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Five days with Pebble

danilocampos.com

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Re: Five days with Pebble

#51

Post by unwind »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #44

"Sometimes I want to give the people I’m with my undivided attention. That means the phone stays firmly in my pocket. And as long as no calls or notifications come in, that’s fine. But once my pocket starts buzzing, my mind can start to run wild with curiosity. Is someone in trouble, or did a dumb tweet get faved by someone? That game can erode attention after awhile. With the Pebble, I can discreetly glance at my wr…

It should probably be read as "sometimes I want to give the impression I'm giving someone my undivided attention".

Or something like that.

I don't particularly want to sound like I'm bashing the original poster, although I did find the argument of his "mind running wild" slighltly worrying; turn off the phone entierly then, or at least the vibrations.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#52

Post by mmahemoff »

dguaraglia wrote: post #29
Apreche wrote: post #26

I have one, and this is accurate. The only benefit is being able to see notifications on the wrist without having to take the phone out of my pocket. That being said, it is a huge and amazing benefit. I hate watches, and feel they have no purpose, but now it does. The thing is I think this article understated the horribleness of the notification bug that is supposedly Apple's fault. It's a huge pain in the ass. The o…

As the guys from The Bugle (a satirical podcast) said while describing this product: "we've definitely come a long way when there's a need to develop a complete new piece of expensive hardware just to avoid having to take your phone from your pocket . Meanwhile, no solution to the global hunger problem." As much as I nerdgasm at how cool this device is, I have to wonder if, as a species, we haven't 'jumped the shark'…

This is Pebble v1. Technologies like this act as a bridge to something grander. Because OP and others forked out for that little convenience, Pebble the company can continue to innovate and continue to do more groundbreaking work.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#53

Post by bnr »

thechut wrote: post #38

WHERE IS THE SDK? Why will nobody answer this question? I received my Pebble 10 days ago. I was an early back of a black Pebble. So far I have really loved my Pebble, but it is begging for apps. The Pebble team said during the Kickstarter for their 2m stretch goal that they would release the SDK before the watch. Still no SDK, and not even so much as a mention since they started shipping. Obviously, as with almost al…

A very early version of the SDK is available to the 200 Hacker Special backers, who had to sign an NDA.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#54

Post by thirdtruck »

thechut wrote: post #38

WHERE IS THE SDK? Why will nobody answer this question? I received my Pebble 10 days ago. I was an early back of a black Pebble. So far I have really loved my Pebble, but it is begging for apps. The Pebble team said during the Kickstarter for their 2m stretch goal that they would release the SDK before the watch. Still no SDK, and not even so much as a mention since they started shipping. Obviously, as with almost al…

No kidding! I'm dying to make a pomodoro timer for mine.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#55

Post by prof_hobart »

dguaraglia wrote: post #29
Apreche wrote: post #26

I have one, and this is accurate. The only benefit is being able to see notifications on the wrist without having to take the phone out of my pocket. That being said, it is a huge and amazing benefit. I hate watches, and feel they have no purpose, but now it does. The thing is I think this article understated the horribleness of the notification bug that is supposedly Apple's fault. It's a huge pain in the ass. The o…

As the guys from The Bugle (a satirical podcast) said while describing this product: "we've definitely come a long way when there's a need to develop a complete new piece of expensive hardware just to avoid having to take your phone from your pocket . Meanwhile, no solution to the global hunger problem." As much as I nerdgasm at how cool this device is, I have to wonder if, as a species, we haven't 'jumped the shark'…

It's true that creating a watch that means you don't have to take your phone out of your pocket isn't as "worthy" as solving world hunger.

But that's true of the vast majority of modern human activity. If we only ever spent our time on creating/doing things that are at least as worthy as solving world hunger, we wouldn't be making pretty much any form of consumer electronics, any clothing beyond the most basic required to survive, playing any sports/games, or creating any art/films/music/books, or satirical podcasts.

If we've jumped the shark by focusing on our personal non-essentials before worrying about the basic needs of the rest of humanity, then we did it a long, long time before this watch came along.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#57

Post by ocean12 »

laumars wrote: post #45
dublinben wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If smart watches take off, it will be when Apple releases theirs.

