as the iTampon if you were following Twitter on the day it was announced) was criticized as being a giant iPhone, having a low pixel density (merely 1024x768), and lacking any ability to get "real work" done on it. Each iteration of the iPad has gotten more and more positive reviews due to the incremental changes (mostly in processor and pixel density) made over the years.

It more or less goes without saying, then, that I'm not really surprised that people expected more from the Apple Watch. Apple's really fortunate to have such a great community of rabid early adopters who are more than happy to put its products through the ringer and hold Apple to a higher standard.

In many of those example, people complained about it, but it was still a success. People complained about the first iPhone, and yet bought it in droves.

"Failure" is not determined by "lots of complaints", but by "very few sales"

Implication is even a weaker relationship than correlation.

And as a counter-point, the Surface RT has a second generation and may have a third. Does this imply success, or that MS went "all in"?

That's not how I remember it. iTunes was released before OS X. It was a time when Apple was more or less a joke of a company, surviving because of the hard-core few who refused to abandon it. Somewhat of an oddity.

The iPod did not work on Windows (which was, what, 99% market-share in those days?) and required this insane thing called Firewire. Firewire. Even the name was funny to me.

I was a Linux fan-boy, patiently waiting for The Year Of The Linux Desktop, and was quite dismissive of that bulky little device, much like everyone else who was a techie. The Rio or whatever is what people were sporting.

And yet it basically destroyed the entire Taiwanese MP3 player market in the US in what, 2 years? Nokia should have seen it coming 7 years later...

I didn't mean first gen. But later. The iPod + iTunes was the first setup that worked well on Windows that I ever used. And I was coming from a NOMAD Jukebox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_NOMAD#NOMAD_Jukebox_Ze...

You are wrong.

iTunes was such a monumental hit that it carried iPods with it - there's even a business case on the matter:

http://hbr.org/product/apple-inc-ipods-and-itunes/an/905M46-...

The best way to win an argument is to avoid one.

I've learned that this works with women as well.

Very true. Look at iOS - it never had home screen, no widgets and no home screen pages. Apple watch seems like its trying to include all these, it would have never made sense to put iOS on a watch.

Android on the other hand has had all of these and has been working on various kinds of devices for quite long ( guess fragmentation has a brighter side too ). It does make sense to put it on a watch ( obviously with some design changes ).

I'm curious what your defense is to their success with the non-Apple faithful, though. That always seems to be left unsaid. The good ol' common "marketing" play from the Android diehards may have accounted for some of its success, but I think it's immensely dense to attribute a large proportion of Apple's current (and recent past) success to it (you might get to fortune 500 with that, but getting to #1 wealthiest company in the world solely on marketing is a bit of a stretch, at a certain crossover point you'll need actual good product). In fact, I would call that the counter-distortion field among the "Android faithful." Somehow, as people love to point out, on paper, Apple devices are underspec compared to the competition. But they do well anyway. "MARKETING! The zombie sheeple faithful!" Of course, I'm not saying you believe it's purely marketing, but I raise that just to give example of the other distortion field.

As you have pointed out, the iPod succeeded because of synergy with iTunes (though many of the replies to your comment raise excellent counterpoints, and I think it's revisionism to call what Apple had back then as an empire - like many others back then, we were 90% dismissively sure Apple was going to file for bankruptcy soon). I partly agree with you, but I disagree it was due to iTunes as software, because, quite frankly, iTunes has and still sucks. The iPod succeeded because Apple made sure to have business deals in place with the big dogs of music and to offer individual tracks for (at the time) very cheap prices. You may recall, but CDs were kind of a rip off at that point, and the music industry wanted to charge quite a bit more per track.

The iPhone itself succeeded because Apple coordinated with carrier(s) while requiring certain conditions - no pre-installed apps, and design autonomy. Recently, it's been trying to coordinate with the cable networks to get Apple TV some traction (though I believe they failed). With Apple Pay, it coordinated with all the major credit card carriers. To me, it is that kind of planning that shows Apple's commitment to polish. I could be wrong, but Google seems to be more on the "here's our plan, we'll open it up, and hopefully people (and other corporations) flock to it. But if not...well, we have our bread-and-butter search to subsist on." It's worked with some things, and it hasn't for others. Google Wallet and Google NFC payments may have come out first, but they seem to be dead in the water. But hey, my swiss army knife has more attachments than yours, right?

> but you have to understand that a lot of people are derisive because we've been hearing the Apple faithful railing about these same attributes of competitor devices for months.

My experience is pretty different. I don't really hear the "Apple faithful" very often, short of online journalists. In terms of actual end-users, the Android house seems way more vocal, and usually in two buckets: "we had it way before!" or some kind of flock of sheep comment. Take a visit to r/technology on reddit, and do a search on Apple, then do a search on Android. The negativity is no where near 1:1.

For all that noise, I must cite my favorite tech blog: http://anandtech.com/show/8414/a-month-with-the-iphone-5s/. I believe this is far fairer than most of the vitriol you'll find out there.

As for the watch? I think it looks bulky, just like all the other smartwatches. I'm skeptical about its battery life, which they seemed to have not mentioned. But I gotta admit, the feature set looks pretty polished to me.

All you need to do is go to Apple's claim they have a design driven methodology. It's fairly predictable then when they roll out something like Apple Pay that they're going to not do it until they have the requisite business deals in place to make it a good experience for the users. How successful they are at the friction point of tech and design varies (iTunes sucks :) but that's always their goal and worldview of how they set out to take on projects like this.

You have to admit it's kind of ridiculous that a "design driven methodology" is even a thing. Consider the alternative.

I'm curious what your defense is to their success with the non-Apple faithful

Defense? Why do I have to defend or explain anything? Are we waving flags? Why do I have to defend the things other people say?

I was specifically replying to the defensive notion that criticisms of Apple have been proven wrong (though they weren't wrong, and this is zero revisionism: The first iPod was a general market failure, and took off two years later), thus they will always be wrong, which is a bit of logical nonsense. The other bit was the "Apple is doing what no one else is doing", but other people are doing it and have been doing it. Here in Canada we've enjoyed extremely prolific NFC use without Apple's involvement.

Apple makes a lot of great products. They yield a lot of success. That does not mean that they are not prone to making mistakes, for proclaiming truths that are self-serving nonsense, and for getting the market wrong. It's worth noting that at the height of Microsoft's success the same "can do no wrong" arguments appeared everywhere.

Outside of that, some people seem to identify their personality with Apple, and they truly seem to project a persecution complex (yes, this is seen on /r/technology. I marvel that you hold it as an example, as it is one place where any criticism of Apple, however deserved and accurate, brings out droves and droves of defenders. It is a cesspool of a sub for that reason). Apple is an enormous company, and is enormously successful, so this "woe are us" bit just grows tiring.

Apple got to where they are now because they absolutely had the best product(smart phone) bar none, with pretty much everybody else immediately being put in catch-up mode. The people that say it was a marketing victory and not a product development victory are either biased or ill-informed.

However, Apple no longer holds this distinction, there are plenty of competing products that now either meet or exceed the value prop of an iphone. Apple's competitors caught up, and I am having a really hard time buying that the iwatch will be the next ipod/iphone/ipad for Apple. Wearables have already proven to have nearly the lowest customer attention retention(i.e. they win the prize for most likely to end up in a closet a month after purchase, rather then be relied on as a cornerstone of modern life as smartphones are today) index of any consumer electronic and it seems a bad platform to stage a resurgence.

As far as the larger iphone models, welcome to yesteryear, it's now Apple playing catch up.

Hard to stomach? That's a curious choice of words. Do you think Google or Amazon would not do the same marketing and try to create the same kind of hype around their products if they can? You are saying you can see through the clutter but it looks more like you are biased against company that was successful in their execution.

I believe the iPod HiFi was a success. The purpose of that product was to create a market for iPod docks. At the time there wash't much of one, and likely Apple had trouble convincing companies like Sony et. al. that they should make them. I bet Apple has made more money from "Made for iPod" licensing as a result of the iPod HiFi (which kickstarted that industry) than their gross revenues from the iPod HiFi.

So, maybe a failure as a product, because it stimulated competition that, if it hadn't come about would have left Apple with a %100 share of iPod docks.

But given how many iPod docks have sold, I'm sure that market would have been viable, even if only Apple were making them.

Exactly. The iPod HiFi did its job perfectly. It was designed to stick a rocket up the likes of Bose, Pioneer etc to show that Apple could easily and successfully move into their markets.

Except it was 2 years after Bose had introduced the SoundDock.

There were already a lot of other iPod docks on the market when the iPod HiFi came out in 2006. Keep in mind that the dock connector was introduced with the 3rd-generation iPod in 2003 -- it's hardly as though third parties failed to notice the connector for those three years! The Bose SoundDock came out in late 2004, and it was hardly unique, either; this review compares it to several other similar products on the market at the time:

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/bose-sounddoc...

> At the time there wash't much of one, and likely Apple had trouble convincing companies like Sony et. al. that they should make them.

What?? The Bose SoundDock was product of the year in 2004 -- 2 years before the iPod HiFi came out. Apple was behind the times and completely missed the mark with the HiFi.

But what's really interesting to me is that Apple has clearly put a lot more thought into how interactions on a device like this should work than anybody else.

I strongly disagree.

I think that Apple actually took the easy way out here - they seemed to have approached the problem as "how can we make iOS usable on a smaller screen" and came up with interfaces like the crown and the (albeit pretty) circle-based homescreen UI to access apps to tackle those issues. Which is interesting, because they started off their presentation explicitly saying they didn't want to just scale down iOS.

Google, on the other hand, approached the problem of "how can we make wearables useful as a platform" rather than "how can we scale down Android" and created the intuitive cards interface (which, as a Moto 360 user, is remarkably convenient) and Google Now-based contextual awareness of info you need when you need it. Android Wear doesn't even have an app selector easily accessible, because they don't want you to use the watch that way - it's hard to hunt for apps on a tiny screen, so instead they push contextual information at you as you need it in an easy-to-use way.

I have high hopes for both platforms in the years to come, but I don't find Apple's watch design to be smarter or better thought-out as it is right now (and I'm typing this on a Macbook Air, so I have an appreciation for Apple).

I am old enough to remember when the first Mac came out. There was a response to it very much like you see here (only it happened on BBSes because there wasn't much of an "internet") then.

It's been the same way for every major product- iMac was chastised for lacking a floppy drive, the iPod, iPhone and iPad were all poo-poohed.

In every case someone has said "X is better!" And in every case so far that X has turned out to maybe have some particular features, or better stats for some particular stat, but not to be engineered to the level of the Apple product.

Particularly with the android example- the only way they were able to compete was to change from a blackberry copy to an counterfeit iOS interface. Which they did very quickly. I haven't seen anything innovative from Google since 2001 (unless you count gmail as innovative, which I would so, that's the exception.) Android is still a terrible, clunky piece of junk, even with so many years to copy Apple.

We'll see when the Apple watch is on the market - but really, Samsung and Googles watches so far have appeared to be basically copies of guesses of what apple was going to make (given that the Apple watch has been rumored so long) rather than genuinely well considered and innovative devices.

Kinda the way HP put out a "slate" computer at Comdex the year the iPad was announced, Balmer something to go up on stage and brag about and "beat Apple to market with".

I do really wish, if Google wants to compete with Apple, they did something innovative (Microsoft did with their Metro UI) or if not innovative, something really good.

But it seems that in the way that Apple doesn't quite "get" web services, Google doesn't quite get operating systems.

----

Edit: Use android regularly, unfortunately. Google maps in JS was pretty innovative, but I think that's part of the Gmail invention- e.g.: web 2.0. I give google credit for inventing Web 2.0. Or at least pushing it forward quite a bit.

When was the last time you used Android?

I'd argue that doing Google Maps in JavaScript was innovative. At the time, it blew me away that JS was usable for so complex use cases.

> Android is still a terrible, clunky piece of junk, even with so many years to copy Apple.

Not in the last few years, not even close. Android is pretty amazing right now, I love it.

Apple has turned out some turkeys in its time, but people only seem to remember the highlights.

I haven't seen anything innovative from Google since 2001

That's some powerfully strong blinders you've willingly put on there. And calling maps part of Gmail? Seriously?

I'm old enough to remember to spell, and remember when the first Mac came out.

The response has always been the same; one segment pointing out problems, another pointing out how "visionary" the new thing is.

If you are as old as you claim to be, and still fall foul of corporate machinations - then "sucks to be you". Next you'll tell us what your current corporate master told you to say.

There a many things wrong with what you wrote; the most glaring is: "haven't seen anything innovative from Google since 2001".

Later you go on to say, "unless you count gmail".

1. gmail wasn't released until 2004

2. the whole thing called "ads" wasn't available until 2001.

3. Android copied iOS. Which copied Windows. Which copied MacOS. Which copied GEM. Which copied x/PARC. Someone once said "good artists copy, great artists steal".

4. I guess you keep missing the news about Google's moonshot project (loom, wing, self-driving cars).

If you feel condemmed to define yourself by the applications and services that a particular company makes available (be it Google or Microsoft, or Apple), please understand that you are a shill.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/08/on-geek-culture/

Neither Superman, nor Google, nor Apple will save you.

Save your energy.

Counting Google's unreleased moonshot products as innovation seems like counting one's chickens before they hatch. It is easy to innovate in the abstract, much harder to fully realize a vision in the form of a product.

Innovation is innovation. Just because an innovation isn't a success in the market place doesn't mean it was not innovative.

Correction:

> Just because an innovation is only a research project*

To which I will have to vehemently disagree with you. Otherwise we'll have to start celebrating science fiction authors for their "innovation."

Science fiction authors don't build things. The driverless cars are real, and they work. The Loon balloons are delivering Internet access to remote regions right now.

For some definition of "work." They are mostly fiction. Unless a "driverless car" is supposed to only really be driverless on the freeway.

The point is that actually shipping a successful product to consumers is the true mark of innovation. Anything else is research.

Providing your own definition of words is a poor way to argue.

This argument is about the definition of the word "innovation." Definitions of words are important, and worth arguing over.

"unreleased products" are definitionally neither successes nor failures in the marketplace.

So what part of our culture don't we buy?

I don't think iOS copied windows. It doesn't support sizeable overlapping windows. Sure, it displays text and images, but then that isn't really copying Windows is it?

Also, I don't think that the parent commenter said how visionary the products were. He/she merely highlighted the common responses to Apple's releases.

And before you label me a "shill" (is this Slashdot...?!??!!!!?!??!), I am a happy Windows/Mac/Android developer, and I don't have an iPhone.

> There a many things wrong with what you wrote; the most glaring is: "haven't seen anything innovative from Google since 2001". Later you go on to say, "unless you count gmail". 1. gmail wasn't released until 2004 2. the whole thing called "ads" wasn't available until 2001. 3. Android copied iOS. Which copied Windows. Which copied MacOS. Which copied GEM. Which copied x/PARC. Someone once said "good artists copy, great artists steal". 4. I guess you keep missing the news about Google's moonshot project (loom, wing, self-driving cars).

Ironically you kind of reinforced his point... Ads was in 2001 - that's his claim of most recent innovation from Google unless you count gmail.

You point out gmail was released in 2004, but he's just said he's not counting gmail.

iOS didn't copy windows at all - it was innovative in that it was by far the best mobile operating system UI. Windows didn't have a mobile operating system at the time

Google's research projects aren't products yet - what happens if they cancel them because they're infeasible in 10 years time?

You could have mentioned chrome/android/chromebook/nexus

  Windows didn't have a mobile operating system at the time

I can only assume you're referring to Windows Phone, which was released after iOS. But you've omitted Windows Mobile, which was released in 2000.

For the most part, I agree with you... except Android L has me curious, as it seems Google finally does understand operating systems and have built a cohesive whole. Funnily enough, Android Wear plays into that, and despite being someone who uses Apple everything has me considering an Android phone and a Moto 360. It's certainly exciting times no matter where you sit though!

So even when competitors come up with products that Apple hasn't created yet, these competitors are still copying Apple's ideas by guessing what Apple will be doing?

You really need to step out of that distortion field for a little while.

Very informative, thanks. It made me chuckle when you said that Metro UI was innovative - it really was. Unfortunately, for some of the use-cases they put forward, it isn't really suited or very good.

I mean, on a Mac how many people use Launchpad?

> I mean, on a Mac how many people use Launchpad?

I do when I forget the name of an app. Pinching all five fingers together on a trackpad is super easy. But then again, I also use the Dashboard :)

Ah I see. I shouldn't assume that nobody uses it. I turned off the Dashboard shortcut and made my F keys work like F keys. I typically use Spotlight to launch anything, although there was a time when I used to use Ctrl-F3 to take focus to the Dock, and then open the Applications folder.

I might start using Launchpad more. The transition is pretty!

One thing that Google does really innovate in: releasing products to keep up with the competition (typically web-based), then letting them be unmaintained, fester, and then terminating them much to the chagrin of the users.

That's innovative! Apple certainly doesn't do that! Hah!

(I jest, I jest. GMail and Maps have been going for years, and are pretty great , although I don't like the new UI on maps - things pop up from all over the place and the UI elements are teeny weeny. But yes, I'm a happy Google/Android user thanks).

EDIT: Hey! This was meant as a joke! Don't take it too seriously! Don't downvote me to oblivion! Please! Have mercy and compassion!

EDIT: Again! It's a joke! It's a joke! Such downvoting enthusiasm.

These were my thoughts too when watching the presentation.

The ironic thing here is that Android Wear seems to be the simpler solution. Android Wear is an extension of your phone - a way to process information on your wrist.

Apple Watch seems to be another way to interact. They mentioned glanceable information as somewhat of a footnone during the presentation (although their implementation seems pretty good). They mostly seemed to focus on additional communication tools, an image viewer, setting up navigation on your watch, having "apps" on your watch. With Apple Watch there is a lot more going on than just contextual information.

Because of that Apple Watch seems to have more features. Those features may make it more useful, but they also might not. Those features do seem to make Apple Watch a more complicated solution. It's hard to see which of these properties make one better over the other, but it's interesting to see the approaches are really quite different.

Having tried out Android Wear once, isn't Apple's implementation of their "Glances" pretty much identical to how notifications work on Android Wear?

It doesn't seem to be completely identical. The way I intepreted is that the information fed to Glances is 100% dependent on the apps on your phone. Android Wear gets fed information both from apps and Google Now. As an example, seeing flight information on your Apple Watch requires you to install an app, whereas on Android Wear it shows up if you Googled that flight once.

So I do think Google has the edge when it comes to (contextual) information in general, but of course Glances is only part of what Apple Watch offers.

> "I think that Apple actually took the easy way out here"

They took the "Microsoft" route.

They refused to make hard decisions about what was right for users and use of this unique platform and it's all pointed in a bad direction for that lack of focus, attention to detail and execution.

Smart Watches -- particularly those that require a smart phone -- have about 2 seconds before you hit the "stylus moment". [1] But the watch demo was oddly fixated on long interactions (the most difficult way to text emoji to date) and stupid interactions (browsing pictures on a 1" screen?).

The cases where watch-interaction makes more (or primary) sense [2] were given very little screen time, or mere lip service. And, oddly enough, those cases seem to have been given more thought and have more obvious, natural, direct, and thus better interactions [3].

Enabling those complex interactions, that are going to be inefficient and annoying, is going to lead to an avalanche of apps that similarly invite users to do things fundamentally ill-suited to a watch. Poorly conceived apps, lazily-ported apps -- The ecosystem as a whole is going to suffer for having that around. [4]

And then there's the interaction methods. iOS was a boon for computer use because it's so obvious, direct and natural. Many/most people never really got the hang of click vs double-click vs right-click. Many struggled with the core indirection of pushing the pointer around the screen with their mouse and the whole "scroll down to push the page up" mess (that only makes sense if you grew up on keyboard-only interaction and the also-awkwardly-named "page up"/down keys).

Apple sweated the details, stripped away the distractions and non-essentials, and they nailed it.

