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Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

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Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#181

Post by krrrh »

defaultname wrote: post #133
krrrh wrote: post #38

I think people underestimate how big of a factor weight is going to be when it comes to face wearables. Apple’s lead in terms of performance/watt is so massive at this point, they’re going to have a few years where no other AR solution can even compete.

I work in the AR space and it is incredible how much Apple is preparing their entire platform for a massive push into AR. For years they have been laying a very robust groundwork with their APIs (ARKit, RealityKit, SceneKit), the inclusion of LIDAR on their iPhone 12 Pro / iPad Pro, and likely the entire iPhone 13 line. These are all things that are effectively gimmicky and seem like failures with little uptake, but…

The addition of UWB to phones was another prime example of this. It makes airdrop moderately easier now, big deal, but locating objects accurately in space with high resolution is a huge problem for AR, and with airtags Apple will have way more experience with this technology in real world situations than anyone.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#182

Post by samfisher83 »

nradov wrote: post #173
makecheck wrote: post #156

Apple’s lead seems to be more in tangential things that are very hard to replicate: Apple Pay, supporting the highly popular iMessage, etc. These can never work with any other device. There are definite flaws in the device. I find buttons unnecessarily hard to tap for instance (they should offer more vertical space), and the face is so sensitive that it routinely triggers unwanted actions. It is really annoying to st…

Apple Pay isn't much of an advantage. Samsung and Garmin have the same thing.

When Samsung had mst they had a pretty big lead on the competition, but seems like they dropped it.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#183

Post by Aaargh20318 »

smoldesu wrote: post #163
whynotminot wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> silicon tech being years ahead of the competition is one that is hardly a factor for the smart watch category. What? This doesn't even make sense. This is by far the most important lead Apple has. Their ability to put performant and efficient chips into tiny devices is why they have such a software edge. Other Android wearables suck because the underlying hardware is not able to power the experience without signifi…

I don't really agree. I've owned a Fossil Carlyle 5 smartwatch with WearOS and an Apple Watch 3, and Apple's lead is definitely on the software side of things. I actually really dislike the material build of the Apple watch. The screen is designed to expose as much of the surface area as possible to scuffs and scratches, while the body of the watch feels larger than any other smartwatch I've used. The Apple Watch got…

> Apple's lead is definitely on the software side of things.

It’s their lead in hardware that makes that software possible.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#184

Post by askafriend »

deepGem wrote: post #145
snowwrestler wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who are the most capable competitors to Apple in wearables? Among my friends and colleagues, those who don’t buy Apple Watch often buy Garmin watches instead. In the area of fitness tracking watches, Garmin seems to be serious competition. It’s missing the full app ecosystem of Apple Watch but I think you can send messages and email to some Garmin watches over 4G, for example.

As a current Apple watch owner I was tempted to get a Garmin, just for the battery life. It is super annoying to remember to charge the Apple watch every 20 hours or so. I wish Apple got around to offering better battery life than adding features. I finally caved and bought an automatic. I just want a watch to show me the time accurately, last long and offer good water resistance as I wear the watch all the time.

Why do you want a watch to tell you the time? The time is literally everywhere you look - from you laptop to your phone to your oven and even microwave.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#185

Post by simonh »

nradov wrote: post #173
makecheck wrote: post #156

Apple’s lead seems to be more in tangential things that are very hard to replicate: Apple Pay, supporting the highly popular iMessage, etc. These can never work with any other device. There are definite flaws in the device. I find buttons unnecessarily hard to tap for instance (they should offer more vertical space), and the face is so sensitive that it routinely triggers unwanted actions. It is really annoying to st…

Apple Pay isn't much of an advantage. Samsung and Garmin have the same thing.

