A Watch Guy's Thoughts on the Apple Watch After Seeing It in the Metal
hodinkee.com
hodinkee.com
On an emotional level, you can't compare [Apple Watch and mechanical watches], and that is why I don't believe many serious watch lovers (who, again, would normally be racing to spend their cash on an Apple release) will go for this.
I suspect that the "serious watch lover" market is one that doesn't really figure in Apple's market estimates at all. On the contrary, Apple has traditionally tried to go contrary to the expectations of the archetypal "serious lover of X" user when entering the market of X.
The Macintosh was not for "serious microcomputer lovers". The iPod was not for "serious MP3 lovers". The iPhone was not for "serious smartphone lovers". (Those did exist back in early 2007 -- they were the rare people who actually knew how to install stuff on their geeked-out Nokia N95 devices, or were in love with the BlackBerry keyboard. They hated the iPhone almost unanimously.)
Personally I'm not going to get a smartwatch because I hate interruptions. I hate OS X notifications; I hate it when the phone rings; I hate reading Twitter (but it's an addiction that's sometimes hard to overcome). I certainly don't want a blob on my wrist endlessly buzzing and tapping away, trying to figure out my heart rate and mood and generally being a bothersome noisy little electronic snoop.
But at the same time, I can imagine that the younger crowd wants exactly that. I think the Apple Watch will be a hit, but maybe about 1 year after the launch once the price of the low-end model comes down and a few millimetres get trimmed off.
The iPhone and iPad had apps, the iPod had podcasting and iTunes. WATCH has nothing equivalent. It seems to be a drastically cut-down iPhone you wear on your wrist, with a few haptic doodads added to create a USP.
It's aiming for a weird market that Apple has traditionally done well in - emotional spending and evangelism - but it's trying to cultivate desire by attempting to be explicitly fashionable, instead of offering 'magical' user benefits that lead indirectly to the perception of being fashionable. ('Show, don't tell.')
Obvious conclusion is that it's not a Jobsian coup like the last few revolutions were.
Maybe it could be with more thought about where it fits as a product, and what makes it unique. But currently 'small iOS wrist device for semi-fashionable people' seems like a challenging place to succeed in.
Reading between the lines the impression I got is that the WatchKit API will let you define widgets that come with your app and that will be downloaded to the watch when the App is installed on the iPhone.
I think this shows there is an ecosystem- it's the App ecosystem and it's the most vibrant one out there. But it's not exactly the same (which may be the cause of the parents confusion)
Even the TRS-80 Model 100 had it's own market for software that was thriving for about three years - complete with requisite magazine support.
...
My hunch is that the new generation of people who recently discovered the recent application ecosystems are shocked to find out that some slightly-older people remember when this same exciting feeling happened before - I would imagine all the way back to the late 1970's when you could put a computer together yourself and sell software out of your garage.
But to me, this doesn't feel different - just larger.
Even the cycles seem to the same - with early adopters leading the way, the first wave of quick and dirty apps, then more polished apps, and then the tsunami of shovel-ware that kills the market for newcomers.
My point isn't whether or not there's an ecosystem, but whether or not there's a planned ecosystem which is deliberately designed to add value, and created as a conscious strategy - not just something that happens by accident.
I wish people here would stop thinking about technology and think more about the overall user experience - which is not about hardware or software or ecosystems, but about creating gotta-have-that experiences and life-changing tools.
So far I don't see WATCH doing that. It might, and there may be plans, and we'll all be surprised a year from now.
But so far, there's no evidence that Apple are thinking about WATCH in those terms. And that makes it different to previous launches.
I remember there being a big market for these devices and apps back in the day.
I think the 200 million iPhones are the ecosystem. I don't see an obvious point to the watch by itself - it seems like it's main "feature" is to expand what your iPhone can do.
The absolute most expensive iPhone is the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus - $950 w/o contract. But it's the highest-end phone in a world with millions of millionaires. This gives a way for iPhone customers to pay more to get more.
I think the Apple Watch is similar.
Before long, a Watch can also be self-contained, technically, but remains limited by form-factor: tiny display. Unlike Glass, it must remain accessory... or so it seems.
But consider: the iPhone is primarily a consumption device. In many ways, it is predicated on many use-cases not requiring a full computer. Is it possible a Watch-size device will similarly turn out to cover many important uses? Obviously, you can use it as a phone. For music/video. To read txt messages/short emails. Casual games.
It's a real consumption device (unless Siri gets unrealistically good). Maybe many web-site functions (i.e. the actual use of the website, not actual current website) can be delivered via Watch: lookup opening hours; store locators; product list/price/specials. Perhaps Watch versions, as we now have Mobile versions - and of course, Watch App versions).
Rather than tethering the watch to your phone and having the watch just being treated as another phone peripheral, you could just as well do the opposite: have the phone tether to the watch to serve as e.g. a keyboard and secondary display.
Additionally, the iPod launched when the iTunes Store was in its nascency. In fact, iTunes wasn't released for Windows until a few years afterwards. It wasn't possible to load apps (small games) on the iPod until the release of the iPod video.
With the promise of an API at launch, there is more of an ecosystem in place than existed for the previous products you mentioned.
But my point - which apparently no one understands here - is that the products were always conceived originally, from the top, as part of a strategy that included a stack of support services and interactions with a user community.
I'm not seeing that on offer here.
Of course WATCH does apps. That was always a given. But the App Store is saturated, and once devs have produced the obligatory new watch faces, fitness, dating and friend-finding apps, my guess is that the opportunities for doing something compelling, original and gotta-have-that are smaller than they were with the original iPhone.
There will be an exception, or maybe four or five. There will not be thousands of potential gotta-have-that apps to match those that are available in the iPhone/iPad app store.
Apple has always been one of the few tech companies that understands that you don't sell hardware, or software - you sell a complete package of unique and exclusive benefits that happens to run on a hardware device.
That worked for the original Mac, then the OS X Mac, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad. All had obvious user benefits that were so intuitively compelling they barely needed explanation, and which were enhanced and supported over time with software services that made the package even stronger.
I'd be interested to know what the downvoters on this thread believe is the equivalent user benefit and software support package for WATCH.
I don't believe 'It does apps too and there's even an API, so therefore there's an ecosystem' is the most insightful answer to that question, or that it's what users are looking for to persuade them this is a must-have device.
It's gonna take some time to figure out the killer apps for this computing paradigm. There's nothing at all wrong with the Pebble, it's just that the apps to make it worthwhile don't really exist yet. Apple has enough dirty money to get other people to do the heavy lifting in that arena.
Probably existing developers (knowing objective-C, libraries, OS; swift too) will end up being the most important resource...
But I think you're right that it's simply not a general-purpose device, like apple2e, mac, iphone or ipad. It's too limited. It's more like an ipod, appleTV, game console or kindle.
BTW: I hate the way apple fanboys downvote any comment that can in any way be interpreted as remotely critical of Apple or Apple products. It's more interesting to have a discussion. As it is, your first comment is so down-grayed, I can't actually read it.
It's the same issue really with EMV cards in the US, no one will install readers until there are cards, no one will issue cards until there are readers.
At the core of it, the physical card standard is 'good enough' for most people.
Apple may have the market clout to drive adoption in the US. They have experience in getting partners together, to make new technology actually work. Yes, it may take time, and they may go niche by niche.
Regarding value.. imho, the next evolution of the technical maturity model for mobile will center around decision support. This is where I see wearables providing the most value, which may have significant impact to business process applications and sensor networks.
To the average consumer, this may mean having ambient access to specific economic information, transactional data or live media. It will become a part of your daily informata and utility / Internet usage.
Which leaves me in the obscure situation of upvoting comments I disagree with just because I think they shouldn't have been downvoted.
If anyone can build a market from scratch it is Apple, but why would the younger crowd want a watch at all? Unless you are older than 30 (or perhaps even older), you likely aren't in the habit of wearing a watch. What is going to compel the younger crowd to do so?
The modern smartphone has little in common with the devices that were known as telephones until about 20 years ago, yet it has retained the name. It's not easy to predict something like this. (In the film Back to the Future II, the hero's 2015 house is filled with telefax receivers. There's a scene where his boss sends a fax to all of them and printed pages start pouring out. This is how people imagined the future of telephones a mere 30 years ago!)
The meaning of 'watch' as a timepiece may soon become as antiquated as the meaning of 'phone' as a fixed receiver on an analog landline.
There's a part in this terrible move "Time Cop" (1994, set in 2004) where one of the characters uses this communications device that's a rectangular slab with a 2" or 3" bezel and is two or three inches deep, but has a touch screen. I thought, wow, this is what they thought an iPad would be, but what we have is actually better.
My recollection of history is a bit different. What I remember is that people were practically begging Apple to build a phone. You might say there was a half-hearted attempt with the ROKR, in partnership with Motorola, but it didn't really address what people were seeking. The calls for a phone done the "Apple way" continued. Now, I do believe Apple ended up greatly exceeding the expectations of the customers with the iPhone and, as you suggest, perhaps even created a new market segment because of that, but was hardly a surprise to see them announce something phone-like.
That said, the word "watch" is likely a very good word to keep for the wrist-devices: their natural UX, given the limited possible set of affordances, is designed around passive alerts. Which is to say, they watch for events, and you watch them.
If they're gonna buy it it won't be on the merits of its watch functionality. So it's not about being a watch, in the same way (or actually far more so) than a smartphone is not about the phonecalls.
It's a machine you wear on your wrist that also happens to tell time.
Mind you, what the "younger crowd" wants is not really that predictable in the sense of "why would they buy a watch".