But what does the watch bring? Quick-tap vs long-tap vs force-tap? Are they kidding? Undiscoverable hidden interaction zones in corner(s?) or off-screen-swipes to execute features with no articulated conceptual logic as to "what goes where" or how the (in)existence of those features is even conveyed? Those demo controls showed more arcane gestures than a Harry Potter movie.

And the crown? It zooms the screen, except when it doesn't. It scrolls lists, except when it doesn't. It manipulates input controls, except when it doesn't -- and only if you apply the appropriate tap to successfully shift focus to the desired input. This is a mode-switching UX nightmare.

Stated plainly -- that watch, that demo? -- they blew it.

They've got a few months where they could course-correct. They've got a review step where they could filter out "bad" apps to protect the ecosystem from what they accidentally enabled (and encouraged by focusing the demo on it).

But I am not optimistic that a group who could green-light that demo is capable of discerning the difference. I think Apple's fundamental "taste" is in question. [5]

[1] Jobs famously stated "if you see a stylus, they blew it." The key here is that "blew it" doesn't mean "they made a bad tablet". It means "they never understood mobile or touch." They never understood that the use cases and ergonomics require a fundamental re-thinking of interaction. They never understood that you can't just port over things that worked somewhere else and only make sense given prior experience with something else.

[2] e.g. when the phone itself is less accessible (while exercising, while in-bed, while hands are collecting purchased items), thus giving you longer than 2 seconds before the "I might as well have pulled out my phone" moment. e.g. when direct use of the phone would defeat the feature (to use the watch as remote viewfinder/shutter release for the phone's camera).

[3] notification triage; workout/stopwatch/timer start/stop; simple location-based interactions like payments, unlocking a hotel room door, etc. It all looked far more sane/natural/straightforward.

[4] We all just saw what happened with Microsoft's odd mode-shifting app circus on their Surface tablets. If you enable the "conceptually new, thus more difficult, but right" interaction method and "conceptually familiar, thus easier, and wrong" interaction method, how many devs are really going to put in the work to get it right? Recent experience suggests enough devs will take shortcuts that your users will become frustrated and your ecosystem stained.

[5] I don't think Apple's taste is definitely gone. But the notion that Apple might be "coasting on momentum" is no longer something I can laugh off. Not on a core design level.

And an alternative explanation to "they're coasting" on momentum, is that the Watch is pushing iphone/ipad interactions where they don't belong because Apple's captured by their own momentum. And that's far, far worse.

>Apple has clearly put a lot more thought into how interactions on a device

How are we measuring "more thought" now? Mega-Turings?

I think this statement is very unfair to Android Wear. A non-biased look shows some pretty innovative aspects at work and a usable design. Its also really unfair to claim that you know all about the Apple Watch when no one has one yet people have been using AW for months.

I think you're on the right track here.

The idea that Apple is putting out a vision where you can communicate with people nearby in non-verbal ways is really powerful.

You have a company that has managed to deliver an awesome mobile experience on for consumer and enterprise shipping a device that can do everything from payments to health monitoring to door access. That's a ridiculously powerful thing.

What android can or can't do technically doesn't matter. Google, samsung, etc can't make the relationships that Apple can right now.

The good thing is that we all should benefit. I've had NFC on at least my last two phones (maybe 3?), but the hardware is not ubiquitous enough to matter. I'm assuming that there's nothing locking the POS hardware into Apple Pay, and so NFC payments become a thing everyone can use.

Out of curiosity are tap-to-pay credit cards and POS devices common where you live?

(Also where do you live? lol)

Here in Vancouver, BC I would say these sales terminals are becoming quite common place.

Here in the UK there are NFC payment points all over the place, but no mobile payment systems support them; it's all US-only.

I'm in Iceland, and I don't really see them much (if ever). Chip and pin readers are the norm here, and you can completely function without cash, but I don't notice contactless options really.

I'll take this opportunity to also say that Apple Maps still don't work here. By which I mean, they don't work at all. They have no data. The entire app is little more than a graphic of a map and a UIAlertView that says "No results found".

Exceptions that Apple has negotiated "card-present" rates from banks for apple pay, because they believe touch-id, tokenized cc numbers, and the secure enclave are such an effective fraud prevention mechanism that they have shouldered extra fraud risk for the banks. I'd argue that no one in the android space can match this at scale. With the lower rates apple can either make bank or pass through better rates to merchants, which means that apple pay suddenly becomes the preferred payment method for a tonne of large merchants.

I guess what I'm asking though is can the reader differentiate between the two? My understanding is that Apple sends a one-time use card number to the reader, so maybe it's possible for the software could run some variation of a Luhn check or whatever to figure out if it's an Apple generated number, but failing that, isn't the communication protocol between the phone and the payment terminal standardized?

In other words, can a merchant reasonably accept Apple Pay without accepting Google Wallet? I'd be surprised if they could, but I don't really know -- I'm legitimately asking.

A quick bit of Google indicates ISO14443 and EMV as the relevant protocols, but I'm not 100% sure there's not some incompatible extension thing going on that would preclude treating different companies' implementations the same.

Exceptions that Apple has negotiated "card-present" rates from banks for apple pay

Somehow this has taken off as a talking point, yet all NFC secure element payment solutions qualify as "card present". Google Wallet, for example, is card present. The NFC on my card is card present.

It isn't about negotiations, but indicates the security of the presentation. NFC secure elements are considered card equivalent.

"Apple has clearly put a lot more thought into how interactions on a device like this should work"

What's interesting to me is the extent to which the Apple Watch is designed to be interacted with, which contrasts strongly with Google's vision of wearables (both Android Wear and Glass) as assistants that are there when you need them, but which otherwise disappear so you can stay immersed in life.

Taco's criticism of the iPod was that it didn't do enough - didn't have enough features, didn't have enough storage etc, and he was rightly panned for getting it wrong. Criticisms of the price or lack of features of Apple products historically have been proved unfounded (it's easy to lower the price and add more features). So I agree if someone says 'but it doesn't do x', they can easily be satisfied by later models.

In contrast, many of the criticisms of this watch centre on the incoherent design, awkward interaction with a physical scroll-wheel AND touch interface (which Apple are not even allowing people to try out in the demos), and the grab-bag of features added to it, apparently without thought about how they all interact. It looks like it does too much, and none of it well.

They can possibly rescue this mess in the time they have before launch by polishing the software, but I'm hesitant about the concept of this scroll wheel (what they call a digital crown), which they have now committed to for the long term, and sounds like it is going to be very awkward when combined with physical touches and on the wrist, and pointless if you also require users to touch the screen. It would have been far nicer just to keep this simpler and use swipes and taps, and not try to hobble it with a traditional 'watch' shape.

It really does feel as if no-one was in charge of the design here, and lots of different teams worked on different features, which were mashed together at the last minute, without someone to force them all to integrate properly. I do believe Apple is entering a new era now - becoming a larger more stable company, and is now led by an operations person (Cook), not someone obsessed with design and willing to take massive risks in pursuit of perfection (Jobs). That is starting to have an effect on the products they make.

The main difference between dismissing an iPod and an Apple Watch is that, disregarding cost, the latter asks for the fairly significant "lifestyle change" if you don't already wear a watch.

I'll make this clear from the start. I'm not an Apple fan (for complex reasons... call it a falling out.)

That said, this is a beautiful piece of design. I think they've outdone themselves with this one, it's a truly wonderful device. Unfortunately, I have a horrible feeling that it will only be a matter of time before we see the usual Samsung vs. Apple patent violation claims being thrown around again (despite any possible prior art etc.).

Personally, I still think the tech isn't quite compact enough yet, but we're only one or two generations away from a slim-line, waterproof, and functionally integrated piece of kit that will actually complement the existing tech. The integration with dive computers / cycling computers / sports cameras / personal drones :-) etc. could be incredible!

Hopefully Apple's entry onto the smart-watch scene doesn't end up mired in too many patent battles... I'd like to see these devices progress as fast as possible!

Bravo Apple design team!

This sounds like a comment from the Apple design team itself.

The Apple watch looks very common and cheap; the only good thing about its look is that it is highly personalizable.

Wow, I never thought I'd be accused of being an Apple shill!

I don't know which bits look common or cheap to you, I quite like the use of Sapphire (usually only used on high end watches) and stainless steel. I just think the unit itself is still a bit chunky, as I'm a fan of slim watches.

As far as personalization goes, I think if there were an identical unit running Android, it would be inherently more tweakable, and the main reason I won't be buying one of these is that it will invariably be designed to only work well with IOS / OSX devices (of which I own none).

Moto360 may not be svelte, but the attachment of the band is not at the edges - which make it fit better on smaller wrists like mine.

I've seen a lot of people bring up that infamous comment, but I don't think it proves much - if we say it applies to everything Apple does then it means that Apple are never wrong. They can be, and inevitably one day they will be.

My two cents: I don't know any person who is into serious running (I'm into triathlon, so add cycling and swimming) who would spend $350 on the Apple Watch and additionally you are required to have your iPhone with you to use the GPS. A sports watch without GPS, IMHO is a no go at $350. For <$300 I can get GPS, HR, ANT+, waterproof* and +20h battery life. e.g. Garmin Forerunner 910xt.

(I won't comment on the lack of info on battery life and water resistance).

*Edit: changed from water resistant to waterproof.

I doubt "people into serious running" run into the 10s of millions that Apple are aiming the watch at though.

(I agree with your point though - I have a 910XT for the battery life - the Apple Watch would be useless as an activity tracker for me since the iPhone 5S doesn't really cope with 5h+ activities.)

I agree with you too. The Apple Watch is a mass market product, not for heavy users. However, I can imagine many people wearing this watch at gyms, where people tend to look after themselves (healthkit, etc)... but I don't see professionals using it (unless endorsed).

If the battery life doesn't suck (which I fear it does given the total lack of reference to it) and the "iPhone required" isn't as onerous as it seems, I might well wear one just for the easy 24/7* heart rate tracking. Granted the optical ones aren't as good as the HRM straps (as best I remember the dcrainmaker reviews) but they're less onerous for long periods.

I think it's a general limitation of the optical heart rate trackers that they aren't quite "24/7". At least on all the Android Wear devices that feature one, you have to ask it to take a reading, and it's pretty unreliable if you're moving. I didn't see it mentioned in the Apple coverage, but I assume it's probably similarly limited there?

My Basis watch takes readings regularly (not sure the interval once a minute, maybe) of my heart rate. Battery lasts about 3-4 days.

I would have bought one since that's exactly what I want but they're -still- not shipping outside the US. Think they may have missed their chance now...

So the heart-rate sensor is for people that sit at their desks all day?

There is a probably a middle ground (and possibly a large one) between people running triathlons and couch potatoes.

It's certainly not for people exercising, because it clearly won't work for that use case. You can spot that from a mile away.

Actually, yeah, that's pretty much the market for the fitbit and similar devices. People who sit at desks looking to get more activity in their lives.

More significant than "people into serious running" is "people who want to be into serious running". Fitness products live and die based on their ability to hook the consumer with aspirational marketing. A well-placed fitness magazine "review" will impact sales far more than superior tech specs.

>> (I won't comment the lack of info on battery life and water resistance)

Did they comment on water resistance? I thought they had a photo of someone pouring water over it...

There is a difference between submerging and just a sprinkle of water. I don't think the Apple Watch is submergible/usable for swimming.

Yes, waterproof is submersible and water resistant is rain/shower etc. Your comment referred to water resistance which that displays.

I would hope they make it waterproof as I don't want to have to leave an expensive watch with my bag on the beach unattended. But then I already have to do that with my phone I guess.

Ah yes! Waterproof vs water resistant. Yes, that was what I meant (changed). The AW appears to be water resistant, while many, if not most, sports watches are waterproof. Waterproof is a feature that I'm sure Cook would of mentioned if it were the case.

He probably would have, you're right. Maybe it will be exclusive to the sports edition. Seems like a good way to differentiate.

> I don't want to have to leave an expensive watch with my bag on the beach

While it's sapphire, I recommend that you keep your watch and phone as far away from salt water and sand as possible. One grain gets in the crown and you could be in trouble.

My sport watch is a Timex which is resistant to 100m, but the springs sometimes get sand stuck in them.

There isn't really a "water-proof" watch. There are varying degrees of water resistant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Resistant_mark

Do they have watches, sub 250, that can be used for swimming OR running?

Even just the swimming would be great, cause the price point and being forced to carry an iPhone around kind of defeated the purpose of buying the Apple Watch for me.

Nevermind, my own question got answered by looking up the Garmin Forerunner 910XT: http://sites.garmin.com/forerunner910xt/

Run, swim, AND bike. Excellent.

The swim stroke tracker is hit-and-miss for me (sometimes guesses the wrong stroke and length points) but that probably says more about my swimming (which is awful) than the watch.

But I can definitely vouch for the excellent battery life, resilience to water, and usefulness on a bike laden with sensors.

The only gripe I have is that you can have multiple sets of bike sensors but not anything else. That and their approach to OS X software basically being "well, be grateful you're only 2 years behind the PC and that we acknowledge you at all."

Good to know, thanks!

Sadly, it might be outside of my price range. It does look like it's the perfect thing for tracking my workouts, but damn is that one hell of an investment.

It's also due to be replaced any day now (it's the last piece of the Garmin series that hasn't been updated in for.ev.er.). Once the new version comes out, 910xt's should be pretty cheap to pickup.

I believe the Fenix 2 has already replaced it - http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/03/garmin-fenix2-multisport....

Exactly. I put off buying a GPS watch because I wanted to see what Apple was going to offer. Answer: Nothing.

I really cannot imagine a more useless product than this watch. It requires an iPhone and seems to essentially serve as a small, remote interface for your phone. And how do I navigate that small interface? With an even smaller "digital crown." I hate trying to set the time on my watch, and now they expect me to interact with something more complicated using a tiny, rotating nub?

Imagine a typical scenario. You are walking down the street and suddenly need to navigate somewhere. How many minutes are you going to waste playing with that little nub and resizing things on the screen before finally pulling out your phone and just using that.

The only argument for this watch is that it might be helpful for those times when pulling out your phone is just too onerous. I regret that I do not have the type of lifestyle where that is a serious limitation.

I'd wait and see how it actually works - for example, with the navigation scenario, it's far more likely that you'd choose your destination on your phone which will then handoff the navigation to the watch. Thus, no need to constantly look at the phone while you're walking + haptic feedback to guide you along the path.

Siri could be the big savior here. I'm actually very happy with my iPhone's voice recognition and Siri's performance.

Another gripe, the "digital crown" is on the opposite side of the watch for me. It could be an impediment of being left handed, but having it on the right hand side of the watch increments the awkward factor for me.

Yeah, I agree on the leftie thing. They most likely won't make a leftie variant but I do think that they could make it rotatable.

It seems like it's reasonable for it to switch orientation with the easily switchable bands. The 'crown' nub would then be on the bottom left of your right arm.

Doh! Of course you are probably right. Hopefully the display (like an iPhone) can determine its orientation and adjust.

I'm guessing it takes it's orientation from the strap.

Apparently, the orientation of the display will be a matter of setup configurability:

http://www.slashgear.com/wheres-our-left-handed-apple-watch-...

"So, it turns out the Apple Watch really works TWO ways. Apple tells us on initial setup, you can choose to have the watch face orient itself for use on the right wrist, making it friendly to lefties. The watch bands are also swappable, so your band isn't facing the wrong way. Good news for everyone involved, but like most things in life, Lefties will still have to deal with a right-handed design -- the crown will be on the bottom of the left side of the watch when on the right wrist."

Is Siri really good? I only ask because I spent a significant portion of today's commute shouting "OK GOOGLE" repeatedly at my phone, only for it to misunderstand what I was saying. And I speak with a flat English accent.

Whether this will be useful all rests on the quality and differentiation of the haptic feedback.

For example, imagine walking down the street towards your destination and feeling the right side of the watch vibrate to signal that you should turn right.

If your watch can communicate contextual information related to your intention and local then it will be superior to (1) wearing a socially inappropriate device like the Google Glass, (2) being called out to by a device, (3) fumbling in your phone in order to then open the correct app.

Apps that correctly use haptic feedback should be able to silently and subtly give users superpowers without forcing them to clumsily interact with a product.

I actually wrote about the benefits of this back in 2012 [0], though I was talking about phones and notification fatigue back then (and not leveraging Future Interface style stuff.)

[0] http://sebinsua.com/your-thigh-as-an-interface-from-your-pho...

The overriding feeling I had during this keynote is that every feature that I found cool in the watch I would much prefer on my phone.

Cool watch app? Wait, actually that would be cooler and more usable on a big screen...

Haptic feedback? Agreed, awesome idea, but no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist.

I think interface wise Cook has the right of it when he says they didn't just strap a reduced iPhone on the wrist.

It's clear that they spent a large amount of time and effort with the haptic feedback and the crown.

But functionality wise... well I completely agree with you.

I can't see anything a smartphone cannot do, better and more efficiently, with the exception of the heart rate sensor.

Some functions in particular seem very awkward to me: I cannot see a reasonable way of using it as a phone or an audio player, in public, without bluetooth earphones.

With mobile phones, mp3 players and smartphones the value proposition was clear, but what is the killer application for smartwatches ?

That said, I would be far from surprised if they sell like hotcakes.

agree. What's the killer App for it? Maybe it's the HealthKit related things, but they hardly appeal to core Apple buyers: young people! It'll be a historical change if Apple starts to add oldlies into its base.

> no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist

There's a much higher density of tactile nerve endings in your wrist than in your thigh; even if you can reliably feel your phone vibrating in your pocket (I can't!), that's no guarantee you'd be able to discriminate finely enough for haptic feedback to be of use, especially since the phone's orientation in your pocket is not guaranteed.

> Haptic feedback? Agreed, awesome idea, but no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist.

It's frequently lost upon this crowd (I'm guilty of this myself) that half of the population in the West frequently wears clothes which lack pockets.

Your statistic confused me until I realized you were [assumedly] referencing females who keep their phones in their purses/bags.

Please try to say women, not "females." I don't think you meant anything by it but when you always see that usage, (common in tech spaces) it starts to feel a little dehumanizing.

a.i. males in medical community?

Oh lord, get over it. Female is degrading now?

Well, it does make you sound like a Ferengi.

What's a Ferengi?

Edit: Nevermind. I Googled it. Star Trek alien.

There's plenty of other languages where the words for "female" and "male" are different for people and animals.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=female

From Wikipedia:

"It is not etymologically related to the word male, but in the late 14th century the spelling was altered in English to parallel the spelling of male."

I honestly don't understand how "female" is any worse then "woman" honest question I'm easily the least sexist person you could run into (ask my wife) but sometimes it seems like no mater what you're still going to offend someone. :(

I think the issue is that "female" can refer to any species, whereas "woman" refers only to humans. So when someone obliquely refers to women and someone responds "oh, you're talking about females!", the subtext is that they have now realized that we're talking about women, but haven't quite realized that women are people too.

It would be the same as calling someone a "human" rather than a "person". Like aliens do in the movies. Maybe you don't feel that's dehumanizing, but I think a lot of people would.

(Classicist pet peeve: A word's etymology has nothing to do with its modern denotation and connotation.)

Personally, I like to imagine the post is being written by a Ferengi. There's more than sufficient evidence for it.

Phones already do this. My android phone vibrates when I have walking directions on and I need to turn.

Re haptic feedback:

I'm forever feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket when it isn't vibrating... and still manage not to notice when it does vibrate.

Perhaps I would perceive the signal more accurately if it was on my wrist instead of my thigh.

Until you start having the same phantom vibrations in your wrist as well.

Is your wrist sensitive enough to determine whether the right or left of your phone has buzzed if you're walking?

Might be one if by land, two if by sea.

In my experience, Google Glass turns you into a walking celebrity, and has been as far from "socially inappropriate" as it can get. I'm not in San Fran, which seems to be the only place that pours haterade.

Actually they have thrown out people even in Paris McDonalds for wearing a Google Glass.

And just try wearing it in some sensitive areas (e.g night-clubs, expensive restaurants etc) around the world and see what happens...

