The two products occupy a very similar space of affordable luxury; they are not world-changing like the Mac or iPhone, but category-defining. Through gradual iteration and segmentation, Apple slowly turned its niche product into a cultural force.
Just wait until the iPod Classic 5G equivalent of the Watch comes out.
The jobs the watch will do aren't as clear cut as it was for the iPod.
The iPod let you listen to music and carried lots of (or all of) your music and had software that made it easy to convert and manage your digital music and buy more over the internet. Those were things basically everyone wanted and it did that better than competitors.
The watch? Well yeah it tells time, but it's worse at that then most watches and everyone already carries a device that tells time which the watch can't replace. Yeah, it gives you slightly faster access to notifications but not everyone needs that. Yeah, it has some good health/tracking benefits but that's not a huge deal to most people. Imho the best use of the watch is for (mobile OS)-Pay/mobile ID but adoption is still weak (unless you're in Tokyo) and it can be delivered with a much smaller wearable.
1. I'm what you'd call a "watch guy." In the time I have had the Apple Watch Series 2, I have barely used my mechanicals (including a Lange & Sohne and a Nomos Glashutte). The Apple Watch comes with me on all but the most formal/elegant occasions, and I now hate changing straps on my mechanical watches in comparison. The Apple Watch may not be as beautiful, but it is far more versatile and useful. When I want to dress it up a bit, I throw a Hermes leather strap on it, which works nicely in just about everything other than a suit (which is essentially the only time I'd jump back to the Lange).
2. You're vastly underestimating the utility of quick replies on the Apple Watch, in particular. I have quick replies for every conceivable response I could give to someone that is fewer than five words or so. This makes a lot of communication much faster because I don't need to take out my phone - I can tap, "congratulations", "cool!", "no", "yes", "I'm in a meeting", "I'm in a movie", etc.
3. Having notifications or synced functionality on the watch is a very frictionless way of enhancing iPhone interaction. As other commenters have said I can quickly glance at a multitude of things, not just the time. If I receive a message on Slack, I don't need to take my phone out if it's not something that requires my attention. When driving, I can have directions on my wrist directly, instead of on my dashboard. I can even have conversations on my wrist, hands free, while cooking. These are all ways it's directly enhanced my life in ways I wouldn't have really thought of without trying it.
4. I run a fair amount - at least 30 miles each week. The Apple Watch is the single most empowering device I've ever had for quantified self tracking and fitness enhancement. Having a pair of Airpods and an Apple Watch is a fantastic combination - I can't even imagine bringing my phone with my on a run anymore. I can look at my wrist to see my pace and split information, and that's just on the native Workout app. I can track my heart rate constantly using something like Cardiogram. I can also track my sleep. There is a massive amount of data enablement that I can now see and monitor as much as I want in the Health app.
I think in a couple more iterations the Apple Watch will be the best fitness tracker out there. At the moment the poor battery life doesn't lend itself well to things like sleep tracking or longer activities.
If the Apple Watch had week long battery life and was waterproof I'd get it over my garmin. When I had the original Apple Watch, I had to charge it every day and couldn't get it wet. Also my garmin always shows the time. None of that turn your wrist or its blank nonsense.
First, you probably meant "analog" watches. There's nothing unreal about the Apple Watch.
Second, one can be an analog watch aficionado AND fascinated/converted to a digital watch like the Apple Watch.
You don't suddenly become a "gadget guy" just because you've stopped wearing the analog watches in your collection in favor of something more practical.
If non-fashion, non-mass market brands targeted at the mid and high tiers of in-house haute horlogerie don't constitute "real watches" for you, what does? Your comment reads like I mentioned the widely recognizable "status" brands like Rolex and Tag Heuer. Nomos (entry-mid) and Lange (high-ultra high) are two of the most well-respected watch houses in the world right now, and probably the most well-respected from Germany (as opposed to Switzerland).
You're right that I'm a "gadget guy", though. I just appreciate both, and my original point is the Apple Watch's raw utility is capable of displacing my passion for mechanical timepieces and their craftsmanship.
No, it qualifies you as Lange & Söhne watch owner. We don't know if he bought it himself or why he did it. Not every Porsche owner is a petrolhead either.
Having said this, I am not disputing that he is a watch guy. I believe he is because he says so. As far as I am concerned this is enough.
I think the health tracking features are the major differentiating feature for wearables. Fit people want to track their exercise and stay fit and the unfit (for the most part) want to get fit. These two groups are 99% of the population. And, as we're finding in the 21st century/age of plenty, fitness takes some work. This thread alone indicates wearable can be a big motivator for fitness.
In addition, the health tracking will only get better and lead to preemptive sensing for cardiac events, insulin detection, and who knows what else.
I think the market for wearables (watches) is bigger than the iPod market, as wearables solve a real problem (fitness tracking and health monitoring) and are more than an awesome convenience.
I agree with all points except when you assume 'wearables' implies 'watches'. Similarly to payments, the health benefits can be delivered with a much smaller device. If health is the main benefit than that big gorgeous battery-sucking screen is a waste.
True. I would think the watches category will continue to occupy the pretty good/general tracking and health stats market (which should be huge) and, as the tech advances, there will always be smaller, screenless, more accurate detectors for specific use cases.
I am still amazed that my watch can track my laps while swimming (very accurately) and simultaneously track my pulse (less accurately, but that'll improve). And keep my calendar, deliver notifications, etc...
If you want to go beyond just counting steps and track actual activities (running, cycling, swimming, hiking, golf, etc) then you need some kind of display with buttons or touch screen.
In my observation, the most immediate effect of the Apple watch has been that enthusiasts seem to be more willing now to show off their Polars and Garmins in "civilian" settings. To those who have been using HRM straps for years or even decades, the fitness aspects of the Apple watch feel cute at best, much like the minimalistic fitness trackers that recently created a market as always-on step counters.
The actual technology is converging. The latest offerings from all three traditions share the same feature sets: sports HRM/GPS watches now have messaging and background tracking, communication watches have added GPS and HRM and even the minimalistic always-on activity monitors have evolved into full smart watches, e.g. Fitbit Blaze.
With features converged, the key differentiator is image, which has been the main driver of the wristwatch market for almost a century. Back to normal, in a way. Apple for those who identify with business, Garmin or Polar for those who identify with enthusiast level sports and Fitbit etc for those who identify with more casual fitness. Apple feels surprisingly "Microsoft" in this group.
What remains interesting is if the fitness and sports traditions will eventually merge on the image level (with "sports" strictly higher status as in "more serious") or if those brands will end up binned away in a spartan "training geek" category that casuals would go to lengths to avoid being associated with.
Buying a fitness tracker is a way to signal to everyone that you care about fitness without actually sweating. Just like buying "athleisure" clothes or nutritional supplements.
This probably fits with the iPod narrative but for me the current Apple Watches just aren't good enough for sports use.
What do I mean? Well specifically they lack ANT+ support so they won't work sensors I already own. E.g. Cycling power meters, heart rate monitors, electronic groupsets, etc.
Some of those I could replace cheaply with Bluetooth alternatives but not all of them.
In the future I'd like to look at things like blood oxygen monitors, not having Ant+ really cramps your choices.
I don't find Garmin products all that reliable but if it was purely for sports I'd currently buy one of their watches over an Apple Watch.
(I own and really like my Mac and iPhone so I think in other areas I must fit the Apple customer profile).
The lack of ANT+ is bad, but it's not the end of the world. Of the sensors I have currently (HRM, power meter, Stryd, speed sensor), the only one that doesn't have Bluetooth LE is the speed sensor. I note the electronic groupsets as an issue though.