If it becomes a kind of fashion statement, they'd buy it, the same way hipsters now buy vests and hats (the kind of which people haven't really wore since 50 years or so), huge headphones (something that was a tiny market a decade or so ago, despite everything being available), etc.
It annoyed me how much they touted how incredibly precise it is. As if 50ms matters on a wristwatch.
They already are (along with any sort of wrist/hand jewelry) in many testing centers.
I hate those things too, but I'm still chomping at the bit for the Apple Watch (and plan to disable all notifications except SMS). Why?
- Wrist GPS while driving
- Siri without taking phone from pocket
- Music remote control (hopefully video, too)
- NFC payments
- Heart monitor (QS)
- Other cool apps as yet unimagined
I certainly don't blame anyone who doesn't want one; it's a bulky, expensive frivolity. But its UI affordances create opportunities for active use cases beyond the passive notifications that have characterized smartwatch functionality until recently.
I recommend trying GPS while driving without any screen at all. Pull up navigation on your phone or stand-alone unit, then place it in the center console where you cannot see it. Let it give you directions only though TTS.
This is how I've been using GPS for years now, I find that I pay much more attention to the road and actually have fewer navigational mistakes (probably because I am paying more attention to the road).
Even if the GPS is accurate to a few feet, it doesn't know where the back of the line in the left turn lane is!
For me it was the fact that I wasn't trying to 'beat the system' and guess a better way.
But I have the feeling that Watch is not meant for driving situations :) It could be quite good while walking around a new city.
As for music remote control, headphones generally have controls somewhere on them or the cord so you don't need to take your phone out.
There are a lot of things you shouldn't do, but people do anyway. I'd rather someone looks at their wrist on the steering wheel or speak to their wrist instead of fidgeting with a phone or the GPS device in/on their dash.
You never need more than a quick glance at a normal wristwatch.
> What about using your arm to change gear?
If you need to look at the gear shifter you're doing it wrong... (I drive a manual daily btw)
> How do you use dashboard SATnav if you shouldn't look at your GPS whilst driving?
You don't 'use' it. You take a quick glance to know when you need to turn. I'd say it IS dangerous to program your next destination while driving.
The issue isn't looking at your wrist watch, it's shifting your attention to your wristwatch. If the GPS on the watch had a simplified interface with say, only an arrow when a turn was coming up, I'd say it's a great idea. If it's a full map, you'd need to take your attention off the road for far too long while you loop at the map.
And again, all of it is more complicated and less effective than simply using the voice commands that any phone can already send through your car speakers...
I would agree programming a destination whilst driving would be dangerous; my TomTom doesn't show a QWERTY keyboard for text input so it is even more frustrating.
Sadly my car (2008 VW Golf TDi GT Sport) does not understand that I have a phone. It knows how to pair with my phone via bluetooth for calls, but it does not work the other way around - my phone can't send audio to the car. The audio head unit is a bit thick (it will resume in the wrong place for MP3 CDs, and the optional iPod interface is really dumb and requires creation of playlists, which is not very helpful for a 160GB iPod; that's a lot of playlists).
Admittedly perhaps my car is considered old (6 years, 86k miles in a diesel) but I am certain that there are many more cars that don't have bluetooth duplex audio. It would be wrong to assume that all cars have it.
Come to think of it, my wife's car (2010 Mini Cooper) doesn't have two-way audio either! It's got a USB interface so the iPod works properly, and you can pair to make and receive calls via bluetooth but I don't think it can pipe audio to the car.
Unless I am mistaken?
Please don't look at a screen while driving. You might end up killing people.
Please don't use the navigation built into your car while driving.
Please don't look at your speedometer while driving.
Please don't look at your gas gauge while driving.
Please don't look at the clock while driving.
Please don't change temperature controls while driving.
In the US (with terrible driving schools), they teach you how to maintain control of your car while glancing at a screen for a brief moment of time, because it's necessary to do so. Looking at a GPS or at the radio is far different from doing something time consuming and interactive like texting.
If you think glancing at a GPS is an unacceptable risk, you should probably abstain from driving altogether.
I'm typing this on an iPhone 5, and I'll be pre-ordering the 6+ as soon as I can. This is my second iPhone; I started with a 4S. Fighting with Android became less and less appealing over time, and I currently only jailbreak iOS to get bluetooth / wifi tethering and because my physical mute switch is broken after a swim in the sink which I've worked around using Activator to toggle silent with a long-press on the status bar.
> if there was only one there would be less innovation
Does not compute.
That doesn’t really sound like innovation.
EDIT: Never mind, I didn’t pick up on the actual gist of your comment, that being the copying done by each company forces the other to come up with new, possibly innovative ideas to one up the competition.
What really frustrates me is the camera. Some photos are great, others look like the image has been made deliberately bad. I don't think the Nexus phones will deliver a great camera experience any time soon, and there's only so much compensation that G+ can make to a dull, blurry photo.
I'm trying really hard not to start a flamewar, but as someone who has exclusively used (and still uses) Android since the first Moto Droid, Google cannot be trusted, even with the Nexus brand. Take the Galaxy Nexus as evidence, where a similarly aged iPhone was still receiving the latest iOS updates. Or take NFC: Android users have been quick to mock Apple for using NFC, but every time I asked a clerk at the one store nearby that supported paying via a phone and NFC the clerk had never seen it used. Google doesn't tend to "finish the job" for lack of better words.
With respect to the grandparent and the "Fighting", I have to agree with the grandparent. There is NOTHING NEW in the iPhone 6 and yet I'm thinking about getting it and making it my first iOS device because I'm sick of fighting everything from updates to not having the latest apps (which are iOS first usually https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332000#up_4332278). The same thing happened with me and Linux as a desktop OS after years of use: http://xkcd.com/619/
Google simply stopped supporting the Galaxy Nexus because they didn't feel like it.
Having control over your own phone is a genuinely useful thing, not some abstract ideal. I've been using a wireless tether with a Verizon unlimited data plan for the last 5 years, something I simply couldn't have done with an iPhone. (And it's amazing how many hassles that removes -- I can get internet in the park, or in any shop no matter how shitty the wifi.)
1. I use this ROM: rootzwiki.com/topic/36706-romaosp62114-shiny-rom-ota-like-stock-android-444-ktu84p/#entry1031982
I have all the control over my phone I desire to have, it does everything I could never need it to, I don't have to worry about my own ROM, or if updates to the system come, I press the update button when the phone tells me to do so, in short, I have the phone-appliance, a construct I am supremely happy with.
Apple products only have three errors (in order of likelihood):
1) You did it wrong. 2) It doesn't do that. 3) and rarely, It's an honest to god bug.
95% of the problems I've ever had with my phone are fixed by turning it off, and turning it on again - this ease of use led me to buy a Mac, another choice I'm quite happy with, it all more or less just works - and with the Mac I have enough freedom to replace the built in apps that don't work with ones that do - Chrome/Thunderbird/Adium instead of Safari, Mail.app and iMessage.
I've installed Cyanogenmod on every Android device before and Cydia on my first iOS device (my first smartphone was an iPhone 3GS).
The clerk you are talking about, will still not know what NFC is for payments in a year from now. It doesn't change anything that Apple now joined the same game with Apple Pay... It's more infrastructure related and demand related.
Just like the Apple Watch, there is no actual demand for NFC Payments from regular users.
There was demand for the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Also Maps applications are used a lot (Navigation).
We don't use watches anymore (check your smartphone), we still pay with our wallet and with cash.
If that problem is solved, there can be a future for a walletless life.
In fact, in young circles (in the US), this seems to have become the defacto way of transferring money socially between individuals. I don't think I have paid someone I know with physical cash in years.
It strikes me that our NFC infrastructure is way better than yours too. Somewhat a reverse of most patterns in tech-infrastructure. It's just a pity Google won't support the Nexus' NFC capabilities in Australia - I bet Apple will.
When I was living in the UK about 70% of my purchases were done with a chip and pin card, even a couple of beers at a pub.
This because in the end it was quicker and easier than using cash.
If NFC makes paying quicker and easier than using cash or cards, the demand will be there: by the end of the month there will be millions of iPhone6 customers waiting to test these new features.
If I were a shop/chain owner, I would be scrambling to try to please them, before the competition does.
NFC payments using a phone would add a few more steps, so I think that the wallet and card is going to win out for me. It would be very hard to get it much simpler than it is right now.
() There are limits. My MasterCard, for example, will let me make contactless payments up to a total of $50. At that point it will require me to make a Chip&Pin transaction in order to reset the $50. When this happens the reader will just say "Insert Chip" or something.
Also, it's often difficult to see whether a retailer has contactless even when you're standing Right There and then you do the normal chip+pin out of shame because you feel like a right fool with your card out.
Next time he goes out with them, he will have his wallet. To give back the money he borrowed from his friends.
When the above situation can be handled.. There is an option for a walletless life. Where i live (Belgium), this won't happen within the next 2 years
The vast majority of men in the US will have their wallets with them regardless. The iPhone 6 will not, and is not designed to replace driver's license, etc.
I too have the same problem with NFC, apart from here in the UK no Android payment systems are ready on the phone itself (you can only install it on some devices).
And yes google are terrible at sending clear messages.
Just look at yesterdays confusing discussion RE hangouts/gchat/gtalk/google voice.
No idea what is going on there.
I notice that people attempting to communicate via Hangouts (on their phone?) doesn't notify me in Talk. If I attempt to call someone who has Talk on their phone from my web browser (therefore using Hangouts), they never get any notification. I can therefore never get in touch with my brother, unless I call him using Talk from my phone. If someone attempts to talk to me via Hangouts, the message is shown in my inbox in the web interface, but NOT on my phone in GMail, nor in Talk on my phone. I therefore never find out about a message until I use the web interface, which I don't really do because I have GMail on my phone......
