141–150 of 300 posts
I can barely stand reading Gruber because it feels like reading Apple marketing materials. But he is required reading because he is one of the few ways that Apple releases important industry information. It would be great to have a daringfireball tl;dr service emphasizing his forecasts and "predictions" (which are usually actually Apple leaks).
That's really interesting. How do you know this?
I lose watches. Period. It's why I wear a near disposable $5 plastic eyesore from Target on my wrist. No way am I wearing a $500+ wrist computer to tell the time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. I question whether this is the bubble that geeks live in. Plenty of people don't know there are new phones to get until their old one breaks. In the case that someone's upgrading when their contract gives them a new phone, I can see more of a strain, but they rarely think of themselves paying $600 for a phone. To an extent, Apple is producing the Watch to o…
I'm interested how long the average phone lasts before it breaks in your pool of anecdotal people? My social circle sounds similar to yours. I have two phone junkie friends who seem to be moving to a new phone every year. Then a handful of geek friends who upgrade their phones at the end of their contracts, which is normally two or three version numbers higher. That leaves the majority who upgrade when their phones b…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My concern on this (connected watches generally) is the upgrade treadmill this might create. So a person would buy a ~$600 iphone + a $400 watch. How often would they upgrade the watch? Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. Will they do this with a watch? Will they need to? I have a Casio watch that I still wear that's 15 years old. And an old wind up that's 30 years old. I can't imagine that b…
Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. I question whether this is the bubble that geeks live in. Plenty of people don't know there are new phones to get until their old one breaks. In the case that someone's upgrading when their contract gives them a new phone, I can see more of a strain, but they rarely think of themselves paying $600 for a phone. To an extent, Apple is producing the Watch to o…
I have nothing against the apple watch per se other than price. Just a personal thing. But I can't see paying that much for a device with a) a rechargeable battery that may or may not be easily replaceable and b) has tech that will age out quickly (compared to for example just a digital watch of some sort). Just seems like extreme planned obsolescence. But I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
It may be the utility of such devices outstrips any such concerns.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm interested how long the average phone lasts before it breaks in your pool of anecdotal people? My social circle sounds similar to yours. I have two phone junkie friends who seem to be moving to a new phone every year. Then a handful of geek friends who upgrade their phones at the end of their contracts, which is normally two or three version numbers higher. That leaves the majority who upgrade when their phones b…
Good question. I think we're actually in the early stages of the cycle. Those people I don't think will upgrade for a while are still on their first smartphones, mostly iPhone 5. I've noticed significantly less breakage once they switched from dumbphones... they actually like and need their smartphone where a dumbphone was like any other phone - you lose some contacts and that's it. Obviously, that attachment has som…
Gruber's scenario with the two high school kids sending each other love taps, scribbles, and heartbeats was poignant. While the Apple Watch isn't for me, I can't begrudge those who decide to buy one. I think back to the late 90s and how I wouldn't have met my wife if not for IMing a screenname a mutual friend of ours passed along to me. The internet, a crappy eMachines desktop, and AIM made this possible. Technically…
It's interesting that even gruber's review isn't all that positive.
I don't think Gruber is particularly biased about Apple - they're just his area of speciality. He thinks very deeply about them, and has done for such a long time that he has an acute sense of them. But I think he calls them out fairly when he thinks they're wrong, whether that's policy decisions, devices, or software.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is charging electronics such a problem? Do people wear watches while sleeping? Why is setting it on the charger on my nightstand actually a problem? This seems like an absurd nitpicky thing to complain about.
I wear my Pebble every night when sleeping. It's fantastic backup alarm, I never have to worry about forgetting to set my phone's alarm, not hearing my phone, my phone dying, etc. At this point I wouldn't go back to using a watch with less than a few days battery life, it takes out a huge part of the value for me.
This is a very interesting article, and I like how it's written in the perspective of a functional watch user instead of being about fashion or watch collecting. I couldn't help but laugh at this part: > Also, though it sounds trivial, I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. Isn't a mechanical watch hand ∞ FPS by definition? Real life has…
The guy has probably never heard of the Seiko Spring Drive, where the hands are moved by a spring and regulated by a brake. Therefore they're completely smooth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsBTXgksr4s
Gruber is the unpaid wing of Apple's PR team. I doubt he cares.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is charging electronics such a problem? Do people wear watches while sleeping? Why is setting it on the charger on my nightstand actually a problem? This seems like an absurd nitpicky thing to complain about.
I already have to charge (and bring cables and charger with sufficient ports for): Laptop iPhone USB Backup battery (many long travel days) Wifi hotspot Pretty much every day. By some counts, a watch doesn't really change that very much, by other counts it pushes my daily-shit-to-charge list over the limit. It's nitpicky when viewed in a vacuum, but not in relation to the overall technology charging burden. It seems…