So it's socially inappropriate because it's not allowed by a gigantic corporation (that films everything we do at their restaurants), as well as stuck up fancy institutions that will scoff at your shoes and not let you in for that?

>Actually they have thrown out people even in Paris McDonalds for wearing a Google Glass.

The incident you're thinking of was Steve Mann being assaulted and thrown out for wearing his own custom digital eye glass, about a year before the Google Glass developer release.

I also haven't heard of frequent incidents involving "sensitive areas". Some incidents, yes, but definitely not enough for me to categorize it as a trend.

Unless what you're describing was a later repetition of a 2012 incident, that was actually Dr Steve Mann being kicked out for wearing his EyeTap - which is physically bolted to his head and cannot be removed easily. Nothing to do with Google Glass at all.

Seriously ? Other geeks maybe interested in your new toy but nobody would be thinking that your social status has been elevated in anyway. In fact it is the complete opposite.

The early adopters of Google Glass have cemented its reputation as a geeky, invasive, awkward, Star Trek like toy for socially inept young men.

Only to geeky, invasive, awkward, Star Trek lovers aka socially inept young men.

None of the people who have approached me directly gave a shit about who I was or what I did for a living. They rarely even introduced themselves. It usually went something like "Is that the google?...." and the conversation goes from there. My IRL experience does not match the blog hatersphere at all.

Walking celebrity? I saw someone wearing Google Glass (on the east coast) and I had a very negative reaction. Just felt not at ease with this stranger around me.

What personal reactions do you have with Google Glass that are untainted by what you've read? It's fear dude. I've had old ladies, young children who read about it and are amazed, and technology enthusiasts who would have nothing more than to try it on and give it a go.

I know people theorize about the mark of the beast and cyborgs and privacy but I simply haven't seen it. It's a cool gadget and I have fun wearing it in public. It's also great for hiking and camping and Auto Awesome is the shit, so... you are missing out.

The reaction I had was not tainted by what I read since I don't read about Google Glass and I'm only vaguely aware of anything about it. My knowledge of Google Glass mostly comes from these HN comments, really. I have no fear (I'm not sure WHAT I am accused of be afraid of??) I had no opinion of it at all whatsoever until I saw someone wearing it in real life. This was in a bar, btw.

My visceral reaction was that of human disconnect. I hope I am explaining it right, it is a hard feeling to describe. It is the same sort of reaction I get (except stronger) when someone is wearing those bluetooth ear things. It makes me feel uneasy. The person isn't "completely there." A disconnect.

Uh, I think it is too complicated to explain, but it is a human interaction thing, not a technology thing.

Sure, but this could be analogous to sitting at a bar looking at your phone - you're at a bar, what are you doing there?!

Now, if it was the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, its probably a stunt. But yes, a bar is not a place for google glass. Just like work is a place for pants. Common sense folks.

> Just like work is a place for pants.

Maybe on the east coast.

Re: "It's a cool gadget and I have fun wearing it in public."

Having a camera pointed in your general direction is enough to give most people pause. I have really bad anxiety, and if someone wearing Glass looks in my direction, I will be made incredibly uncomfortable. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to never leave my house. Not saying you should live your life based on how I feel, but I think people who wear GG should at least be aware of the (great) potential for making others feel uncomfortable.

Absolutely. So I do things like put them on top of my head when entering restaurants, public restrooms, and small social gatherings. Anything that isn't intimate is fair game. If its not "rude" to walk around with your phone out, Google Glass is fair game.

IF someone wearing google glass looks 180 degrees within your direction and you get anxiety - that's a personal issue. IF Google Glass makes you never want to leave your house - then you live in San Fran when you shouldn't, or you have an irrational fear.

On top of that, for every 1 person that has an irrational fear of Google Glass, there are 99 people who are enthralled by it. So, democracy and all that.

Imagine if I took out my phone in a restaurant, said "I'm filming this," and pointed it at you while you ate for the duration of your meal.

That's weird, and initially I thought glass was cool. It's not.

I had this experience sitting across a restaurant from someone wearing Google glass, and it made me realize what a horrible idea it is.

Yes, filming 100% of the time while you are eating at a restaurant would cause unease. Reality TV does this with $10k cameras that are mounted on a dude's shoulder. You don't need Google Glass to know thats a bad idea, so contributing that bad idea to Google Glass isn't a fair comparison because you can do it with other items.

> (3) fumbling in your phone in order to then open the correct app.

This isn't directly tied to you or your argument, but whenever people talk about about smart watches, 'fumbling with your phone' seems to come up. I can't recall the last time I thought of checking my phone as a hassle or felt like I was 'fumbling with it'.

That being said, I am excited to see what developers come up with for smart watches (either platform) and am interested to see how the haptic* feedback performs.

* I know Apple is calling it the Taptic Engine, so I'm not sure if we're supposed to be calling it taptic or haptic feedback, especially since it's not entirely haptic

I think the idea is that you would raise the watch to your face and say "Siri, directions to closest Starbucks". The little dial is not the only way to interact with the thing.

> Imagine a typical scenario. You are walking down the street and suddenly need to navigate somewhere.

"Siri, give me walking directions to the nearest Starbucks."

Isn't the whole scenario far fetched? Does anyone really wander around and then suddenly have an urgent need to be somewhere (other than a restroom :)?

The only thing I can think of that might make me suddenly need to go somewhere is a message/reminder...from my phone.

>Imagine a typical scenario. You are walking down the street and suddenly need to navigate somewhere. How many minutes are you going to waste playing with that little nub and resizing things on the screen before finally pulling out your phone and just using that.

Reminds me of a joke I heard:

A local school board was trying to find ways to increase the efficiency of their schools. A local computer programmer had come to the board meeting with a proposal.

He suggested that each desk be equipped with a small button, that via wireless technology would light up a small panel on the teachers desk.

That way if a student wanted to ask a question, they could simply press the button which would light up say spot A17 on the panel. Then using a quick lookup sheet the teacher could then see that desk A17 is where John was sitting.

The teacher could then look up quickly and say, "John...you have a question?"

I like the watch idea personally. Say you're riding your bike and you receive a text message. in order to see what's going on you will probably have to stop and take the phone out of your pocket. with a watch you can simply look at your wrist quickly.

Apparently you can record video with your iPhone 6 while on a bike so Apple clearly have different use-cases in mind.

As a daily bike commuter around Boston, this idea terrifies me. Multitasking is extremely dangerous while biking. There are already enough bikers out there who choose to distract themselves with earphones and music while biking. Reading a text message while weaving in traffic is a recipe for disaster. When you're on a bike, be on the bike.

I am a daily bike commuter in Anchorage where we have tons of dedicated trails. I can ride all the way to work 7 miles and I only have to cross a couple streets.

This would be fine. better than pulling my phone out of my pocket while riding (which is what I do now)

In fairness, and to think a little more about your throw-away joke than I suspect you intended, the 'push and forget' nature of a button as compared to holding up your hand is important in some situations.

The Software Carpentary workshops that I've worked with/seen, for example, use a post-it note system that signifies that a student has a question (or is done, depending on the colour of the note). This allows the student to continue trying solutions without holding up their hand looking for attention. When an instructor is available, they can go over and help.

The advantage of a button system, then, would be that you could gather data on which students were asking the most questions, how long they generally have to wait, etc.

You cannot imagine a more useless product?

Zero minutes.

Once start walking your route, feedback will be given via haptic feedback to let you know which way to turn so you won't have to look at it again.

(Source: the keynote)

I think a lot of what they're aiming at is rethinking a lot of the scenarios where you're trying to directly replicate how you use your phone, on your wrist.

So to take your map scenario. Here's how it currently works for me. Take the phone out, pull up maps, figure out where the hell I am, where I'm trying to get to, and then plot a route between the two.

Yes, that's going to work a whole lot better on a phone.

But what comes next? Following the route from A to B with the phone held flat in front of me like it's some kind of divining rod.

And this is where rethinking the actual interaction starts making a difference. Having the phone push cues instead of walking somewhere I'm unfamiliar with my nice expensive divining rod held out ..

How many minutes are you going to waste playing with that little nub

Zero minutes and five seconds. The watch has Siri. You say "directions to X". Boom. Done.

> now they expect me to interact with something more complicated using a tiny, rotating nub?

Did you ever use a Blackberry? Tiny rotating nubs are really good.

> I don't know any person who is into serious running ... who would spend $350 on the Apple Watch

People will spend that much money on the Apple Watch. Because it's Apple.It might seem like a ripoff to you but the price was calculated to maximise Apple profit.

This is Apple's way: Release a product at a high price initially to capture extra dollars from early adopters with the extra money while also buying time for Apple to work out kinks in there production chain and also reduce costs as efficiency increases. Six to twelve months later cheaper Apple Watches will come out.

I don't think Apple needs that handful of extra dollars from early adaptors.

The reason the initial price is high is because its easier to decrease a retail price than it is to increase it.

Apple tends not to lower their prices. Instead, they offer newer models will with more features at stable price points.

If prices do drop (e.g. the 5s) it's because an older product is still being sold alongside a newer one at the standard price.

This is not the case with first run products. The original iPhone's price was $599 (8GB) and $499 (4GB) when it was released in June 2007. Then in September of the same year they discontinued the 4GB model and dropped the price of the 8GB down to $400.

I'm not saying that they will drop the price of the watch but there is a history of them doing this with the first run of a product. Also someone mentioned they did something similar with the MBA in this thread.

Good point, though I think that few people paid that directly. From what I recall, base models have been $200 with a two year contract from the word go.

Nope, people who paid $600+ for an iPhone still had to have a two-year contract, they didn't even get compensated for it with a subsidy. And at the same time that you paid $600, AT&T was giving Apple a cut of the contract, something like 10 bucks a month from your AT&T bill went straight to Apple in the beginning. So Apple was really getting around $840 per iPhone over the life of the contract, $600 up front and $10/month for 24 months.

That doesn't seem to match my offhand recollections. Apple tends to keep price points the same and just update specs occasionally. The first iPhone famously had a price drop quite soon, but has that been true for their other product lines?

The MacBook Air went from being their most insanely expensive product to their entry-level without changing all too much (besides the requisite performance upgrades).

Good point. I'm still skeptical that's the plan for the watch, but I guess it's plausible at least.

They mentioned the low-end model requiring an iPhone, but unless I missed something due to the sporadic live-stream, they seemed to trail-off when it came to what the other two models would be like. I could see GPS being something built in to the higher-end model for instance.

This comment reminded me of CmdrTaco's slashdot comment after the iPod launch: http://t.co/RPAX2r93kx

I think Garmin forerunner will be to the future of wearables what Nomad was to the future of music in 2002.

Or consider the first iPhone which had no 3G. Building your first iteration specifically not to go up against a particular competitor can be intentional, in hardware and software. Two or three generations down the road this watch could prove interesting (or may be not, like the iPad.)

No 3G, no app store(!!), no copy and paste, no GPS, worse call reception than the phones it replaced, the list goes on. It was still a massive success.

A pretty big difference is most other smartphones either didn't have these, or if they did the feature was so unusable it could just as well have been left out.

I remember it being fashionable here in the UK, mainly for the Carlsberg app that used the gyroscope (accelerometer?) to pretend that you were drinking a drink.

And for showing that you had a lot of money compared to us pauper Nokia users.

People were really disappointed with the lack of MMS, as I recall.

I'll ignore your slightly pedantic tone. I'm not calling this a failure or lame. Don't read between the lines. I'm just saying that at $350, for people who take sports seriously (a very very very small niche), there are better alternatives. This is Apple Watch 1.0, I'm sure there are better things down the line. Thinking otherwise is just a mistake. I said it before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8292596

Sorry for the snarky tone. I think your clarified stance is a fair one.

There are better alternatives-- IF and only IF you value certain features that the Apple watch lacks over the features that it has, but that the frontrunner lacks.

The front runner has GPS so you can get GPS without carrying your phone around. That's great. But what use is that GPS? (seriously, I don't get it- it's a 80s era LCD display).

The Apple watch has GPS (in the phone) but also gives you maps and haptic feedback to send you along your route without ever looking at the watch. I presume the frontrunner doesn't do that (how do you put a route into a watch without a map display?)

Do you remember what a Creative Nomad Jukebox actually looked like around 2001? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQaplenaBl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR5hPd_inno

Existing MP3 players offered a pretty rough user experience; the iPod was a pleasure to use in comparison. Largely the same was true of iPhone as compared to existing smartphones. The first generations of iPod and iPhone also had hardware that was strikingly attractive and even more important, ready for prime time: well able to meet the needs of their software and of the use cases they were designed for. The Apple Watch has lovely fit and finish but looks portly and awkward, and faces serious questions on the basic criterion of battery life. The UI looks promising, but from what there is to see so far it doesn't look as if it's going to blow Android Wear out of the water. (The "digital crown" looks promising, though!)

Moreover, even without a second 5GB of storage or wireless, the iPod had a compelling "value proposition" that was soon clear to everyone, even if it wasn't immediately clear to CmdrTaco: "portable MP3 player that doesn't suck". What's the comparable pitch for the first-gen Apple Watch; what does it offer that feels like a must-have, rather than a nice-to-have, and which you can't do fairly well using your smartphone?

None of this is to say that the Watch is terrible, or will fail, or will never amount to anything. But the CmdrTaco analogy seems clearly inaccurate to me at this stage.

I have fond memories of my Creative Nomad II: http://www.nextup.com/img/Creative_NomadIIc_Large.jpg

At first glance, OPs comment was comparing what I believe is the first really usable wearable device to something that looks similar in form factor but is eons behind in day to day usability. So the analogy seemed quite accurate to me.

And yes, I do remember the Nomad. At the time the iPod launched, my music player was a Sony Discman and pre-ipod, I would have bought the Nomad in a heartbeat if I could.

You're right; I was somewhat OT as antr's comment was about exercise watches.

I don't think the analogy is very strong even looking at Apple Watch as an exercise watch competitor, though. Firstly, I'm not closely familiar with the recent exercise watch/widgets on the market, but I'd be surprised if all of them are as unpleasant to use as the Nomad was. Second, even if the UX advance is really that big, it seems the (first-generation) aWatch is going to have other stumbling blocks, like the need to own an iPhone 5 or higher and the need to have it with you for GPS. Those aren't just missing checklist ticks or things which will annoy a minority of technically-minded users, they're issues which affect whether "the rest of us" are going to enjoy using the aWatch or bother buying one at all. (Yes, the iPod originally required a Firewire Mac, but precisely for that reason it didn't really take off commercially until that requirement was lifted.) Thirdly, the iPod addressed a huge market, even if many users didn't even realise they were in the market for a portable music player until they heard about the iPod. Even if the aWatch wins over nearly everyone who currently uses an exercise wearable, and also draws in a substantial number of people who don't currently use one (and that's a super-optimistic outcome for as long as an iPhone remains a required accessory) is that really a big enough market to make for a commercial success on the scale of the iPod or iPhone, the kind of scale Apple now needs to keep its investors from being disappointed?

"Existing MP3 players offered a pretty rough user experience; the iPod was a pleasure to use in comparison."

You clearly didn't own one of the first gen of iPod. Amazing as it was, crashes, reformatting and general bugginess were daily occurrences.

What the iPod brought to the table was a (buggy) new interface and click wheel which allowed you to browse your massive collection of pirated MP3's and ripped CD's much easier than other methods. Also form factor/hardware design was more pleasing to the eye to many.

My wife runs long distances with an iPhone AND a watch.

My impression is that Forerunners have fallen out of favor. The GPS doesn't work all that well compared to a phone (I'm guessing because it lacks the AGPS data a phone has access to). Plus if you're running a marathon you probably want some music to listen to, and it sure is nice to have a phone with you even though it's perhaps a bit heavy.

I've got 18 months of Moves data logged against corresponding tracks from my 910XT and the difference in consistency, accuracy, etc., is telling - the iPhone is frequently off by 10s (if not 100s) of metres and especially coming round the Millennium Dome is a joke - it has me jumping from the south to the north of the Thames every few hundred metres.

Moves iPhone 5S - http://imgur.com/kjYf8Tj Garmin 910XT - http://imgur.com/jnXuaQC

Did you disable WLAN on the iPhone during the run?

That's what RunKeeper recommends, because the AGPS using WLAN-SSIDs lowers the accuracy of the tracking.

I bet your iphone is trying to use cell tower locations or wifi hotspots it's picking up around there and borking up the location. The area around there is kind of open and flat so I wouldn't be surprised if it's picking up location information from across the river.

It does seem to be WiFi related. But if I have to remember to disable the WiFi whenever I want to do some GPS tracking - and if I forget, I basically get random garbage - that pushes it well into "no bloody use" for me.

That's a feature, not a bug ;)

Uh, no, I'm pretty sure that's a bug. Unless you literally want to consider inaccurate tracking a feature.

Surely there is an app for that? Android has plenty of apps that will automatically turn on/off your wifi based on various criteria, such as your location (I always turn it off as soon as I'm 50 yards away from home or from the office).

Probably put these apps should compensate for the fact that humans can't run that fast nor that they can run over water.

I would bet it is the cycling of GPS that the app is doing. If GPS is just left on, a battery can get burned through in a couple hours (for one of the newer iPhones, much less an older one). Those wacky readings are some of the initial results after GPS is cycled back on.

One might look for a higher power setting if you are doing an hour / half hour run and not concerned about keeping battery life up.

Moves is on "battery saving" mode (which actually makes little difference - I get bugger all life out of my phone anyway) but that doesn't really explain why it's just around the O2 it has serious issues - that's only about 2-3km out of the whole 30km walk.

How long does the Garmin take to find you at the start of a run? I admittedly had an old model, but it was basically a dealbreaker with the forerunner. I was wandering around for 5-10 mins with my wrist in the air waiting to start.

It's a lot better than the 310XT. I don't think it's taken more than a minute of standing still in the last few months. I do tend to start in pretty open sky'd places though.

Same here, I've got a Garmin watch and it's great once it finds satellites, but routinely takes well over 5 minutes to do so (in NYC). I've started using my iphone to track runs and bike rides instead, only using the Garmin for really long bike rides where I don't mind the wait and having my current speed on my wrist is worth the wait.

I used to have to wait for a fix as well. What works for me is that when I'm preparing for the run, I put the watch in a window for enough time to get a fix, which sometimes take a long time. Then when I go out to run later, it gets a fix pretty quickly.

I use the 910XT in a very cloudy part of the world (which I'm assuming makes things worse). I've just integrated the startup time into my prep.

Before I put my running stuff on, I turn on the watch and let it figure stuff out while I'm taping my nips, and if it's winter, gloves, tights, mentally bracing myself for the cold, etc.

The new models lock really quickly. I have a Garmin 620 and it locks within 30 seconds. Cloudy days might take a minute, but basically by the time I finish my warmup walk, it's locked on.

(Totally offtopic but running near the Whitehouse in DC is funny because they screw with GPS accuracy so you bounce all over the place)

How is that possible? GPS satellites are sending the same signal out to everyone, I don't see how they could possibly target a certain area.

I don't know how they do it, but if you drive by the Pentagon with a GPS unit you'll see it go crazy.

Gps satellites all send slightly incorrect information... A separate radio signal correction is transmitted to correct it. That way, during wartime (or in high value target areas) the US can basically mess up enemy gps enabled weapons by broadcasting misleading satellite and correction data.

That doesn't answer the question of how they could make GPs inaccurate only in a specific area.

Low power GPS jammer at the Whitehouse, perhaps?

The Economist[1] had a story about the London Stock Exchange getting jammed GPS-signal 10 minutes every day. I believe they are using something similar.

[1]: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21582288-satelli...

A terrestrial transmitter spoofs or overpowers the GPS signal.

GPS satellites have a signal strength on par with a night light's, so it's easy to overpower in a small area using a low power transmission.

I have found this with the phone, if I do a cold start. When I ride somewhere, start the tracking, the stop the tracking when I get to the run track, the iPhone is so much better at tracking me.

Do you use a GPS app in your phone often? This almost looks like it was falling back to AGPS / Skyhook while the almanac was still downloading, which can take half an hour or so.