It's a bit broken.
Agreed about NFC, it's frustrating that I've had NFC on my phone for 2 years now, but still not been able to use it for payments. EE does have an NFC payment service now, but for some reason they only let you use it on a few specific phones, not including my HTC. I'm not sure if this is down to differences in the hardware or just favouritism. I'm hoping that Apple Pay will at least push more places and services to support NFC payments in general.
Either way, you're comparing 2 year old phones. I also got tired of fighting with Android and installing custom builds, but it's not really necessary these days. Stock builds are much more polished, and many of the more advanced features from OEM and custom builds have been integrated into stock Android. I recently got a HTC One and have found little need to root or install any custom ROMs on it - it does everything I need and doesn't seem worth the hassle any more.
I do agree with what you say about Google not "finishing the job". Many apps and services have been released with a lot of promise, but then been left relatively unchanged from early versions. If Apple Pay succeeds where Google Wallet has failed to gain traction, it will almost certainly be down to Apple making more of an effort to get merchants and services to support it. Perhaps they simly have more influence, but Google isn't exactly a small company, yet they often seem to fail in these areas. In particular, they make little effort to support things (Google Wallet NFC payments is one example) outside of the US. They're an international company, they have offices in many other countries, and yet many of their services remain US only, or take at least a year to be offered elsewhere.
I keep the old one on my phone and resist installing the new one. Also, Google Local has gone?
That's the problem with cloud services I suppose, but at least if they had the decency to keep cloud services going whilst there were obvious users of them (without breaking things), that'd be appreciated. I mean, how long has MobileMe been going for OSX?
I'm not dumb. I used to write highly multithreaded network code for a living. I took Diff Eq in college! But Android makes me feel dumb, so I'm selling the N5.
You just gave a far better explanation than I did in favor of the appliance-phone device.
But I can understand why it would be annoying.
It's almost as bad as "do you want to view this site in the tapatalk app?".
I used to write apps for palm pilot and it was a hell of resource constrained C.
In a sense, tools like these were the precursors of today's mobile cross-compilers and cross-platform development environments (e.g. Unity).
This rings true to me. I was long a diehard Android/Linux guy - even an explicitly anti-Apple person. 5 years of professional development later and I'm typing on my 15" MacBook Retina Pro which I have not had to restart in something like 42 days, thinking about which iPhone I'm going to dump my Galaxy SIII for in a few weeks' time.
I still run a GNU Linux on any desktop I have, and I actually don't see that changing anytime soon (my Linux complaints are generally with built-in peripherals on laptops which is hardly Linux's fault but still makes for a bad experience), but Apple has really won me over. I've got an iMac in my bedroom, an iPod I climb/bike/run/ski with. I can't see becoming a watch-wearer with the Apple Watch (I haven't worn a watch ever really) but it's not outside the realm of possibility.
I'm curious to see if Apple can do what Google couldn't, and make wearables a significant presence in the market, thus forcing other companies to react. If we leave other companies to break trail, as it were, I think the acceptance of wearables is still a little further off.
I think the next phase on wearable computing will include around-the-neck wireless devices. These are an example: http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&fiel...
I've seen a lot of folks recently wearing around-the-neck Bluetooth headphones. I was really skeptical of them and considered them a fad, but then received one as a present. I have subsequently been blown away by the value and convenience, and now believe that around-the-neck will be an important part of the future in wearable computing. I think the innovation was a combination of being small, light, well designed, effective wireless, long enough battery life, and an unobtrusive place to rest on the body.
Advantages:
- The absence of wires between my pocket and my head is a HUGE benefit. I now wear the wireless headphones by default, which are super convenient while doing routine activities like chores around the house, or changing clothes, or while traveling between house and car, etc. Wires get in the way and are inconvenient enough to stop me from using headphones (e.g., while buckling a seat-belt, or moving laundry around). Neck headphones are convenient enough to wear by default, and don't get in the way.
- The device overall is so convenient that I barely notice I'm wearing them. I frequently fall asleep while wearing them after listening to a book or podcast. They are small and light enough to evaporate from your senses.
- They're small enough to fit inside most shirts if needed
- Being continuously present around my neck removes the pain of unbundling wires from one's pocket. Those wires are always tangled. The neck device's wires are short and can't get tangled. The device magnetically contains its earbugs when not in use, so no dangling wires.
- Battery life is good enough that I can use them the whole next day even after leaving them on overnight (assuming audio isn't playing all night)
- While tethered to a primary device (smartphone or tablet), I can roam almost anywhere within my house within audio reception
I'm listening to audio substantially more now as a result of the device. While I think glasses would be far too intrusive, I've started wearing wireless headphones all day long by default now. I see many people doing it too. I could see these devices either replacing glasses or complementing them (move the processing units out of the glasses frame, and down around the neck, perhaps with an easily detached wire - a wire to the neck is probably doable).
What's not easy is finding new audio content dynamically while wearing them. I'm a big audiobook and podcast fan, so I listen to Audible and NPR and the like. But I have to prepare all my content ahead of time on another computing device to which the headphones are tethered. If the headphones were interactive, and commands were available by voice, to find and listen to books, podcasts, or the news, then I think they could form quite the electronic companion.
A full phone could probably be designed with that form factor (but no screen). Or imagine if I could control appliances within my house. TV, turn on. Search for "<the latest movie>". The headphones relay the command to my device, which instructs the house. There's a lot of potential there.
Are you now an "Apple guy" because you have money to spend and no longer consider Apple devices overpriced for their value, and you now value your time more?
Just curious (this is what happened to me you see; I want to spend time getting things done, not faffing around).
I never "disdained" Apple devices, but they were not in my acceptable price range until I started having a regular salary.
But I don´t really think they are so much better than Windows or Linux systems in terms of "getting things done".
I just value their design and the tight hardware-software integration, and I find the premium price to be acceptable, now.
When I was presented with the original iPhone, I was pissed but overtime as I came to see the merits of it, and by extension Apple hardware. At work I use an iMac, but my personal laptop still is a Lenovo (with Ubuntu 14.04). But I'll be pre-ordering the next MBP as soon as it is announced.
I don't have the patience that I earlier had to debug seemingly simple but drawn out errors/bugs. Apple nails the entire experience (s/w & h/w), and for a developer for whom Time = Money, this is the best possible investment one can make. I also wouldn't have considered Apple hardware had I not been working (and earning) substantially.
But I'm still not an Apple guy and for one-off setup stuff I stick with non Apple hardware (routers, etc). But I wouldn't call them overpriced, they work out of the box with as minimal config required as possible.
This is definitely a big part of it, yes. I could make it work with Android/Linux, but I can afford Apple products now. Also, as a 100% remote developer, I need my laptop/phone/ to be totally reliable, or it reflects on me professionally. For this reason also I am far less tolerant of say, random battery life issues with my phone. Additionally, some proprietary software (quite annoyingly) only runs in Windows/OSX. Again, I could boot a VM, but I'd rather not, and I suppose these days I can (literally) afford not to.
> This rings true to me. I was long a diehard Android/Linux guy - even an explicitly anti-Apple person.
I keep hearing this but there's always some other reason lurking behind it.
I have never been an anti-Apple person. I use Linux on my desktop because I need something that just works. It must never fail on me and all tools I need must be readily available. Mac probably comes the closest, but speak with any Windows person and it's "yeah just install this usb driver to get the adb going and then install this binary stuff from a website and then..". No thanks, I have work to do.
I suppose the same can be true for the iPhone as well. Instead of rooting and installing homebrew and stuff to tether, just get something that works and click the button.
I don't "fight" my tools, Linux, Mac or otherwise. I get something that works instead. For the past decade, that has equated to Linux on a Thinkpad for me.
Since Linux users for the most part doesn't need to mess with drivers, it just keeps working. (And thank you everyone out there who keeps making this possible.)
Agreed - I still use Linux on my desktop for this reason as well. I can have years' worth of uptime, if need be. I haven't used a Thinkpad, which the comment below suggests is a better laptop/Linux experience, and I have had some annoying issues with Wifi drivers, etc while using non-Ubuntu versions of Linux. There's also inevitably some corporate software of some variety that you run into that needs IE/Safari, so it's nice to have them around. The software for my GPS has no Linux installer, and while that isn't a deal-breaking fact, I use that software to plan climbing and skiing trips, so it's nice to have. It's one more voice saying "pay for the convenience" I suppose.
It would be great to see apple release a video similar to the 'making the mac pro' that shows just how sophisticated and precise their manufacturing for the watch would be.. it might even get a few more people on board that have an interest in production quality.
He compares the Patek Philippe 3940G, along with a photograph. I have and used to wear the rarer top model of that series, with several more complications and digits in the price. I love and collect complication watches. I hate digital watches -- I've kept only one in 25 years.
Since getting the Pebble Steel with leather band (preordered and meant to cancel when I decided I wouldn't use it), I haven't worn the Patek or any of the other mechanicals during my business day.
The moment to moment difference liberating me from "devices" during my business day is too valuable. I don't love it. But it changes my day.
Given your comment, it's an interesting contrast: I no longer wear any other watch besides the Pebble Steel because I hate interruptions even more than I love mechanical watches. The Pebble's soft vibration and glance-ability is so much less intrusive than checking a device, I'm unwilling to trade it.
Couple the manufacturing detail described here with the benefit to the flow of one's day, and I'd argue the Apple Watch is the first digital likely to appeal to mechanical watch lovers in highly connected jobs.
Aside: I was totally surprised by how similar the watch looks to the original iPhone.