The next WatchOS update will also add the ability to connect to 2 Bluetooth LE devices directly, rather than requiring the phone to do so. (Not sure if this is on top of the existing support for an external HRM or not.)
IMHO what's lacking is purely apps. For someone used to a Garmin or similar, the built-in workout tracking is a joke, and you don't get any useful exports or imports.
If there was a decent app that could give me data screens and a GPX file when done (and auto-upload to Strava probably), I'd use it for 4/5 of my runs/rides and just bring out the Garmin (920XT here) for the longer workouts where battery life is an issue.
I've been using the latest Garmin Forerunner 935 for a couple months and so far it's been reliable. We'll see how long it lasts. But realistically I think we're going to have to consider wearable devices as disposable after a few years.
Like with other tech, they tend to keep on working just fine, but you want to replace them because the new model has better features.
I upgraded from the 910 to the 920 to get the Bluetooth upload. That said, I'm not particularly tempted by the 935 over the 920, and I know people still using the 310XT which was released in 2009...
Fitness tracking is nice, but I believe that for 90% of runners is totally irrelevant. They have other, simpler metrics and work well. Those who want wearables buy specialized equipment (heart rate monitoring, etc.)
Add to all the above that an iPhone with an armband is just as easy to manage.
If the price drops by half, then it might become an interesting proposition, but till then, I don't see the watch as an iPod-like product and I am even considering buying one - I had a pebble before.
Based on what I've seen at a local running club with 60+ members, most regular runners seem to have picked up at least one wearable (although I haven't seen that many Apple watches - most have gone for either Garmin or TomTom). In fact, I'm certainly in the minority as someone who hasn't.
That said - the more professional members are generally also in that minority too - they tend to stick to using their phone or they don't bother tracking their runs at all.
It's been a game changer for me as a life-management aid. The calendaring and task list functions are solid. Pulling your phone out of your pocket (especially a big 6s+) is actually a big barrier to using Siri to jot down a note or set a reminder. I never used to use Siri, but with the watch I use it all the time. I just wish it could do more without telling you to pull out your iPhone.
May have done a poor job of communicating it above but I do think the watch is swell and useful and I'm big on wearables.
But I also don't have a watch for reasons above and long term I'm even more skeptical of the form factor because I think that most of the utility can be replaced by other wearables, and some of those wearables are not replaceable while the watch is. As you mention, things like notes, daily calendar and tasks work great with Siri but if you think about it how necessary is the watch to those interactions? I think most can be done great with just a headset and when that's impractical you can take the phone out of your pocket. If you start with a wearable ecosystem where the headset is core then, as AI and voice assistants continue to improve, we should expect to see a lot of notifications and health tracking migrate there and that whittles the use cases of the watch down considerably.
If you take those away what do you have left? Payments/id, fashion, video playback, games, partial or total phone replacement. Payments seems large but a ring seems superior. Games, video and fashion don't seem like killer apps for the watch form factor. A phone replacement/platform for 4g and wifi radios seems like a killer app but does the watch do that better than other options? Maybe yes but maybe no. If we're talking a total phone replacement you probably want the radios next to wherever the camera migrates to.
We're a long way from where it's acceptable to have a headset with a screen on in a business meeting. Meanwhile, during a meeting I can surreptitiously glance down at my watch to check when my next meeting or a email alert.
It's a surprisingly good form factor, combining voice touch and a display in an accessory that's already socially acceptable to wear everywhere.
Wearing headsets of any sort in a business meeting is pretty unacceptable in most cases. There's a reason the one ear Bluetooth sets largely fell out of fashion. Sure, social conventions can change but they haven't so far.
But on a headset without a screen you can't quickly see and dismiss an email or text that comes in without pulling out your phone. Or you can't glance quickly at it to remember your next appointment. I found that the bit reduced friction actually made me much more likely to rely on my phone to manage my schedule.
Why only in Tokyo?
In London you can use Apple Pay pretty much everywhere, even in the small food stalls on the street or to enter the underground.
I have seen pretty much the same in Australia, and I guess that in a lot of places in the world is no different.
EDIT: And actually last time that I went in Japan it was still pretty difficult to even use credit cards, so I won't bet on a pervasive use of Apple Pay there.
In the Netherlands we have contactless payments everywhere and many places that don't accept cash, but for some reason the banks are being really slow to work with Apple... no sign of ApplePay on the horizon from what I can see.
During the earnings call, Cook mentioned that Apple pay is coming to Denmark, Finland, Sweden and UAE this year so maybe next year for the Netherlands?
Watch + AirPods = killer app. It just needs more storage, but that will come in time. 3-4 generations from now and you won't even need a phone anymore.
and on that day I would buy one. I don't need an accessory for my phone, something that merely extends its screen from my pocket to my wrist and that is all I see the watch as.
I have seen three reasons repeated over and over why people like them and it seems so minimal of reasons. like someone mentioned, no one seems to justify wanting one until they have it but then I just figure they have to justify it.
Airpods are very nice and those I can find every day usage for, exercising and the like. far more than having a watch on my wrist as I tend to sweat a lot while exercising and don't need that.
so when it does not require my phone because it is a phone, I might sign up. but by the time phones get to that size I would just slap it on my shirt like Star Trek
Except if you go out running without your phone you can't call 911 to report a car crash or someone needing medical attention. Has happened twice for me and I'm glad I had a cell phone. Maybe the next generation smart watches will include LTE voice call functionality.
Couldn't disagree more. Not saying it's for everyone, but it's been an actual game changer in my life workflow.
I no longer need to have my phone with me at all times. I can just walk into a space, put my phone down, and only engage with it when I want to. The watch lets me know about anything I actually NEED to know RIGHT NOW (turns out, it's not that much). It's perfectly un-intrusive.
The one thing most people dont realize about why the iPod was popular was because it was actually the fastest device to transfer music to. At the time, music devices were using serial connections if you can believe that, and FireWire was the fastest thing on the market, only available with iPods. This, combined with having the most space (10gb vs 256 mb), combined with windows support on the third version, made the iPod take off.
At the time, music devices were using serial connections if you can believe that, and FireWire was the fastest thing on the market, only available with iPods.
Can't remember that. Mine had usb, was available before iPod and the speed never bothered me.
I remember it. I had some Philips MP3 player and I remember the software being horrible and the transfers taking hours at a time. The first time I saw iTunes and an iPod I was sold. iTunes used to be pretty incredible at the time...
Exactly, the average person didn't care how they were connecting their MP3 player to their computer, as long as they could connect it and the player itself was convenient size and looked nice.
The original iPod was 5 Gigs, which you filled over a 400Mbps Firewire connection. USB was limited to only 12Mbps at that time, so it only managed 3% of Firewire's transfer speed.
Filling the iPod's drive took a couple of minutes over Firewire, but a similarly sized device would take more than an hour using USB.
It was a significant technical advantage until the 480Mbps version of USB came along.
>The watch? Well yeah it tells time, but it's worse at that then most watches and everyone already carries a device that tells time which the watch can't replace. Yeah, it gives you slightly faster access to notifications but not everyone needs that.
How is it worse at telling time than most watches? It works fine for me except when the battery is dead. Is that what you mean? Bad battery life?
I don't use the watch to see my notifications faster at all. I use the watch so that I can respond/react to certain notifications as needed. If my phone buzzes in my pocket without me wearing a watch, I won't know if it's just a new calendar invite I don't need to see right away or an important text from a friend. This is why I use my watch, among other reasons. It's a great filtering mechanism.
I love my Apple Watch, but it's worse at telling time for me because the screen isn't always on. I can't just glance at it casually, I have to move my wrist in a very specific way to make it wake up.
True, sometimes the screen doesn't turn on without the right movement.
But how is tapping the screen lightly to turn the display on any different from using a regular analog/digital watch in darkness and needing to press a button for its light to turn on?