Once the almanac is downloaded, the phone's GPS track should look much closer to the Garmin's.

If this was a recurring problem then I don't know what to say, other than it doesn't match my experience with RunKeeper on an iPhone 4S.

Well, I have Find My iPhone and 5 other motion trackers (Moves, Argus, Breeze, Human, Nike+) running 24/7 - it's a fair bet my GPS almanac is up to date since they should all be poking the M7 for updates.

On some you can load AGPS data onto it for the next few days, but the bigger issue is that Garmin no longer uses SiRF chipsets, which are vastly superior when compared gen-for-gen vs. the generic stuff Garmin's using now.

It's a shame, but the most accurate Forerunners are the older ones–same for Foretrex, etc.–which are often the ones with the shortest battery life.

Fellow triathlete here! 100% agree.

It looks nice though...

>My two cents: I don't know any person who is into serious running (I'm into triathlon, so add cycling and swimming) who would spend $350 on the Apple Watch and additionally you are required to have your iPhone with you to use the GPS.

Yeah, it's for the sligltly LESS serious runners, of which there are millions...

I was happy to use my Pebble and now, my android wear devices to track my running pace. I run about 4 miles a day. Honestly, the iWatch is just too pricey for what I would use it for.

If $300 sounds to much for a fashion item, it's probably not for you. Heck, I don't think I'll buy one either.

But then again, consider that people buy $300+ headphones (Dre's) because of how they look, fashion etc. And they are not even the best headphones out there, whereas this is probably the best smartwatch.

Or that people bought iPods for $300 or more just 6 years ago. Without video or phone or camera. Heck, I bought my first iPod for ~$800 10 years ago (complete with a black and white LCD display).

And that's the 1st gen. In a year, it will be like $200 or $100 for the same thing or the new model.

So, yeah, it might flop or it might sell, but it won't be due to its price.

"If $300 sounds to much for a fashion item, it's probably not for you."

Fair enough, but i have to say, I feel like i'm taking crazy pills here. So apple releases it and suddenly it's a fashion item to have a clunky, square watch. Just a few short months ago, i was reading nytimes articles about the current crop of smartwatches saying "'They’re just not that attractive,' said Mr. Dawson, 'they are all clunky and square'"

But now suddenly it's a fashion item to have a clunky, square watch?

(I understand fashion is fickle, but this is really really fickle :P)

Agreed. Apple make beautiful devices that are fashion accessories... but this isn't one of them, in my opinion.

I know it's wasteful to cut the corners off LCDs to make them round, but I am a little surprised that Apple didn't go that route just for novelty value if nothing else. Would've made a nice interface paradigm with a rotary dial on the face too.

You're surprised that Apple didn't make a fundamental design decision for novelty value? Not sure you have been paying attention to Apple lately.

Ok, ok; bad phrasing on my part. I meant that with Apple's branding around affordable luxury and challenging the status quo, a round screen would most definitely have been a talking point for this product and a differentiator from everything else on the market.

That said, I've since been reminded about the Moto360 which _did_ have a round screen, so my point is moot anyway.

Round LCDs do have an undeniably cool look: http://www.zerotohundred.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/MG_5...

But I have a feeling Porsche has just used an ordinary square panel here, with its edges concealed by the gauge bezel. A watch designer doesn't have room to pull off a visual trick like that.

usually, the more into the hobby, the more you spend into it. Not the opposite.

No, this is a huge impediment to its usefulness. Having to carry around a phone while running is a drudge regardless of how serious of a runner or athlete you are. Not to mention so many other sports that could benefit from this but won't. This is especially so considering the larger size of the iPhone 6 and especially the iPhone 6 plus.

I carry my phone around while running all the time. How else would I get music and GPS tracking?

What casual runner goes running without their phone? That's how we get GPS, work with Nike+ gear, and can be reached if someone needs us or make a call if we need to.

How many leave their phone on the house and go out jogging?

> What casual runner goes running without their phone?

Me for one. I run 2x a week for about a half-hour each time in the park near my apartment building. That's about as casual as it gets?

I used to run with my phone, but I recently bought a tiny mp3 player and a Casio wristwatch for running. I don't care about GPS since I know my park, and if someone needs me I'll talk to them in a half hour.

Needing to bring a phone with me makes this watch absolutely a no deal.

Casual runner here. Could not imagine running with my phone.

I think the point is that lots of runners would prefer not to bring their phone if that was an option and this watch could have enabled that. It's a legitimate (minor) annoyance to carry your phone while running.

For less serious runners, the GPS serves no noticeable purpose. Without the GPS, the Apple Watch can still track your speed and distance.

It certainly serves some purpose to map your runs even for less serious runners. It would also be cool to have music without being tethered to the phone.

It's more than a minor annoyance. The problem is how to carry it. Pockets are out of the question (for those that have them) as is any sort of bag or purse. I used to have a band for my old iPod that would strap to my arm. I suppose going back to that contraption with a phone is a possibility, but considering the discomfort and weight, not to mention the possibility of rain destroying the phone, I would do anything to avoid that. And if it's on my arm anyway, why would I need the watch interface?

Completely agree.

Easy, get a race belt.

These are nylon belts with a buckle and a small expandable pouch. They also have 2 toggles to attach your race bib too.

They are just big enough to hold your phone, keys and some cash or cards.

You'll see people doing fun runs wear them to avoid carrying a pack for their stuff. To prevent water damage, put your item in a ziplock bag.

Every runner I know, casual or not, myself included. Not to mention other athletes in such sports as football, soccer, basketball, hockey, etc.

It's very inconvenient to run with a phone and almost impossible to play other sports with one.

>What casual runner goes running without their phone?

ME!! I don't want something bulky weighing me down.

Not to mention women's running clothes don't fit phones typically.

Casual runner, cyclist, recreational triathlete. Phone always on me; it's one of the few times I want the phone functionality in case of mishaps. Running vests with cyclist-style tail pockets plz!

> What casual runner goes running without their phone?

Judging by the answers you got, ones who have oversized phones and think that shaving a little weight is worth not being able to call emergencies (who cares, they can use a strangers phone if that happens, just like the guys who cycle and skip tools, patches and pumps and then end up asking people passing them by, and anyway emergencies happen to other people).

OTOH, I don't know why anyone would ever wear a watch after 1993.

I wear one all the time. It's purely fashion.

Hah, I buy this argument far more than any claims that people need accurate time measurement at notice short enough that taking a phone from a pocket/bag is unacceptable. Though I do think watches are hopelessly retro :-)

I mean, don't get me wrong. It is an added convenience to have access to the time a bit more quickly. If I'm checking the time, there's a decent chance I'm in a rush for something.

But yeah, almost purely fashion.

I wear an automatic watch.

1) I like being able to know time and date at a quick glance -- the ease of this is light years ahead of any smartphone. 2) It never runs out of juice since it doesn't have a battery. 3) It looks good (IMO). 4) I irrationally like the fact that my moving about gives life to a tiny beating mechanism. For that reason my watch has a power reserve meter.

Have zero interest in smartwatches though. I have enough crap to keep charged as is.

Of course I always have my phone!

Having run quite a number of marathons, half-marathons, 5k, 10k and all distances in between, I have noticed that there are still a good amount of runners out there (whether serious or not) who use their 4"/5" phones for tracking.

Well, that's just marketing. Of course it isn't the ultimate device for serious athletes, but it has useful health related features for the broad audience.

No matter how Apple markets its products, it's always intended for a broad spectrum of users, which almost excludes the possibility that you'll ever see a Apple product that is specialized for some kind of niche

Maybe during the event but every other day while your out working out and such? I don't know about you, but I don't know any cyclist that leaves home without his phone. Heck it comes down to what not to take beyond a few certain requirements. // 2 tubes, pump, money, id, phone, water, energy gels (yuck), rain cover //

If I am short riding, as in I could walk home, the phone still goes with me. However I see no use for the watch. I have a simple comp on the handlebars, maybe I could stick the watch there?

While I disagree with your premise as the phone is there anyway, I see the watch more as Starbucks wear than anything else.

Whoa, a Garmin Forerunner 910xt for $300? Hardly. My triathlon bundle cost $500, $400 for just the watch itself. https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/prod90671.html

This is pretty ridiculous comparison. The Apple watch is clearly not targeted to any serious runners/triathletes. I don't recall anyone claim it's a "sports watch".

Apple Watch Sport

http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-sport/

There is a huge difference between a sports watch and a sports edition of a watch.

As a serious runner, there is no way that I would run for an extended distance without my phone on me. First of all because I would rather not have to drag my injured self out somewhere to ask for help, rather than being able to call for it from my phone. Whenever I do triathlon training, I would also not think of leaving without my phone, as I tend to go for 30-40 mile bike rides into remote areas, and having a way to communicate with the outside world in case the worst happens (equipment malfunction, injury) is preferable. I don't think I have a single watch that can last more than 7 hours of continuous GPS usage, between running and biking, so I'd like to see what the battery life on the Apple Watch looks like before passing judgement.

Many Garmin watches last much more than 7 hours. My old 310XT lasts around 12.

I've had both the 310XT and the 910XT, and neither lasts more than 6 hours now. Using the heart rate monitor strap greatly impacts my battery life, for some reason. I wish there was a way to tell how many cycles my batteries have left in them. I think it's time for an upgrade :)

I am a serious runner (have run 3 marathons, running a fourth in a month and a half), and I'm entertaining the possibility of converting over to the iPhone + Apple Watch. For me though, it's more complicated.

I always run with my phone & wallet for emergency reasons. I don't use a sports watch anymore (I do have a Garmin), but largely due to their bulk & wanting to focus less on my time/pace & more on my body.

I also am getting sick of Verizon getting vendors to lock down Android phones AND forcing phone vendors to toss a bunch of crapware onto the phones. The only reason I haven't switched yet is because I am on a legacy $40/month/line family plan. I am not a huge fan of iOS - I love Google's integrations with its services with Android.

A lot of what I end up doing is taking out my cellphone to check for messages or the time. It's excessive, and quite inconvenient.

Why not one of the existing smartwatches? I haven't yet been convinced that they're built for my desires.

I'm not really in a rush to make a decision here, and likely will wait some before jumping in (probably will try out the Moto 360 in the short term), but the cost isn't really out of the realm of reason necessarily to me.

I run with an iPhone in a running belt, a BT HR monitor (Wahoo TICKR Run), and the Magellan Echo. I'm very pleased with the setup.

The Echo is now compatible with several Android phones as well. Given your description, I think you'd really like it.

I'm a casual runner and see no value in the $350 Apple Watch as well.

Heart monitoring and GPS is a nice to have for me. Seriously, all I need is my old $75 16GB iPod nano 6th generation square.

"$350!? And it can't even do the things my highly specialized device can do." It's funny you should mention the Forerunner 910, because you know what the 910 can't do? Be a watch. But that's okay because you didn't buy it to be a watch.

Besides, I'm the only runner I know that doesn't bring a phone with me when I run.

It's ironic if the 910 can't tell you the time, since one of the necessary components of a GPS device is a ridiculously accurate clock.

The 910 is capable of displaying the time of day, but it should be glaringly obvious to anyone that owns one that telling you the time is a peripheral feature that comes for free because of the nature of GPS devices. Combine that with a 20 hour battery life (probably far less if you're in an office and the GPS receiver is cranked all day), huge size, and questionable aesthetics, and it's obvious that Garmin did not intend for you to wear it to work. Not that it keeps people from trying if the Garmin forums are indicative of anything.

And Captain Pedantic has swooped in to inform us that the ridiculously accurate clocks live on the GPS satellites not on the device.

While the GPS satellite has atomic clocks, the GPS device also requires an accurate oscillator that is synced with the satellites' clocks — it uses the satellite signals to approximate the actual time and uses that approximation to measure the time delay to each satellite's clock to estimate distance, using an iterative algorithm.

"Steve Ballmer Laughs at iPhone" in 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

My impression from the marketing video where Ive speaks is that this is more like a vanity jewelry item, not anything serious and definitely not something that can handle abuse. I don't think they even market it as a sports item.

I run and this is fine with me. I don't go anywhere without my phone anyway, and I imagine GPS on the Watch would mean shorter battery life or bigger battery/watch.

The fact that the Apple Watch doesn't do everything we can conceive combined with its visual elegance (at least in the videos) suggests to me Apple's target in this first iteration is the luxury market. I expect the athletes using those "crappy" Beats headsets will be popularizing Apple Watches to adoring fans before too long. That will give Apple enough time to make improvements over time.

"Maybe if we don't mention lefties, everyone will forget they exist"

Righty watches aren't a big deal for us to use because you only use the crown to set them, and you only set them twice a year. On the Apple Watch, you're going to use it all the time.

It's not even that I couldn't use my right hand, it's that I don't want a bulky $350 gadget permanently strapped to my left hand, which I frequently use for doing things. Great recipe for (best case) being irritating, or (worst case) getting smashed into stuff.

Maybe it can be rotated 180° to go on a right arm? It'd mean the button and crown positions are backward, but it'd be better than nothing. I see no mention of that option anywhere, so for now I assume you can't.

Either way, doesn't support the 4S, costs more than I'm willing to spend, and will hopefully get thinner in future releases. I'll jump on the smartwatch train eventually, but not with this one.

I don't see why the face wouldn't be reversible - it detaches completely from the strap, and it's not like the software UI is going to be upside down - your phone can already handle that. The only difference will be that the crown is below the button.

NFC might also be tricky. It looked like you use the top/front of the watch to pay. I'm not sure if this would work in reverse.

don't most nfc implementations use a coil of wires that are some minimum physical size? I imagine the coil is the size of the watch (horizontally)

Agreed, it just seems like something that Apple ought to mention. Can't find it anywhere on their website. And orientation changing makes sense for a phone feature because people switch between portrait and landscape, while this is a permanent setting that 90% of people would never touch.

It'd be a giant oversight for Apple though, and I'd be surprised if nobody on their design team is left handed.

Yes, I would have also thought that since this was a presentation to the general consumer and not just a tech demo ala WWDC where these things don't matter yet, that they would have addressed this issue by showing a person taking the watch from one wrist and putting it on the other and thus showing the device can be turned around and used just like before.

it can be reversed, as mentioned by a couple of attendees of the event by now.

ArsTechnica is reporting that lefties will be accomodated, but the strategy to be used was not clear.

Who would have thunk that of all the end-of-2014 smartwatches, the one that would make you look the least like a dork would be the one from Motorola?

Shame about the battery life, though. Please fix that Motorola, I want to give you my money so bad, but cannot do it until you fix the battery life.

I haven't seen anything on battery life actually. You have some estimates?

The Ars review talks about the poor battery life: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/moto-360-review-beaut...

Verge too:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/5/6108947/moto-360-review

OTOH, gizmodo says the battery life isn't quite that bad:

http://gizmodo.com/moto-360-battery-life-test-so-far-not-as-...

... but every other review I've read (about 6 including these) has really hammered it on the battery being dead well before the day is over.

I'm sure there is some YMMV depending upon usage and a moto 360 might last me a full day personally (since I'm not a reviewer and wouldn't be doing... reviewer things with it all day), but I'm not willing to slap down $250 to find out when even the positive reviews say it has the weakest battery life of all the current crop of watches. I can wait until revision 2 hits to be sure that I only have to take the thing off once per day.

I feel like the next gen Moto watch will have the better SoC, much better battery life (as many Android watches already have) and higher resolution. And maybe more sensors. And hopefully match some of Apple's innovations.

I think I'm about a year from being able to join the bandwagon.

Which Apple's innovations?

Watch to watch direct communication, haptic feedback, force sensitive screen on a sapphire display, just to name a few?

The watch-to-watch communication with all the sharing your heart rate and sending little pictures was the most Samsung thing I've ever seen anyone but Samsung do. Seriously, is there a real problem lurking around somewhere for which this is a solution?

The force sensitive display might be useful, I couldn't really tell from the coverage. At least one person there commented that they were having a hard time seeing the big difference between "force press" and "long press".

Is the "Taptic" feedback significantly different that the vibrating motor present on every other watch? I can't really tell, but I think functionally, vibration can already serve the purpose well enough, although the Apple implementation might be a bit more elegant -- I can't find enough information to say for sure.

I would say the Apple innovations here is mainly the digital crown. On every smartwatch, there's a lot of swiping around to do basic navigation, but there's not been a really good way to zoom in and out. Apple's implementation allows for apps like their photo demo to be more practical. I'm suspicious that they might be overusing it -- the idea of needing to zoom around to launch apps seems less like a good idea, but overall the novel input method is an innovation I'd say.

I assume they must have NFC in the watch to handle the payments system. That's (I think) novel among the smartwatch lineup, and maybe that's a thing that really catches on.

Mostly though, I think that the people who complained that Android Wear was just a mini cell phone on your wrist should be disappointed with the Apple Watch as well. I'm not one of them for the record, I'm wearing the Gear Live right now, and I quite like it. But I don't think Apple has revolutionized the smart watch. They've just made what looks to be a solid entry into the market.

> The watch-to-watch communication with all the sharing your heart rate and sending little pictures was the most Samsung thing I've ever seen anyone but Samsung do.

Haha, yes I thought the same thing too - communicating heart rates, hand drawn fish for sushi, 3 dots for asking lunch - that was _very_ un-Apple-y.

"But think of the teenagers! They will love this feature!" - words probably uttered at Apple HQ during the design phase that made Steve Jobs shake in his grave

And of course the one thing we've heard over and over for the past few years from Apple is "teenagers don't wear watches". Presumably one could also add, "teenagers don't have a grand in cash to spend on a phone/watch combo" as well.

I think the logical conclusion to draw here is that there was an elaborate "Trading Spaces" style bet in the Apple executive ranks on who could get Tim Cook onstage doing the most ridiculous product demo. Kudos to whoever won that one.

> The watch-to-watch communication with all the sharing your heart rate and sending little pictures was the most Samsung thing I've ever seen anyone but Samsung do. Seriously, is there a real problem lurking around somewhere for which this is a solution?

I don't know that it felt Samsung. When I heard about the feature I immediately thought of how I might use it with my wife and family. It basically takes the trivial communication you have with people close to you throughout the day and makes it more physical and less complex. I don't think I've gotten that feeling from Samsung features — that said, I don't really have any desire to wear this (or any) watch at all.

> The force sensitive display might be useful, I couldn't really tell from the coverage. At least one person there commented that they were having a hard time seeing the big difference between "force press" and "long press".

Yeah, I'd like to know more about this. It felt like one of the more clever features if it is actually distinct from long press. That is, if it can feel easily distinguishable from a press or swipe while still feeling intuitive, I think they will really have something.

> Is the "Taptic" feedback significantly different that the vibrating motor present on every other watch? I can't really tell, but I think functionally, vibration can already serve the purpose well enough, although the Apple implementation might be a bit more elegant -- I can't find enough information to say for sure.

Well according to the keynote the "Taptic" feedback unit can actually mark out directions on your wrist. That is, telling you to turn left or right when you come to an intersection purely through touch. So unless it's something stupid like "two vibrates for left, one for right" it might actually be something interesting.

> the idea of needing to zoom around to launch apps seems less like a good idea, but overall the novel input method is an innovation I'd say.

It sounds like you can do either. They mention tapping to zoom in on an "app neighbourhood" and tapping once again to launch an app. I also think the digital crown is quite clever — and it will be a very Apple-thing to pull off if they can make it feel truly one-to-one with the UI animations.

> I assume they must have NFC in the watch to handle the payments system.

I've read that the NFC payments through the watch will be tied to skin contact. So they will only work while the device is touching your skin. If you lose skin contact you'll have to re-enter your pin code next time you wear the watch to enable payments. Seems like a well thought out use case.

> Mostly though, I think that the people who complained that Android Wear was just a mini cell phone on your wrist should be disappointed with the Apple Watch as well. I'm not one of them for the record, I'm wearing the Gear Live right now, and I quite like it. But I don't think Apple has revolutionized the smart watch. They've just made what looks to be a solid entry into the market.

I agree. Though I'm a little disappointed that the Apple Watch attempts to be so many things.