Whatever their merits as engineering marvels, expensive watches are Veblen goods that are worn to display wealth. Similar mechanisms can be put into pocket watches, but that's a much smaller market. Expensive watches have the appeal they do because they fall on the same continuum as everyone else's watch. Change the middle of the watch market and the current high end will look as absurd as a Vertu brick phone.
I think you're missing the fact that the mechanical watch industry is already post-apocalypse (i.e., the Quartz Crisis that started in the 70s).
The current mechanical watch industry does not exist for anything other than emotional reasons and won't see that much of an impact from another $400 electronic watch.
As a collector myself I think it's an interesting development for the industry and I'm sure I'll buy some version of the Apple Watch. I doubt it will replace one of my mechanicals as a daily wear.
I only recently got interested in mechanical watches. It's fun to have a mechanical marvel on my wrist for those times when I don't want to reach into my pocket to tell the time using an electronic marvel.
I'm not sure if I'd ever get a smart watch. Perhaps. I actually feel kind of attached to my automatic. If I stop wearing it for more than two days it will stop running. That just seems cruel to the little guy.
To me the moral level of consumption is as close to the minimum required to survive and make an optimal economic contribution to society. Everyone needs happiness and entertainment in their lives. The struggle is avoiding excess.
I agree that most of what people spend their money on is the pursuit of happiness and entertainment. My view is that the path to true happiness does not lie in material goods or personal experiences. Rather, helping others in their struggles and seeing their lives improve leads to fulfillment.
I want to live in a world where watchmakers (and other artists) are free to make any awesome and expensive thing that they can imagine. Man does not live by bread alone.
It's not enough to just live. You have to have something to live for. Let it be mechanical watches.
For things that can be digitally distributed at virtually no cost, or can be bulk produced at low cost (books, music, board games, etc.) I am fully supportive. For things that have a high economic opportunity cost, such as extremely complex watches, luxury cars, things of that nature, I have a very low tolerance because the cost is human life. As a species we have not yet reached a point where every human has the necessities of life. Once everyone has access to food, water, shelter, and internet (education), then I am all for exploring the limits of our potential in every regard.
As an aside, I think it's your money, and if you want to spend more than I would spend on a server (which is to say, way more than I'd consider spending on a car) on a fancy watch, well, I'm going to make fun of you a little bit, but ultimately, it's your money, and your judgement. But, if fancy watches are primarily signaling, which I believe to be the case, it seems to me that you could figure out how to get the same signaling value out of proving that you gave a certain amount to certain stylish charities.
Mechanical watches are moving art and are rarely purchased out of need. With the advent of perpetual automatics, they approach the ideal of mechanical perfection - a miniature machine which can accurately track time (and many other features) in extreme environments without the need of a power source. As such, they continue to appeal to many different people - with higher end, more complicated designs continuing to come about at higher prices. I'm a software developer and I love my automatics for both their technical merits as well as their aesthetic beauty. To each his own
That's what may change if these new smart watches find their killer app. No one really needed a calculator, heart beat monitor, or other gimmick on his wrist, so digital watches never pulled away on features. That might change now.
Would I rather wear an intricate piece of jewelry or see why my phone vibrated without reaching into my pocket? It starts to be a different calculation.
Compact cameras are not doing too good, because you can shoot pictures with your phone. DSLR and mirrorless though, are doing swell, with even better projections.
In the same way, I think low end watches (mechanical+smart) will suffer a big hit, but high end watches ($1k+ will not see any difference at all). It's just different market segments. You don't see Martinelli worried about Ikea opening a factory every eayr. They just sell to different people.
I've tried to make that point to people who claim that Apple has ever shrinking market share in the smartphone market. It might seem so to a person who has no idea about marketing, but in reality, Apple's share in the high end segment of the market is increasing.
Watch purists may go the way of vinyl purists, slowly dying out as the competing technology offers more and more convenience.
Well, I don't think people buying 30,000 euros watches are such a big market that Apple should worry about missing them.
That includes former French President Sarkozy (he wears the same Patek Philippe watch), not really the "man with an okay job who lives in a nice apartment in some metropolitan town".
A $50 watch keeps time just about as good as a $10K watch.
And you might even get to keep the former when you're being held up on the way to your Ferrari.
I don't know if I have a use case for the apple watch, I might buy one to try out, see if it works, but I will say -if nothing else, its uniformly a pretty object d'art.
Auto playing link, don't click if your audio is loud:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101619289
Fairly incredible, expensive watches for rent.
What does this phrase mean? Search engines are giving me nothing.
Go an tell that to someone wearing a diamond ring. That doesn't tell the time either.
That's a 50.000 USD watch?
After all, I have expensive leather shoes and trainers. Other than the fact they both go on my feet there is little similarity but I can and do own, use and like both.
Of course that would remove any remaining doubt that the purpose of a $60,000 watch is to signal wealth rather than tell time.
Alternatively, maybe we'll see mechanical watches with a smart watch "complication". At the very least I'm sure we'll see partnerships between (some) high end mechanical watchmakers and smartwatch platforms.
I agree with the sentiment, but, based on my interactions with OSX and iOS, I assume it's not essential that the watch buzz and interrupt you all the time. I have all popups & notifications disabled in OSX and iOS, and they're still great tools when you're ready to pay attention to them.
I won't be getting an Apple Watch v1 (because it's not waterproof, and well, v1), but it wouldn't surprise me if I bought one down the line. I think there's a lot of interesting things that can be done with all the new sensors, and UX.
She's also pretty fashion conscious and while she isn't happy with the design, I think it passes the bar. She really would prefer something with Apple guts and external design by her favorite fashion brands, however.
Unless you're the president of the United States or something to that effect. People have too little family time as it is once you start adapting what you wear in order to accommodate further encroachment on the little that remains soon there'll be nothing left.
Work can usually wait until the next day.
And if you do have to be on call outside of regular work hours make sure you're compensated for each and every minute that you're on call.
- The NSA won't hack into it
- Most will work decades and follow me, given I service them every 5 to 8 years
A big clunky square box with a rubber strap. Some dim electronic display on top. That's what it looks like at a distance. Honestly it looks like something Samsung or Sony might turn out.
Most of the guesswork 'prototypes' were far more compelling: https://www.google.com/search?q=iwatch+prototype&tbm=isch
Even the Samsung offering looks better - we can finally do curved displays, and is there a better place to put them than in a wristwatch? http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/gears/
As does the iPhone 6
edit: and this is coming from quite the apple fanboy
I have conflicted thoughts on Apple Watch. On one hand, I can see that Apple has put a LOT of thought on its appearance (as with most of their products) and on the little details. On the other hand, I don't think the final design look good. I would need to try it first hand to confirm it but my first impression is that I don't want that big rectangular clunky thing on my hand.
And a circular watchface in a rectangular frame with a lot of whitespace (well blackspace actually) ? I just can't get over it.
If I had to guess what Apple Watch would look like before its reveal, I would have bet on something very similar to the Moto360.
The Moto360 is initially easier to accept due to its familiar "normal" watch appearance, but I think the software and "experience" on devices like the Apple Watch will prevail.
I agree that the Moto 360 and the Apple Watch are in a class of their own at the moment (or would be if the Apple Watch was more than an ad at that point). Samsung and LG have delivered gadgets targeted at geeks whereas Motorola and Apple are making jewelry pieces that are also smart-watches.
Also, whatever the quality of product, Apple marketing machine is a juggernaut that will create sales.
My main gripe with all this is that I really, really, don't want two wearable ecosystems that are tied to their parent OSes.
I think build quality will really make or break it here. On paper, it's not that attractive, but if--as an object--it's machined very precisely and out of attractive materials, I think it can overcome that. It certainly seems to be what they're hoping for.
I think the litmus test will be how the face feels (without strap) just in your hand. Does it feel like a premium object or not?
I think you missed something.
Only 2.7 _million_ dollars...
How many people have ever walked into a jewelers and, when asked what they wanted from a watch, replied "I want it to be as complicated as possible - the more complicated the better".
A watch at that price does one thing and one thing only - it says loud and clear that the wearer is almost certainly richer than you.
After all, a 1000 year calendar is impressive, but who really has ever gone, "hold on is it the 20th century or the 21st"? That might have been an issue for a few of us who were a bit drunk on New Year's Eve 14 years ago but it's not going to be a problem again for at least 86 years.
I still think a $2.7m dollar watch has one purpose - to allow the owner to say they have a $2.7m watch.
I should point out, I'm not against expensive, mechanical watches (I own one and love it), I just think there are limits and for me they probably kick in around the point a sixth digit gets added to the price.
To clarify, 6 digits including or excluding cents?
Maybe.
On the internet you are never the only one. I don't like it either, but it's just subjective opinion. I'm sure a lot of people will like it.
1. The Samsung offering looks huge on that men's wrist, never mind women's wrist.
2. Why would you put a curved watch on a wrist, if the top part of the wrist is flat?
http://static.squarespace.com/static/4fa14d3ce4b08a53fa26468...
I think as with most watches, it's a piece of your outfit. It doesn't look good on its own, and it's not supposed to.
This article gave me more insight into why someone might actually buy this watch. But in reality I just don't see people clamoring for something like this. Although I never thought Steve Jobs was really a visionary, I did always recognize that he did have enough understanding of the market to see what people were looking for and provide it better than anyone else. I mean, digital music, smart phones, etc. all existed before Apple produced iTunes and the iPhone, but nobody marketed it correctly or provided exactly what people were looking for like Jobs and Apple. I just don't think people who can pull that off come along very often, and I don't think Apple has anyone (at least not facing the public) that can match what Steve did.
I'm not sure Jobs would be trying to produce a watch...I might consider what Jobs did and think he might have moved over into self driving cars or something like that. People would buy a self driving car from Apple, and it seems the market is starting to build momentum.