It's helpful socially to be able to check the time subtly. A tap or large wrist motion makes it look like you're trying to tell whoever you're with that they should be paying attention to the time.
I understand what you're saying. However, I don't see how that's much different from glancing at any number of clocks: for instance at the office when I glance at the time in the corner of my computer screen, when I'm in a meeting room and glance at the clock on the wall, etc. People notice that motion all the time.
I notice when people do this to me as well. Either way you'd need to glance at your watch, which means your eyes move somewhere else and you lose eye contact with whoever you're with/speaking to.
I don't have any watches with lights (mine are all mechanical; a few have glow in the dark features), so that's not something I ever did in the past.
How is it different? I don't know how to describe it really. But as someone who has worn a watch all my adult life, and has now been wearing the Apple Watch for a year (not every day, but fairly frequently; other days I wear different watches), it still feels totally different in a very annoying way. Did you wear a watch before you got the Apple Watch? I wonder if it's really just a difference of what you're used to. I can't articulate it well, but for me it's very different. The question of "how is it different" is like asking "why don't you like the color brown?" I dunno, I just don't.
Every time I take my Watch off during the day and my phone starts buzzing in my pocket it annoys the hell out of me.
And Apple has done a great job improving performance and user experience even in the Series 0. The only reason I'll want a new one in the Fall is a battery that's starting to lose efficiency after two+ years of heavy use & the potential for better phone-free use with AirPods, which as someone mentioned up thread is a killer combination.
A major reason, yes, but not the only reason. Apple’s infamous “hell freezes over” announcement of iTunes for Windows came in October 2003. As you can see on the graph, sales didn’t really take off until 2005.
So while lack of Windows compatibility was certainly an obstacle to the iPod's popularity, gaining it was not the single catalyst to its success.
That's because in 2003 it still required firewire which basically 0 PCs had. Furthermore 2005 was when they released significantly lower-priced models like the nano and shuffle.
And the 4th gen iPod with the click wheel came out in 2004 which is when the larger iPod models really hit their stride. The iPod was not an obvious world-beater out the gate.
Except not really, because the installed base of Macs at the time was a few million, while the iPhone installed base is around a billion. Being Mac-only in the early 2000s was orders of magnitude more limiting to potential sales than being iPhone-only today.
The iPhone install base is certainly not a billion, there have only been 1.2 billion ever sold. Estimates for the install base vary wildly, with the upper estimates at about 3/4 of a billion and more reasonable estimates at half a billion.
In any case, iPhones have about 15%-25% of the global smartphone install base (with the US being the big outlier). I certainly count that as very limiting. Maybe not on quite the same magnitude as Macs were for early iPods, but Apple Watches so far also did a lot better than early iPods.
> iPhones have about 15%-25% of the global smartphone
> install base
I would like to know how much of the remaining 75%-85% are used as smartphones and not just dumbphones with an smartphone OS on them. I am sure the many of the cheapest models are used this way.
Except not really, because number of Apple Watches sold in first month was in the millions whereas number of iPods sold was less than 100,000! I think OP is talking about rate of growth being like iPod, not absolute numbers https://www.lifewire.com/number-of-ipods-sold-all-time-19995...
I don't think so. As was mentioned, a lot of people didn't have Macs so it took iTunes on Windows to increase sales. A lot of people have iPhones. Enough, that Apple doesn't have to care about 'droids.
In the original days of iPhone, you could really only use it if you had a computer (to sync through iTunes, and to activate it if you didn't buy it in the store). iCloud got rid of all of that. I don't see why Apple wouldn't do similar with the Watch, especially since more of their services (Messages, Health) are being moved into iCloud services in iOS 11/watchOS 4.
The requirement was FireWire. Me and my brother both had iPods synchronizing with our Windows PC through a Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live sound card with FireWire using the MusicMatch software distributed by Apple with the iPod.
The iPod happened during a perfect storm of young people suddenly accumulating fileshared boatloads of unsorted MP3s that they desperately wanted to take away from their computers (then mostly clunky desktop systems), all while carrying significantly less cash into record stores than before. I see nothing that could come even close to that for the watch. To people spending many of their waking hours pondering the cultural relevance of the different strains of pop music (back then: almost everybody under 25), the iPod, together with the underlying file-sharing boom was world-changing, much like having a car is world-changing.
The analogy between iPod and watch might still hold of you look exclusively at buyers of the "minor iPods" at the time when the classic was still dominant (in other words: when the classic was still known as just the iPod). The distinction between people who wanted a portable music player and got the iPod (because it was the best), vs people who wanted an iPod and therefore got a portable music player (because that's what iPods were). The latter pattern could repeat itself with the watch just fine, but I don't know if that can happen with the former pattern happens before. The iPod started as a life changer (for a certain group/generation) that only later turned into a wealth indicator novelty. The watch is taking a bet to skip the first stage, because moving notifications from phone to wrist is a much smaller step than making the wondrously huge filesharing MP3 libraries of the day pocketable.
iPad 1 got little traction, it was slow, had no camera, couldn't play HD mp4, etc. iPad skyrocket with iPad 2 which was so much better in every regard. The same with Watch, the Watch 1 (series 0) one had no GPS and was to limited. Watch 3 (series 2) has a dual-core processor, GPS, is water-proof and is a decent device.
The question is do I want to carry a smartphone and a watch? I switched from a digital watch to a smartphone like a decade ago, I don't need a watch. I can imagine switching back to a watch as soon as phone functionality gets inbuilt in Apple Watch and no additional iPhone is required.
It has been pretty much the same with pretty much every Apple product since Job's return. The initial version is a good implementation of the basic idea, but it always has a few drawbacks and is too expensive for the limited use cases it enables. Successive iterations then improve the product until it's amazing a few years later. iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, McBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac... They all went through this.
There are of course products that they didn't manage to improve in this way, e.g. the Mac mini or the XServer. So I will reserve judgement on the Watch for a while yet.
Imho the Pebble style makes the most sense to me. Focus on notifications and directions to the wrist as the core feature. Everhthing else is heavy and I should only be implemnted as low-hanging fruit.
Then watches are a fun little accessory like a Bluetooth headset but it's just not that big of a deal like the iWatch. Simple non-illuminated LCD screen and low power processor means it can run for a week and is smaller than the heavier competitors.
It's a shame Pebble folded. I hope we'll see Garmin and FitBit provide successor devices.
I had my old one sitting in a dock for years. I'd just hit shuffle when I needed some music. Like turning on the radio, but with only good music. It was stolen.
Every nerd I know (including the ones who own Apple Watches) mirrors the comments in this thread — poor text entry, slow, half baked.
Every non-nerd I know who has one absolutely loves them. Last month, my parents came to visit and...
- boarded their flights with the Delta app
- paid for taxis with Apple Pay on their wrists
- laughed at how much higher their “steps” were here than back at home
- when my mother wound up in an accident, used Hey Siri to call us from her hospital bed when she couldn’t reach her phone.
We’ve been watching this industry for decades, unsure why it’s so hard for nerds to grasp that Apple doesn’t make products for “us”. But hey enjoy your Creative Labs Nomad...
That's such a generalization that I can't believe I'm bothering to refute it, but:
1. I consider myself pretty nerdy and I love the Apple Watch. You now know me, at least through Hacker News. I made another comment in this thread extolling the Apple Watch, and there are others. It feels like you cherrypicked the negativity, because I actually see a lot of balanced feedback that is both positive and negative about the watch, many of which comes from fellow "nerds".
2. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like you're using your in-group as a signaling heuristic rather than for an empirical analysis here. What constitutes a "nerd" if you haven't found any nerds who like it and if you didn't notice the comments from fellow nerds who really enjoy it?