I hope so. Just by switching to a Cortex A7 or A53 @ 22nm instead of Cortex A8 @ 45nm, this should add 78% more battery life (according to the benchmark of Ars Technica). And by having a round battery instead of a square one, 57% more capacity. So if this 360 lasts 12h, we're looking at more than 33 hours of battery life. But the 78% improvement with a Cortex A7 would be under heavy load, probably not the same story for IDLE usage.

> the one that would make you look the least like a dork would be the one from Motorola?

The band connection to the very bottom is really too bad, it makes the watch look extremely thick.

Although it makes it much more comfortable to wear.

Thanks! I was trying to figure out why the Watch looks thick from the side, but seemed not too thick in photos on peoples' wrists. That explains it.

Yes, bracelet attachment really makes a world of difference, I was shocked to learn that the 360 is "only" 11.5mm thick but looks much thicker than mechanical chronographs (routinely 15mm thick), and I've had multiple friends comment the 360 was a no-go due to thickness

For non-Mac users, the parent typed "(apple-logo)Watch". The Apple logo is only visible to mac (and iOS?) users because it's in the private use area on fonts on macs.

And Linux users, apparently.

Yea--it's like they went out of their way to screw up the design? Tim should have taken off the watch and smashed it on the floor--said sorry; we will be back!

The Swiss are going to sleep well tonight.

I really wanted to like this?

You know, I was thinking the same thing. I think I prefer the roundness of the 360, than the rectangular Apple design. However, you won't catch me wearing either of them until you don't have to have a phone with you.

I'm thinking Minimum Viable Phone (or communications device) that I can wear on my wrist when doing thing, and have some casual interactions with text messaging, and glancing at emails)...

> I'm thinking Minimum Viable Phone (or communications device) that I can wear on my wrist when doing thing, and have some casual interactions with text messaging, and glancing at emails)...

The problem's these require extensive radio interaction/SoC, without a phone support (which can stream the information via bluetooth LE) you have to carry that in the watch itself.

Yeup. So wake me when this becomes a reality: I'm sure somone's patenting building a cellular antenna into a watch band as I type this. Plus, I'm sure 6G networks will be faster and require even less power....

The antenna is not the problem, the radio chips (and power) are.

Specifically, you need enough power to regularly transmit an electromagnetic signal on the order of miles that scales with the inverse square law.

Considering that they can't even get the battery life up without that requirement, it might be a while unless we make significant scientific breakthroughs in battery or wireless technology.

Considering that they can't even get the battery life up without that requirement, it might be a while unless we make significant scientific breakthroughs in battery or wireless technology.

"Both the Samsung Gear S and the Gear Circle will be available in global markets in phases through Samsung’s retail channels, e-commerce websites and via carriers beginning October."

Gear Circle requires a smartphone for connectivity. I'm interested to see what kind of battery life the Gear S is able to get with a 300mAh battery.

They exist, but I don't think the experience is great.

http://fr.aliexpress.com/item/Intelligent-Bluetooth-watch-mo...

Those will be built in to the Apple Pants. You can leave your iPhone at home, you will just need to wear these special pants.

The Samsung Gear S will have a 3G radio of its own.

http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/2014/08/28/Samsung-Gear-S-...

Edit: replaced link

But I never leave my phone behind anywhere and the way the watches work is quite brilliant in that they interface with your phone. They do everything you can do on your phone but at a glance, that's the whole point of them. They are small, easily accessible and harness the power of a larger device.

I fear that you might be representing too small a fragment of the market to get your desired product.

I love what moto did with their watch, the shape is great and the design is elegant. I personally dont like the shape of the Apple watch,but I'm waiting for more infos about battery life.

My primary gripe with the Moto 360 is that it's huge. My wrists just aren't big enough to sport a watch that size and not look or feel silly.

It's not "huge", it's smaller than a lot of analog watches I own.

I have tiny wrists and own a Moto 360. It's not huge at all. Try one on at a BB once they're in stores and see for yourself.

Actual Moto 360 owner here to dispel the two most common complains because I'm tired of hearing them parroted online. You'll find that you only hear them from people who've never actually used/seen the watch in person.

1. Battery life. The initial reviews complaining about battery life are simply inaccurate. I have ambient mode on (always-on screen) which is supposed to kill battery, and am easily getting a day out of this watch (ending 16 hour days with 20-30% remaining). I'm using the watch all the time to read emails, respond to messages, etc. If you don't believe me, check /r/moto360, you'll find a bunch of people who actually have the watch corroborating that the battery life is perfectly fine.

2. Size. I have tiny wrists and it looks great on my arm. Not too thick or too big at all, and very much on par with typical men's watches. The fact that it's very light helps too.

It's a fantastic device and I'm really enjoying it.

Thanks for the feedback; I'm now intrigued enough that I will at least try to find someone local to me that has one to get some real world impressions.

If the battery life is indeed a lot better than the vast majority of reviews are stating then Motorola really needs to get ahead of this message, because it would be foolish for them to expect most people to spend $250 just to try the device out when there is such a clear consensus of a major problem in the published reviews.

The size was never an issue for me because that's an easily measurable spec and I'm okay with the size as specced, but buying the device when almost all the reviews are telling me the watch will be dead in 12 hours represents a pretty big leap of faith, so if it really isn't an issue (other than PR), I do hope Motorola finds a way to get past it.

I saw a girl wearing a moto 360 on the train yesterday. This was my first sighting in the wild. She just looked like a normal fashionable girl wearing a "boyfriend" sized watch. I think the size argument is very much overplayed. Large watches are already the norm, which is nice for smartwatches that'll be unusuable at super-petite sizes.

Withings Activite is a much better looking smartwatch

I was really expecting, from a looks perspective, that the Moto would look like garbage compared to the Apple watch. Instead we got the opposite. A made a little write-up here:

http://nothingjustworks.com/android-may-have-just-won-the-sm...

Android makes watches now? :O

Am I the only one who thinks the available/previewed watch faces don't match the intended goal of the device? This event was all about fashion, inviting all of the fashion journalists and talking about personalization. Not a single one of those watch faces look appealing, and worst off they do nothing to shake off the "geeky" stigma attached to smart watches. I think the design has potential when it gets a little bit thinner (v2?), but the previewed watch faces look absolutely awful to me. You'd think that would be the easiest part of building a super computer that fit on your wrist.

One would assume that third party apps could provide a watch face.

Yes, I was thinking that screen savers are back! (AfterDark, anyone?)

> and worst off they do nothing to shake off the "geeky" stigma attached to smart watches.

I disagree with you on this. For me, this smartwatch, like all the other recent ones, is everything but geeky. They look like they're designed for everyone except the techies (they probably are). I for one would love a smartwatch that gives the vibe of advanced, "hackery" technology.

> is everything but geeky

I'm a nerd, and I'm sorry to be crude but NERD ALERT. A smart watch today starts at Geeky and works, laboring and awkwardly, towards generally acceptable.

If you think a smart watch by any manufacturer, at this early point, is everything but geeky you gotta get out of the office.

I was surprised at how bad the watch faces were. Motorola are the only ones to have done well in that area. Remember though that this device is still 4-6 months away so that's probably not the final software.

> You'd think that would be the easiest part of building a super computer that fit on your wrist.

That's exactly why the watch faces aren't fashionable. As with other forms of art, fashion isn't as trivial as many people, including geeks, seem to think it is. I don't believe it's as easy as picking what the default background should be for each OSX release, however I wouldn't be surprised if they were given closely equivalent development times.

You're not the only one; they look terrible. If they wanted to eschew the traditional watch function and show other detail on there that would be understandable, but to have half-hearted attempts at clock design like this as a central feature is inexplicable in an expensive accessory branded as a watch. Worst of all are the faces with an image (presumably user supplied) with the time carelessly plonked over the top right.

What I find most telling of the abdication of design here though is that they offer so many options and seem to expect you to choose what goes on your home and mash up lots of different features in some sort of customised design - sounds great, but in practice you'll have just enough choice to do something mediocre, and not enough flexibility to do something you love, unless you're a developer and can make an app.

This sort of interface needs to be designed, and this is something Apple should have absolutely nailed on something they called the Apple Watch, not left as an afterthought.

I couldn't disagree more. I was impressed at the massive number of attractive variations. Incredibly well done IMO.

I liked the watch faces, but I think the iOS 7-style icon design looks terrible except on the colourful Watch Sport. Kind of how iOS 7 seemed to be built for the iPhone 5c. Seems very limiting.

Apple making it could make it un-geeky. I don't know how or why, but when they touch something, sometimes it becomes cool.

I wonder if app developers are allowed develop custom watch faces. Possibly not.

My biggest take away is that Apple has failed to advance the state of the art in any meaningful way here. I guess hype is always hype, but people really expected that Apple would do something that would knock this out of the park - a week long battery life, a flexible watch face, or a bracelet style 360 degree screen or something else that would just reset the whole space. It didn't happen. This device may sell well (or not) but it's basically a peer to the current entrants in this space, not a generation ahead like many people expected.

It's exactly one generation ahead.

How so? Genuine answer.

I fail to see what this offers that the other products in this space doesn't have. At least hardware-wise.

A set of new UI primitives and the hardware to support them (crown thingy, tactile feedback chip).

I have doubts about the crown thingy -- turning a watch crown while the thing is on your wrist is quite uncomfortable. I understand it's a big crown, but still doesn't seem ergonomic to me.

More like half a generation (if that). And by the time it ships, the lead in tech will be all but gone.

I think you're overestimating the technology which is available today. These watches, while not my taste, are an incredible feat of engineering.

This is an intriguing situation because while the "No wireless, less space than a Nomad. Lame." comment will always haunt those that criticise Apple product launches this is the first one in years where the product looks more like it's actually the Nomad being mentioned, and the iPod has yet to arrive.

I'm going so far as to say that smartwatches and VR represent the desperate flailing of a tech industry that's run out of ideas that will connect with people. We had a good boom post iPhone, but this kind of thing just doesn't look like there's any point to it.

It's amazing how similar it is to all the other clunky smartwatches. More polish, sure, but essentially the same thing. I think they really missed an opportunity here. Should have been two things only: sensors and notifications. Fitbit + Pebble in a slim, beautiful package.

It's already an iPhone accessory, not a standalone device. They could have gone all the way with that, but no, instead it's yet another touchscreen gadget to fiddle with.

I went in thinking there's no way it could interest me.

But the payments, the "crown", the haptic feedback, and the gamification of health... I'll probably pick one up.

"connect with people" is exactly what the apple watch does. This strikes me as the first tech. product launch that the fashion aspect plays at the forefront. Personally, their watch is not for me. But, this strikes me as Apple's next transition from technology company to a consumer fashion brand (making the Beats acquisition somewhat more clear).

Think about it, Apple's 3 watch models are differentiated by the aesthetic desires of the consumer, not the technology differences. This is the next stage of technology fading into the background and our vanity/fashion consciousness driving ahead. -- I suspect that very reason is why you and I as techies are not excited about the device.

Or its a very optimistic push to try and make a new market area which is fraught with difficulties work well?

When you get down to it the fundamental issues of smart watches haven't been fixed. We do not have batteries big enough to give the sort of runtime which would make it acceptable, and people are already burdened from device charging fatigue.

Smartwatches have runtimes measured in under-a-day, depending how they're used. That is nowhere near good enough.

My Pebble lasts a whole week.

I guess this is like saying my Nokia 3310 lasts a whole week compared to a smart phone.

Probably. I often compare the Pebble to being the Palm Pilot of smartwatches.

In my opinion you're utterly wrong about VR, it's going to be a transformative technology and will precipitate a massive push for high end real-time graphics. People want new experiences without leaving their sofa and VR will bring that in spades.

As far as the watch goes, I think it will make money but less than the iPad. It's clearly pitched as a fashion accessory and will find a market. Just not a big enough one to satisfy analysts.

> People want new experiences without leaving their sofa and VR will bring that in spades.

It's far from clear that they're actually willing to do anything about it. Look at 3D TVs. No one wants to sit on their couch lazily watching whatever's on with special glasses.

If VR was a passive technology like HD -- by which I mean you buy a new TV and everything is better without any further action on your part -- I'd be more confident that you're correct. But it's not. I can't see headsets as a thing people are going to wear sitting on their sofa with the family. Game consoles seem like an obvious target with an audience that might be receptive, but otherwise, I just can't envision mass adoption.

I don't argue that it would be an easier sell if it wasn't so anti-social to use. But it certainly can't be compared to 3D TVs or movies for that matter, which are an awful hack.

This generation's VR is the real deal, and while the technology isn't quite there yet, it's within touching distance. People will be prepared to put up with the inconvenience because the experience will be significantly more compelling than anything else they've seen. It will be massive based on word of mouth alone.

I think that very much depends on perspective. The technology powering a current-gen headset might be brilliant, but the headset itself -- not the technology but the very idea that I need a headset is still very much an "awful hack". At least to me, and I suspect quite a few others. I could be wrong of course...just my predictions there, but that's my problem with the tech.

I guess what I'm saying is that if the experience is 10x more compelling (which is what I think it will be), then people will put up with it.

Putting on skis and getting to the top of a mountain is inconvienent but people still do it.

Some people ski, occasionally. I can totally see that future for VR as well, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. For gaming, it's at least potentially very compelling. I just don't see it as a technology people want for more general use. I don't think we'll be using it browsing Facebook or sitting in the park.

People don't wear skis around in their daily life. Skis are very much a special purpose item that most people use between never and about once a year, with never the runaway winner, if you consider the fraction of even relatively affluent people who don't ski at all.

I think you're taking the ski thing a little literally. I'm using it as an example of how people will do something quite arduous, expensive and dangerous because it gives them a unique experience. Obviously the 'overhead' of putting on a VR headset is massively less than that of skiing.

If you think of VR as being a new screen technology, I can see why you might come to the conclusion you have. But true VR (where you have 'presence') goes far, far beyond that. I agree it's not going to be a general purpose platform like the smartphone, but I think it will still be high impact.

Do I think people will be browsing Facebook with VR? Probably not. The challenge for Facebook will be to create an environment based on their content that you would want to visit.

I didn't really intend that to be literal. I'm going with the "skiing as a metaphor" here. Yes, people will do something arduous and inconvenient for the experience, but they do it rarely. The inconvenience is tolerable when you do it every once in a while to get a unique experience. The same level of inconvenience is not at all tolerable as part of your day to day life.

If the argument is that VR will become "an experience", then I'm fine with that. But a capital-E-Experience is the opposite of everyday mass adoption.

I think it depends on exactly how good this generation of VR technology turns out to be. 3D was really pretty underwhelming and hard to watch for a lot of people. And at the end of the day it didn't look terribly real.

The cumbersome nature of VR goggles could potentially be outweighed by the sheer novelty and intensity of the experience.

[I accidentally posted this comment in the wrong place; it was meant to go https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8294635 here.]

I don't see that as being a problem that people are looking for a solution to. You're describing interacting with a very heavy desktop-type computing system, but the headset only solves the output problem. If I need large numbers of application windows arranged in space, I also need much more sophisticated input devices. Head tracking, eye-tracking, Leap Motion style stuff, all of that can be useful, but it's not enough for typing this comment into this input box, for instance. Better voice helps, but it's still not good enough, and it also adds yet another social factor that needs to be overcome, as people don't really like talking to their computers on average.

Maybe eventually this is the world we'll be living in. Right now, and for enough of the foreseeable future to worry about trying to predict, people with those needs will want to have a real keyboard and mouse or trackpad, and at that point, they will just use a laptop. Any benefit you get from the VR is, I think, outweighed by the downsides of not being able to just look around the actual physical environment.

You don't have to beat the competition on every axis to succeed, but you do have to eliminate any axis for which you are an immediate non-starter. I think the headset makes it an immediate non-starter for widespread general purpose use.

Hee hee. Wait until people twig properly to VR's usefulness as a way of displaying simple virtual 2D screens or application windows. (Nearly) any number of windows of any size, at any position, and at infinite focal length, anywhere you are able to sit down and put on VR goggles, without a particularly high GPU/CPU burden. That makes the VR HMD a disruptive entrant into the small phone/big phone/small tablet/big tablet scrap. It's probably going to take further improvements in resolution, off-centre visual distortion and HMD bulk before it can really take off in that role, but like any disruptive technology it doesn't have to beat the competition on every axis before it can succeed.

I disagree on the watches but agree on VR. A phone in your pocket is really absurd when you think about it. It would be far more useful on your wrist for 80% of what you'd use it for. For the remaining 20% (gaming, typing longer texts, etc.) you can still have a larger phone but it would mostly stay in your bag.

As for VR, there is a solid 30+ years of it being "the next" thing and then failing to be. I tried the Oculus recently and it didn't change my mind.

Curious, whats your take on the Oculus? I'm getting a little sick of the paid PR messages and fanboys and am skeptical its going to have mass adoption. How did it feel to you?

I thought the motion and immersion were awesome but the graphics were less stellar than I expected. Obviously that is probably the easiest thing to improve. So for first person shooters it could be the best thing ever, but for general purpose gaming I'm not so sure it is worth the hassle (much like 3D).

Again someone who are ignorant to the people already owning a smartwatch. It has literally transformed my life, almost as much as when getting my first smartphone. I will wear one until the next technological paradigm shift happens and makes it obsolete.

I spent about 20 minutes reading through some of the now 650+ comments, and I'm a bit surprised how common the arguments are on both sides. It feels like the entire tech community has the same basic argument every time a new 1.0 apple product is released:

Those who don't like the product:

- it is feature incomplete

- the hype doesn't match the actual product

- it doesn't actually look that great

- there are other, better products already on the market

- it is overpriced

- one or two interesting feature doesn't equate to "innovation"

And those who like the product (or love Apple) tend to have counter-points for each argument.

I'm curious if anyone has compiled a list of day zero critiques over the years for Apple successes (Mac, iPod, iPhone) or failures (Mac toaster, hifi, etc.)? It would be fun (and maybe a bit informative) for the community to review.

Edit: fixed spacing and wording.

I think you are spot on with this comment. The reaction to this watch is not substantially different from every other reaction to a major Apple product (or OS version or whatever else they announce).

It can be entertaining to read (got me interested in the Garmin Forerunner that was mentioned) but it's just people at a bar chatting about the topic of the day.

"I'm curious if anyone has compiled a list of day zero critiques over the years for Apple successes (Mac, iPod, iPhone) or failures (Mac toaster, hifi, etc.)? It would be fun (and maybe a bit informative) for the community to review."

As someone that's followed HN and gadget-news blog comments far too closely since the late 90's, I promise you won't find a single thread too unlike this one. The only exceptions, oddly, might be the iPod nano and the iPod touch, which caught the competition completely flat-footed.

The iPhone announcement brought out everyone that owned a Nokia N95 to tell us how backward we were for being mildly impressed. The iPad brought out yawns. Every iPod model was an overpriced Archos or iRiver.

You read 32.5 comments/minute?

That's a skill I'd like to have...

Two small things:

* The product pages for the individual Watch lines, especially http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-sport/ , are the first time I can recall Apple using sex or (literal) sexiness in its advertising. (We'll pass over the "Rip. Mix. Burn." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ECN4ZE9-Mo cringefest ...)

* I await Gruber's reaction with considerable interest...

I found this really surprising too. Seemed quite out of character, really.

Regarding your first point, see:

http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2011/08/advertising-and-fut...

Don’t necessarily agree with everything in that article but it's remarkably prescient.

To those who are concerned about mainstream adoption of a watch like this, I remind you of the Pebble Kickstarter which was one of the most successful in Kickstarter history. And all those contributors had no guarantee that the Pebble would see the light of day. There is serious demand for a watch that does even what the Pebble originally promised, which is still far far less than what the Apple Watch has now proposed to do.

I have been a Pebble watch owner for over a year, after having given up wearing watches around the time I owned my first cellphone. I have come to feel the same NEED of having my Pebble on as I, and everybody else, has with their phone in their pocket. All of the quirks of the Pebble and everything that I have come to realize is missing with the Pebble, is addressed elegantly with the Apple Watch. 'Canned' and voice responses to messages... Huge. A non-obvious alternative to the classic vibration (which is obvious to people nearby when using the Pebble) in the 'tap' technology... also clever and smart.