I often wonder if the motto let's have our own tastes and buy different things is not just some recent invention intended to help us spend more money. I wonder if in the past, e.g.in the middle age, people were that much obsessed by external differentiating assets like clothes, perfumes, shoes and so on. Maybe, just maybe, this is a vast scam. And maybe without ads and tv we would be very happy to wear similar clothes, and let other things, more important things like intelligence or knowledge, differentiate us from the crowd.
As far as a 'recent' invention, humans have been building completely unique building, architecture and paintings for our entire known history.
User interfaces and industrial design is what Apple excels at. I'm not sure I'd trust a self driving car from them.
People said Apple would be mocking Motorola for the black area in the bottom of their watch. I don't personally have a preference in the square/circle debate, but I really thought Apple would be able to get rid of more of the bevel.
That said, I don't find the device compelling. One more gadget to charge.
Apple have made a start on trying to work with different preferences with the interchangable straps and clasps and so on but something like this is never going to please everyone.
Personally I wouldn't go as far as ugly but I'm certainly not wow-ed by it in terms of how it looks. It seems to be well designed and well made but lots of things are and it doesn't mean I want to strap them to my wrist.
If you think it's ugly, it's ugly. I'd prefer a round watch, personally, but to each his own. However, the watch looks really well made and the straps look great. Two downsides for me: iPhone-only (I'm not going leave Android) and (potentially) battery life.
>Most of the guesswork 'prototypes' were far more compelling
Really? Most of them aren't possible with current technology (or ever). I'm also not a big bracelet guy.
I like your attitude on this.
http://i.imgur.com/qGvqIqK.png
Would you still call those ugly? Either way it's definitely not just some dim display with a rubber strap.
The Apple watch will be totally obsolete and incompatible with everything inside of five years. It's soldered-on and nearly impossible to replace battery will likely run out of charges in far less time than that. These are not heirloom items. They're disposable. As such, I don't expect the same kind of build quality from an Apple watch that I would from a mechanical watch. That they do offer good build quality for the money is therefore totally unexpected and rather nice.
That being said, I'm still waiting for the killer app that makes me want one of these. As a fitness tracker and GPS watch they're inferior to what's out there (chiefly because the Apple watch relies on your iPhone's GPS). I don't do workouts with a phone in my pocket. Also, so far it's unclear if the Apple watch is waterproof, and it had better be to have any use at all in this market! For almost all other applications, the effort of working with such a tiny screen and different interface outweighs the trouble of reaching into your pocket and pulling out your phone. If I want eye candy on my wrist, I'll dust off a mechanical instead of buying something that will be junk in a few years.
I'm still waiting for the killer app that makes
me want one of these.
This is essentially the same scenario, people wont care about them being disposable, because they wont necessarily be using it as a watch as the main feature any more. (Just like how people hardly use their phones for talking any more)
To give you some perspective, I'm a bit of a watch freak, certainly not the norm. Hell, I visit and participate in more than one watch forum on a daily basis. Mine is the general sentiment being expressed in those forums.
You used to have to carry a camera around if you wanted to take pictures. Now that's part of the hunk of silicon in your pocket. Similarly, you used to have to carry a bunch of plastic cards in a wallet. Now that's part of the hunk of silicon on your wrist.
The hunk of silicon on your wrist isn't a "watch that does more" any more than a device that's both a camera, a PDA, a GPS, etc. is a "phone that does more." It's a convergence of several orthogonal devices that isn't a phone, or a watch, at all.
Thinking of the Apple Watch as primarily a watch obscures the value proposition. It has the form factor of a watch, but it may as well not tell time at all, for all people will care about that feature of it. In fact, maybe it's better to pretend it doesn't tell time, to help you cut through to the real reasons people would want one on their wrist.
That's a pretty big "if" though isn't it?
The killer features of watches is that they tell the time. Yet the jury is still out on the Apple Watch (and horribly divided, it seems).
But who will know how to use it?
I grew up using rotary phones. But about 15 years ago, after many years of using Touch-Tone, I tried to place a call on a rotary wall phone. And I couldn't do it without a lot of retries. There is a little bit of a technique of knowing how hard to turn and just when to release. And I had lost the recipe.
Plus I don't think anyone under 30 y/o has even used one. They'd find it difficult to dial correctly.
Not only that, the rotary phones are filled with mechanical components that rust and wear out. If it weren't for the infernal non-replaceable battery, my money would be on an iPhone surviving for much longer than a rotary phone.
A. They will do future upgrades to the internals of the watch to make it current with the latest model.
B. They will allow trade-in for a small fee to the latest version with the same case material (and recycle the gold in the case into a new watch).
If they didn't one of these, a customer would soon feel that their rather expensive watch had fallen behind the technology curve.
My guess: B
I think people who'd buy a gold iWatch are not looking for a family heirloom to give to their great-grandchildren, they're looking for something "bling" to show off how rich they are. I think it's for the petrodollar market, basically. I'm sure you can already find diamond encrusted iphones made by third parties already...
Haptic walking directions for me. I travel a lot and walk a lot, and to be able to find my way without having to looking at a phone screen would be lovely (not to mention it means I can then keep my attention on my surroundings rather than being distracted).
Also, based purely on style, the Apple watch looks quite luxurious, and the pictures really do make it seem "expensive". However, I also find other smart watches quite nice, such as the Moto360.
[0] - http://www.subtraction.com/2014/07/09/looks-by-dr-dre/
It certainly seems to me that Apple aren't even trying to directly compete for the audience that Android Wear attracts.
Ben Thompson[1] has been talking for months about Apple moving properly into the luxury goods sector. The Watch seems like their first real push in that direction.
So, nothing new there except now they compete with existing fashion items.
All told, even though the article was gushing (almost to the point of shill) it still admits it's bulky, it's for nerds and it's a market category noone asked for. We will see how it goes.
I'm impressed by the sweeping, of course. The display looks very nice for a watch at any price range. I wish the author actually compared some $350 mechanical watches, instead of a $28,000 hourglass, a $15,000 watch too big for his cuff, a $150 mechanical Swatch, and a $700 mechanical Tissot. Instead, we get vague, non-specific swaths of comparisons:
> Apple got more details right on their watch than the vast majority of Swiss and Asian brands do with similarly priced watches
> In many cases, its offerings make what is coming out of Switzerland (or Asia) look amateurish.
Again, no specific mention of better-than-X. Too bad. I do like that Tissot he mentioned.
I'm quite impressed by Apple's (relatively) vast array of superb finishes: other watch manufacturers could step their game up in this regard, but they would have to consolidate their designs. Also, the bracelets look quite nice and I hope that competition improves things analog-side.
That wouldn't be a watch review I'd want to read, that would be the analogous of what we say in the photography forums "pixel peeping"/"measurebation" review (which, like the reviews you describe in watch circles, all too common).
Watch fans are generally pretty up-front about the fact that they like watches mainly because they're beautiful/elegant/cool artifacts. As long as a watch keeps OK time, they don't seem particularly concerned with the nominal functionality.
I think in reality, many people like cameras for similar reasons, but it's not quite as acceptable to admit that. Even if someone really bought that expensive Leica because it's a beautiful jewel of precision manufacturing and high-quality materials (a perfectly fine reason if you ask me), they often put up something of a front, trying to emphasize all the ways it takes great pictures and helps their photography style...
Thats what I feel when I hear about any tech company launching a watch, be it Samsung or Apple. Maybe its just me, but since owning a smartphone, I feel I don't really need a watch. None I know wears a watch anymore. Werent watches one of the main things replaced by smartphones. Also, how many more screens can I handle? Laptops for work, tablets for browsing, smartphones for on the go tech.... and a smartwatch to do what exactly?
Maybe I am missing the whole point of smart watches. I am hoping its just not me.
The phone replaced my watch because it completed the same task while also completing many more. Why bother with a watch (for me, at least, just another thing to remember) when the phone works just as well?
A phone is not a perfect replacement, however. I constantly have to pull it out of my pocket, input a code to unlock it for various tasks, etc.
My Android watch has replaced the action of pulling my phone out of my pocket and unlocking it for basic tasks. It tells me the time, lets me dismiss phone calls, can pause and play my music, take notes, remind me of things, and display texts--and I no longer have to fish around in my pocket for a phone that takes seconds to unlock and navigate through.
As the smartphone replaced a repetitive task (remembering to wear my watch), the smartwatch replaces another repetitive task (wrestling with a phone stuck in my pocket).
I guarantee that for most people who would buy a watch like this the actual functionality is probably so far removed from their minds it's a non-issue. The marketing doesn't say what the watch does, it fetishizes the laser-cut infinitely adjustable magnetic watch band with meticulous design to make you go, "Oooooooh."
We are so far from the days where tech reviews would contain a breakdown of the new instructions in the latest microprocessor. Devices are only tangentially about functionality and tech; people will buy this because carrying around a phone (that replaced the watch) was "so last year."
I think any attempt to debate the merits of the device on a functional level are misguided. This is a watch that you will have to take off and RECHARGE for pete's sake.
Don't misunderstand me - This is a beautiful device. I will go check it out in the Apple store just to see if I am missing some major use case that can help improve my productivity in a significant way. Till then, its just another add-on device for me.
But to address your point more directly. Do you already know how to make a wearable device of a similar size that offers all these features without having to recharge once a day, by "early 2015"? If you do, then I'm very sure you can find employment at Apple or one of its competitors.
Weren't watches replaced by watches?
They started off in towers, then to rooms, then to tables, then to pockets and then to wrists. Is this not a similar evolution of computers?
