Hacker News Reader

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

a.i. males in medical community?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

>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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

>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?"

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.

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.

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)

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

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 ..

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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)

> 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.

You cannot imagine a more useless product?