Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 275 posts

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#211

Post by fyolnish »

tigershark wrote: post #159
Steko wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 Tokyo you can use the watch as a train card(suica), which also works for payment in many many stores/vending machines

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#212

Post by jrs95 »

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.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#213

Post by arcticbull »

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.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#214

Post by Pxtl »

aetherson wrote: post #194

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 yo…

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.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#215

Post by JunkDNA »

aetherson wrote: post #194

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 yo…

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.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#216

Post by mwexler »

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...

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#217

Post by Eric_WVGG »

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...

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#218

Post by kelnage »

atmosx wrote: post #156
Fezzik wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tra…

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-…

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.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#219

Post by Eric_WVGG »

sideproject wrote: post #50

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.

Re: Apple Watch sales up over 50% since last year

#220

Post by criddell »

brlewis wrote: post #97
criddell wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which Fitbit? Seems like the Flex 2 wouldn't look bad next to a watch.

I have a Fitbit Charge 2. I wear the Fitbit on my right arm and my watch on my left, but I think it looks pretty stupid.
Post reply on HN