3. I haven't personally found any of the issues you're talking about, but I do believe you've had them if you say you have. I'd chalk that up to an "underspecified complaint", because I don't know what the context was that resulted in poor behavior from the device. In my daily usage I don't find those issues emerge. However, I'd also gently suggest your expectations might be miscalibrated here and that you could be nitpicking. The device is absolutely not perfect, but I'm surprised if you disagree that it's not empowering, even for your in-group. It may be that you don't want to take advantage of those features, but if that's the case it's really not fair to generalize to a blanket claim that Apple doesn't develop for nerds.
Again, speaking as a nerd, I feel Apple develops products that target me very well. I use Linux on a workstation as a daily driver, but I enjoy my MacBook Pro more than I enjoy any other machine. I had an Android phone for about a year and switched back to the latest iPhone because it's both more secure and has better integration. And being that I develop software, I can appreciate that Apple has developed very solid software and hardware even if it can't meet all expectations.
I often leave comments exactly like the one you replied to, so while I'm not the person you replied to, I might as well be.
HN loves to hate Apple and everything they do, and the Internet as a whole loves to hate Apple. Going back to the infamous "less space than a Nomad, no wifi, lame" comment. Now to be sure, there are tons of us who like Apple products, but there are a lot of loudmouths who need to shout from the rooftops that this Apple product isn't targeted at them and that's why it will fail. Is it the majority? No, far from it. That's why Apple products are almost always huge successes. Most of their customers actually like them.
But every thread about the iPhone you have people who feel the need to explain why they'd never buy one because they need a headphone jack. Every thread about the iPad you have people who need to tell you that an Android tablet is cheaper, but people don't need tablets and the fad is wearing off. Every thread about the Macbook someone has to say how the XPS is a better value for the money and actually has function keys.
So when you hear someone like me or the person you responded to saying "nerds love to hate Apple", it's hyperbole. Nerds love to love Apple just like everyone else in the world and that's why they make a shitload of money every quarter. Internet loudmouths love to hate Apple, and unfortunately Internet loudmouths are the ones who get upvotes. So it gives the impression that nerds hate Apple, which leads other people to think "hey maybe I should hate Apple too" and makes news sites run stories about how nerds hate Apple's latest products.
It's not true, but that's the impression you'd get if you read HN or /r/technology.
Did you miss the part where I said "So when you hear someone like me or the person you responded to saying "nerds love to hate Apple", it's hyperbole."? I said that for a reason.
I restated the hyperbolic argument, then said "of course it's not all of the Internet, but that's how it seems sometimes" but the point still stands. Actually the reason the point stands is because not everyone agrees, but the people who hate Apple are always loud enough to drown out the people who don't. Go find any Apple product announcement and see for yourself what the top comments are.
>when my mother wound up in an accident, used Hey Siri to call us from her hospital bed when she couldn’t reach her phone.
I actually experienced this same thing last winter, and it was a life saver. I was taking out the trash and slipped on some ice on my deck. I hurt my back pretty bad and cracked some ribs. I wasn't able to shout to my wife inside because of the pain, and I wasn't able to stand up because of the pain. I was only wearing a pair of shorts because I wasn't planning on being out long, but the temperature was below freezing and the wind chill was below zero. I had no shirt or socks on and only a pair of slippers to protect my feet, so laying out there until my wife got suspicious and came to find me could have had some pretty bad consequences.
I didn't have my phone on me, but luckily I was wearing my watch and was within Bluetooth range of my phone. I was able to get Siri to call my wife and have her come out and help me back into the house. Kind of a nice feature.
I own an Apple watch, and I would agree with those sentiments..two years ago. Ever since watchOS 2 none of those things are really true anymore.
Text entry modes now include voice, quick replies, and simple glyph drawing. The speed of the gen 2 apple watch is pretty awesome, and with the advent of the "dock" you can have all your third party apps open instantly (up to 10, which for me covers everything I use on the watch.) Lots of iOS apps actually include a watch app, you would be surprised.
As a developer, it still annoys me because there are so many limitations. Complications on the watchface can essentially only be text or fixed images included in your app bundle. So nothing truly dynamic. Watchfaces still aren't open, likely just so they can control branding (Hermes for example.)
Personally I look at it like this, the apple watch is a fitness tracker, a notification machine, and a secondary display for the iPhone, in that order. If you don't want the first two, then you don't want an Apple Watch.
For me, the idea of a wearable computer just seems like a waste. And I think much of that comes from the fact that I've done most of work analytical work with pencil/pen and paper. So for me technology is the thing I use to do work I could never do on a notepad or in my own head. It took me years to finally accept the idea of a password manager so I would stop reusing the same set of passwords all over the web whenever I created an account. Heck, I didn't even have a smart phone until 2014 since I still prefer the flip phone form factor. And I'm only 37 so I do think technically minded people tend to like using their own mind to do the work much like an athlete or a farm worker likes to use their own body to do physically taxing work. It's just a natural fit in that regard. For everyone else, convenience trumps practicality.
Overall I still regret buying my Generation 1. The hardware was just not ready (Neither was the software, but the updates have improved it quite a bit over the 1.0 disaster). I knew I'd be an early adopter, so some rough edges are to be expected. Even so I experience(d) the following:
- Severe lag when triggering Siri
- Slow mail updates, to the point where I pull my phone out of my pocket anyway
- "This message contains elements Apple Watch cannot display". Seen way too often and it is frustrating.
- The wrist band mechanism failed to lock after ~4mo. Apple sent me a replacement Watch no questions asked which was great, but it took ~1mo to do so.
- The digital crown no longer rotates smoothly and instead feels like there's stuff clogging it. Washing the watch helps for a short while.
- Slow location updates, meaning a quick glance for at the local high/low weather is still often cities away after I arrive somewhere. Use case: Will I need my jacket with me later, or can I leave it in my car?
The heart rate monitor is great and my favorite feature, but not worth the $400 I paid for it.
I almost sprang for the v1 Watch, but waited for the Garmin Fenix 5. It's a far superior product IMO. Garmin is actually really good at designing interfaces for small screens, and t has buttons instead of touch, which I wanted. The battery lasts almost a week (long enough that I don't think about charging it, I just kinda plug it in when I notice the battery indicator below a quarter, which happens not very often). The heart rate was the big feature for me, plus the sapphire crystal (scratches on watch faces drive me crazy), plus the focus on fitness tracking, built-in GPS + GLONASS, and looking like a regular watch while being rugged enough that I don't have to worry about bumping it into stuff. The Garmin connect app works pretty well, with only occasional inabilities to sync. The Suunto Ambit 3 I have previously was much worse in this area. The app syncs with HealthKit and Gyroscope and generally works well for doing what I want with a fitness tracker. The vibration alerts also work well and remind me of meetings even when my phone is sitting in the dock on my desk and I'm working with headphones on.
I think that the Apple Watch really needs some killer features and excellent usability to separate it from the rest of the pack and drive sales. I see all of these smart watches as 5-year-max lifespan products before they're hopelessly obsolete, so spending half a grand+ on any of them is not going to be appealing to the masses.
As a counter point, I'm still using my first gen (not even Series 1!) Apple Watch after 2 years and it runs well enough for my uses. I would likely use Siri more if it was more responsive, but I use the notifications, Now Playing view, activity tracking and more all the time and it is really nice.
"runs well enough" for a device that is barely two years old and several hundred dollars, already obsoleted by the manufacturer, is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Fair enough, though I wouldn't say it's obsoleted. I can still run the latest WatchOS and that's true of the forthcoming WatchOS as well.
I didn't feel compelled to get a Series 2 watch and unless there's something dramatic in this fall's hardware, I'm not planning to upgrade to the next one either. I'm happy with what the watch does.