It's funny to see the looks (especially being a web developer) when I take out my $15 dumb phone. Some people look like they think I'm one step above homeless. But I just don't have a use for a smart phone other than to make sure web apps display properly. I guess I like devices to do one thing and do it well. But I realize this is minority opinion.
You're taking functionality and fashion and grouping them together. Then you're dismissing one of the elements, functionality, and throwing out the other with it, fashion.
I wear a mechanical watch purely for fashion. The same way females wear rings in their ears. Ultimately, I don't think the first iteration of Apple Watch is going to supplant that, however it may in the future.
That's an odd way of phrasing it. Are you a Ferrengi? Usually we call them women, not females.
The iPhone is a good example: it wasn't until last year that you could have more than 2 versions (black and white)... and the 5c added many possible combinations with the off color cases. That's a product that had been on the market 6 years at that point!
So, actually offering all these different variations is quite a departure for them.
One argument for the Beats acquisition I heard was that Beats did this as well- they had many SKUs and many color combinations for each model of headphone and the argument went that managing selling a product line like that took a lot of special skill.
I wonder if this is the thing that Apple was really buying with Beats? (or more realistically, a big part of Beats value to Apple.)
the Nano is especially important as it was used already by various kickstarter projects as a poor man's Apple Watch. the real one looks very similar actually.
I wonder how much of the impetus for the Apple Watch came from the number of people who wanted to use the nano as a watch. Kind of a back door MVP in a way.
Thru went back to colors pretty quickly, probably for a mix of fashion and scratch resistance. There was a class action about the plastic nanos getting damaged too easily.
Jobs was fine with colors.
Is it possible that the best possible UX solution for winding a mechanical watch and controlling a digital OS is exactly the same? Perhaps. But that seems improbable to me. It's hard to know until the thing is out in the wild, but I would expect a lot of people fiddling awkwardly with the top half of that tiny little dial as the bottom of the dial digs into their wrist. Doesn't seem terribly fun.
Or to look at it differently, both of Apple's other consumer hits (iPod, iPhone) introduced a navigation interface that was completely novel and way better than anything else on the market (iPhone => finger navigated multi-touch screen, iPod => rotary dial). A crown on a watch is definitely not novel, and I'm thoroughly skeptical it will be way better than its competition.
That being said, it's unlikely that this thing bombs. But as a test of innovation post-Steve, I'm just not seeing it. And over time, the luster of Apple will fade if there's no innovation.
Someone made a mockup a week or two ago that used the ring around normal watch face as an input mechanism. I actually thought that was kind of a neat idea. I'd kind of like to see one of the Android watchmakers give it a try. But it was more of a 'watch with some interaction' (like the old Timex Datalink) than a 'smartwatch'.
[2] https://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=KScQVKCwL...
"But for me, it's all about the Milanese bracelet, baby. The fact that Apple even knows what this is is remarkable. I promise you not a single other tech company in the world would've spent the time to make this admittedly outdated looking option. But I absolutely love it."
Specifically "The fact that Apple even knows what this is is remarkable."
Apple knows?
Obviously Apple didn't develop the watch in a vacuum. And they have the money and resources to hire and consult with the best people in the world. So the surprise isn't that they did this what's surprising is how other equally rich companies don't tend to do things like this. In other words they seem to be lacking the motivation and creativity to even hire the right individuals.
This thought framework has me convinced that watch-like wearables have a place, but I think the fact that the Apple Watch doesn't "fit beneath the shirtsleeve" as OP points out is a major ding: form is as important as function for such a jewelry/tech hybrid. A 2x slimmer second generation of the Apple Watch will get /everyone/ on board.
I agree. I think they will sell a boatload of the first generation, but two or three years down the track it will get its equivalent of the iPod-on-Windows or App-store-for-iPhone moment and take off. Everything will suddenly click and everyone will want one.
The reality distortion doesn't start with the consumer once the product is released. It starts within Apple while the product is being developed. I mean they really believed when they were building the Apple Watch "We are building a $350 device". Wheter you love the design or hate it, it's hard to deny the effort that went into designing this device, from getting the dimensions right, to the curvature of the screen and bezel camouflage to the bracelet selection. This reality distortion field only then gets transfered to the RIGHT customer who has no problem paying $350.
I still think it'll be a tough slog to get the watch through the early adopter curve and over the early majority hump simply because it has no compelling features as of yet, but that might change with a wider ecoaystem. As of right now, the main selling feature of this watch is the built in reality distortion field.
With the right offer though it might have an easier time. If you got the watch for $100 extra when upgrading your iPhone anyways that might be an easier pill to swallow than paying $350 outright. Whatever the offer may be, Apple needs to find the equivalent of the carrier subsidies which propelled smartphone adoption at the end of last decade.
TL'DR: What Apple realizes is that the way to sell their watch is to communicate to their customers that they want to wear the watch because they'll enjoy wearing it - no other reasons or features are needed. In fact many of the truly novel features (payment, identification, keyless entry...) will only scare away mainstream users. Just put in on their wrist first.. And show them the true functionality slowly and in stages.
Apple superfans won't wear this watch because of some feature that makes their lives easier somehow. The first buyers will wear it because they enjoy wearing it from a physical and psychological standpoint.
Are you saying that the only way Apple can sell their products for such a profit (over the raw cost of materials) is because of the Reality Distortion Field? We know that they've been working on this for years with all of the associated costs of designing and developing a product in that time.
People don't buy Mercedes cars because of the high tech in the cars (although that's a bonus). They but them because they're Mercedes cars.
In the same way people don't buy Rolexes to tell the time (although that's a bonus). They buy them because they want to wear a Rolex.
As easy as it is for some of the snobbier techies to dismiss Samsung's or LG's R&D I am pretty sure their smart watches didn't come out of thin air. They simply end up charging less for them because they never imagined them as premium products but rather utilities. They didn't start with a "reality distortion field".
You can tell because they don't do anything particularly novel. The early Mac innovations were taken from Xerox PARC. The first iPod came out 3 years after the first MP3 player. The first iPhone came out 6 years after the first smartphone. The Pebble was part of the YC 2011 class.
This is a smart approach. Apple lets other people pioneer a product space to figure out what works, and then use their immense design talent and their even more immense cash reserves to turn a good-but-geeky product into something that the bulk of the market will actually buy and use. And then they scoop up enormous amounts of money.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle
No way.
Apple targets the fashion market. Material might be great, but the form factor is horrible: big, clunky, ...
Basically Apple tries to sell a very tiny computer add-on in a jewelry case.
Currently I'm only using watches for training a Garmin 310xt and now most of the time a Suunto Ambit2 S. The latter is the more modern and it does the training stuff very well. I can swim with it, it has GPS and it has very good heart rate monitoring functionality (it gets the oxygen consumption and energy using heart rate variability data).
For Apple I would hope that the new Apple Watch is the equivalent of the first iPhone, which also wasn't very good on the hardware level (slow, limited connectivity, ...).
Haha that's made my day thanks. Very witty.
So far only chest straps deliver that data.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_oximetry
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoplethysmogram
3. http://www.swharden.com/blog/2013-04-14-simple-diy-ecg-pulse...
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_saturation_(medicine)
> Note that the ANT and ANT+ transmission protocols that the Ambit2 utilizes to transmit heart rate don’t transmit well underwater (about 1-2”), thus, you won’t get any heart rate data.
I believe Polar's ultrasonic sound transmission is still the only one which works reliably underwater.
Imagine a man who grew up in the middle class, went do a decent school, got an okay job, lives in a nice apartment in some metropolitan town, maybe drives a German car and occasionally splurges on something nice for himself. Do you see him wearing the Apple Watch? I don't.
I honestly don't think Apple are too concerned about not selling a watch to that man. The watch is targeted at the hundreds of millions of teens and 20 year olds that are already attached to their iPhone, and want another gadget to connect to it and play with.
Market Leader In A Category No One Really Asked For
Which is exactly what the iPad was. Everybody said it was stupid and nobody would buy it, and now the sales figures speak for themselves.
You mean the declining year-over-year iPad sales figures? The tablet market is far from proven. Maybe the last year has been a hiccup, or maybe tablets weren't all they were cracked up to be.
For the past three quarters, Apple has sold more than 12 million iPads a quarter, or an annual rate of >48 million units. Is 48 million units a year not proof of a market?
I got an ipad2, and haven't found a need to replace it yet. The battery's pretty solid, and at this rate, that's likely to define when it's time for a new one.
Most the people I see buying new tablets are essentially buying "my first computer" for a kid. Something to shut them up in the car. And that's not a great market for apple's prices.
So I don't think the tablet is a flash in the pan - but I don't think the initial rush was sustainable either. Now that pretty much everyone who wants one, has one, it'll settle down closer to lifecycle turnover.
And to stray a little closer to on-topic, I'm hoping for the same from the watch. That's really what I'm waiting to find out, and I suspect we won't know any time soon. But that $350 is going to feel much heavier if I feel compelled to replace it as often as my phone. (on that note, I did find it interesting that there was absolutely nothing in the way of tech specs announced on the phone. No mention of resolution, just that it's enough. No mention of speed, or storage. The models are defined by materials, not numbers. Hopefully, this is a good sign that this device isn't meant to fit into a race to double the numbers each year.)
Of course, my Mom has bought 2 iPads after I bought my first one - maybe the iPad is really targeted to folks who don't already have iPhones?
I believe that aspirational yuppie will be EXACTLY the type Apple wants to buy the watch to build up brand cachet. They will want the kidults to avoid the watch as much as possible until they've turned into yuppies.
The tweens/kidults sets will gravitate towards the 6+, it'll be their preferred daily device when not touching their Apple laptops.
