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The Apple Watch

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Re: The Apple Watch

#841

Post by LaGrange »

jasonwocky wrote: post #706
LaGrange wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What casual runner goes running without their phone? Judging by the answers you got, ones who have oversized phones and think that shaving a little weight is worth not being able to call emergencies (who cares, they can use a strangers phone if that happens, just like the guys who cycle and skip tools, patches and pumps and then end up asking people passing them by, and anyway emergencies happen to other people). O…

I wear one all the time. It's purely fashion.

Hah, I buy this argument far more than any claims that people need accurate time measurement at notice short enough that taking a phone from a pocket/bag is unacceptable. Though I do think watches are hopelessly retro :-)

Re: The Apple Watch

#842

Post by rmc »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #769
rmc wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that it got to a 3rd generation implies it wasn't a "failure"

Sort of related to your comment: IMO the common thread in all (recent-ish?) Apple products is that the first iteration is usually rough around the edges and met with the most amount of criticism, then what always seems to happen is that Apple takes the feedback to heart and massively improves on subsequent iterations. Some examples I can think of: * While the first MacBook Air was crazy expensive and nearly universal…

In many of those example, people complained about it, but it was still a success. People complained about the first iPhone, and yet bought it in droves.

"Failure" is not determined by "lots of complaints", but by "very few sales"

Re: The Apple Watch

#843

Post by syncsynchalt »

mikestew wrote: post #772
syncsynchalt wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ironic if the 910 can't tell you the time, since one of the necessary components of a GPS device is a ridiculously accurate clock.

The 910 is capable of displaying the time of day, but it should be glaringly obvious to anyone that owns one that telling you the time is a peripheral feature that comes for free because of the nature of GPS devices. Combine that with a 20 hour battery life (probably far less if you're in an office and the GPS receiver is cranked all day), huge size, and questionable aesthetics, and it's obvious that Garmin did not i…

While the GPS satellite has atomic clocks, the GPS device also requires an accurate oscillator that is synced with the satellites' clocks — it uses the satellite signals to approximate the actual time and uses that approximation to measure the time delay to each satellite's clock to estimate distance, using an iterative algorithm.

Re: The Apple Watch

#844

Post by exodust »

But we already know the time, it's on our phones? I don't get why anyone would buy this watch apart from trendy reasons.

I bet sales will be low. Body monitoring sensors are better off hidden I rekon, then you can wear any watch, or no watch, and your phone does all the interfacing with the hidden sensors. All this should be open technology too, compatible with any phone rather than tied down to one system. It's your body after all, our data's fate shouldn't be a corporation's monopoly money.

Re: The Apple Watch

#845

Post by cheald »

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…

Even if you go out every Tuesday, you can't anticipate anomalous events which may impact traffic. I use Google Maps even when I'm going to a known destination, because it will tell me if there is a traffic problem on my normal route before I encounter it and enable me to route around it easily.

Re: The Apple Watch

#846

Post by deeviant »

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…

Your comment doesn't resonant with me.

I have an hour commute in the bay area twice a day, I used waze(now owned by Google) every trip. It's rare that it routes me in the same route twice in a row, there are all sorts of dynamic conditions that affect traffic conditions, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Waze also alerts my departure time and accurate ETA to my wife, which is also pretty cool.

Google now is also really cool, if creepy. It sees the airplane ticket confirmation in my email, or a concert ticket, it computes realtime traffic information, then gives me a heads up that I may want to start thinking about leaving, without any input from me.

This seems like a much better system them relying on myself to set some sort of calendar event which is not at all reactive to any dynamic conditions and is predicated on me to remember to do so. It also does this without any input from myself. I see it as an actual step in the direction of "Personal Digital Assistant" that was promised to us so long ago and services like google now are just in their infancy.

Now saying all that, I have no plays of going to Apple, I don't like their close-ecosystem, and have little faith that the iwatch will be the cash cow that the iphone/ipad was for Apple. I have for quite a long time and still do feel that Apple pulled a one/two hit wonder by being in the right place at the right time with the right team.

Re: The Apple Watch

#847

Post by deeviant »

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…

Apple got to where they are now because they absolutely had the best product(smart phone) bar none, with pretty much everybody else immediately being put in catch-up mode. The people that say it was a marketing victory and not a product development victory are either biased or ill-informed.

However, Apple no longer holds this distinction, there are plenty of competing products that now either meet or exceed the value prop of an iphone. Apple's competitors caught up, and I am having a really hard time buying that the iwatch will be the next ipod/iphone/ipad for Apple. Wearables have already proven to have nearly the lowest customer attention retention(i.e. they win the prize for most likely to end up in a closet a month after purchase, rather then be relied on as a cornerstone of modern life as smartphones are today) index of any consumer electronic and it seems a bad platform to stage a resurgence.

As far as the larger iphone models, welcome to yesteryear, it's now Apple playing catch up.

Re: The Apple Watch

#848

Post by jasonwocky »

LaGrange wrote: post #841
jasonwocky wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wear one all the time. It's purely fashion.

Hah, I buy this argument far more than any claims that people need accurate time measurement at notice short enough that taking a phone from a pocket/bag is unacceptable. Though I do think watches are hopelessly retro :-)

I mean, don't get me wrong. It is an added convenience to have access to the time a bit more quickly. If I'm checking the time, there's a decent chance I'm in a rush for something.

But yeah, almost purely fashion.

Re: The Apple Watch

#849

Post by deeviant »

tomcorrigan wrote: post #567
JohnTHaller wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely did. You may have forgotten, but the early success of iTunes/iPod was in being able to organize your music and get it on your device. iTunes/iPod was the first to really get this right on any kind of scale. And, compared to the competition of the time, they really nailed it. So, a phone that had that integrated was a really big deal, even if it couldn't run any apps (as the first iPhone did and couldn't…

The first generation iPod was Mac only. The 2nd generation iPod was Mac + Windows but iTunes was still Mac only. Windows syncing was done with third party software (Musicmatch Jukebox) iTunes did not have a foothold in the marketplace until after the success of the iPod was evident.

The ipod was a complete failure when it was Mac only, and it didn't start picking up steam until iTunes was on windows. When it did start picking up steam, it was ipod and itunes together that sky-rocketed in unison, which seems to lend credence to the idea that it was the itunes ecosystem in conjunction with the ipod hardware that created success for apple in that space.

As far as you "success of the ipod was evident" comment, that seems like solid case of hindsight on your part.

Re: The Apple Watch

#850

Post by deeviant »

rmc wrote: post #739
beedogs wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no "early success" for the iPod. It was a failure until the third generation, when it finally got PC support.

The fact that it got to a 3rd generation implies it wasn't a "failure"

Implication is even a weaker relationship than correlation.

And as a counter-point, the Surface RT has a second generation and may have a third. Does this imply success, or that MS went "all in"?

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