The Series 1 is the original Apple Watch but with the processor from the Series 2. It's a different device because of that, and lots of us call the original a Series 0. However, go on Gumtree and you'll see plenty of peppy claiming they're selling a Series 1 when it's actually an Original Apple Watch.
To make matters worse, the SoC in the original Apple Watch is called the S1, and the chip in the Series 1 and Series 2 Apple Watches is called the S2, making the numbering more confusing and preventing us from shortening anything to S1/S2.
The good news is that Apple Watch appears to hold its value like other Apple products. I just spotted a recent one on eBay that's exactly the same as mine which sold for $135.
Don't buy v1 (or series 0 in this case) of Apple devices. The series 2 is a nice device. The battery goes for a couple days, it's fast enough, and the new beta OS also seems address many issues.
People forget how rough the original iPhone was around the edges.
You can fix the sticky crown by rotating it and clicking it a few times under a stream of running water. This method is recommended by Apple themselves:
That's interesting, I have the opposite experience.
I'm still wearing my first gen (i.e., Series 0) Apple Watch from the day of release until now. It tracks my daily runs, gives me a quick (and private) glance at notifications, tells the time+weather, and I use the heart rate monitor from time-to-time.
I shower, swim, go to the beach with the watch on. I'm surprised it has lasted this long. Especially considering it's not really "waterproof" but I treat it like it is.
I use a bunch of cheap wristbands from eBay as well as the Apple one that came with it.
The only thing that has started going wrong is the battery is starting to lose charge a bit earlier than normal (around 10pm at night some days). I'd be happy having the battery fixed and using this watch for another year or more.
From my own experience and reading that of others, it's the device that no one can justify until they get one. Then it becomes the device that the vast majority love and some can't live without.
So I've been a serial Pebble smartwatch rather than Apple Watch owner - my original motivation was I thought it's be neat to be able to glance at my wrist while riding the bike and see who was calling/texting so I would know if I wanted to pull over and answer right then, or wait till I'd got to my destination. Turns out the answer was _always_ "No." whoever it was, it could always wait. I was either going to be at home/work in 5-10 minutes and I could call back then, or I was on a trip and wasn't going to stop till the bike needed more fuel in an hour or two and it could wait till then. (Or I could ignore it completely...)
When Pebble sold out to Garmin* and refunded my pledge/order for the last version, I spent some of that money on a second hand mechanical watch - I really don't miss much from the "smart" features I'd gotten used to... (Probably the only thing I miss is the "silent vibration on my wrist when I've left my phone on my desk but am still nearby"...)
Edit: * It was FitBit not Garmin, as pointed out in replies by dugfin and spike021. Thanks.
I'm a fellow Pebble user. Currently wearing a Pebble Time. My favorite feature of the watch is the screen, because it's always on, and, like traditional digital watches, ambient light increases visibility of the screen (unlike the Apple Watch, which is hindered by bright ambient light). At the moment, I plan to wear this watch until it stops working or can't hold a charge. After this, I don't know where I'll go. I might try the Apple Watch, but prices seem a bit steep for me. I might just go back to a non-smart watch.
I wish Pebble had managed the business side of things better, because I like(d) the product.
I'm _vaguely_ considering Dremel-ing open my original Pebble to see if replacing the battery is possible. The Googleable teardowns and xrays seem to suggest there's not a lot of hope though...
You can just unscrew the back panel. I've looked for a replacement battery for my pebble but to no avail. It's actually a relatively serviceable device if you don't mind soldering. (Mines a gen1 pebble by the way)
My experience has been the opposite. I bought a Pebble so I could know whether I had to put down my tools, pull out my phone, and answer a call from my boss; or if I could just ignore yet another call from an idiot coworker.
>When Pebble sold out to Garmin
I wish. Garmin might have done something with it. They sold out to FitBit, whose major motivation was the elimination of a competitor.
I dragged my heels on buying one for quite awhile. I didn't really "get" it, and didn't really see the use case. I liked wearing "normal" watches and didn't want a device that, if I liked it, would mean I could no longer wear a normal watch anymore. (or, worse, if I hated it, I wasted my money).
I used a friend's for a few minutes and was even LESS enamored with it. It felt freeing, "great, now I don't need to bother buying one!"
But then, something happened, and I stopped wearing watches regularly.
I had a business trip coming up, the Apple Watch 2 was still in limited supply, and I wanted a toy to play with. Went to the store, couldn't find one in the US. But I found the last one one at an Apple Store in Germany, bought it as an impulse buy, and haven't looked back. It's absolutely something you can live without. There is no killer app. But I just LIKE it, and it's useful every day. It replaced my Fitbits that keep dying. I use ApplePay on it which is amazing, I just wish it was supported more places. I use it for boarding passes. I use it for notifications. I use it to ack PagerDuty and Okta 2factor alerts for SSO and VPN.
I just think, because it's a new(ish) category, and it does many somewhat useful things but nothing you need, it doesn't drive people to lust after one. But once you have it, you really like it.
From my own experience, it's the opposite. I've known several people who thought they would love an Apple watch, and all ended up selling it used after a few months.
1) Vibrating alarm. Perfect as I hate these big vibrating discs for the deaf. They break frequently.
2) Message/Email notification. It vibrates when I get a text message so I can look and see if it's worth my time to reply or wait till later. Same with email.
3) Fitness - great for running and can even leave the phone at home (Strava especially).
It's really sad to me how terrible many accessibility devices are. I get that it's a small market, but it's almost like no one even cares enough to make a really excellent product for people with disabilities. Because there is a smaller selection and because people rely on this gear in ways able-bodied persons don't need to, it's even more important to get it right and make it affordable but high-quality. It saddens me that these people are so underserved due to capitalistic forces.
The economy is weird right now in a lot of ways, especially due to excess consolidation. You see a lot of big companies who make tons of money almost too easily, which serves to drive them away from point in the effort to pursue other corners of the market. It's like the RadioShack problem writ large. Why bother selling electronics components when cell phone plans have such a huge markup?
I don't have a lot of use for the Apple watch myself, but it's been great for my wife. She, like a lot of women, regularly wears clothing without pockets that can hold her phone, and puts her phone in her purse.
Having your phone in your purse radically changes the value of the watch. She used to often miss notifications, and sometimes calls, that she couldn't hear or feel. And even if she did notice them, digging your phone out of your purse is considerably less convenient than taking it out of your pocket.
My wife is a doctor and doesn't carry her phone around during the day when seeing patients. It sits on her desk back in her office which she rarely enters except at lunch and at the end of the day. After seeing my watch and talking to patients who have them, she decided she wanted one. Having the watch means she can get text messages throughout the day and if needed, quickly respond in the few minutes between patients. It's a total game-changer because if there's something going on with our kids or I just have a quick question for her (e.g. "Do I still need to stop by the store on the way home?") she gets the message right away and is able to respond.
That comes back to my core opinion on smart watches: notifications are the core. Everything else is feature creep. Imagine shopping for Bluetooth headsets - do you want one with biometrics and a backup radio antenna and a microSD slot for playing music without its phone, and a one-day battery?
Or do you want a good quality mic and earphones with a solid Bluetooth connection, and a week-long battery for light use?
I want the latter. Apple's take on smart watches is the former.
I don't want a "smart" watch. I want a Bluetooth notification watch. Very specific purpose. That's what Pebble made. It's a shame it didn't work out.
Personal anecdote: I bought an Apple Watch early and didn't really know what to do with it. It wasn't until I fell off my bike and broke it did I realize how much more exercise I was getting with it. I bought another one soon after.
Syncing should happen automatically even if you aren't opening the app. If you have to open the app to sync then some setting is turned off or something else is wrong.