However, they are releasing their product just two years after the first real smartwatch came out(the Pebble), and the same year that the first color screen smartwatches started coming out.
This is not the standard Apple procedure. Will the iteration 1 of the Apple watch be successful? I personally don't think so, and I was among the people that predicted the success of the iPad [1]. But, paraphrasing what I said for the iPad, given that the Apple watch is made by Apple and that it's well made, elegant, functional and relatively cheap, it could end up selling very well and prove me wrong.
[1] http://economiauniversitaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/el-ipa...
Apple builds what they believe is a meaningful product, and often this involves assembling many more components than their competitors, so it takes them longer.
Er, no, they didn't. Some people said that. Lots of people said it was stupid but that it would probably sell well nonetheless. Other people said it was a well-conceived product for the market even if it wasn't what the speaker was looking for (which is basically the same as the previous thing, but with less ego.)
Lots of people said it was something they were looking for.
The reception to the iPad was overwhelmingly positive (if we really need to go to archived press and reviews, we can do that, but this revisionist nonsense about the iPad's reception needs to stop). And I don't remember anyone doubting that it would sell, just as I have no doubt that Apple will sell tens of millions of this watch regardless of any defects.
What people criticized was the notion that the iPad killed laptops -- that it was the new vehicle of productivity. And the terrible name which, while it stuck, remains terrible.
And those critics were by and large right. I know people can point to the fringe "productivity" use of an iPad, but overwhelming we use it for casual browsing, watching videos, and playing casual games. Exactly the same sort of stuff that we did on PMPs before. Because the iPad is a biggie-sized PMP, and it was hardly the first to idealize the notion that PMPs were cool, but would be cooler bigger (the "CrunchPad", for instance, was proposed two years before the iPad. The concept was obvious, albeit within a narrow band).
Instead, it clearly is excellent for consuming things, and cleverly pinched that giant segment of the market where people had been buying PCs just to browse the Internet, share photos and go shopping. Consumption.
You are exactly right, which is why this is so worrying from an investment perspective.
No matter if you like it or not, the wealthy drive fashion and taste. The reason why we think of BMW, Porsche, Ferrari's as "luxury" is primarily because the rich buy them.
No stock trader is going to trade his Philippe Patek for a $350 watch that his pool-boy wears.
This is something that is not getting talked about. No one buys watches to tell time. They are almost exclusively used as status symbols.
This is the miscalculation in Apple's plan. No one needs a watch anymore. Trying to make one relevant for a purpose other than status symbol is going to be tough.
They should've made a "smart band" that connects to any watch face. That would've been a clever strategy.
I do. I don't go anywhere without my watch (I have two, in fact). I purchased a $300 watch (after numerous Timex watches dying in a year) in high school that I've worn daily for 5+ years; I don't see that changing anytime soon. I hate pulling out my phone just to check the date / time—I always get distracted by something. If I need the time or date quickly, I look at my wrist.
I don't see it as that different from the iPhone today. BMW drivers and pool-boys both employ them as status symbols and neither lets the other drag that image down.
And yet, the stock trader has the same phone that his pool boy does...
The tablet market has been around for well over a decade, it's just that Apple was the first not to build one totally half-ass and as an afterthought or add-on to some more mature market. Tablets before the iPad were basically just weird laptops, and sold about as well as you'd expect something with that description to sell. Same with smartphones, which really replaced both mobile phones and PDAs: the market was there, and entities were making products, but every effort was half-assed and horribly crippled in some way.
I don't know where this product and market is headed. I lump it, for now, into the same category I lump Glass: very interesting tech, but I don't think I have a use case for it. But that's exactly the opposite of where I put tablets before iPad, and PDAs before iPhone, where I knew I had a use case for this stuff, but all the tech was overpriced garbage.
e: and, just to add, this is typical of an inexplicably common failure mode I seem to notice an awful lot, which is:
1. identify a potential market for X, with few or no participants
2. design shitty product B, in attempt to capture that market
3. when shitty product B fails, declare there is no market for X, move on to something else
One of the strengths of Apple, I think, is that they don't do this very often, i.e. they build good products even if they have no apparent competitor. Thus they can build new markets more easily.
"It's directly competing for the same real estate (i.e wrist), where as if we had seen a bracelet of some kind announced yesterday, those early adapters, myself included, would be begging Apple to take their pre-pre-pre-order"
I really did want the apple watch to be more of a bracelet and something that could be complimentary to an analog watch with all the messaging, notification, health aspects in tact. More than anything, the health tracking seems to be the most relevant for myself, and for that, I see a JawBone Up or something comparable that I can rest next to my analog watch as a potentially better option.
The design is brilliant, it's just not for me. However, iPhone 6 looks great so not like Apple won't be taking my money :)
I'm just curious that when he made claim of "The Apple Watch is by far the best smartwatch", what is this claim based on? Did he try all the other high end smart watch like Moto 360 or G watch R? If not, is it really fair to make a strong public claim like this?
The timekeeping aspect is purely secondary, since, thanks to modern technology, we know it will keep the time. My phone keeps the time, my laptop keeps the time, my TV keeps the time, my fucking oven keeps the time. Keeping the time is a solved problem.
*Although, in the US, wasn't there a timekeeping radio broadcast?
I remember having a cheap Timex in the mid 2000s that synced off this. I found it a great improvement to the watch experience; my synchronization source of choice before that was a wall clock also powered off that same signal. I also have vague memories of a phone number you could call to get the accurate time.
His article makes some great points about the watch itself, as he clearly knows what he's talking about. But I would take his non-strictly-watch-related opinions with a bit of skepticism, as I don't think he's playing in the same league as the rest of us.
[1] http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/2011/3/29/the-ikepod-hourglass-...
On the other hand, I think they delivered a nice product that will fit perfectly in an Apple store, engaging swarms of shoppers with lots of disposable income.
Standalone GPS is fine (even preferred - not replacing a forerunner) but another multi-band cell-radio? Simply sounds like a bad idea - the form factor is too small to make that feasible or interesting - for now.
And then I love to browse many websites by zooming in and leaning back; but once you zoom in a few steps these headers magnify to the point of absurdity.
The Apple Watch, as beautiful as it is -- is still an electronics/computing device that has obsolescence built into its life cycle (I'm also curious if the battery can be replaced).
Unlike an analog watch, people will want to upgrade to watches with faster CPUs and other new technology. And if you use mobile phones and tablets as a model, that could translate to every couple of years.
While I believe that initial sales will be impressive, it'll be interesting to see how a premium product like this will perform in the long term.
I also think mechanical watch makers are going to wake up one day and realize their market is getting old and dead.
Pocketwatches were replaced by wristwatches the instant it became possible to do so.
By "watch guy" he means someone who dropped $28,500 on a hourglass.
That said, I am not the market for a smart watch at all. I don't wear jewelry, and my phone already does a great job of telling time and showing me messages.
The only reason Rolex owners have Rolexes is to show they can afford one. And they can't wait to tell you about it.
Parents that teach their children that successful people buy overpriced trinkets are losing an opportunity to teach their kids the difference between 'good enough' and conspicuous consumption.
A Rolex is signalling stuff masquerading as utility stuff.
The utility value of a Rolex is approximately $50 (the price of a half-decent watch that will tell the time accurately for many years to come, assuming your phone doesn't already do that for you). The rest is signalling value (and in the case of a gold one some intrinsic value).
I'm perfectly ok with you not seeing my point. In the end the guy with the jeans and the t-shirt is quite possibly a lot wealthier than the guy with the Ferrari and the Rolex. (Especially when they're not bought with cash.)
That's immediatly the biggest mistake from the Moto360, the watch looks awesome... But the battery life is too short :(
They will need enough battery life though to go from morning to the next morning I would say, as you don't exactly want to have your watch stop working after a night of drinks after work...
For example: http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/leojia/deblurring.htm.
Let's begin this post by letting you know, right from the start, that this hourglass costs $28,500. Now, as you continue to read, you will notice how that number becomes more and more rational in your mind.
Not quite for me. It's still seeming absurd.
http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/2011/3/29/the-ikepod-hourglass-...
Anyone can buy a clock - you have one in the corner of your computer right now. People who spend this level of money are more interested in time keeping sculpture.
-Although it looks great, it doesn't look like a great watch, it just looks like a beautiful Apple product. The thing is, on this specific product, as opposed to all their other products, Apple is competing with an established design lineage that goes back for decades, and wristwatches have always been about good taste and good design, so the competition on the aesthetics front is not so easy for Apple as it was on their other products (meaning computer hardware/software makers suck tremendously in regards to design, but watchmakers are champions of it).
-Extending on previous reason: it's as if Apple decided to go the eyeglass route and take on Google. Easy, because Glass is downright ugly and too geeky. So Apple makes its own beautiful glass, which is still a little geeky, and then they have to compete with Ray-Ban, Gucci, Prada, wathever.
-Short battery life sucks for a wristwatch.
-People already have the functionality on the iPhone, and the iPhone is already pretty portable.
-Short battery life sucks a lot for a wristwatch, come to think of it.
edit: formatting.
Some suggestions:
* will sell less than x units in the y months after it becomes available
* is discontinued within y months
* will not make it to version n
* will bring in less than $x revenue/profit in [timeframe]
* will lose its link at the top of the apple website within y months
It's also hard to tell what Apple's internal expectations are. They may expect to only sell 100, or they may be expecting to sell 100 million. My guess is it's a "feeler" product to guage demand while they work on v2
Tim cook knows that younger generations dont care about wearing a watch because the time is on their phone. They want a product that convinces people that have NEVER worn a watch that they want something on their wrist...
I think this is going to be explosively successful.
