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

The Apple Watch

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 863 posts

Re: The Apple Watch

#601

Post by ZeroGravitas »

beedogs wrote: post #578
ibrahima wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google says you can shrink smartphone UX to a smartwatch; Apple says you shouldn't, and you should do these other things instead. The fact that you believe what Apple says about Google rather than taking the two minutes to actually look at how Android Wear works and see that that statement is completely false shows that the distortion field is in full effect.

I mean, this is the same company that, during the keynote today, repeated the lie that they're the mob that brought us the computer mouse. People just accept Apple's misstatements and half-truths and outright lies as fact now.

During the keynote stream they retweeted someone saying the iPhone 6 Plus would render games at a higher resolution than next-gen consoles!

Re: The Apple Watch

#602

Post by 72deluxe »

kingkawn wrote: post #594
2xlbuds wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your comment has given me my first quantifiable measured sensation of feeling old. if you go out every Tuesday, you will learn the traffic patterns, and will naturally develop a series of contingency routes that you could take in the event of traffic. The watch is novelty more than useful. It will make you forget how you used to do things and in turn feel dependent on it, when in fact it is simply a novelty that dist…

Is it more likely thinking of use-cases for the device instead of the other way around? With new technology, some people make out that they cannot possibly live without it and give a list of scenarios where they would use it, but in reality do they really have those scenarios particularly when the novelty of a new material device has worn off?

Re: The Apple Watch

#604

Post by 72deluxe »

n09n wrote: post #503
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…

The reality distortion field and the ability to spin those negatives as positives are features, though. A watch is primarily a piece of jewelry. How well it tells the time or does other things is much less important than how fashionable it is. Branding is one of Apple's strong suits, and you can't take that away by adding features as if consumer purchasing decisions are based on some kind of checklist-like RFPs like…

The wording in the video for the watch (narrated by Jony Ive) is full of strange phrases (I paraphrase): "the controls are vital"; "the watch is essentially..... (pause)...... a mini computer" (just like SIM cards then!) "The strap is infinitely adjustable" - that one made me chuckle, as it was referring to a strap that folds back on itself with a magnetic clasp. Of course, it isn't infinitely adjustable, as the strap isn't infinitely long.....

Interesting device though. Looks interesting.

Re: The Apple Watch

#605

Post by ZeroGravitas »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #500
simplexion wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Apple Watch's relationship to the Moto 360 looks to me less like the iPhone 6's relationship to the Moto X than like the original iPhone's relationship to other high-end smartphones of 2007: obviously a lot of shared DNA, but trying to address the same problem space in a measurably different way." If you ignore the LG Prada.

The LG Prada was an impressive piece of hardware and certainly pointed in the same direction, sure, but it was essentially a feature phone -- a smaller, lower-resolution, grayscale display with no Internet capability to speak of. You had to use a virtual phone keyboard for text messaging, even. There was certainly nothing like Safari, for instance, or any of Apple's messaging applications. Actually, I'd say that the…

The standard definition of "featurephone" is not having the ability to install apps. Like the original iPhone, which intended you to use web apps apart from those built in.

As you say, others had app stores first. If Android had launched without the ability to install apps then some Apple blogs would still be talking about how it was fundemantally not designed for the current smartphone era and would never be as good as the iPhone, as they currently do based on misinterpretation of whether touchscreens were intended to be supported from the start.

Re: The Apple Watch

#606

Post by Kequc »

taude wrote: post #113
georgemcbay wrote: post #29

Who would have thunk that of all the end-of-2014 smartwatches, the one that would make you look the least like a dork would be the one from Motorola? Shame about the battery life, though. Please fix that Motorola, I want to give you my money so bad, but cannot do it until you fix the battery life.

You know, I was thinking the same thing. I think I prefer the roundness of the 360, than the rectangular Apple design. However, you won't catch me wearing either of them until you don't have to have a phone with you. I'm thinking Minimum Viable Phone (or communications device) that I can wear on my wrist when doing thing, and have some casual interactions with text messaging, and glancing at emails)...

But I never leave my phone behind anywhere and the way the watches work is quite brilliant in that they interface with your phone. They do everything you can do on your phone but at a glance, that's the whole point of them. They are small, easily accessible and harness the power of a larger device.

I fear that you might be representing too small a fragment of the market to get your desired product.

Re: The Apple Watch

#607

Post by 72deluxe »

personZ wrote: post #379
girvo wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there is absolutely no doubt that there is a distortion field, and it really is hard to stomach. Its... it's a consumer electronics brand. I'll truly never understand how this stuff gets people so riled up. I mean, I used to get all hot and bothered when I followed smartphones (2006 represent!), but nowadays we're at a point where every gadget is just a riff on another gadget, and that's fine . Now no matter wh…

Its... it's a consumer electronics brand Of extraordinary social and technological importance. I work in technology, and shifts in mobile technology have significant impacts on my life. I can understand if this were a knitting board and someone made a comment like yours. In technology, however, it is extremely pertinent to what we do.

It may be pertinent to what we do and affect our lives and may have limited social importance in our social circles, but they are really first-world issues. People getting incensed or stressed about a new gadget does really pale into insignificance compared to the slaughter of people in wars around the world and the ongoing poverty around the world. Perhaps the social circles we frequent need to be less shallow if they are obsessed with gadgets?

I think the thing that many commenters miss is their perspective, and it is a sad missing factor. It also makes these discussions appear trivial and very petty; look at old Slashdot archives discussing new products and it is pretty sad.

Just a thought. Keep me in the loop with your knitting board.... :-)

Re: The Apple Watch

#608

Post by 72deluxe »

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…

Didn't wxWidgets have dynamic layout before Qt? Also, didn't Gtk 1 rely on sizers too?

Re: The Apple Watch

#609

Post by danellis »

makr wrote: post #599
danellis wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they actually say that? What's the exact quote? I thought they said something about all their products using innovative interfaces, not that the innovations were theirs. Still, when they were talking about the digital crown, they did make it sound like they were trying to claim they invented the optical rotary encoder.

"Macintosh introduced the mouse." from the official liveblog: http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept-event/2cd7d38c-f769-4fc4...

"Introduced" is a subjective word. The Alto had a mouse, but I don't think it was used outside PARC. It doesn't seem too far from the truth to say that the Macintosh introduced the mouse to the world.

Re: The Apple Watch

#610

Post by Kequc »

zmmmmm wrote: post #381

My biggest take away is that Apple has failed to advance the state of the art in any meaningful way here. I guess hype is always hype, but people really expected that Apple would do something that would knock this out of the park - a week long battery life, a flexible watch face, or a bracelet style 360 degree screen or something else that would just reset the whole space. It didn't happen. This device may sell well…

I think you're overestimating the technology which is available today. These watches, while not my taste, are an incredible feat of engineering.
Post reply on HN