Just fyi (happy Pebble owner since the Kickstarter), Pebble Glance now gives you the ability for canned responses to texts straight from the watch.

The main innovation I like is NFC in the Watch. This makes so much sense. What is the big advantage of pulling a phone from your bag instead of a wallet? Paying with a wrist, opening doors with your wrist, entering the metro with your wrist. Can't wait for the next Wear releases from Samsung to have it integrated :)

No touch ID though, that's still on the phone so.... I'm guessing payments won't be as useful on the watch, if present at all.

Yeah, I was wondering about this. My guess is that security will be based on the fact that you wear a watch, so it's much harder to lose it or steal it. Maybe they will have a passcode that applies until you take the watch off (which they have the sensors to detect). Maybe it will confirm proximity to your phone. There are possibilities.

Sony Smartwatch 3 has NFC (and GPS). Too bad it's rather ugly. AFAIK, it only currently uses NFC for pairing to a phone, but the hardware is there and Android Wear will hopefully soon include complete support for it, like they recently did with watch GPS support.

Unfortunately it is only a passive tag for pairing. You can't to do anything else with it, so it cannot read other tags itself.

Super disappointed with this. I was hoping for a bunch of sensors that fed my iPhone. Not something to discretely take meetings during a meeting.

Here is what is missing for me:

1. Sweat sensor.

2. Insulin sensor.

3. Smarter/more accelerometers to intelligently automatically detect what I'm doing. For example, if I start lifting 50 lbs in a dumbell bench press it should know that! My iPhone should auto update a fitness tracking app. If I start biking my normal "track" here in Toronto, it should automatically know that! So underwhelmed here.

4. No mention of emergency assistance "stuff", (like detection of heart attacks, or spiking insulin levels).

5. Some really stupid / weird features, although I do kinda like the shared heartbeat one. Would be fun on exercises / first date makeouts :)

I agree that any real fitness tracking solution should be able to capture a gym workout accurately, but how would you propose the dumbell thing would work? With NFC or something?

With the right accelerometers and gyros you can actually do this very easily. I've actually done something similar during a basic engineering course (we were detecting earthquakes, but the math is the same).

Edit: Downvote me all you want, but this is not that complicated to calculate.

How would this work for a 2x as strong person lifting twice as much mass as a normal person? Wouldn't that data look essentially the same?

A number of ways. First, it isn't just F = MA, the different joints and ligaments apply a different ratio of force depending on how strong you are. For example, biceps and hamstrings can get a lot stronger as a ratio of their typical strength than tendons in the wrist. By analysing known biometric data of the athlete (their weight, resting heart rate (athletes have a much lower rate), how fast they can cycle, perspiration patterns) and combining it with the gyros and accelerometers in both the phone and watch you should be able to accurately reverse calculate the weight and the exercise.

Interesting. I'd love to see how accurate this method could be, because it seems like there's a lot of variables to account for, and even then, it might not fully determine the exercise and weight.

Heart rate is a better indicator of metabolic effort than anything to do with accelerometers.

so you expected Apple to bend the rules of physics and biology. alright. sooo underwhelmed.

> 2. Insulin sensor.

How would it detect/monitor insulin levels? Have a needle on the back?

http://googleblog.blogspot.nl/2014/01/introducing-our-smart-...

Does Google put a needle in there contact lens? Don't think so... ;)

1. That appears to still be at the prototype stage (as of that post in Jan?).

2. It goes right on your freakin' eye, and apparently measures your tears.

So.. I guess if you strapped a watch to your eye it might work?

No they stick a piece of glass in your eye.

Seriously: that is highly experimental technology, based on an experimental technique, in a very specific part of the body.

It is not remotely trivial to do that on regular skin. I know in particular because a friend just submitted his PhD on the use of microdermal patches for blood analysis: the short answer is, it might work, but no one actually has any idea how the levels of things they detect relate to what the normal blood levels are which our current health science is based on.

EDIT: Also no one has any idea of what the sensor longevity would be. For new stuff like this, the answer tends to be single-use.

Bloodless glucometry via spectroscopy: http://www.groveinstruments.com/

Now that is seriously cool. I imagine patented heavily. Are they actually available, or still in the trial phase? (I couldn't tell from the site)

These ones are still on trial (according to their latest news they are currently on FDA testing and aim for commercialisation in 2015~2016) but others already have bloodless glucometers for sale (e.g. http://www.cnoga.com are available but not in the US because FDA testing ongoing). Those blokes were just the first ones I found.

>> "4. No mention of emergency assistance "stuff", (like detection of heart attacks, or spiking insulin levels)."

FDA. If they were to offer things like that they would have to go through so much regulation and approval it's probably not worth it right now. It would also cause leaks which they wouldn't want with the first gen.

I highly, highly doubt that s what is holding Apple back. There are tons of on market products for insulin testing and heart rate emergency response calls.

All Apple has to do is announce that it works, and that it will come on a country by country basis as they work with various governmental agencies. It will get green lit by political pressure.

By Insulin sensor, do you mean a blood glucose monitor?

>> For example, if I start lifting 50 lbs in a dumbell bench press it should know that!

Exactly how do you propose this would work?

You are disappointed by diabetic specific monitors, the lack of an app that I'm sure someone will create someday, and something that physics will likely never be able to solve. I think it's safe to say that your expectations started in the realm of fantasy. Innovation can't ignore reality.

People's expectations can, though. And when it comes to quarterly revenue statements, it matters.

There are already devices that have proved this concept in production (and waiting FDA approval) or on the market.

Could you provide a link? I feel I'd have heard if any physics defying devices exist.

I don't think you can get much more information than heart rate from a non-invasive device whose only input is the surface contact with your wrist.

Electrical Skin Resistance ("Sweat sensor") would be possible to measure, but in my brief experience with it is very unreliable as the sole source of information, since you get the same physical response from many different causes.

https://www.trainbsx.com/insight <- I've got in on the Kickstarter. Measures blood lactate.

Why would they waste money on a high tech insulin sensor barely anyone will use?

I wanted altimeter and compass. I' using Casio PRG-70 since about 6+ years and I use them all the time during all kind of outdoor activities from hiking to biking to try finding way at Burning Man playa. This watch does not require batteries or charging at all - it gets all the charge it needs from day light (i.e. does not need actual sun light). They are submersible in water, dustproof in sandstorms, can be dropped on floor 100s of time, scratch proof against even fairly severe bumps, and has no problem in freezing cold or dessert heat. This makes them extremely reliable piece of tech you can count on regardless of your forgetfulness for charging them or natural elements. For me, they are my must-have outdoor companion. It was big bummer to see Apple Watch does not have compass and altimeter (there is no mention of it) and relies on iPhone for getting elevation and direction. They could have explored way for self-charging that many time pieces thses days offer. Smartwatch that doesn't need charging would truely be breakthrough.

Now that Apple has gone public with it, they may be able to start submitting paperwork to FDA, partnering with other companies in a more open way, etc.

It's hard to build a huge ecosystem/etc. for something that was just a rumor, without that competitive cover being blown.

Number 2 and number 4 - this is what a "smart" watch should aim for. Being able to detect an early heart attack or low/high insulin levels and send out warning SOS's to hospitals is a great idea. The amount of costs this would save, the lives this would save...but sending smiley face to someone is innovation.

It amazes me how companies that have so much resources at their disposal cannot conduct research in these kind of domains.

Here are my first thoughts (I kind of won't be doing device specific nitpicking as this is the first iteration. We are sure the concept will evolve with time):

Good things:

1.) The Tap-talk feature is an absolute genius for me. This, exactly this, is the perfect non-intrusive yet hyper connected way to intimately stay in touch with someone. Just tap on their wrist, so simple. Make a little scribble to show emotion, so beautiful.

2.) The digital crown seems very interesting. I know the concerns on this thread, but if you see the demo again, the nob is bigger and is fluid enough to rotate by rolling just one finger on it. We hate crowns on our watches not because we have to rotate them, but because they are hard to rotate. This one might be different.

3.) The built. It starts at $349, while Android Wear is at $250-300 range. But then this is sapphire glass with at least steel body. And their is mention of actually how a watch is accurate with time, something 3 other companies didn't do.

4.) Multiple sizes is a good thing. Small people, petite ladies don't like to wear big sizes. I like how adaptive this watch is with the sizes, materials, straps.

Now on to the awkward parts:

1.) They gave developers at least 4-5 months time to implement the tap-talk on Android Wear. By the time this watch actually comes to stores, it would be beaten down concept.

2.) They gave Android Wear manufacturers all the time to step up their game.

3.) The killer app, even in on-stage demos, seems to be the maps app. The Apple maps, unfortunately. That makes it profoundly useless wrist weight for anybody living outside of handful countries it actually works in. That gives Android Wear a terrible advantage.

4.) No GPS on watch. So basically I have to carry my phone in pocket during runs. There is already GPS apps which do that. So that makes this watch essentially a display.

5.) No word on battery.

6.) Apple launched a watch today. A week earlier Moto launched a better looking watch. This is a sentence I never thought I'd say.

Would I have bought it today if Apple launched it? Yes.

Will I now that Apple has given me months to think it over? No.

I'm surprised that the Apple Watch looks so much like a watch. I was keen to see how they might break that concept apart and create something really novel.

I actually felt better about this design. I, too, was anticipating something radical. But we have seen what happened with Google Glass. I think the way to innovate in wearables is to start with something that doesn't stand out and then steer people into more innovative directions?

But if anybody could pull off a radical design without making it the status quo for creepy geeky young men, it is Apple.

I'm sorry? I don't really want to sound like I'm bashing Apple, but I'd never see something round, rectangular and bulky and think "watch" up until the recent advent of smartwatches. Apple Watch is as un-watchy as any of the competing smartwatches, in my opinion.

Here you go... Big, rectangular bulky watch. They cost 2.5 _million_ dollars each, but have no Bluetooth... sigh

http://www.independentjewellers.com/blog/2012/04/the-most-co...

You aren't familiar with two decades of Casio databank watches?

> And their is mention of actually how a watch is accurate with time, something 3 other companies didn't do.

I don't understand what you mean here. Do you imply other smartwatches drift a lot? That sounds hard to believe.

I was happy that there was no GPS on the watch because isn't GPS a big battery hog?

One correction: 6) Apple _announced_ a watch today. A week earlier Moto launched a better looking watch.

Even though I am an Android developer, I played with the thought of buying the iPhone 6 (the big one) and an Apple Watch, because Swift is kind of a reset for developers and I am very happy with my MacBook.

But now that I've seen the keynote, I've got some issues with the watch:

First of all, I feel it's too expensive, because those smartwatches are basically obsolete after a year. (at least to me)

It would have been good if Apple would allow those watches to be sent in and upgraded, especially for the version that uses a gold casing, which I suspect will be extremely expensive. (probably > $1000)

The design of the watch is not bad, but not good either. I would have no problem wearing it, but I don't like that rectangle look. (the Moto 360 looks better to me)

But on the other hand I like the navigation wheel a lot. I'm pretty sure that this alone will allow for more complex apps than what we see on Android Wear at the moment.

The new types of messages that Apple presented isn't interesting to me, but I can see the younger audience using it a lot.

Apple has a trade in option for iPhones, perhaps this will extend to watches, or perhaps the second hand market will be strong.

If not you can send it to cash4gold.com ;)

>First of all, I feel it's too expensive, because those smart watches are basically obsolete after a year.

I felt the same way when introduced rMBP but the prices are going down. Hopefully, they will go down in the next couple years. Personally $200 would be perfect but $350 is too much especially when I can get a new iphone for less (with a subsidy from my carrier).

I haven't worn a watch in at least 15 years. A good chunk of my friends and colleagues as well.

I'm sure there are interesting use cases, but my summary view is this seems like a current-generation iPod with a wristband.

No prediction of how successful it will be, but I kind of think this will be more niche than mainstream.

Same; for me it was mostly a practical reason though, my wrists started to hurt from computer work and the strap (metal one) was annoying against the edge of my laptop, so I had it off most of the time. Of course, if this thing proves to have added value (and just notifications isn't added value for me, I don't get them that often and if I do they're not important enough to warrant having to check them at all times), I'd consider going back to watches - pulling out your phone to check the time isn't the most convenient of actions.

This is an "iPod with a wristband" in the same way an iPad is a "really big iPod touch": not very much.

Actually, wouldn't the iPad be a really big iPhone without a phone app?

Well, the iPod touch is basically an iPhone without the phone app, so the analogy still works :)

i can't imagine this selling well, but i also couldn't imagine the ipad selling well and history showed i don't know what i'm talking about, so it'll probably be a huge hit.

I'm with you--I thought the iPad was dumb and happily ate crow after using one. Looking at the Apple Watch today I'm scratching my head wondering what's the point and who really wants to be even more distracted by their devices.

I had the same reaction to the iPad as you, and now am a very happy owner. Because of this, I now withhold my opinions until I can try out products in person, although I personally could never see myself owning a smart watch.

The watch looks very nice indeed but starting at $350 is ominously steep especially since it requires an iPhone

Watches aren't subsidized and there are thousands of dumb watches that people pay well over $350 for already.

The top three right now are:

* Samsung Gear - $199 [1]

* LG G Watch - $179 [2]

* Pebble Steel - $249 [3]

[1] https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=samsung_gea...

[2] https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=lg_g_watch_...

[3] https://getpebble.com/steel

None of those are dumb watches.

I'm not sure if I missed "dumb" or it was edited in shortly afterward, but either way that's comparing apples and oranges.

Compared to the existing precedent of smart watch prices, Apple's watch is $100 more expensive than the next highest priced model. This is, of course, what Apple does with all of their hardware, but whether it's unsurprising or not it's still a factual and relevant point to make.

The Pebble is $250. Adding another $100 to the Apple Watch is not that big of a stretch.

The Pebble Steel is already priced for Apple's target demographic. Adding 70% more cost to that is a bit of a stretch.

The basic Pebble is $150. The premium Pebble Steel is $250. The Apple Watch starts at $350; you can bet that the premium models will be well north of that.

Those "dumb" watches will still work in 5 years. Hell, they will still be nice in 100 years. Smart watches won't hold up for 5 years.

Maybe, but I doubt people buy a $500 watch just because it will still be nice in 100 years. That might be the case for $10000 watches.

> Maybe, but I doubt people buy a $500 watch just because it will still be nice in 100 years.

They're generally intended to last a lifetime, however long that is, and possibly be left to heirs.

A $500 watch will certainly still have much use 10+ years from purchase.

It might have minor scratches but that's it.

A smart watch will probably not even power on 5 years from purchase (due to bad battery); or be able to pair with your phone (new phone OS might not be backwards compatible).

> It might have minor scratches but that's it.

And chances are that's just the glass face, which takes minutes (and a few bucks) to replace.

Actually any watch over a few hundred will have a sapphire glass, so even after 10 years it's unlikely it has scratches.

The body may have some minor scratches, but I think it only adds to the charm.

Most "dumb" watches that cost over $350 will retain the majority of their value well past those 5 years, too. Apple's first generation watch will be ~$50 in 5 years.

Android gear can't sell for $50 now.

The first Samsung Gear watch was only announced a year ago (Sep. 2013), and you can get it for <$150 new. Pretty sure it will be well under $50 for that model in 4 years.

>Smart watches won't hold up for 5 years

This will be interesting to watch (sorry!) over the coming years.

I think the Swiss watchmakers would be more concerned about the label "dumb watch" than any threat to their sales.

This is why you don't buy v1 of Apple products. Guaranteed that the next version will be at least $50 cheaper... which still makes it too expensive.

With the notable exception of the first iPhone not having a subsidy price for a month or two Apple products don't tend to drop in price much year to year.

They've had the $199/$299/$399 price structure for the newest iPhones for more than 6 years.

That might've been true a long time ago but we've seen price drops for iPods, iMacs, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iPad 2 at its EOL, etc. over the years.

I'm calling a $50 price drop for version 2 after this thing doesn't quite hit sales numbers.

iPad? First gen was awesome, and they kept the price the same even to this day.

Price generally doesn't go down with Apple devices, but they'll gladly sell you an older gen device for a discount.

Have you seen the price of higher end (fashion) watches? Even relatively "plain" ones without gold/jewels are not cheap.

But this product isn't ostentatious enough or pretty enough for the fashion market, and it's way too expensive for the functional geek watch market.

$199 might fly. $350 is too damn high.

This is true fashion oriented technology in the same vein as Beats headphones. If it becomes a fashion statement to wear it, people will buy one at $350. Probably not many HN readers though.

In the world of watches, $350 is dirt cheap

They're different objects. You can buy $350 watches that are 10 years old in pawn shops, the v1 Apple watch is going to be obsolete in 2 years.

It may be that Google did a pretty good job of preemptively responding to the Apple Watch, but I don't find this that much more interesting than the already not very interesting Android Wear devices.

> preemptively responding to the Apple Watch

That's really interesting way to phrase it. if tables were turned would you say the same thing or would it be Google responding to apple or worst, Google copying apple?

Every company copies Apple, even when Apple makes it afterwards. Didn't you know that?

Assuming that Google hasn't spent "years" working on the Android Wear platform compared to Apple's "years", does it mean that based on what we've seen tonight vs. Wear, that Google has done better? I'm certainly of that opinion.

There were a lot of speculators who should be humbled by putting the "iWatch" on a pedestal before it was even released. I personally don't like the way it looks, though Apple considered something interesting, that not everyone's wrist is huge, and made 2 versions (Android Wear OEMs can of course counter this by flooding the market with 'choice')

I totally agree with you and think that google's wear is a better offering.

My original reply was referring to the fact that even though Google came to market with its wear device first (years ago with glass and months ago with on the watch) it's still being called a response to apple's non existent (at the time) product.

however if tables were turned and google were to release its first wear product months from now, after apple, NO ONE would call apple's watch a preemptive response to Google's wear. It would either be reported as Google copying apple or best case scenario Google's response to apple's innovation.

eg. No one called the original iPhone a preemptive strike on Android.

The fact that this requires me to bring my iPhone on a run kills it as a sport watch. I can get a high quality GPS watch for $150 that doesn't require me to bring my iPhone.

Or if I am OK with bringing my iPhone I can just use it.

Dumb, dumb move on Apple's part.

Hopefully it won't require the iPhone to be present all the time. Perhaps there's a sync function to send the running/sports metrics to the iPhone. Today's presentation left a lot to speculation.

It doesn't have its own GPS, so it cannot be a functional running watch without your phone. It's really dumb.

Sure it might not be for serious runners but about half the people I see running have a phone strapped to their arm. If they also have the watch it means they can see the display while running and get more accurate data. For those people it's not a big deal. If you're the sort of person who buys a GPS watch of course it won't be for you. When has Apple ever catered to niche markets?

"When has Apple ever catered to niche markets?"

-Today, with the presentation of the Apple Watch.

Yeah, that's exactly my point. I used my iPhone 3G for 2 years of running when I first started. Why would I blow $350 on an Apple Watch to get marginal gains that a $150 GPS watch can also give AND let me ditch carrying the phone. Which, arm strap or no, is bulky and at risk of destruction.

Perhaps the sport version will be iphone-independent at least that's what I'd assume...

Nothing they've released so far indicates that it would be. You'd certainly hope so, though.

It's a little thick isn't it? But it's got a design that I can see evolving over time. Not bad for a square-ish watch.

Except I don't see any features that I need to plop over $350 for. In terms of health-related metrics the Basis watch is more feature-complete, and over half the price http://www.mybasis.com/

In terms of personal assistant features, Google Now takes the lead along with any smart-watch that takes advantage of it and Android-wear.

When the iPhone released, I believe the market was primed for a next-generation smartphone. I don't think this is true for wearables now. The Apple Watch will have a much touger climb than the iPhone ever did.

I think the value proposition for the watch will build as the sum of many parts: style + health sensor + payment token + presence token + wrist comms + apps(?).