Of course the sheer fact that you will actually be able to BUY an apple watch will be great for its success (see: every android watch perpetually being unavailable when they launch)
I also don't think that the Apple watch will convince 'normal' people to suddenly start buying watches again. Why on earth do you need this if you already have an smart phone? Maybe as some kind of mini iPod? If you remember the gimmicky 'smart watches' of the 80's and 90's, everything they offered has been solved by smart phones a thousand times. Calendar, birthday reminders, calculator, moon phases and so on. What does the Apple watch bring to the table compared to an iPhone? The only thing the Apple watch might be somewhat useful for is as an unreliable sports / health sensor for people who don't want to buy into Polar or Garmin's ecosystem.
To me, the thing looks entirely ridiculous. Sending your heart beat? What a fucking gimmick. Having to recharge a watch every other day? Are you kidding me?
A lot of people will still buy it. Apple is good at marketing. But this won't be a new iPhone success story.
My current watch has 5 fucking years of battery time. Some are more or less working indefinitely.
I like that my watch looks nice, but I also like that its functional. Running, on a bike, what not, its actually much more convenient than grabbing a smartphone.
What I don't get, is why current watch makers don't make a smartwatch from their point of view:
a regular watch, with connectivity to the phones, that can do a couple of things like vibrate in a variety of ways - OK - citizen actually tried that and it sort of work but there is no attention to details.
You want the watch to reliably vibrate if u get a msg or notification that you setup. You want it to vibrate differently for navigation depending if you gotta go right or left according to your phone (so you dont need to grab the phone while on a bike for example!).
Neither work well on the citizen, and the connection eventually times out, that sort of stuff. Too bad.
Fair enough, though the same could be said about smartphones.. i.e.
Personally I don't want any cell phone that has less than a week of battery time with heavy use. My current dumb phone has weeks of battery time, even when used heavily. I'll never get a smartphone until battery life is....
While that statement makes sense, it doesn't appear to have stopped many from moving to a smartphone.
How much harder with it be to tap the magnetic power thingie on? Not at all.
When Apple Watch 2.0 comes out, will battery life be longer? Quite probably.
This is just the beginning. If people can get used to charging their phone 1-3x a/day, they can plug their Watch in at night. Not perfect, but I don't think this is a deal breaker.
There were mentions at the event that the gold/rose gold version of the watch come in a 'charger stand' box that takes a lightning cable at the back.
And current watch makers can't make a smartwatch. Just like Apple couldn't make a mechanical watch. Completely different worlds that just happened to meet in the middle.
I'm not an Apple fan but I do appreciate their mostly good taste and design. However, this watch is hideous. It's the first object they produced since their resurrection in 1997 that I instantly find ugly. Really, really ugly. If it was an aeroplane it wouldn't fly well. I wouldn't bet it will be unsuccessful though, there's a lot of people with bad taste out there.
I do not need a slaved device. To me that is a redundant device. If anything I would love a wrist mounted phone and would willingly give up much of the smart phone functionality I have now. Simple text messages, voice mail, gps, and similar would be needed. Full on email, taking pictures, and browsing not so.
Besides being boring, ugly, whatever, the worst offense here is that you cannot buy it. Apple should go back to announcing products you can buy today, not next year.
Slaved device, I guess we should be thankful it isn't cable attached
Apple and Android are sure to win! :)
But seriously, only these two have the tech. We never wanted those old watches these smart watches are being compared with. And we sure as hell are not going to buy them now!
None of these so called watch makers make phones. Or tablets. Touch screens. Voice recognition. They are clueless about ecosystems. Watch companies have managed to have a strap ecosystem, that's all. That's laughable and lazy for a "big" business. I continue to believe watch incumbents are obsolete. If anything, this is their last chance to jump onto the bandwagon now that tech companies have put our interests back into watches.
Years ago I thought digital photo frames were an excellent (and still relevant) idea but ultimately a failure because they looked like screens. And screens are distracting, eyes are drawn to them.
I hate TVs in bars, people unconsciously watched them even if they don't care about what is broadcast and forgot they are with people.
More like apple TV, iPod, console, kindle. Still scope for a multi-billion dollar market though.
Just the kind of thing Sony might have made in its heyday, and Apple can dramatically improve it iteratively, limited only by the wrist-space form-factor. Replace your wallet (payments, ID, memberships), car keys, TV remote; monitor blood sugar, home-automation etc.
I'd buy that watch today for the same price as the Apple Watch.
The fonts are too loosely spaced, and the screen layouts looked amateurish, no better than the Android-based wearables.
I know this sounds like a nit-pick, but it's not. It's not like Apple to blow it at this level. They need to get it right at every level, especially the UI (and the brand).
I don't want a smartwatch to be the complement of a smartphone.
I want a smartphone to be the a complement of a smartwatch... actually, a smartphone sans the phone, like an ipod touch or a tablet.
My idea for a smartwatch is to have the modules that make a smartphone possible there: cellular antenna, gps, bluetooth, fitness tracking, etc. Baterry-unfriendly modules like Wi-Fi must be discarded.
The use case for a smartwatch as a standalone device would be the following one:
- Connect a Bluetooth headset to listen to music (extra points, if a micro sd slot is included)
- Receive messages and answer to them with predefined text (ex. I'm on my watch, I'll text you later)
- Receive calls and call to existing contacts/emergency numbers, a proper dialer is not required at all
- Basic GPS directions to predefined locations (ex. Home/Work/Gym/School)
- Fitness tracking
- Wireless charging
For the rest of features, and to enjoy a proper dialer, proper texting, proper navigation, etc., just connect the ipod/tablet/whatever to it via bluetooth.
The killer feature: Having to carry no smartphone at all.
You can use the multimedia system of the car to take advantage of the watch, the steering wheel could have a wireless charging module next to it.
Another accessory could be a desktop keyboard with a wireless charging module.
And at home, you could have a proper charging dock.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2014-New-Design-GPS-Tr...
I ran this page through NLTK's Sentiment Analysis and the the score is NEGATIVE 0.8, Stanford's never finished!
In time perhaps history will prove me wrong.
I would not wear one even if it was given to me for free in every configuration possible.
Deleted comment
It's a computer on your wrist that will be used for special tasks where little but precise information is required.
It's all about presence, NFC, iBeacon, sensors, iTags, etc.
He didn't even mention _any_ of the things you just talked about, instead deferred it to another article.
When an object has a permanence in utility and form, we have a certain relationship with it. This is the kind of emotion and relationship we have with watches. But the world changes, and very soon it will be competing against a different type of relationship. Our relationship with wearables may be skewed more to utility than heirloom. But that's OK because wearables represent the mesh of software with hardware, and software gives the ability to evolve. We will no longer have the singular relationship with one watch, but a broad relationship with a series of evolving wearables that slowly become more and more essential to our lives.
So no, we won't have the same emotions and same relationship with wearables as we did with watches. But that's just where the universe will be going.
The Apple Watch doesn't look particularly sleek or modern, instead it looks like someone shrunk the iPhone 3GS and put a strap on it.
The author picks up random watches that do not look nice as a comparision for the Apple Watch, but ignores watches in roughly the same price range that do look better?
For instance, look at [1] or [2], both are from Tissot, both look elegant and classy, and both are the same price as the Apple Watch.
The article obssesses over Apple's decision making regarding straps, but uses really, really biased sounding words. For instance:
> The fact that Apple even knows what this is is remarkable. I promise you not a single other tech company in the world would've spent the time to make this admittedly outdated looking option. But I absolutely love it.
Anybody who visits a watch store will find watches with that sort of strap a dime a dozen.
Further evidence of Apple fanboyism can be found later on in the article, when the author states that the new iPhone 6, which is not available for use yet, as "the absolute best offering in the category in both form and function".
I am not implying that liking Apple products makes one a fanboy (I own and really like my MBPr), but this article isn't of any really journalistic standard, and yet has reached the top of HN.
Re-read the bit about tech company, not watch company
The article acknowledges some of the shortcomings of the watch, but one thing should be obvious: this author is someone that understands the little differences in quality that differentiate a $350 watch from a $35,000 one. When it comes to the points he makes about build quality, I believe him. I'm also quite impressed by what I've seen of the bracelets, especially the ultra-thin deployant. If you've ever worn a deployant strap you'll understand what a big deal that is.
I do not think Apple has got everything right with this, but I'm increasingly realising they've done again what they always do well: completely ignore conventional wisdom about what makes a good product and focus on the "ownership experience".
As with other new Apple products, the first gen isn't very good. By the time it hits 3rd gen, all the initial complaints will have been resolved. They just need to find a market in the meantime, which is neither the Casio owner nor the Rolex owner, but I have confidence the market exists and this will do well enough to survive and evolve.
Anecdote, of course.
But I think assuming that someone who posts a blog posting in a blog about watches with a history of writing about watches is probably not so easily bought.
That was, in a roundabout way, my point; it seems silly to cry "omg, Apple shill!" with no evidence beyond "he said something nice about the iWatch" (and it is equally as silly for me to cry "omg, Samsung shill!" on nothing but the basis of "he said something unkind about Apple"). I'm afraid absurd tone doesn't come through well on the internet.
This is precisely the kind of article I'd expect from a watch aficionado. One can look at it with a suspicious eye, but unless there's something to indicate that they were bought, it's silly to call them out as such.
There are two logical solutions for this:
1) Sell a left handed model as well. You can expect there to be a 90/10 skew for righties just because of genetics, but that can be accounted for in manufacturing runs.
2) Allow the watch to be flipped upside down for the right wrist. While technically this would work, I highly doubt Apple would design something to be worn upside down.
Or they can just say fuck it and only make watches that make sense for right handed people. I guess we'll find out in a few months.