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The Apple Watch

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Re: The Apple Watch

#751

Post by kaitai »

ozim wrote: post #646
kamaal wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>A watch is primarily a piece of jewelry. Not actually though. A watch is still a watch. There are so many places where you can't carry or even have the opportunity to use your smart phone to check time. Students can't carry it to exam halls, people who are driving cars, workers, there many professions and use cases where a simple device strapped to your hand is indispensable when it comes to keeping track of time.

Your examples are not really strong. Most cars have digital clocks, exam halls usually have wall clocks also cannot imagine plane without clock. I would say scubadivers, parashuters would need it but how many are there? There are also workplaces where you cannot wear jewelery and watches (working with food, machinery) but company phone is permitted or must. I would say that in places where keeping track of time is ne…

I use it to know when I need to start running to catch the bus. There are not so many clocks outside. Anyone who works outside or spends a lot of time outside and needs to keep track of time will find a watch useful.

Re: The Apple Watch

#752

Post by prawks »

jawr wrote: post #626
kingkawn wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

^ This. I was actually quite disturbed with the Apple unveiling of the watch, I know it has been expected and what not. But a device that is literally monitoring my heart rate constantly all day, guiding me down a street with "gentle taps like a person" to tell me which direction to go. I feel like a small part of humanity is being optimised away. It's an incredibly scary thought.

These kinds of things have been happening to the human experience for some time now. I don't need to ask anyone how to get anywhere, or figure out how to navigate there with the rise of GPS on devices I have with me all the time. I can have food brought to my doorstep without ever talking to anyone.

At the same time, it's enabling exciting new possibilities. I can meet people with shared interests in a huge multitude of ways. I can talk to practically anyone I've ever met within a minute. I can learn how to do almost anything at a basic level given some modest interest and an Internet connection.

I think people are only beginning to realize the all-encompassing nature of how technology is affecting how we live, because it has become so incredibly pervasive and is moving so quickly. The human experience is most definitely changing, but it's not all for the worse. It's easy to be sentimental about the past, but the possibilities are often too enticing to hold onto those relics in favor of new things.

Re: The Apple Watch

#753

Post by yincrash »

arihant wrote: post #492

Here are my first thoughts (I kind of won't be doing device specific nitpicking as this is the first iteration. We are sure the concept will evolve with time): Good things: 1.) The Tap-talk feature is an absolute genius for me. This, exactly this, is the perfect non-intrusive yet hyper connected way to intimately stay in touch with someone. Just tap on their wrist, so simple. Make a little scribble to show emotion, s…

One correction: 6) Apple _announced_ a watch today. A week earlier Moto launched a better looking watch.

Re: The Apple Watch

#754

Post by alexqgb »

72deluxe wrote: post #617
alexqgb wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last 13 years, they've delivered three new platforms: the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. (I'm not counting Apple TV, since Jobs' "hobby" designation still very clearly applies). Each of these had extraordinary effects in areas that others either hadn't imagined, had imagined badly, or had imagined well but had written off as impossible to achieve. In every case, Apple's products - which went onto be world cha…

I remember using an iPad 1 at work. Very quickly I (and those around me) realised that you couldn't actually do a fat lot of work with it, and were pretty disappointed with it. We were expecting a PC. BUT! give it to me for web browsing (and shopping???) and it was absolutely great. This bright realisation that many of our parents don't sit at home writing software or documents suddenly made sense; people had been bu…

"Thankfully Apple hasn't done this and hasn't made the MacBook a touchscreen device."

Ha. Also, I can't wait until they do. Seriously, I've become so used to / enamored with the full touch interface on the iPad that I find myself reflexively tapping the play button for videos on my laptop. And instead of feeling stupid I get irritated because it should work.

I keep a bluetooth keyboard paired with the Air. If I'm plowing through a batch of emails, I can switch between that and touch very seamlessly. Overall, it's just a really great experience. And now I want the same thing on my laptop.