Just going to make a few assumptions. Apple has a gamification system similar to fitbit. You complete rings (goals) by walking, standing up and exercising. Except you are competing against yourself and they prompt you with daily reminders / notifications. Being that Apple Watch is more than a notification system, it's a bit more difficult to ignore. Let's say you're on a 80 day streak completing 100% of your goals of standing up, exercising and walking. You'll want to keep going. At 24 hour hackathon, there was someone trying to keep their streak up so they ended up leaving to jog around the block to complete their daily activity.
Of course, this isn't to say that it can't be possible without the Apple Watch. It's just that it's more difficult to ignore.
You can now do Activity Sharing so it can be more than competing with just yourself if you have friends who use a an Apple Watch. It can be a great motivational tool if you use it as such.
When you get a notification saying you've increased your daily move goal streak to 200+ days, you're tempted to not break it. There are already quite a few people I've seen hitting 800 days.
I don't disbelieve you, but in my particular case this would not be possible.
I exercise intensely at least 3 times per week. If you achieve your move goal 5 times per week, the Apple Watch software will automatically raise your move goal the following week, giving you the option to manually adjust it on the start of a new week. Because I let the software take its automatic course, my move goal at one point was 1160 calories.
So, when winter weather came as well as a period of work crunch, I simply couldn't spend the 2.5 hours/day biking to hit that move goal.
Since then, my move goal has gone up and down, my higher goals coinciding with better weather and longer days.
Long story short, hitting one's move goals for many weeks on end implies the wearer is manually adjusting the move goal down each week.
I've got perfect months the last 2 months and now I stress if a day gets close to not hitting the completion mark (I.e. It's raining or such to inhibit an outdoor walk/run).
Personal experience: I got hooked on hitting my activity goals with my Apple Watch and am now on day 292 of my streak. I've lost 20 pounds and am running a 5k at a near 7min/mile pace, something I haven't done in over 15 years.
Sure: the watch didn't move my legs for me, but it sure as hell manipulated me into getting off my ass :)
Counterpoint, I never want to run at 6:30 am so having someone or something add pressure to get out only helps keep that commitment. And 15 min in I'm always glad I got out of bed.
Different things work for different people. My wife and I exercise very regularly, but the way in which we stay motivated and on track are very different.
Not sure if the Apple watches do the same, but the Garmin watches have a "Move!" reminder plus easy-to-configure step and stair goals, and make your progress obvious. I'm guessing it's more due to those types of little pokes throughout the day than parent actually forgetting to hit the gym every morning.
AW does this if you don't stand up within an hour, it pokes you to stand up and move around. It also sends you progress updates throughout the day of how much you've walked/moved/etc.
Out of curiosity, is this just for comments/submissions referring to other HN users or does it cover comments/submissions that refer to anyone whether they're a HN user or not?
Good question. Actually it's both, because both are toxic for discussion quality. But we evaluate them a bit differently because attacking a fellow community member destroys the community in other ways as well.
I have a GPS running watch that's significantly cheaper than the latest version of the Apple Watch that has GPS built in, and it's definitely useful for tracking my speed on runs and rides.
I hope this motivates Android Wear manufacturers to make a decent watch. Right now they are all pretty mediocre. You either get a fat sport watch with LTE or a less fat watch with very few compelling features.
I just want NFC (for Android Pay), heart rate monitor, no-LTE (in exchange for being thinner) in a classic, non-sport style.
One of the big things stopping me switching to Android is that the devices - both the phones and watches - are just too big for me. I've worn my friend's Gear S3 - it's laughably gigantic on me, being wider than my wrist, and actually doing the band up is out of the question.
Huawei was expected to have some (the first edition watches were well loved but growing old). Then the Huawei Watch 2 ended up being a thick sportwatch with LTE. The Huawei Watch 2 Classic, which looks marginally less sporty, is inexplicably is just as thick as the Watch 2 despite ditching all the LTE circuitry. It's also roughly $100 more expensive (figure that one out).
I'm not a watch wearer, so I don't plan to buy one. However, I thought if I DID (or if I got one as a gift), I would probably want an Apple Watch. So Apple has convinced me there. Do others feel similar?
Yeah. Aesthetically speaking, I really dislike wristwatches. But I want that fitness tracking and haptic reminders badly. If they get a good calorie counter in the form of the rumored glucose monitoring (I’m not sure if it could be used for that) I’m sold.
I wear a fitness tracker. If I'm gonna wear something on my wrist, it ought to do something that my phone doesn't, otherwise it's hard to justify the cost.
Your phone almost certainly has all the functions that your fitness tracker has - the advantage is that you don't always have your phone on your person.
The same is true of a smartwatch - you get the some of the functionality of your phone without needing to have your phone on you.
I like to wear a watch, so I kind of wish I could get a fitness tracker (with heart rate monitor) that doesn't have a clock on it. I sometimes wear a watch and a fitbit and that just looks stupid.
If you don't mind wearing a big fitness tracker, the Fitbit Blaze has been great in my experience. It's a bit old now, and the new bigger fitbits are the Surge and the Charge 2, but I still love my Blaze.
> the new bigger fitbits are the Surge and the Charge 2, but I still love my Blaze.
The Blaze is newer than the Surge; it's basically a Surge with a color screen and the face detachable from the band (which is much better for charging, as well as making replacing the band practical) but without independent GPS (which means if you want to do run tracking without carrying a phone, the Surge still has an advantage.)
The Charge 2, IIRC, replaced the Charge about the same time as the Blaze was introduced, it's basically the next tier down from the Surge/Blaze.
(Current Blaze and former Surge and before that Flex user.)
I've said it a few times when the topic comes up but one of the best features is the magnetic milanese loop. For a watch that typically needs to be taken off once a day for charging (arguably every two days) the ease of taking off and putting on a magnetic milanese loop makes the pain disappear. It's no more effort than yanking your phone out of your pocket to stick it on the charger.
Other things that makes the watch great - vibration alarm wakes me without fail while allowing my partner remain asleep, remotely turn off my phone alarm without getting out of bed (though that does lead to more snoozing...), remotely ping my phone when I've left it somewhere, remotely control my music without my phone including pushing the audio to Airplay, messaging via dictation which seems more accurate than my phone. One that I miss but can't use any more because I switched banks - Apple Pay. You look like a bell-end doing it but it felt like the future.
The sapphire screen seems legit because I've belted the watch face into stone and steel surfaces without a single mark showing up. The stainless steel casing also seems more durable than I expected - not a single permanent mark that I can see...perhaps some micro abrasions. The heart rate monitor casing seems to be the weak point - it has quite a few scratches.
> I've said it a few times when the topic comes up but one of the best features is the magnetic milanese loop.
I can't stand it, because I keep mistaking the tiny rubs as the band shifts against itself for notification vibrations. I reverted to the silicon band because of this.
I purchased a 3rd party milanese loop from amazon for $15. As far as I can tell it's indistinguishable from the Apple product. In any case, I agree, it's a great watch band.
I did this too - ebay for 20$. I love it. My only issue is that it's too big for me, but I assume the official Apple band would be too, and that my only choice is to buy the 38mm watch.
I've been using my Apple Watch for 2 years now. It has proven to be an extremely useful for me just for the Apple Pay and Notifications alone. It causes a strange social issue though. If you're in a middle of conversation, glancing at your watch every now and again is a rude gesture. I have had to explain my habit several times and forced my self not look at it for every odd notification.
Funny, that's why I stopped wearing regular watches. I don't think I'll ever be able to go for a smartwatch. But then again, it might become accepted behaviour just like glancing at your phone during a conversation appears to have become.