Think of it as sort of a persistent "me key" in a smart-connected world. But that world is still in its infancy, so the watch doesn't seem very valuable yet.

I think it's similar to the iPad in that there is not really a built-in value proposition. The iPad's value is 100% in its apps...but when it launched, there were not a ton of iPad apps.

In contrast, the iPhone was bringing a clear value prop from day one: phone calls, email, and iPod. But even then the real value prop took a long time to develop. Remember the keynote, when Jobs said "a phone... an iPod... an Internet communicator"? The first two got huge applause, the last one not so much. That term clearly confused a lot of people.

But if you look at how people use their smartphones now, it is by far the biggest portion of the value of an iPhone. Both phone and iPod functionality is being eaten by Internet services (VoIP and Spotify/Pandora).

I started wearing watches on a regular basis about a year ago and it has become an addictive new hobby, I'm up to 4 now and feel naked without one.

The primary use-case for a wristwatch - being able to glance at your wrist to tell the time - is actually very underrated in it's usefulness. We forget that watches started out as a pocket device until the military started strapping them onto the wrist for practical purposes.

When the cellphone came around we abandoned 100+ years of natural design evolution in favor of the more powerful new technology, but when that tech starts to fit comfortably in the same place that was so natural for the last century it will be a sea-change in the way we look at wireless tech...

For me it's now official: Apple has ceded its position as an industry leader/innovator, and become a follower.

This is a really, really lame product.

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

http://beta.slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releas...

Yes, all Apple products are infallible now.

I think the analogy probably doesn't stand up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293961 A better analogy may be what things would have been like if Apple had kept slogging it out in the handheld-computer market between '98 and '07.

Yes, you can use Apple Pay with the Apple Watch. Great addition, no more digging in my pocket for my iPhone Plus (if I can actually get it out of my pocket).

This is very usefull for those people that keep our phones in bags rather than pockets.

The more I think about it it more I think this watch isn't aimed at me...

I wear a watch, but I think about it as jewelry, and incidentally as a time piece. And until there is a killer app for a watch, I will continue to do so.

Originally, I posed myself the question _if_ I would wear a smartwatch if there is no such thing as a killer app. The answer is yes, but _when_ is a better question. And the partial answer isn't about it being a smartwatch or dumbwatch, but about being an uglywatch or not.

I think this watch fails the uglywatch criteria. Which is an odd thought to combine with Apple.

This. It's a piece of jewelry first and a timepiece second. Until it appeals to the Breitling/Tag/Rolex crowd I'm not the target market.

This Apple watch is clearly not intended for people like you and me. You won't see James Bond wearing an Apple Watch and you won't see NASA strapping them around the sleeves of space suits like an Omega Speedmaster. This is another piece of electronics that will look as dated as a CueCat or dot-matrix printer fifteen years from now. A classic timepiece, on the other hand, will retain or gain value over time. I bought my Rolex Submariner for about $6000 in 2009. Just five years later, a new Sub costs close to $9000. The value of used Rolexes is even higher. I wouldn't be surprised if my watch has doubled in value.

The Apple Watch has its place: it's an alternative to a Suunto or Garmin training watch, or an everyday watch for people who wouldn't spend more than $500 on a timepiece. It's a fashion item but it's not jewelry. Like the original iPhone, its scarcity may create an initial aura of exclusivity but things will die down once you see a 14 year-old on the bus wearing one.

Rolex's are the worst investments in watch collecting. Rolex is highly susceptible to overshadowing, so even though a new one is more expensive than when you bought it, it doesn't mean your watch is worth that. It's worth even less if you didn't service it in 2013 and didn't keep the paperwork (Rolex's must be serviced every 3-4 years to maintain value).

Of course, that doesn't mean you can't find someone dumb enough to unload it on for more than you paid it, but a collector isn't going to give you that value for it.

The Rolex Daytona is the exception to this rule though, but Submariners are mass-produced and common for luxury watches.

Source: I collect watches.

My Two Cents : I love watches, but a smart watch is just not for me. I prefer the craftsmanship it takes to create a watch that is delicately engineered to give you the exact time and makes sure the timekeeping is always accurate.

This is what a watch is supposed to do, keep time.

I feel smart watches are somewhat a novelty at the moment. There is simply too much functionality involved in smart watches, although they say its been dumbed own. When I look at my wrist, I want a quick glance of the time and a small moment to appreciate what is sitting on my wrist.

The idea around of smart watches brings so many possibilities.But I don't feel they are solving actual problems.

Design - Motorola is a company that is so underrated in the industry, the [0] Moto 360 was something I expected apple to release.Its actually a nice looking smart watch which seems to complement your lifestyle. Trust LG to follow suit. Square dials are just unpleasant to look at, but that's just my personal taste.

Battery life is another no go for smart watches right now - What if I'm on getaway hike for the weekend where I need to check the time and a watch compass regularly? I can get a Casio G Shock for hiking trip that is solar powered for half the price.

Its still early days to judge from afar. A couple of years, a couple of generations, and the prices falls down as always then maybe I'll check it out.

[0] https://moto360.motorola.com/

I'm with you. I love my iPhone, but it will be a cold day in hell before my wrist sports one of these.

That said, I'm certainly interested to see where it will go - especially, as someone else said - once watchmakers start dealing in tech rather than tech-makers dealing in watches.

once watchmakers start dealing in tech rather than tech-makers dealing in watches.

This couldn't have been said any better.

As the first step in watch market, Apple is in the right direction. Is this watch the ideal one we expect? Maybe not. Unlike others, they have found a path in design, but the logistics weighs more currently. So they are not able to go far at this moment. And the segment has attracted more and more competitors. It is not difficult to see they are struggling to balance the time to enter and their ability to offer an ideal product now. It's just the beginning.

really hate the curved look, bringing back memories of the 3GS. I thought we moved on to sharp corners.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one on this. Really dislike the curved / beveled designs.

The iPhone 6 is meh but I really dislike the look of the watch.

It looks like a Samsung doesn't it?

I think part of the reason for the curve is to give the illusion that it's thinner than it really is.

Remember this is supposed to be worn. Sharp corners would hurt your wrist.

The iPhone only seems affordable because it is tied to a 2-year contract. Otherwise it would be $800 and Apple wouldn't sell anywhere near as many as they do.

At $350, I don't see how Apple Watch is going to crack the volume markets. Think 15yo girls.

I am pretty sure that many contracts will throw in a watch for a few $/month.

It's really a deal breaker that the watch needs a phone to be tethered. If I'm going to look at a map, I'm just going to use the phone that's in my pocket. Similarly, I don't really need a buzz notification into my wrist to know text messages are coming in.

Not to mention, even though it's an Apple design, it still looks like a nerd-toy.

It seems that the Apple Watch needs an iPhone nearby to do anything useful. This is extremely disappointing and a complete failure from the get-go. Essentially, Apple Watch just becomes a tool for those too lazy to take their iPhone out of their pocket. It's absolutely useless for exercising or other activities where one wouldn't typically carry a phone. That was supposed to be one of the main selling points and one of the main target audiences. As a runner myself, I can't see wasting any money on this unless it gets its own Wifi/LTE/Bluetooth/Storage capabilities and I can leave my phone behind. It seems Apple missed this quintessential requirement.

It is cheaper to tie iPad Mini to wrist than buy an iWatch :).

And that's basically the same thing, too! /s

Also: why the hell do I need to see what the moon's gonna look like 6 days from now?

Very useful feature for werewolves. This watch will be a hit in the Twilight universe.

It's essential information when I'm smuggling rum, or planning my escape from lunatic asylums.

Or for knowing when an apocalypse will occur. If the moon isn't going to look normal in 6 days, then I'll know that I need to hide and launch my rocket-ship.

It's surprisingly unattractive, but I think people here may be underestimating the quality of the interaction design. Of course it's impossible to know without trying one, but they've clearly put some thought into it. The video is worth watching: http://www.apple.com/watch/films/#film-design

I notice in all of the pictures and videos that the "crown" (nub on the side) is a render....? Kind of like all of Behringer's new product announcements: you see them on their website and they may or may not ever actually exist or get released. Does this mean they haven't finished it, or have rushed to get to appear to be in the market before it is swallowed up by Android watches?

Ever since the days of the original Firewire-only iPod, they've done 3D renders for extreme closeups like that. They are usually very accurate but still, it seems like it would be just a bit more honest to use a photo.

I didn't know that - thanks. I suppose it would be difficult to show that rotating nub without animation.

Many of IKEA's catalogue images are renders now too.

Tim Cook tried to make the Apple Watch his iPhone moment but it came across as off - the Watch really is nothing as revolutionary in any way shape or form as the iPhone was.

It is thick. They had to resort to gimmicks - communicating heart rates, drawing fish, three dots to ask for lunch(!) - to make it sound useful. The price is off by at least $100. They specifically danced around mentioning battery life - with these many features it might not actually be all that better than the competition - an area where Apple habitually shines.

The UI also looked complicated to me - two ways to control it - touch and the unimaginatively named crown thing. Which is again very un-Apple. (When the watch is on your wrist I kept thinking how easily am I going to find the crown. For a normal watch that thing is very rarely used and that too when it is not on the wrist.)

Not that I think SmartWatches are here to stay as a mainstream product but the little hope we had that Apple will knock it out the park with some must have feature - that hasn't panned out with the iWatch for sure.

The original iPhone was thick also when it came out. Wait till the 2nd revision.

I agree the price for the low end version is off but the high end versions I expect to be in the 1k-2k range.

Of course the next iteration will be better - but I am not sure about the OG iPhone comparison - the market for SmartWatches seems to be entirely different. Feels like a niche fashion or fitness accessory at that price point. People badly wanted a great SmartPhone. Watches they can live without I think until there is a compelling use case for average consumer.

Those things are all OK compared to what's happening with the overall market but what bugged me is how very un-Apple like this was.

> the Watch really is nothing as revolutionary in any way shape or form as the iPhone was.

The iPod brought portable digital music collections to the masses.

The iPhone revolutionalized personal computing.

The Watch has exchangeable wrist straps.

The Watch is Siri, out of your pocket. It's http://www.dailymobile.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Michae...

Interesting, a payments system that works only if you have the latest iPhone, and a watch that only works if you have (possibly latest) iPhone. I love the display, and I think they have some great ideas here but I was hoping more for the 'ipod' replacement that would work with any iOS 8 device (like iPads too) instead of a remote for your phone.

Apple Watch works with 5, 5c, and 5s. And of course 6 and 6+

And if you notice, NFC of course isn't in the 5, 5c, 5s. So it makes me wonder if Apply Pay will work with a watch paired to an iPhone 5 series device. That might be a little nudge to get the Apple watch.

Oh, that's a good point. You're probably right, can't use Apple Pay with a watch paired with 5/5c/5s. I noted that the credit card information is available via passbook, but the 5's don't have the related hardware to support Pay, right? I mean the watch has the NFC, but the ability to generate the one-time numbers probably has to come from the phone?

It all seems a bit tangled together doesn't it? I get that when it makes sense but not when it crimps the addressable market fairly severely.

I don't know if maybe the one-time number capability is tied to hardware, or tied to network connectivity - or maybe you need only one of the two paths. In which case, you might be able to do it with a 5/5c/5s with network connectivity and a Watch, but you can only Pay fully offline with a iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 / Watch.

Works on as low as iPhone 5

Main drawback is you need an iPhone in order to have one. Couldn't there be a version that didn't?

Given the level of interaction between the phone and watch you really need a deep integration with the phone OS. The Pebble is phone agnostic but the interaction is comparatively limited.

I was hoping for an iPod Nano evolution myself, i.e. a standalone device that gets extras like GPS and connectivity when near your iphone, but alas.

Actually, was there anything on the ipod product line?

Nope, no announcements at least

It's amazing, the variety of attitudes and opinions on this thread. People don't spend this much energy arguing the fine points of war and yet, it really is just a watch.

The promotion is genius. Not sure about the watch, but if the chatter is any sign, it's already a success.

My take away from the page is that it is entirely focused on cosmetics and construction. It seems loud and clear they are positioning this as a piece of designer apparel... I think Apple understands the most important thing most people in the market for a watch are interested in; How desirable it is to others. The whole page just talks about how hawt it is.

As others have mentioned, I believe Google has put massive thought into smart-watch interaction and how it integrates within your life as a utility. I'm not saying Apple hasn't. But I am saying Apple's watch sales are going to be crazy nuts. People have room for one watch as a fashion statement. If it's not going to be an Armani who do you think they'll go with?

The one thing I like about my current watch is that is is solar charged. I haven't had any issues with replacing batteries for nearly 7 years. I'm not sure if I'm ready to charge yet another device on a regular basis.

Two words: Universal Identity. That's the killer use-case that everyone is missing. The Apple Watch has an NFC-chip, internet connection, and an API-- this is going to happen. (They've already announced a partnership with W Hotels for the Watch to replace keycards in rooms.)

I think this would be super-convenient in the short-term but seems very worrisome in the long-term. My watch/phone/drivers-license is NOT me, and the more we rely on a single-point for authentication, the greater the potential for abuse and theft. More solutions need to be created.

But we already know the time, it's on our phones? I don't get why anyone would buy this watch apart from trendy reasons.

I bet sales will be low. Body monitoring sensors are better off hidden I rekon, then you can wear any watch, or no watch, and your phone does all the interfacing with the hidden sensors. All this should be open technology too, compatible with any phone rather than tied down to one system. It's your body after all, our data's fate shouldn't be a corporation's monopoly money.

At first I was thinking I had to have one of these. Then I read feature page where it subtly tells you that most of the functionality is based on being tethered to an iphone. What a pity.

Glad they finally got rid of that hideous header on the homepage

I run and occasionally do sprint tris. I carry a phone for both riding and running as I use Strava to track and compete with others. The thing I'm excited about is that this watch has a HR monitor, which is what I would need as you train based on intensity.

Not to mention when you're stranded 50 miles due to a flat tire, you'll need that phone to call for a pickup.

Others have mentioned listening to music,..etc. (I don't)

Look - you're going to carry a phone everywhere you go on land.

Any official site for WatchKit? I can't seem to find any.

I'm assuming it's part of the iOS SDK like GameKit, MapKit etc. So developer.apple.com/ios

This is just the first release of another killer product from Apple. To compare, the first iPhone did not have some basic features found in many cell phones, including stereo Bluetooth support and 3G compatibility.

I really believe that Apple will earn a ton of money, like in the first years of iPod or iPhone era.

And the watches market size, bigger than cell phones, computers and portable music. It's a pity to do not have this company listed here, on stock market of Brazil.

Seriously?

A killer product from apple innovates on battery life, form factor, materials, and especially software. At least some or all of those come into play to make for a superior product.

This is debatably better than the Moto 360.

Oh, and it's VAPORWARE, not being released until next year after Christmas.

I agree with others. This is a sign that Apple is no longer a leader in innovation. The glow of Jobs is fading from the company, despite how much I hate his beatification.

wait, you define vaporware as something that will be released within the next 6 months?

I'm not sure you understand what vaporware means.

I'm sorry, it was just my opinion.

Could you please define innovation to us?

I also don't like beatification, but I know when something is good. The numbers of Apple talk by themselves.

Snapchat seems like the best suited form of communication for a device like this. I wonder why Apple didn't fit a camera into that huge black bevel..

Either Apple has left that for v2 just as with the original iPad, or people do actually find all these semi-hidden cameras creepy. I know I do (not a fan of Glass, either).

True that. I find them creepy as fuck!

Are those actual photos on the home page or computer renderings?

Because I hate how that thing looks - it looks sort of like a cartoon, like something from WALL-E.

I agree on the looks in isolation, but the pictures of people wearing the watch makes them not look so bad IMO. I was surprised at the functionality, though, especially Apple Pay.

I was rather impressed but at 350USD and most likely 350e in Europe it's an expensive purchase. Still no word on battery life either.

In the keynote they made mention that it's easy to charge each night, which probably means a day or two.

That's better than the few hours some people are getting with the Moto 360, but it's not great. Let's hope it's at least one day consistently.

I'm interested to see the reviews. I wonder if they've reached too far.

Curious to see how much the solid gold model costs.

Miniaturization has come a long way, but there's no way this costs just $350 to make. Has Apple's strategy changed? They've always sold hardware at a healthy margin and made trivial amounts off software and music.

There are some really nice features here, I would probably buy one if I didn't prefer android so much. But is it so nice that it will drive iPhone sales?

There's gotta be some expensive parts in there, like that sapphire screen.

Sapphire screens that size are commonplace in real watches. I'm guessing that only added a few dollars to the BOM.

How about paying thousands of engineers/designers $100k+ salaries to work on it for the past year?

The only reason I want this watch is the exact features they were demo'ing:

Quickly respond to texts without having to pull out and unlock my phone

See who's calling me

Using the map to track where I am in a route

It seems like they nailed the low-hanging fruit and designed a pretty nice looking watch. Apple watch and the moto 360 both deserve credit for making smartwatches that don't look like total nerd gadgets

Samsung's watch also needed a phone to work, and was just slightly clunkier. Why does Apple get such adulation in comparison?

My biggest disappointment, they announced a product they cannot ship. I remember the good old days, ITS AVAILABLE TODAY. Now Apple is nothing than just what they used to lampoon, a creator of announcements; not products.

Perhaps we can hope they use the time to take the obvious feedback flowing in and make it right by launch

You have an impossibly selective memory. The iPhone was announced 6 months before it shipped, for example.

This stymies people considering buying competitor watches for this Christmas season, which is the big reason to pre-announce.

> I remember the good old days, ITS AVAILABLE TODAY.

You mean like the iPhone, which was announced at Macworld in January, 2007 and went on sale only 7 months later?

Eh, for the most part they're pretty good about releasing quickly after announcing, but that's because they've been producing the product in question for months overseas. In the case of the watch, clearly they didn't want any leaks and therefore they haven't started production yet.

Others noted that the iPhone shipped 6 months after the announcement. The iPad shipped 3 months later.

Your entire comment is premised on a falsehood.

As others have pointed out, similar lag times were seen with the original iPhone and iPad launches. Despite this, the small lag time for each iteration since has other people complaining: http://bgr.com/2014/09/10/apple-watch-release-date-analysis/...:

For many watches are used as a signaling device. That is, an expensive watch indicates to people that you have money. I assume these people aren't going to downgrade to an apple watch. I don't know what percentage of watch owners this is or whether it could affect uptake, but it could be factor.

While this might be true on one level, once you get into the realm of $350+ watches it can be very hard (if not impossible) for the casual and uninformed observer to guess whether a watch cost $500 or $5,000.

$350 is already more than most people spend on any watch, and that's only the entry-level price -- I imagine some of the more premium versions of the watch are going to be $500+, though that's just speculation. That's quite expensive for a watch for the vast majority of people I think.

I'm fairly sure chronometers start at >1000$ dollars and truly expensive watches use either expensive metals or gems to signal their value. Also there are no Rolex, Patek Phillipe etc. that have that price. Quartz watches are uninteresting as a status symbol.

I think their premium watches may be more like $1k+ even.

I haven't bought into Apple stuff too much, just an iPad and an Air. No iPhone, I have Android instead and my desktop is Linux.

Question: Is the phone a mere accessory to the iPhone, or can it stand alone or with any phone (inc' Android and Windows Phone)?

iPhone only

Alas, and it looks really gorgeous too.

The linked to page made me wonder whether Apple had released a watch that was literally just a watch, just a fancy time-keeping device. Its not until you go one level up and go to features that it shows what the watch can actually do.

I can't help but think that there really is a hard limit on the number of powered electronics that a person is willing to routinely carry on their person, and that number is one. Am I alone in feeling this way?

Beautiful page, but kinda worthless IMHO.

When I look at it, I'm wondering: what's the UI like for a computer that isn't much bigger than my finger? (And if it's any good, why isn't it front & center?)

I want a smart clock that looks like a clock not like a small wrist calculator.

Is that so hard?

I'm surprised they haven't done a chunky smartwatch. That would provide plenty of battery life, and more room for electronics, while at the same time fill a bigger unmet niche.