Re: The Apple Watch

#755

Post by kenrikm »

hayleyanthony wrote: post #512
ChristianBundy wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Please try to say women, not "females." I don't think you meant anything by it but when you always see that usage, (common in tech spaces) it starts to feel a little dehumanizing.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=female

From Wikipedia:

"It is not etymologically related to the word male, but in the late 14th century the spelling was altered in English to parallel the spelling of male."

I honestly don't understand how "female" is any worse then "woman" honest question I'm easily the least sexist person you could run into (ask my wife) but sometimes it seems like no mater what you're still going to offend someone. :(

Re: The Apple Watch

#756

Post by HelloMcFly »

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…

This comment is a repeat of many similar comments on older technologies. I don't mean to say the sentiment is wrong, but technological assistance in small ways can potentially lead to a bigger impact. A book I'd recommend that relates to this topic is Smarter Than You Think which put a lot of this stuff in perspective for me.

Re: The Apple Watch

#757

Post by adam »

moogleii wrote: post #746
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'm curious what your defense is to their success with the non-Apple faithful, though. That always seems to be left unsaid. The good ol' common "marketing" play from the Android diehards may have accounted for some of its success, but I think it's immensely dense to attribute a large proportion of Apple's current (and recent past) success to it (you might get to fortune 500 with that, but getting to #1 wealthiest com…

All you need to do is go to Apple's claim they have a design driven methodology. It's fairly predictable then when they roll out something like Apple Pay that they're going to not do it until they have the requisite business deals in place to make it a good experience for the users. How successful they are at the friction point of tech and design varies (iTunes sucks :) but that's always their goal and worldview of how they set out to take on projects like this.

Re: The Apple Watch

#758

Post by syncsynchalt »

zimpenfish wrote: post #214
eli wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife runs long distances with an iPhone AND a watch. My impression is that Forerunners have fallen out of favor. The GPS doesn't work all that well compared to a phone (I'm guessing because it lacks the AGPS data a phone has access to). Plus if you're running a marathon you probably want some music to listen to, and it sure is nice to have a phone with you even though it's perhaps a bit heavy.

I've got 18 months of Moves data logged against corresponding tracks from my 910XT and the difference in consistency, accuracy, etc., is telling - the iPhone is frequently off by 10s (if not 100s) of metres and especially coming round the Millennium Dome is a joke - it has me jumping from the south to the north of the Thames every few hundred metres. Moves iPhone 5S - http://imgur.com/kjYf8Tj Garmin 910XT - http://im…

Do you use a GPS app in your phone often? This almost looks like it was falling back to AGPS / Skyhook while the almanac was still downloading, which can take half an hour or so.

Once the almanac is downloaded, the phone's GPS track should look much closer to the Garmin's.

If this was a recurring problem then I don't know what to say, other than it doesn't match my experience with RunKeeper on an iPhone 4S.

Re: The Apple Watch

#759

Post by syncsynchalt »

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.

A terrestrial transmitter spoofs or overpowers the GPS signal.

GPS satellites have a signal strength on par with a night light's, so it's easy to overpower in a small area using a low power transmission.

Re: The Apple Watch

#760

Post by dockd »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #189
bobochan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I put off buying a GPS watch because I wanted to see what Apple was going to offer. Answer: Nothing. I really cannot imagine a more useless product than this watch. It requires an iPhone and seems to essentially serve as a small, remote interface for your phone. And how do I navigate that small interface? With an even smaller "digital crown." I hate trying to set the time on my watch, and now they expect me…

> Imagine a typical scenario. You are walking down the street and suddenly need to navigate somewhere. "Siri, give me walking directions to the nearest Starbucks."

Isn't the whole scenario far fetched? Does anyone really wander around and then suddenly have an urgent need to be somewhere (other than a restroom :)?

The only thing I can think of that might make me suddenly need to go somewhere is a message/reminder...from my phone.

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