The Apple Watch • Hacker News Board

Re: The Apple Watch

#91

Post by notatoad » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #57

I can barely stand reading Gruber because it feels like reading Apple marketing materials. But he is required reading because he is one of the few ways that Apple releases important industry information. It would be great to have a daringfireball tl;dr service emphasizing his forecasts and "predictions" (which are usually actually Apple leaks).

Did you read this review? Gruber's blind love for anything apple generally turns me off. In this article though i thought his fanboy-ism stayed pretty restricted to apple the company, and it seems like quite a fair critical review of the watch itself.

Re: The Apple Watch

#92

Post by aleem » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #81

aleem wrote: post #64

I am quite excited about upgrading my watch experience and the next generation of connected devices, however, the biggest surprise for me is that Apple doesn't offer more gesture recognition. I always imagined the primary interface for shortcuts would be gestures such as waving away your arm to dismiss a message or flicking the wrist multiple times (if you try it right now, you can easily flick your wrist 3-4 times p…

(if you try it right now, you can easily flick your wrist 3-4 times per second). You'll also look very odd while you do it, which might have informed Apple not using it.

Haha, yes you're right.

A person from a decade or two ago might find a lot of things odd such as taking selfies, Facebook checkins, talking on a bluetooth headset, holding a 5.5" phone to your ear when the 90s was all about miniaturisation, the shake-to-shuffle a song, etc.

It's only an oddity because it's not common.

I am sure that things will gravitate toward gestures as this space evolves. It just seems like a very convenient way to interface and offers the path of least resistance for users.

Re: The Apple Watch

#93

Post by Synaesthesia » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #2

How does this guy always nail his articles? I think he's the only one I've ever heard of who gets paid so much to write blog articles.

He's a thoughtful writer, and a writer first and foremost. He takes it very seriously. Frequently posts about things like style, typography and serious journalism.

Re: The Apple Watch

#94

Post by skywhopper » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

q2 wrote: post #85

Honest questions: How people can write such long articles? How many hours they might have spent in writing? Does anyone read it from the top to bottom completely? Is it not possible to express the whole thing in a small article without losing the gist? EDIT 1: Gruber's articles have lot of useful information,analysis and insights but I feel, current article is too lengthy. EDIT 2: Anandtech's reviews are also detaile…

Personally, I enjoyed reading through the article all the way very much. Gruber is not writing for people who want an answer to a particular question or who are looking for tabular comparisons. He gives you his experience with the watch, and a description how his opinions of various features changed after using them. He gives context for his opinions about it as a long-time watch-wearer, and detailed personal examples of its problems.

I don't think a review that just gives an opinion without any context is useful. How can I judge the relevance to my life if I know nothing about the reviewer's? With something as personal and intimate as a watch, the details matter and the context matters.

Re: The Apple Watch

#95

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

mathieuh wrote: post #83

sjs382 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would have been better to simply detect swipe-to-scroll along the right edge of the bezel (if not along the right side of the frame itself) to effect "scrolling without obscuring".

That's how it basically seems to work, judging by videos. The video reviews I've seen have shown the user using one finger to operate the crown, rather than pinching it between two.

I'm unconvinced this is a better solution than sliding a finger along the side of the bezel - or possibly around the entire rim, for different functions.

Considering the technology in the crown, it's possible this would have been cheaper and more reliable as well as a better fit for the haptic features in the rest of the design.

Re: The Apple Watch

#96

Post by untog » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:35 PM UTC

aleem wrote: post #92

untog wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(if you try it right now, you can easily flick your wrist 3-4 times per second). You'll also look very odd while you do it, which might have informed Apple not using it.

Haha, yes you're right. A person from a decade or two ago might find a lot of things odd such as taking selfies, Facebook checkins, talking on a bluetooth headset, holding a 5.5" phone to your ear when the 90s was all about miniaturisation, the shake-to-shuffle a song, etc. It's only an oddity because it's not common. I am sure that things will gravitate toward gestures as this space evolves. It just seems like a ver…

It might become normal. But look at Google Glass - the "weirdness" attached to it absolutely had an effect on its success.

Re: The Apple Watch

#97

Post by serve_yay » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

reubenmorais wrote: post #8

This is a very interesting article, and I like how it's written in the perspective of a functional watch user instead of being about fashion or watch collecting. I couldn't help but laugh at this part: > Also, though it sounds trivial, I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. Isn't a mechanical watch hand ∞ FPS by definition? Real life has…

> Isn't a mechanical watch hand ∞ FPS by definition?

You guys are so silly sometimes.

Re: The Apple Watch

#98

Post by nfoz » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:47 PM UTC

EA wrote: post #13

“You’ll still be able to do with Apple Watch what you do with your current watch: tell the time (and if you want, the date) at a glance and trust that it’s accurate.” ...if you return your watch to a charging station daily. He goes on: That said, compared to a traditional watch, daily charging is terrible. Before entering into the smartphone market, I charged my cellphone less than 100 times per year. Now, I have to…

I use a Blackberry with a 3-day battery life. Many people have portable or add-on batteries for their phones.

Re: The Apple Watch

#99

Post by bluthru » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #61

Designing a 2015 smartwatch to fit the expectations of dumb-watches feels more and more to me like designing a 2007 smartphone to fit the expectations of the blackberry crowd (physical keyboard, removable battery). The digital crown looks like one such mistake. Swipe-to-scroll is so natural, particularly at this point, that moving back to an indirect method of scrolling seems just wrong . And doing so on a device tha…

I like the idea of using the edge of the device as a scroll area. Maybe Apple tried it and it didn't work out, or it didn't translate well into zooming, or it wasn't precise enough? (You can rotate a dial with a lot more precision than a big bulbous finger moving on the edge of a tiny device.)

Regardless, I'm glad there is a way to scroll without covering the screen and adding more skin oil to it.

Re: The Apple Watch

#100

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:50 PM UTC

oaktowner wrote: post #49

skc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy that runs asymco said something that got me thinking about this. He said, the Apple Watch is as much a "watch" as the iPhone is a "phone". I think the idea is that we are thinking about it all wrong. The "phone" functionality of an iPhone is just an app and is in fact one of the least used apps on the device. The same line of thinking will probably start to explain the Apple Watch. It's actually a wearable co…

Right. "Phone" was the thing the iPhone did worst of all. When I got my first iPhone (after a Blackberry Curve), one thing I noticed: everything my Curve did, it did better than the iPhone. It was a better phone, it was better for email, it was better for texting. (Ok, it technically had "apps", but they were so bad I never used any). But my iPhone did a million things that my Blackberry didn't do (via apps). Was it…

That's my main concern about WATCH. The apps for it don't exist yet, and it's possible they never will.

A pocket computer with a touch screen is a general computing device. But there's very little anyone can do with a watch-sized consumer product - especially if it lacks extras like really good fitness and health hardware.

I totally get the potential of haptic wearables, but WATCH seems like a 0.5 product with some eccentric design choices that's still on the wrong side of industrial practicality - not like a product with enough awesome to appeal outside the fan/early adopter crowd.

I'm sure Cook & Co are thinking of it as a beach head, not a finished battle. But even so - it has to entice a critical mass of consumers or there will be no follow-ups.