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The Apple Watch

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Re: The Apple Watch

#481

Post by Gigablah »

leoc wrote: post #369
ajju wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment reminded me of CmdrTaco's slashdot comment after the iPod launch: http://t.co/RPAX2r93kx I think Garmin forerunner will be to the future of wearables what Nomad was to the future of music in 2002.

Do you remember what a Creative Nomad Jukebox actually looked like around 2001? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQaplenaBl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR5hPd_inno Existing MP3 players offered a pretty rough user experience; the iPod was a pleasure to use in comparison. Largely the same was true of iPhone as compared to existing smartphones. The first generations of iPod and iPhone also had hardware that was stri…

I have fond memories of my Creative Nomad II: http://www.nextup.com/img/Creative_NomadIIc_Large.jpg

Re: The Apple Watch

#482

Post by jlebar »

tolmasky wrote: post #170
lhnz wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether this will be useful all rests on the quality and differentiation of the haptic feedback. For example, imagine walking down the street towards your destination and feeling the right side of the watch vibrate to signal that you should turn right. If your watch can communicate contextual information related to your intention and local then it will be superior to (1) wearing a socially inappropriate device like t…

The overriding feeling I had during this keynote is that every feature that I found cool in the watch I would much prefer on my phone. Cool watch app? Wait, actually that would be cooler and more usable on a big screen... Haptic feedback? Agreed, awesome idea, but no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist.

> Haptic feedback? Agreed, awesome idea, but no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist.

It's frequently lost upon this crowd (I'm guilty of this myself) that half of the population in the West frequently wears clothes which lack pockets.

Re: The Apple Watch

#483

Post by CamperBob2 »

Schwolop wrote: post #420
girvo wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Apple make beautiful devices that are fashion accessories... but this isn't one of them, in my opinion.

I know it's wasteful to cut the corners off LCDs to make them round, but I am a little surprised that Apple didn't go that route just for novelty value if nothing else. Would've made a nice interface paradigm with a rotary dial on the face too.

Round LCDs do have an undeniably cool look: http://www.zerotohundred.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/MG_5...

But I have a feeling Porsche has just used an ordinary square panel here, with its edges concealed by the gauge bezel. A watch designer doesn't have room to pull off a visual trick like that.

Re: The Apple Watch

#485

Post by deong »

leoc wrote: post #440
deong wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People want new experiences without leaving their sofa and VR will bring that in spades. It's far from clear that they're actually willing to do anything about it. Look at 3D TVs. No one wants to sit on their couch lazily watching whatever's on with special glasses. If VR was a passive technology like HD -- by which I mean you buy a new TV and everything is better without any further action on your part -- I'd be m…

[I accidentally posted this comment in the wrong place; it was meant to go https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8294635 here.]

I don't see that as being a problem that people are looking for a solution to. You're describing interacting with a very heavy desktop-type computing system, but the headset only solves the output problem. If I need large numbers of application windows arranged in space, I also need much more sophisticated input devices. Head tracking, eye-tracking, Leap Motion style stuff, all of that can be useful, but it's not enough for typing this comment into this input box, for instance. Better voice helps, but it's still not good enough, and it also adds yet another social factor that needs to be overcome, as people don't really like talking to their computers on average.

Maybe eventually this is the world we'll be living in. Right now, and for enough of the foreseeable future to worry about trying to predict, people with those needs will want to have a real keyboard and mouse or trackpad, and at that point, they will just use a laptop. Any benefit you get from the VR is, I think, outweighed by the downsides of not being able to just look around the actual physical environment.

You don't have to beat the competition on every axis to succeed, but you do have to eliminate any axis for which you are an immediate non-starter. I think the headset makes it an immediate non-starter for widespread general purpose use.

Re: The Apple Watch

#486

Post by nickonline »

2xlbuds wrote: post #468
personZ wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's hard for me not to recall Commander Taco's (in)famous dismissal of the original iPod when I browse these comments You should also remember that he was hardly in the majority with those comments. Further he was technically correct, and the iPod succeeded because of a synergy with other parts of Apple's empire (notably iTunes). But what's really interesting to me is that Apple has clearly put a lot more thought in…

I completely agree, having watched this year's Google I/O panel on smartwatch interaction design, it is very obvious that Google has put an enormous amount of thought into their watch platform. They came to a fundamentally different conclusion for what a smartwatch should do, and I really enjoy the experience. The contextual information from Google Now is incredibly useful and it feels like my watch tells me not only…

Which watch are you using? I've been using a pebble and while it's good it doesn't have the level of interaction you're discussing.

Re: The Apple Watch

#487

Post by kweinber »

schrodinger wrote: post #421
eli wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Totally offtopic but running near the Whitehouse in DC is funny because they screw with GPS accuracy so you bounce all over the place)

How is that possible? GPS satellites are sending the same signal out to everyone, I don't see how they could possibly target a certain area.

Gps satellites all send slightly incorrect information... A separate radio signal correction is transmitted to correct it. That way, during wartime (or in high value target areas) the US can basically mess up enemy gps enabled weapons by broadcasting misleading satellite and correction data.

Re: The Apple Watch

#488

Post by chrisbroadfoot »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #356
personZ wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's hard for me not to recall Commander Taco's (in)famous dismissal of the original iPod when I browse these comments You should also remember that he was hardly in the majority with those comments. Further he was technically correct, and the iPod succeeded because of a synergy with other parts of Apple's empire (notably iTunes). But what's really interesting to me is that Apple has clearly put a lot more thought in…

Yes, there kind of is a distortion field, but I'd argue it's with notions like "Apple has never announced a major product months before availability" and "nobody has ever made a large square watch." Both of these are trivially demonstrated false. And I'm sure Google has put thought and effort into Android Wear, but what you dismiss as a "trite speech from Tim Cook" looks to me like a stake in the ground. Google says…

> Google says you can shrink smartphone UX to a smartwatch

Citation needed. As GP said, the Android Wear team has considered the UX for wearables from the ground up.

You're delusional.

Re: The Apple Watch

#489

Post by aetherson »

threeseed wrote: post #461
smsm42 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the point of behaving differently regardless of screen size? The screen size is the difference that causes different behavior between tablet and phone, or at least it should be so. If the screen size is the same, why have different UI?

I can't speak to Apple's intentions but it is what makes iOS fundamentally different to Android. It could be related to product marketing. People buy iPads for fundamentally different use cases than buying a phone (even a large one). Edit: Because I am being downvoted so heavily for this let me be clear. I don't agree with what Apple did only trying to explain it. I would imagine that Apple never expected to be relea…

Okay, can you give me an example of a ui element that would be usefully different on a 6" phone vs a 6" tablet?

Re: The Apple Watch

#490

Post by ChristianBundy »

jlebar wrote: post #482
tolmasky wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overriding feeling I had during this keynote is that every feature that I found cool in the watch I would much prefer on my phone. Cool watch app? Wait, actually that would be cooler and more usable on a big screen... Haptic feedback? Agreed, awesome idea, but no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist.

> Haptic feedback? Agreed, awesome idea, but no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist. It's frequently lost upon this crowd (I'm guilty of this myself) that half of the population in the West frequently wears clothes which lack pockets.

Your statistic confused me until I realized you were [assumedly] referencing females who keep their phones in their purses/bags.
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