I got the Series 2 in January. I love it, but can also see why it might be more of a niche product. $400 for a watch isn't exactly cheap and I know many people who opt for their smartphone over any kind of watch.
Them being dumb watches is the appeal though. A good "dumb" watch will last decades. An Apple Watch is obsolete after, what, two years?
I wear a battery-powered analog quartz dumb watch on my wrist and I love it. I change the battery every couple years and that's it. It tells perfectly accurate time (way more accurate than a mechanical watch costing orders of magnitude more) and will never be obsolete.
I really love solar powered watches. I have 3 (Citizen eco-drives) and the g-shocks. The fact that the battery never needs replacing.
I solar have a g-shock too, but that atomic time setting (by radio) never worked for me. The g-shock is so thick though, I actually find it a little off putting sometimes.
I wear a ladies watch (I am a man) for this very reason, thickness, as well as heaviness. I didn't realize how much it affects your movement and coordination having a substantial weight on your wrist, until I got rid of it.
I backed the first and every subsequent Pebble KickStarter.
When they sold out to Garmin* and refunded my last order/pledge, I spent _some_ of that refund on a 1957 Russian Kirovskie Sputnik Commemorative mechanical watch.
I know none of my Pebbles or any Apple Watch is going to still be keeping good time 70 years from now... (it gains just under a minute a day - resetting it off my phone's clock when I wind it in the morning has become part of my waking up ritual...)
Edit: * It was FitBit not Garmin, as pointed out in replies by dugfin and spike021 elsewhere in this thread. Thanks.
One of my favorite things about the Apple Watch is that it keeps uncannily good time. Put two next to each other and you'll see what I mean.
I always found it disappointing that even the best mechanical watches drift by around a second a day. I guess growing up with software has given me unrealistic mechanical expectations :)
No no - my 70 year old Russian mechanical watch is "that inaccurate"... (My Pebble's, and presumably the Apple Watch, sync themselves from what I assume is one of or some combination of ntp time, GSM/LTE time, or GPS time - from the phone they're paired with...)
Not true at all. The battery isn't replaceable, other parts are more likely to break, and it's not clear to me that the Apple Watch even has a high quality quartz crystal inside it for accurate time-keeping. It might simply be grabbing the time off the linked cell phone, which grabs the time off the cell network. Do Apple Watches work well independently of linked phones for months on end? Years? Because that'll be necessary if you want to keep using one decades down the line long after they're no longer supported by whatever phone replacements have come down the line next.
>It's not out of the ordinary to spend $400 on something like a Seiko or Citizen watch
That kind of depends on your definition of ordinary. Is it ordinary for somebody who buys a watch to spend $400 on it? absolutely. Is wearing a $400 watch ordinary? maybe not so much. Apple claimed to be selling more than Seiko or Citizen two years ago, and the apple watch was definitely a niche then. Apple has done well in the watch market but that's a long ways from iPhone-level success.
I will be handing my dumb watches down to my child (though they cost more than $400). These... Will go in the trash bin after ~2 years and don't provide the jewelry aspect of a beautiful watch (I understand not everyone is into that sort of thing.)
I don't think you can compare smart watches with normal watches, totally different use case and market.
True. But watches had started to become an unnecessary accessory. For many, the phone had become a suitable replacement for the watch if style wasn't a factor in wearing one.
The thing is that you can pick up series 1 for under 200 at times which is about the same cost garmin forerunner. That being said you can pick up the gen 1s for even less than that.
I had the first generation (Series 0) watch, got it when it first came out. Overall, I found it useless and frustrating. The big conveniences for me, though were:
(1) Tracking exercise.
(2) Telling me where and when my next meeting was: timeliness improved dramatically.
Big downsides for me:
(1) Charging it was annoying and frustrating, and traveling with it was worse. Turned into a giant spaghetti ball of lightning, inductive and laptop, to the point where I just stopped bringing it with me. It can't be better with Type-C can it? I generally use my laptop to charge the other things I have on my so another adapter?
(2) Leaving my job for a gap year meant no meetings.
(3) I had to take my phone anyways to listen to music, so I just used RunKeeper there, so another thing that didn't have to get sweaty. Apple's headphones just aren't very good. There's no seal, they fall out, the audio quality is mediocre. A $100 pair of Shure headphones is life changing and cannot be attached to a watch.
(4) Input is awful. Siri is the only way to input text and when you use it, if it gets a word wrong, god help you if you want to try and correct it. After a few failed substitution attempts I would just get my phone out due to sheer frustration.
(5) I had to take it off to type, the feel of it digging into my laptop and propping up my wrist drove my crazy.
(6) Staring at your wrist every time it taps on you tells the person you're with I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE. "Oh, sorry, no, my watch keeps tapping my wrist" gets old, fast. The social cues you send off just suck.
I just didn't see the value. Used it for 4 months, threw it into a drawer for 6, then sold if for 33% of its value. Didn't even hold value like an Apple product. This is no iPod, it's an iPad -- a category leader, maybe, but a small category. It doesn't do anything particularly well, just a bunch of stuff, kinda poorly.
My big question is: what do people do with theirs? Other than notifications and fitness tracking, I'm struggling to think of a use case for owning one.
I don't have a smart watch myself but several of my coworkers do, the killer app for them seems to be two factor authentication codes; we've got like 10 different accounts at work that need 2fa and instead of pulling out their phones they just use the watch.
It's a lightweight music player, ideal for fitness. That means that it would be a great replacement for the recently discontinued iPod Nano.
At the moment it's a bit pricy to buy one just for that use but maybe one day it'll be cheap enough that people will feel comfortable buying it for that feature alone.
I use the Modular watchface, and put things like other timezones on it, and a quick one-tap to timer. (great for cooking, or medicines, or Pomodoro, etc)
If you're a MacOS user, you can auto-unlock your computer with it (sounds scary even typing it, but it's damned handy)
A quick swipe up and you can use it to "ping" your iPhone (phone makes loud sonar sound) in case you can't remember where you put it.
If I'm on other side of house, and phone rings, I can actually answer call with watch and talk Dick Tracy style :-) (people tell me it sounds pretty clear)
Notifications and fitness tracking are the primary use cases form me. Those alone are enough but I also use mine for Apple Pay. It's a way better user experience paying with the watch than the phone.
It's also a great alarm clock if you wear it to bed since it vibrates silently. No more waking my wife up at 3:00AM when I need to catch an early morning flight.
I used a Fitbit for years and was reasonably happy with it. But the reality is that the Fitbit was cheaply made and not especially attractive. If you're already spending $100+ on a fitness tracker that is going to likely break in a year, it isn't that much of a stretch to spend a little more to get a really nice Apple Watch that lasts longer and looks nice when you're dressed up.
If you have toddlers or babies, the quick access o the timer is a killer app. 5 minutes to boil pacifiers. 3 minutes for timeout because you're 3 years old. 10 minutes until we turn off that TV show.
Notifications and fitness tracking is more than enough. My phone hasn't had the ringer on in over 3 years now. At first I had a Pebble which is pretty much just notifications. Now I have a Gear S3 and now I'm using the fitness tracking all the time.
I also just got the S3 Frontier, leaving the abandoned Pebble platform. I'm loving it! It inherits the ability to use an always on display from the Pebble, however the whole build is much nicer and the display is simply gorgeous.
The cost is needing to charge the device daily, although at a 50% daily burn with AOD on this could be stretched to two days.
With the new CPUs in the Series 1 & 2 watches I see uses in some businesses like what Google is trying with Glass.
I work for a medical billing company owned by a physician group, with deeper integration into hospital systems than the demographic-only feeds we get to stuff like labs and monitors would help us better enforce our quality programs in real-time instead of after-the-fact when coding.
