Comment by morganvachon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by morganvachon | Hacker News Reader

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> "Lynch is leaning forward in his chair, telling me about his kids: about how grateful he is to be able to simply glance at his Watch, realize that the latest text message isn’t immediately important, and then go right back to family time; about how that doesn’t feel disruptive to him—or them."

I'm sorry, but how in the world is this any different than the Pebble, Sony, and Android Wear smartwatches that came before it? I mean, I get that the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone; I had a Treo 650 when the iPhone was released, and while I still miss the Treo to this day, I can readily admit the iPhone took the concept in new and better directions.

But the Apple Watch doesn't bring anything new to the table. Yes, it's a hybrid Fitbit/Smartwatch...but so is the Microsoft Band. Which, by the way, works with all three major phone OSes; the Apple Watch works with the iPhone only, because of course it does.

I guess I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Yes, the iPod was a revolutionary device, the iPhone even more so, and the iPad can be thanked for all the great (and not so great) Android and Windows tablets out there now. But in this case it's the Apple Watch that is the also-ran, the follower...not the innovator.

It's integrated with iOS at a level no other device will ever be because Apple makes it. If you are interested in a smart watch and have an iPhone there is a very strong argument for the Apple Watch over everything else.

Will that be enough to make these kind of devices more popular? I'm not sure, I'm interested to see what happens.

I think Apple sees the differentiation (besides the fashion options) in offering Apple Pay. But, last I read there were some real world issues with it that plague all the other mobile payment options out there:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/like-all-mobile-wallets...

The iPod, iPhone, and iPad all entered markets well after they were established and against well-financed competitors with a good track record (including some of the companies you mention by name). Yet, the Apple products took off.

In retrospect we can look back and identify reasons that they took off over existing competitors. But at the time they were announced, there was quite a bit of doubt that they could or would succeed.

This doesn't mean that the Apple watch will do the same thing--it could certainly flop. It just means that based on history, it's hard to know in advance, based just on the keynote and ads, whether or why an Apple product will beat existing competitors.

I get that with the MP3 players and smartphones, but what tablet devices were well established? You had the Nokia Internet Tablets and...nothing. And they were barely more than MP4 players with Wi-Fi and touch screens. The iPad ushered in the modern concept of the tablet computer; rather than just being a media player with a touchscreen, it was a real computing device.

Microsoft had spent many millions of dollars developing and marketing their tablet vision. Bill Gates even went out of his way to tell people that he carried a Windows tablet as his only computer.

This was a number of years before the iPad came out, and the MS conception of the tablet was quite different from what the iPad ended up being. It relied on a stylus and handwriting recognition to interact with a desktop-style interface, often with a keyboard folded underneath as a backup.

It had largely fizzled, though, but to some extent that was true in the MP3 space and smart phone space as well. The product categories existed, some big players had products out, but consumer demand hadn't really blown up yet. And Apple's entrance changed consumer expectations.

The Microsoft tablets were non-starters; they were clunky x86 machines in an era when it was difficult to do x86 in a truly portable way. They were practically vaporware, and the few units they did sell disappeared into ignominy. The iPad was something else entirely, and was much closer to the vision people had of tablet computers based on what they saw on Star Trek and similar media.

> And Apple's entrance changed consumer expectations.

Exactly, that's the point I've been trying to make. Except in this case: With the smartwatch, everything Apple is being lauded for bringing to the platform has already been here for years, with the exception of Apple Pay. That feature alone is what sets the Apple Watch apart from Android Wear, the new Pebble watches, and the new Sony watch; everything else is available whether you have an iPhone (Pebble, Microsoft Band), Android (pretty much any smartwatch), or Windows Phone (Microsoft Band). And so far Apple Pay itself has been a non-starter.

I do agree that in this case perhaps Apple can't offer enough, but I'm not sure about it.

Many people didn't see the point of the iPhone when it came out. And I'd argue that especially the tech 'community' did not have a clue which exact features of the phone made it such a huge success: touch-based input with a UI built around the concept and, eventually, apps.

It's quite possible that the emphasis on new varieties of 'buzzing' for notifications, perhaps coupled with the fact that they're on your wrist, turns out to be a key feature that others overlooked.

Or perhaps the 'new' forms of communication - drawing, heartbeats, customized smileys - will appeal to people more than we think it does.

Or maybe just the UI as a whole will be enough to set this watch apart from the ones that exist.

I'm not as sure about the watch as I was about the iPhone when it was unveiled (and later the apps), but so far Apple has had an impressive amount of successes where the main reasons for this success was only apparent to many of us in hindsight.

I think the key difference is that Sony and Android both approached the watch as a smaller phone. You can play angry birds on it, and you can play music, and shop online and do everything that a phone can. In that sense they haven't built a new device, they built a miniature phone with a wristband.

So whatever Apple is building, it's definitely not an "also-ran" because the category doesn't exist yet. Whatever wins this category will look and feel markedly different from a smartphone, just like how the first real smartphones looked and felt different from their predecessor "smart"phones like the razr and blackberry.

Whether Apple can bring a viable product to the market remains to be seen.

> I think the key difference is that Sony and Android both approached the watch as a smaller phone. You can play angry birds on it, and you can play music, and shop online and do everything that a phone can. In that sense they haven't built a new device, they built a miniature phone with a wristband.

The original Sony Smartwatch and Smartwatch 2 can't do any of that. They are simple notification devices with limited controls similar to Bluetooth stereos.

> predecessor "smart"phones like the razr and blackberry

In what universe was the original Moto Razr a smartphone? It was a feature phone at best, a fashion accessory version of a standard Moto flip phone.

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