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Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

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Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#81

Post by josefresco »

huhhhh wrote: post #28
res0nat0r wrote: post #20

Apparently you can't do a lot of things with it if you have tattoos on your wrist: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/344b3o/anyone_with_ta...

You're tattooing it wrong. But seriously, how could Apple not test this?

The proclivity of hipster-douches with full sleeve tattoos in tech makes this even more shocking.

All jokes aside (I can live with the downvotes), I could see this easily falling through the cracks for a company new to wearables. What about hairy arms? What about skinny arms?

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#82

Post by BinaryIdiot »

notatoad wrote: post #75
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What can the watch still do if the phone is offline or too far away? I believe the watch face continues to work but anything that requires interacting with non-native apps (most of apple's apps are native on the watch fyi) or network connectivity just won't work. On the plus side it will work with bluetooth and wifi so you can at least go some [minor] distance away from your watch. But this same limitation exists i…

>But this same limitation exists in Android Wear and Pebble as well. This is not true. Both pebble and androidwear allow developers to write native applications that run directly on the watch, and can continue operating without the tether to a phone. Without the phone they have no network connection which limits their potential a lot, but they can still access the sensors on the watch, record data, and provide intera…

You cut off the rest of my sentence to say what the rest of my sentence said. Well except I missed android wear having native apps. But I still think my point is valid; you're still limited without the phone just a little less so and some apps, like running apps, really need the GPS on the phone to function well on Android Wear anyway.

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#83

Post by gurkendoktor »

baldfat wrote: post #15
threeseed wrote: post #8

Every restriction that Apple made makes total sense for the short/medium term. Watch faces need to be impeccably programmed or are likely to dramatically reduce battery life (some of the existing ones use OpenGL). Developers shouldn't be redefining the behaviour of force touch or digital crown before users have had a chance to properly learn them and access to heart rate surely had FDA implications. Tim Cook has stat…

Watch further establishes people into the Walled Garden which is Apple. I still think people just don't wear watches will cause watches to be a very minimal form of wearables. I seriously would wear a bracelet that had a larger usable surface and longer battery life and faster cpu :)

The current Watch will be outdated really, really fast. I don't think owning the current generation of Watch will make people buy an iPhone over an Android in 2016 or 2017.

In terms of lock-in strategies, iCloud Photo Library feels a lot more powerful to me. Can't wait to see if Apple can get their services fixed in the long term :)

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#84

Post by jonknee »

istvan__ wrote: post #56
huhhhh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're tattooing it wrong. But seriously, how could Apple not test this?

Oh boy, in a world that is focused on productivity (aka deliver asap something even if it is partially broken) and not too much of quality, this can happen very easily.

ASAP? The watch had been in progress for many years and was even announced and demonstrated publicly 7 months before it started to ship. It was definitely not rushed out the door.

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#85

Post by krrrh »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #44
pmontra wrote: post #26

"Your Apple Watch app acts like a separate process running on a separate device, however behind the scenes the OS runs a ‘skeleton’ like version of your host application on the user's iPhone and the Apple Watch extension in tandem, both on the iPhone" I totally missed this limitation until now. So the iWatch works only if you have an iPhone and the phone is in communication range with the watch? What can the watch st…

> What can the watch still do if the phone is offline or too far away? I believe the watch face continues to work but anything that requires interacting with non-native apps (most of apple's apps are native on the watch fyi) or network connectivity just won't work. On the plus side it will work with bluetooth and wifi so you can at least go some [minor] distance away from your watch. But this same limitation exists i…

If the phone is not present or turned off the watch will stay connected to wifi networks that you've joined in your phone previously. This is only useful/available for native apps, but it means that you can still use Siri over wifi without a phone.

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#86

Post by jacobolus »

freehunter wrote: post #52
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling that the Apple of old would have caught this instantly, when it was largely the boutique brand for creatives. Today's Apple? Not surprising at all.

I'm not sure that's the case. This feature (which is entirely optional and can be disabled) is looking for skin. Metallic ink tattoos don't look like skin, and only a small percentage of people have such tattoos on their wrist. However, a massive percentage of people have hands that are shaped like hands, and yet the Apple of old made a mouse that doesn't seem to be designed for anything even remotely resembling a hu…

Their “puck” mouse design was intended to ameliorate RSI by encouraging a grip with only the fingertips. Unfortunately, nobody got the memo about the “proper” way to hold the mouse, and tried to grip the mouse the same way they were used to... which of course sucked. (And it was also difficult to guess the orientation of a round object.)

It’s definitely a bad design especially given the context of existing mice, and a case of poor communication, or insufficient user testing, or even hubris maybe. Your dismissive summary of their intentions is not at all fair, however.

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#87

Post by jonknee »

oxide wrote: post #73
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What can the watch still do if the phone is offline or too far away? I believe the watch face continues to work but anything that requires interacting with non-native apps (most of apple's apps are native on the watch fyi) or network connectivity just won't work. On the plus side it will work with bluetooth and wifi so you can at least go some [minor] distance away from your watch. But this same limitation exists i…

I'm not sure why, but I get the feeling that these watches aren't all that smart. It sounds like the portable pocket computer we already bought does all the heavy lifting, while the smartwatch itself functions as a secondary display? I never gave them much thought until just now, but learning that really saps some of the novelty away from the whole thing for me. I can't imagine a good reason to own a watch in 2015 an…

The Apple Watch is a secondary display and sensor array. Battery limitations have handicapped it for doing much on its own.

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#88

Post by JohnBooty »

orbitur wrote: post #77
gdubs wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still go on a run, for example, without the phone and listen to a few gigs worth of music. There's apparently a bit of machine learning that allows the watch to do all of its health metrics on your run, once it has gotten to know your patterns.

No GPS though. I was hoping the watch would at least have that so I didn't have to put up with Garmin's terrible software anymore. Maybe rev. 2.

I've never seen a sleek, tiny watch that had GPS. The Fitbit Surge is the smallest I've seen and it's still pretty huge - more like a bracelet than a watch.

Pictures of it on actual wrists here: http://www.cnet.com/news/fitbit-charge-charge-hr-and-surge-h...

I don't know the nuts and bolts details but I think GPS has power/size requirements that preclude it from fitting in the size of something like a "normal" watch, at least until there's a major advance in battery technology.

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#89

Post by r00fus »

julianpye wrote: post #47
res0nat0r wrote: post #20

Apparently you can't do a lot of things with it if you have tattoos on your wrist: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/344b3o/anyone_with_ta...

This kind of reminds me of the 'Better off Ted' episode, where the company's new motion detection system does not detect any of the African Americans in the office.

Right, because people who have chosen to get dark tattoos are just like people who were born with darker skin.

Re: Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

#90

Post by jonknee »

brosky117 wrote: post #21

One thing that I've always imagined but haven't heard much in these discussions is the real potential behind the Apple Watch being the near-magical NFC interactions that could be achieved with its position on the body. For example, paying for groceries, opening locked doors, starting cars, etc. I feel that someone would only need to see a Watch user wave their hand and magically do something once before wanting that…

For cars that problem has been solved for several years--keyless entry / ignition is pretty common these days (with the added advantage that your key lasts for years without charging and you can give it to someone).
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