After tiring of squinting at my Pebble, I bought the Series 2 a couple of months ago. My expectations were fairly modest given some of the early negative reviews of the series 1. But thus far I've been quite happy with it. I generally keep it muted and find the vibrating notifications to be an improvement over those on the iPhone.
The apps I find myself using more than any others are the timer/chronograph, which I use constantly when cooking/grilling. And the ability to take voice calls with it is occasionally quite helpful.
The Pebble's silicone wristband caused a rash on my wrist, but I've had no problems with the Nike Apple watch wristband (perhaps that's simply due to the holes that provide better ventilation.)
It's been years and people still don't understand what Watch is. Meanwhile, it says what it is directly in the name. It's a watch first, and everything else distant second. By the standards of wristwatches $300 is not that much money.
The Apple Watch is neither a piece of jewelry, nor something that will just show you the time (something people stopped caring about wearing nearing 2 decades ago). Is that something worth it or not? Is that something a mass-market item? That's the question to ask.
"Overpriced" is a subjective term. 50% growth in sales suggests very competitive pricing. Think of it this way: Apple Watch isn't really competing with "wearable computers" everyone else is making. It plays a completely different ball game, and competes with wristwatches. I can't think of a better watch in $300 price range even though I don't wear one myself (my wife does). My main problem with it is the need to charge it daily. Once they get battery to 3-4 days, I'll buy one. Until then, my solar powered titanium Seiko diver will have to do.
I own a series 2 watch, the one with GPS and I really like it. I bought it not really knowing what I'd use it for but now I've got it setup for what I want I find myself really missing it when I'm not wearing it.
My main uses are telling the time, notifications from whatsapp & being able to see which meeting room my next meeting is in by glancing at my wrist.
I don't use any actual app on the watch itself. Its still to slow to really do anything, even if it was quicker I'm not sure reading twitter feeds / emails would be that great on it anyway.
I've been wearing a Garmin or Polar watch for the past several years (run 30+ miles a week), and just recently got an Apple Watch.
For a serious runner, the Garmin watches are a lot better, but the truth is that I'm not really a "serious" runner, and Apple Watch is more pleasurable to use in a lot of ways.
I thought I would mind having to charge it every day coming from a device that needed to be charged about every 6 days (and that's including 24-hour HR tracking and 4-6 runs a week), but the truth is that I don't. I also thought I would mind not having all of the metrics or customizability that the Garmin offers, but the truth is that I'm not a competitive runner, and my V02Max isn't anything more than a curiosity. And, sure it's nice to be able to choose from a million different data fields to display while I'm working out, but the default ones on the Nike Running app are pretty close to what I chose in the first place.
In the end, a lot of the things I thought were non-negotiables ended up not really being a big deal. Apple has really nailed the Watch user experience in lots of little ways.
I intentionally held out when all of my friends bought the original Apple watch (and most subsequently sold it), but I'm noticing that an increasing number of people have adopted the watch a hardware revision and a few OS iterations later.
I think they've been a sleeper hit since Day 1. $6B in sales the first year is huge for any watch or consumer product, despite being just a trickle next to iPhones and iPads.
At one point I thought they'd peter out, but this year my 80 year old mother bought one (and loves it) and my sister is looking to dump her 3rd Fitbit for an Apple Watch, it made me start to wonder if they were starting to reach the average consumer.
Citation needed. I find mine useful enough I would never let it just collect dust. Just the ability to have all sounds and vibrations on my phone turned off at all times, yet still know instantly when I'm getting an incoming phone call or FaceTime call, is worth the price of the device.
I replaced my wife's Fitbit soon after the Watch came out (dog at the Fitbit), soon after bought myself one. We were ahead of the curve, and then last Christmas, four of the other six adults in her family all got one.
Series 2 is decent - a great solution for notification polling but I think WatchOS 4 will be the first non-beta release. There's a lot of neat ideas but so many little “do they even have a QA department?” moments, starting with having to wipe & reset my new one when it disabled activity tracking with no explanation. Quick Siri access is great but it underscores just how limited Siri is – falling into the uncanny valley of conversational UI.
I'm somewhat surprised that one of the touted features of smart watches never materialized, and doesn't seem to matter... early prognosticators proposed lots of custom faces: ones that emulated famous watches, ones that allowed a wide variety of placement of "complications", and ones that intermingled various ways of displaying time.
While the big brands did release customized versions of their famous faces (Tag Heuer) and Apple got sued for making a clock that looked like a Swiss Railway Clock (licensed by Mondaine), the idea of downloadable faces or themes, made by users or junior devs, never really became a thing.
I miss it; I think the apple watch face options are really lacking (though Mickey makes me laugh even now). But I seem to be in the minority of wanting more...
I unconsciously love my Watch. The battery life has improved MASSIVELY since Gen1, the fitness stuff is groovy, being able to control music is handy, alarms and notifications are brilliant.
Just being able to not take my phone with me when I go for a (admittedly half-arsed) run, is worth the price of admission.
the Series 0 (first gen) watch was my first watch ever (never felt the need for a watch until then)
Been using it for over 2 years and I'm super happy with it.
Watch OS 3 made a huge difference in terms of usability for the watch. The background updates and swiping to change watch faces means I have my most used watch Complications in the 3 watchfaces I use. Weather, podcast, music and timer apps (from complications) are so useful! I feel if you don't make use of multiple complications with watch faces, you are not using your watch to the fullest :)
Haven't used it much for Siri nor have I tried testing its water resistance. And I'll probably for in for a series 3 or series 4 based on my needs.
Watch sales up 50%:
I think the Apple Watch and the AirPods are peripherals for the iPhone that are so well priced (is Apple making any profit on these sales?) that I doubt if they have a huge margin. Having the highest margin phone and low margin peripherals like Watch, AirPods (probably glasses soon?) means once you go iPhone you don't look back. In the years when an iPhone owner chooses not to upgrade iPhone, he/she may choose to upgrade one of the peripherals. Which means higher LTV customer for Apple!
FWIW Siri on the Watch (even my Series 0) has gotten at least an order of magnitude better, both in what it understands and how quickly and reliably it executes commands and queries.
Still a lot of room for improvement, but not the dumpster fire it was with watchOS 1.0.
I swore not to by a smartwatch a couple of years back, but ended up getting the Series 2 as a gift last month. I simply love it! I need constant reminder to exercise, meditate, etc and it seems to be a perfect companion for that.
What surprised me was the battery life. I was expecting to put it on charge every night, but for my limited usage pattern, it lasts a good two days easily. For me, it adds more value than a similarly priced dump watch.
For what it's worth, the Apple Watch is something I haven't bought yet but have intended to buy since it was announced. There might be a lot of people who have been waiting a couple generations, or who just didn't think the existing ones were compelling enough to buy them over some other thing.
The two main use cases seem to be notifications and fitness. I'm not big on working out, and I actively try to receive as few notifications as possible, so I don't think I'm in the target market for these. But I could see it being compelling for anyone who is interested in either of those use cases.
Apple Watch, or accessories in general, are something you can buy at any time that increases the utility of your device. Compare this to something like an OS update that gets released annually for free, but you can’t really control when you get it.
Bought mine initially as an exercise tool, but found the GPS to be pretty incorrect - goal was to be able to run without the phone. But despite this (now running with phone), I still love it - surprised how much I enjoy it.
I'll may get myself the next Apple Watch - assuming that it can be used without an iPhone. My decision will depend on how good are the health features they implement.
The two products occupy a very similar space of affordable luxury; they are not world-changing like the Mac or iPhone, but category-defining. Through gradual iteration and segmentation, Apple slowly turned its niche product into a cultural force.
Just wait until the iPod Classic 5G equivalent of the Watch comes out.