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The watch-to-watch communication with all the sharing your heart rate and sending little pictures was the most Samsung thing I've ever seen anyone but Samsung do. Seriously, is there a real problem lurking around somewhere for which this is a solution?I don't know that it felt Samsung. When I heard about the feature I immediately thought of how I might use it with my wife and family. It basically takes the trivial communication you have with people close to you throughout the day and makes it more physical and less complex. I don't think I've gotten that feeling from Samsung features — that said, I don't really have any desire to wear this (or any) watch at all.
> The force sensitive display might be useful, I couldn't really tell from the coverage. At least one person there commented that they were having a hard time seeing the big difference between "force press" and "long press".
Yeah, I'd like to know more about this. It felt like one of the more clever features if it is actually distinct from long press. That is, if it can feel easily distinguishable from a press or swipe while still feeling intuitive, I think they will really have something.
> Is the "Taptic" feedback significantly different that the vibrating motor present on every other watch? I can't really tell, but I think functionally, vibration can already serve the purpose well enough, although the Apple implementation might be a bit more elegant -- I can't find enough information to say for sure.
Well according to the keynote the "Taptic" feedback unit can actually mark out directions on your wrist. That is, telling you to turn left or right when you come to an intersection purely through touch. So unless it's something stupid like "two vibrates for left, one for right" it might actually be something interesting.
> the idea of needing to zoom around to launch apps seems less like a good idea, but overall the novel input method is an innovation I'd say.
It sounds like you can do either. They mention tapping to zoom in on an "app neighbourhood" and tapping once again to launch an app. I also think the digital crown is quite clever — and it will be a very Apple-thing to pull off if they can make it feel truly one-to-one with the UI animations.
> I assume they must have NFC in the watch to handle the payments system.
I've read that the NFC payments through the watch will be tied to skin contact. So they will only work while the device is touching your skin. If you lose skin contact you'll have to re-enter your pin code next time you wear the watch to enable payments. Seems like a well thought out use case.
> Mostly though, I think that the people who complained that Android Wear was just a mini cell phone on your wrist should be disappointed with the Apple Watch as well. I'm not one of them for the record, I'm wearing the Gear Live right now, and I quite like it. But I don't think Apple has revolutionized the smart watch. They've just made what looks to be a solid entry into the market.
I agree. Though I'm a little disappointed that the Apple Watch attempts to be so many things.