Technology has taken off in the past without Apples influences (netbooks, IPTV, I'd even argue that smartphones and MP3 players too - though Apple did lead the charge in their re-invention which further popularised them). Plus it seems a little presumptuous to make such a definitive statement when given Apple's watch is only a rumour and how unreliable Apple rumours are at the best of times.

Netbooks? How'd that work out for the industry?

Re: Five days with Pebble

#58

Post by DanBC »

ocean12 wrote: post #57
laumars wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology has taken off in the past without Apples influences (netbooks, IPTV, I'd even argue that smartphones and MP3 players too - though Apple did lead the charge in their re-invention which further popularised them). Plus it seems a little presumptuous to make such a definitive statement when given Apple's watch is only a rumour and how unreliable Apple rumours are at the best of times.

Netbooks? How'd that work out for the industry?

Pretty good - people got to realise that they didn't need 3.8 GHz machines to browse the web and read email. Something much smaller would do. You don't need cd / dvd rom. You don't need 8 GB of ram. You don't need huge screens.

The form factor was lousy, but by the time they realised that they had cranked up smart phones. A big smart phone is really just a smaller netbook.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#59

Post by laumars »

ocean12 wrote: post #57
laumars wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology has taken off in the past without Apples influences (netbooks, IPTV, I'd even argue that smartphones and MP3 players too - though Apple did lead the charge in their re-invention which further popularised them). Plus it seems a little presumptuous to make such a definitive statement when given Apple's watch is only a rumour and how unreliable Apple rumours are at the best of times.

Netbooks? How'd that work out for the industry?

Rather well actually. It's funny how short some peoples memories are, but netbooks were very well received.

Popular enough that Intel rushed through some low powered x86 designs for fear of ARM taking off.

Popular enough that Microsoft rushed through changes to Windows XP (both in terms of software code and licensing) for fear of Linux taking off.

In fact they were so successful that complaints were often made against Apple for having no such device (this of course was before the MacBook Air and iPad. Neither of which are netbooks -obviously- but between the two they covered enough of the form factor to keep most of the complainer quiet).

Granted the demand for netbooks have since fizzled out, but they were hugely successful at the time and did the start of the popularisation of users switching away from heavy "powerhouse" hardware to more portable devices for lighter work loads. Credit for which belongs largely to ASUS and the EeePC, which was basically the first consumer netbook - though similar hardware was being built by the One Laptop Per Child scheme - amongst others.

It's also worth noting that ASUS never sued Acer and other OEMs over pathetic design patents over netbooks. And how Diamond Multimedia never sued Apple over portable music players (one could argue the original iPod shared a lot of similarities with the Rio PMP00[1]).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300

Re: Five days with Pebble

#60

Post by thechut »

danilocampos wrote: post #42
thechut wrote: post #38

WHERE IS THE SDK? Why will nobody answer this question? I received my Pebble 10 days ago. I was an early back of a black Pebble. So far I have really loved my Pebble, but it is begging for apps. The Pebble team said during the Kickstarter for their 2m stretch goal that they would release the SDK before the watch. Still no SDK, and not even so much as a mention since they started shipping. Obviously, as with almost al…

Maybe I'm biased given my background as an iOS guy, but... I'm just happy they got the hardware out and it's working pretty damn well. I want to write code for this new platform more than anyone. But they're a hardware startup! And they're shipping their hardware! That shit is impossible, and frankly, worth prioritizing over any other goal. Getting an SDK right takes time. It took Apple a year for the iPhone, and the…

danilocampos, I'm usually inclined to give Kickstarter projects the benefit of the doubt. I have backed so many projects that I have come to expect delays as part of the normal course of action. Keep in mind even the Pebble hardware was supposed to ship in September. But the team knew they would miss that date and communicated that to their backers. This is what a good Kickstarter project is all about.

However, not only their lack of communication but REFUSAL to answer questions about it (as evidenced by this post) is an unacceptable way to treat your backers and supporters. It would take Eric no more than 5 minutes to respond on the forums or do a Kickstarter update.

Still waiting...not so patiently.

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