They have competing products, they don’t have competitive products. There’s an important difference.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#186

Post by varispeed »

rubicon33 wrote: post #168
makecheck wrote: post #156

Apple’s lead seems to be more in tangential things that are very hard to replicate: Apple Pay, supporting the highly popular iMessage, etc. These can never work with any other device. There are definite flaws in the device. I find buttons unnecessarily hard to tap for instance (they should offer more vertical space), and the face is so sensitive that it routinely triggers unwanted actions. It is really annoying to st…

To start a timer, raise your watch to your mouth and simply say “start 1 hour timer”. You don’t even need to say “hey Siri”. It starts listening on the gesture of raising it to your mouth. Genius. Raise watch to mouth and try things… “Text Danielle ____” “Open Pandora” “Open wallet” There are also settings to disable active watch face unless it’s raised. I have that enabled and never have issues accidentally hitting…

Do they collect this information somehow? I mean by wearing this device and using e.g. a timer, do Apple employees can find out for example how often did particular person use the timer and for how long?

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#187

Post by tshaddox »

rubicon33 wrote: post #168
makecheck wrote: post #156

Apple’s lead seems to be more in tangential things that are very hard to replicate: Apple Pay, supporting the highly popular iMessage, etc. These can never work with any other device. There are definite flaws in the device. I find buttons unnecessarily hard to tap for instance (they should offer more vertical space), and the face is so sensitive that it routinely triggers unwanted actions. It is really annoying to st…

To start a timer, raise your watch to your mouth and simply say “start 1 hour timer”. You don’t even need to say “hey Siri”. It starts listening on the gesture of raising it to your mouth. Genius. Raise watch to mouth and try things… “Text Danielle ____” “Open Pandora” “Open wallet” There are also settings to disable active watch face unless it’s raised. I have that enabled and never have issues accidentally hitting…

The raise-and-speak feature is extremely unreliable. It seems to refuse to trigger if you’ve interacted with the watch in the last few seconds, so if you try to speak to it and it doesn’t trigger, it certainly won’t trigger when you immediately try again.

It also triggers all the time accidentally when my watch was nowhere near my mouth. I frequently look at the watch and see a message like “I don’t understand that” with a transcription of something it thinks I said.

“Hey Siri” is also unreliable, mostly because if you hesitate for a few too many milliseconds it thinks you’ve finished your query. I almost exclusively use Siri by holding the power button on my iPhone or Apple Watch.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#188

Post by bitwize »

gnu8 wrote: post #124

The article seems to be saying that Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables over a list of companies that don't even make wearables. That is a clever trick for giving the article a bold title, but the result is a fairly uninteresting and uninformative Apple jerk-off piece. It is akin to saying "Quaker Oats has a 150-year lead in edibles" where Apple doesn't even make food.

In 10 years or so, everybody will have to have a wearables story -- because of the market for them Apple created.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#189

Post by snowwrestler »

deepGem wrote: post #145
snowwrestler wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who are the most capable competitors to Apple in wearables? Among my friends and colleagues, those who don’t buy Apple Watch often buy Garmin watches instead. In the area of fitness tracking watches, Garmin seems to be serious competition. It’s missing the full app ecosystem of Apple Watch but I think you can send messages and email to some Garmin watches over 4G, for example.

As a current Apple watch owner I was tempted to get a Garmin, just for the battery life. It is super annoying to remember to charge the Apple watch every 20 hours or so. I wish Apple got around to offering better battery life than adding features. I finally caved and bought an automatic. I just want a watch to show me the time accurately, last long and offer good water resistance as I wear the watch all the time.

Personally, the watch I grab most these days is a good ol’ Timex Ironman. I pretty much only wear a watch when exercising and pretty much only care about the time while doing so.

Re: Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables

#190

Post by jackvalentine »

threeseed wrote: post #68
jiggawatts wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the Apple Watch health features are blocked in Australia because they were literally too lazy to submit the paperwork to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)! All a competitor has to do is submit their paperwork and they won't get any competition from Apple. Easy!

ECG has been available in Australia for the last month. Only health feature that isn't approved is O2 levels.

o2 levels have been available in Aus since it was first in the phone.
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