Which niche would that be? People with bionic arms? Or weight-lifters? :-)

As someone with 5 watches, I can't wait for this to release.

Do you have that many arms too?

Are you saying you don't wish you had 5 arms? You must be a fool.

But the answer to your question is, I was gifted 4 of them once people saw that I wear a watch. Watches work like that.

I would be happier with 4 arms, as a fifth arm would make balancing awkward.

Let's hope that if you get a "smartwatch", people will start buying you plenty of them!

I am not getting a "smart watch". Its called Apple Watch.

Does anyone else really like the subtle ways to share sketches / heartbeats? It kind of makes it more personal than just a Google Now / cards interface.

Nice touch (literally).

I worry this will be a massive target for theft. If someone sees you wearing an Apple Watch they know you have at least a $350 watch and $400+ phone on your person.

Not really a valid argument; a lot of people have their phone out at all times (or even just to check the time), which isn't even attached to their wrists like this one is. Second, at $350, the resale value on the black market is what, $50? $100 if you're lucky? Not sure if a robbery is worth that.

Besides, how do people with expensive watches (Rolexes and whatnot) manage?

I think tdicola's point is that, unlike any other watch, having an iWatch in your wrist immediately signals you also have an iPhone 5 or higher tucked somewhere in that moment --since the watch, stupidly, only works tethered to an iPhone apparently.

As it happens, this kind of wealth signaling is a legitimate personal safety risk in many countries today, esp lower- to middle-income ones. In those countries, very few people can afford to wear expensive watches; and when they do, they just don't wear them around everyday in every public setting --more like for special occasions, private parties, meetings, etc. Note the risk is not just 'merely' mugging: it can also be kidnapping (you or your loved ones), 'doxxing' you and your family and emptying your bank accounts and so forth, or even extreme forms of assault --beatings, rape or death. So it's kind of a big deal.

iPhones, on the other hand, can be carried and used discreetly at all times, in non-conspicuous cases and using hands-free earphones --that is, until now, if you happen to be wearing a beaming iWatch right on your wrist, thus defeating the whole point.

To be honest, I thought the same thing about the earbuds of the iPod or the iPhone. You know, the signature, white earbuds. I thought to myself, "if I have these on, everybody will know I have an iPhone"... this was back when iPhones still were a kind of status symbol because of carrier lock-in and still costing a lot etc.

At least with the watches, if you wear long sleeved shirts, nobody will see it. Only while wearing tshirts it would be visible.

As far as mugging potential goes, I think nowadays you could attempt to mug any person on the street and chances are pretty high that they carry a smartphone which has at least a value of 350 dollars. Android or iOS. So, I don't really think that theft would be a bigger problem than it already is with smartphones.

You should start using a watch. I have had a watch stolen in public transport, was very young though :). Watches have always had this "problem" and watch users are tuned to managing that attention.

I wear a $5 watch from Target so theft is never a problem.

Fancy watches are theft targets, true. (At this point anyone with a fancy watch, digital or analog, has an expensive smartphone in their pocket.)

Pretty sure the title of this should just be "Apple Watch", which is the title in the browser. Apple considers their products proper nouns.

So, it's basically a tiny external screen for your iPhone right? Snore. Wake me up when they put cellular capabilities in there.

Won't it feel like you're in Knight Rider if you're talking to your wrist all of the time?

"Hey Kit! Prepare to meet me round the back of the house!" "MICHAEL. MICHAEL."

The Apple watch looks hot, but will it use a different store than the iOS store? Where is the info on registering apps for it etc?

I expect there will be no stand alone apps, they will be extension to iPhone apps. Therefore you need an iPhone app with a watchKit module in it to use it on the phone.

My perspective is that the majority of the market already owns a smartphone. Companies are trying to get new gadgets out there in peoples hands to increase sales and keep the corporate machine rolling. The problem is, people are happy with just their phones. I think wearables will have a very very slow uptake, especially since they require you to have a smartphone in your pocket.

Someone call me when they get holograms to mass market, then I'll be interested.

Does it have an SDK for the third party apps?

Yes, it's called WatchKit. Supposedly you can create third-party apps, glances, and notifications.

serious question: Does this watch anything do what my phone in my pocket doesn't?

I can't see a benefit of using a smartwatch.

You can quickly see notifications. I also cannot see myself using Maps or looking at photos on the tiny screen. I would pull out my phone to do that, which i would have to wear with me anyway.

I think it complements your phone. So it is more convenient to glance at your wrist than rooting around in your pocket and getting your phone out, something some people find quite rude.

If the trends reversed and they shrunk phones (like they did in the 90s) and put a strap on them, then they could easily replace the watch. But then battery life would be abysmal.

Not for you and me, I guess, but most women have a large, crowded bag instead of pockets. Which also explains how anyone could ever carry a Note around.

Why do I have to buy a watch for my fitness, I can arm-band my iphone and have all the details.

This makes me want.... a regular watch with good battery life.

There is even an 18 karat gold edition. Sapphire crystal, waterproof, imported leather from the Netherlands. It goes behind the technology, to also embrace some of the finer things that make a quality watch... Quality.

Steve jobs would have kept the configurations to only one.

Steve Jobs is dead.

ths is using a system on a chip designed by Apple themselves - what the hell. they're going all in on chips. intel quo vadis?

I would have been nice to have real photographs.

Does anyone know what the lower button does?

It brings up a list of contacts that you can customize, to call, message or use the drawing thing with.

They said it 'opens a view of friends that you can click on'. They only showed it briefly.

I just wanted to swim with it... :(

I don't want my heart rate and other health data getting uploaded to Apple and anyone else. Big blocker for me.

Was expecting something more than this from Apple - the vision seems to be the same as what google had for google wear. Hardware wise it is not much of an increment either (my opinion only of course). Then again, I didn't really get excited over the iPad either and that was a huge success.

Setting that expectation aside, I would be fine with something simpler if it:

- it was classy looking: thin and round, steel and real/sapphire glass - ideally something that looks like one of those simple swiss clocks from the 1960s

- had an e-ink screen

- had a gps, which I can turn on and off

- had bluetooth notifications in case my phone is near

- had bluetooth audio support; and

- had spotify support. And here I mean that I want to be able to play music which has been synced to my watch over bluetooth, a cable or while docked.

- had heart-rate monitor would also be a plus of course.

- has enough battery for at least about a week, unless I am using the gps (for 2-3 hours), in which case it is fine if I have to charge it afterwards.

Want to use it as a regular watch (with the occasional message/calendar notification and perhaps even daily weather updates), and as a music player and as a gps for when I am running/biking.

Pebble almost have it, but their watches are way too ugly (my view only of course), too large for my wrists (so says my partner at least) and they don't have the extras that would make me really want one. I guess Spotify would have to be a partner as well, but I have Spotify on my radio so I guess it is only a small step to something like this as well.

Should be possible with todays technology though I am not really into HW. In terms of processor-power it really only needs to keep track of time, draw the watch face every second, draw the notifications/menu/..., handle user input (could be buttons not capacitive) and play music (which probably is the most resource intensive thing, but an easy match for any modern SOC). So for processing, battery shouldn't be a problem. An e-ink screen is thin and does not require much power either. Bluetooth 4 LE chipsets are very power friendly I think, so I would imagine that should be fine as well. They are also fast enough (1 mbp/s) for syncing notifications and even for the occasional sound track sync (I don't mind waiting 5-10 minutes for an album). The gps doesn't really have to give me directions, only log my position and would be used only when I am running/biking, and as I said, should be possible to switch it completely off.

The battery could be in the (detachable) wristband - I think I have seen quite thin and flexible polymer batteries around on the internet (though I am not sure if they are thin/flexible enough). Could also have different looks on the wristbands so you get one leathery-looking (for normal usage) and one plastic looking (for sports) like apple did (liked that part though it is hardly innovative).

meta : I'm glad the product pages dont involve using JS to fuck up scrolling,for once. This fad needs to go.

Broken link

Up now

Just CDN issues.

Does it come with a kill-switch ?

As much ink was spilled about competitors' failures, it's interesting that this won't be available some until vague window next year, and needs to be tethered to an iPhone.

The interface looks interesting. The ridiculous draw pictures to each other bit, though -- what a gimmick.

It will be the most used feature by young lovers everywhere...

> It will be the most used feature by _rich_ young lovers everywhere...

FIFY. At $349 a pop, I doubt you want to cruise in college with this on the wrist.

A $350 watch is a too expensive, but $325 beats headphones are chill? When I walk through the seedier parts of town where most of the rent is paid in food stamps and wishes, I still see beats headphones.

Beats headphones are really heavily counterfeited at a tenth the price or less. I expect a lot of the ones you saw were fake.

Do they also counterfeit the ridiculous bass response in them? Or do they put decent drivers in them, like Beyerdynamic DT 770s with Beats logos on them? That'd be funny.

Watches are a fashion accessory and have a very wide price range. I consider watches under $150 to be low end, under $400 to be middle end and above that to be high end.

Headphones are different because (until Beats) they were mostly about function and not form. You can get very good sounding headphones for under $100, which is why people whine about Beats being so expensive. Beats's innovation wasn't making good headphones, it was making headphones into a fashion (so they could charge a lot).

Seriously?

MP3 Players are different because (until Apple iPod) they were mostly about function and not form.

Phones are different because (until Apple iPhone) they were mostly about function and not form.

Tablets are different because (until Apple iPad) they were mostly about function and not form.

Smart watches are different because (until Apple Watch) they were mostly about function and not form.

It's not hyperbolic to say that the company redefines categories.

Yes, seriously. Beats headphones didn't add anything new to headphones except looking cool (and mostly because of the brand name and not because they look particularly good). None of the Apple products you mentioned were like that—they all added significant innovative features in addition to having a beautiful form. The hipness of the brand followed that instead of leading it.

Most people's phones are more expensive, and IIRC back when people still wore wristwatches they were just as, if not more expensive than that.

Perhaps, but it is a five minute app. For Apple to spend minutes on the concept of communicating via finger drawings on a tiny screen borders on bizarre. I will say that if Samsung or LG demoed something like this, they would be widely and rightfully mocked. I'm not saying that in a polarizing "camps" perspective, but that people are often surprisingly uncritical of Apple.

I wonder if it was the way it was presented? That one weird Samsung S3 (?) release presentation was odd and strange, and weird. I said weird twice.

With Apple, they appear to present things differently. Perhaps it is because you can't hear Jony Ive smiling when he talks? He sounds like a robot, so it must be a logical thing to do?

In the first two weeks of their relation.

Please, make it so.

Maybe they will start using Watches instead of doing this:

https://www.google.es/search?q=bridge+padlocks&newwindow=1&h...

Seriously, I can see it being used, but it's still very gimmicky.

As gimmicks go, the "you can tap morse code to someone" thing seems even stranger for me.

Really? I thought that looked like one of the neatest things about it. I imagine that people will find all sorts of creative ways to use it for quick communication.

But nobody else will have it. Messaging that no one else has is dumb and useless.

I have plenty of circles (family, work) who exclusively use Apple devices. (Same with Android.) Hardly "dumb" and "stupid" — works great for iMessage.

That's probably my biggest gripe. If me and my gf both had one then sure, I'd send her a heart every now and then however cheesy it may be.

But the fact is, she has a Nexus 5, I have an iphone. Considering so many of the watch's features are dependent on the iphone, it makes a lot of sense to say that you're unlikely going to see anyone have an apple watch if they don't also have an apple phone. It's not a truly standalone product, it's very much an accessory working in sync with your phone. That means that the apple watch is a niche (smartwatches) within a niche (iphone owners, are relatively few) and so I doubt this will really take off. Like facetime. I've used it every now and then, but compared to skype, facebook calling, viber or indeed just text on whatsapp, it's a tiny tiny tiny part of my usage.

That's why I think this thing is gimmicky. Until every watch has it and it's just a third-party app that allows you to send messages between any platform, apple or android watches or anything else.

Do you think finger sketch messages will show up in iMessage on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (and maybe OS X via laptop touchpads)?

Suddenly, hundreds of millions of people have it.

(If they don't do this, how is it going to deal with sending a message to someone who doesn't have an Apple Watch? Just show "(!) Message not delivered"?)

I can jut think about Bebo whiteboard and all te dick drawings

> The ridiculous draw pictures to each other bit, though -- what a gimmick.

I could see this as being popular with teens though, especially with the haptic feedback aspect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29

It's time to bring it back.

Yes! Then I won't feel like I wasted all that time learning how to write it!

I sold my Palm 3 the other month. Not sure why anyone wanted that thing, but it was a sad day nonetheless.

Teens? I'm predicting that my wife and I will use it about seventy billion times per day.

The relationships are going to want to use the heart beats like crazy.

The complete and utter lack of battery life mention was odd when inductive charging (still missing from the iphone) was mentioned multiple times.

I think that's what they're going to be working on for the next three-to-six months. Probably it's not great at the moment and they're desperately trying to get it up to something respectable like a day, but don't want to announce anything in case it proves impossible.

I remember at some point Cook alluding to a days worth of battery life.

They're missing Christmas, which is huge for the Jewelry market.

The definition of gimmick is the customizing of a the emojicon.

That did seem like a feature dreamt up for the youtube commenter generation, sadly.

That was one of my favorite features.

I've always wished there was some sort of one bit communication for "want to get a drink?" or "want to go for a bike ride?" or "want to watch the redskins game?"

How cool would it be to vibrate someone's wrist with a martini glass saying implying that I haven't seen you in a while and want to go get a drink. No need for email, calling, texting anything. Just so simple, ping someone and say that I want to see them.

I think it's a bigger deal than you realize.

Without context and metadata, I cannot fathom how finger-drawn pictures could convey data clearly, much less those done on a 1" screen. If someone got a picture of a fish, as demonstrated, for instance -- presuming they actually recognize it as a fish -- are they really going to think of sushi? That seems like a bit of a reach, a tonne of narrative adding context that the picture most certainly doesn't add.

I've done the drawn picture thing. It isn't new, and many messaging clients have supported it for literally years (ICQ supported it in the 90s). And when it was added everyone sent pictures around, and quickly (very quickly) it was completely forgotten.

It's a gimmick through and through.

> How cool would it be to vibrate someone's wrist with a martini glass saying implying that I haven't seen you in a while and want to go get a drink. No need for email, calling, texting anything.

At best, "cool" is all it is. It certainly isn't useful. If you haven't seen me in a while and I get a poorly drawn martini glass picture, I'm not going to think, "Cool. Drinks with AlwaysBeCoding." I'm going to think, "what the hell is this picture of an ice cream cone with a marble in it?"

In comparison, texting "Drinks tonight?" is faster to type, faster to understand, and has some vague hope of conveying the intended message. And both show up on the watch.

Pictures might be acceptable to your significant other. If one of my friends sent me one, I and the rest of the group would spend the next 10 minutes brainstorming unflattering nicknames to forever annoint him with.

>At best, "cool" is all it is. It certainly isn't useful. [...] Pictures might be acceptable to your significant other.

Isn't useful to you? Personally, I find this immensely useful. I don't know of any other device to communicate with the significant other in such an intimate way. This is precisely what I wanted. You might understand it better when you're in a relationship but spend a lot of time away from each other. Of course pictures and taps mean much more than texting. Of course it's fun to invent your own sign language. If you don't have a use case for this watch, it doesn't mean it's not “useful”.

Funny you should mention it, but I currently live about 10,000 kilometers from my girlfriend. And like I said, it's maybe an OK thing between partners. I think it's a stupid gimmick that would immediately get old even then, but that's it. You should not send a cutesy picture in lieu of an actual message to anyone else.

> I'm going to think, "what the hell is this picture of an ice cream cone with a marble in it?"

Only because this isn't currently a common type of communication. You'd instantly understand it if it were more standard.

> If one of my friends sent me one, I and the rest of the group would spend the next 10 minutes brainstorming unflattering nicknames to forever annoint him with.

Whether you're into smartwatches or not, this doesn't seem like a very friendly personality. You're really going to get this up in arms because a friend sent you a picture-based message?

You're reading me wrong. I wouldn't be up in arms about it -- I'd be giddy at the prospect of giving my friend shit over it. As presumably, my friends would be for me if I sent them sketches.

I apologize then for the judgment. I read your comment in a more antagonistic way. Cheers!

Yo.

I have to be honest. The draw pictures to each other was actually something I want. My wife and I usually devolve our texting sessions into a series of emoticons. The ones on Kakaotalk are pretty hilarious and we frequently use them.

TBH I think the gimmicks are just tech demos - they've got the API's ready for it (apparently), and I can really see this device take off with app developers.

> and needs to be tethered to an iPhone.

How do you know? I couldn't find that on Apple's iWatch page. (Not doubting it, everyone is saying it, but I'm just wondering where it is or if it's just an assumption.)

I expect muggings for jewelery to be making a comeback.

This will probably use Activation Lock as well.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/06/20/police-say-ios-7-a...

It would be nice if there was a watch which could do everything a smartphone can do. make calls, take photos and videos, instantly teach me how to fight like Jason Bourne on demand etc.

The thought of the thing buzzing when one of serveral very talkative/verbose friends starts spamming me with SMSes drives me into a rage. And thats just thinking about it.

To all of you criticizing the features, just remember:

It's vaporware.

Vaporware does not merely mean "announced but not released".

Yeah okay, blah blah. I was at IFA Berlin 2014 and asked the SONY lady: "Hey what's the killer feature of your watch?". She said "It shows the time and tracks your steps!".

IMHO Apple Watch did a great job. I couldn't find any smart watch that have navigation ( although with a paired smartphone ) and a possible ecosystem of apps that can use it. The whole IFA ... nobody could offer this.

Althought, Of course it might be better, but Apple did a good job agains other tech companies in this field. Period.

disclaimer: I'm not that big apple fan boy.

Moto 360 is supposed to do navigation.

I've taken a hard look at every single smartwatch that's come out to date and found them wanting. I couldn't at any point bring myself to wear a device that needs to be charged every night and isn't "always on" yet doesn't have all the features I wanted. Little by little they got closer, but nobody had nailed it until Apple did.

I think it'll initially be seen as a superficial luxury, much like a smartphone. Then without much effort and without anyone noticing it'll become a device that's at first convenient to have and then inconvenient not to have.

I'm definitely getting an Apple watch and it'll take some amazing competition to steer me in another direction. I guess this means I'll have to get a Mac some time too.

I always measure the future success of a new Apple product by both the number and volume of negative comments related to. The greater the volume, the more likely it is to be successful. By all accounts, Apple Watch is going to be a smash hit.

How did that work out for Ping ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659306

Hardware

Do positive comments signify that the product will be a failure?

Or do both positive and negative comments suggest to you that a product will be a success? If that is the case, are you actually factoring in whether comments or positive/negative, or are you merely basing your predictions off of the volume of comments?

The Apple fans [1] impress me with their non-fanaticism on this one. If this is a general trend across religions, I like where we are heading. Props!

Apple watch certainly has qualities though. It's exciting to see how the market will develop now that all parties have opened their cards.

[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2fxe2t/its_hideous/?s...

"all parties"

Cue poor Microsoft sobbing in a corner

I don't think there are any rumors of Microsoft going into this market, is there? I don't know if they have anything to bring to the table.

Bring to the table? If they actually made the table computer (the ORIGINAL Microsoft Surface), that'd be great. A computer that doesn't get in the way.

Unlikely that Microsoft will do anything big in the hardware market; they're struggling enough with smartphones as it is, despite their best efforts (Windows Mobile is supposedly pretty awesome, and they bought Nokia).

it is just so, square.

I guess my problem is that they kept it like a watch instead of a new device and it likely constrained their innovation.

I had seen some band designs, even the MOTO 360 did "if it has to look like a watch" better. Don't get me started on Apple's bling look that started with that Gold iPhone. Its as bad as gold emblems on low end cars, all we need now is gothic/roman lettering

Yes, I bet they wanted to announce it this early (half a year in advance?), because they felt they were missing the train.

You can only wonder if Steve Jobs would have allowed this to be released as well.

Why the down voting? For praising non-religiousness? Or for being excited about a faster developing market?

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