15 ms·

Apple Watch momentum is building

210 points by threatofrain 6y ago

melling 6y ago
This is actually taking longer than I thought it would. 5 years ago I wrote a blog post essentially saying everyone will wear a smart watch for health and safety reasons: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyone-will-wear-a-smartwatch/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo... It’s disappointing that Google hasn’t done a better job of competing. The industry needs 2 strong competitors.
- ve55 6y ago
  Competition by Apple and Google in these areas will imo always be a bit asymmetrical as long as Apple makes its money off of selling luxury products and services while Google instead makes its money off of advertisers or data.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    I mean... at what point does something become a luxury product? What does it mean to be a luxury product? I see homeless people with iPhones, people put Apple watches on payment plans. I agree with your point about Google and ads, but I feel like this meme of Apple being a luxury product is slowly just not making sense to me.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      Yeah, I don't really buy the "luxury product" label either, but I suppose everything is relative. All the major brands of smartphones have offerings at similar price points to the iPhone lineup. And in the United States, iPhones have around 50% of the smartphone market share. The same largely applies to Apple's other product lines too, which the exception that they simply don't attempt to compete in the bottom-dollar markets for laptops or desktop PCs. So I would definitely say that Apple doesn't make junk for the race-to-the-bottom market, but I'm hesitant to call them a luxury brand.
      - ericmay 6y ago
        Thanks. I certainly think it’s a luxury product in certain markets, but not in the US. I’ve had others say it’s a status symbol or luxury product and I’m always thinking... a Ferrari is a luxury product. Moet and Chandon is a luxury product... but an iPhone that 50% of Americans have?
        mjcohen 6y ago
        Not 50% of Americans, 50% of smart watch share.
        fakedang 6y ago
        Artificial scarcity. It's the only reason why its perceived value is so high in the US, and later gets carried to other foreign markets (like China). Apple is this single entity that creates these products that run this unique OS alone, while Android manufacturers are a dime a dozen - too visible. If I don't get the latest Samsung, I don't mind because I'll just go ahead and buy the latest OnePlus or Huawei or something. But I have nowhere to go if Apple stores run out of the iPhone, and if I'm really bought into the whole design oo-la-lah shtick, I'll just camp outside the Apple store (aside: I have seen fewer campers with each passing year). Ferrari is a luxury product because every engine made is a machining masterpiece largely created by hand. Most and Chandon is a luxury product because it takes a good year and tons of time to perfect that taste. Apple fans may have had something to boast about with the design quality during the Steve Jobs years, but right now, there's little to boast about their mass-produced devices made by underpaid workers in a Chinese/Vietnamese/Indian factory, so they generate artificial oomph over things like the fonts or the app store or whatever. As a Tesla owner, I've seen the same kind of behavior from other Tesla owners, although I find Tesla to be a relatively flawed product compared to other cars such as a Porsche or an Audi. Honestly, I suspect that if Jobs were alive right now, he wouldn't be really happy with today's Apple. Out of the nearly a decade since he's passed, the only thing that was really revolutionary on Apple's part were the Airbuds. And with Jony gone, I suspect there's going to be less of that too.
    - ve55 6y ago
      I would say products where the product price is high, the social status of using the product is high, and the profit margin of the product is high. You could add some other details, but I generally think of those things when I use that term. With that said, it's true the term is a bit overused for a company like Apple. But regardless of the labeling, I think customers of Apple fitness devices will, on average, be happier than customers of Google fitness devices for the aforementioned reason.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - canofbars 6y ago
      To me what makes the AW a luxury product is its something that absolutely no one needs (Except maybe old people). For almost all people buying it, its just a nice to have thing that makes things you could do before a little easier/better. For me I really enjoy using it for walking directions in the city. Yes I could use my phone but this lets me walk more naturally without looking like a phone zombie.
- tw04 6y ago
  Garmin seems to be doing just fine. And I don’t have to charge it every day.
  - dwighttk 6y ago
    How many users?
    - kortilla 6y ago
      At least 1 that we know of
    - mauvehaus 6y ago
      A completely unresearched wild-assed guess: and order of magnitude fewer. But they're nuts, and they are loyal repeat customers and evangelists for the platform. After getting 2 hand me downs from a friend who upgraded, my partner sprung for a new one. Killer features for her: battery life of a week instead of a day and good backcountry navigation. Garmin connect does exercise challenges too, so there's a social aspect as well.
      - dwighttk 6y ago
        So is that guess 1 million or 10 million? the article is about how there are about to be 100 million Apple Watch users. I would definitely like longer battery life on my Apple watch. Barring that it’d be convenient if the chargers were like lightning and usb-c: available in every gas station, drug store, and dollar store.
        mauvehaus 6y ago
        Probably somewhere in between? So maybe an order of magnitude and a half fewer? But yeah, the charger thing is real. Her new Garmin uses this weird housed pogo pin connector for charging. The last one used a cradle that hugged the back of the watch; no idea what the electrical connection is. I can only assume there's a good reason for the non-standard connector, and that it probably involves waterproofing? I have no horse in this race, to be clear.
- GeorgeTirebiter 6y ago
  Does Samsung count? https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearables/smartwatches/ https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearables/smartwatches/
  - Austin_Conlon 6y ago
    How is their smartwatch software and SDK?
    - m45t3r 6y ago
      The software is pretty good actually. Have a Galaxy Active2, two day battery life, good health sensors, and I find the interface incredible easy to use (after one or two day of adaptation). The fact that it is round is a plus for me too (it looks like a watch if you turn Always on screen, though I use it off in mine). I don't know about the SDK though, but it does seem to have some apps (not that I use many of them).
  - cycrutchfield 6y ago
    What's their market share like?
- shard 6y ago
  I have had a Samsung smartwatch for 5 years now and have been very satisfied. I'm not a big user of health functions, but sleep tracking, being able to see messages quickly without having to reach for my phone, and having an alarm on my wrist that is guaranteed to wake me up are the 3 biggest benefits. I also prefer a round watch face, it give a more classic feel. I feel a rectangular watch face shouts "I'm a smartwatch user!" a bit too much.
  - bigdict 6y ago
    Meanwhile a round watch face shouts "I'm a round smartwatch user!".
    - shard 6y ago
      For me at least, a round watch face blends better, and it's harder to tell whether it is a smartwatch or not out of the corner of your eye without specifically checking the face of the watch. For square watches, I can pretty much tell it's a smartwatch, starting from the Pebble days.
- benatkin 6y ago
  I think Amazon has shown that no competitors are needed. If any are, it's just one. Apple/Microsoft and Apple/Google.
  - canofbars 6y ago
    The Apple watch is only an option to iphone users. Since the majority of phone users do not have an iphone it means that the majority of people can not use an Apple watch.
- nmlnn 6y ago
  Don't they own FitBit?
- delfinom 6y ago
  Sadly apple watch is the only real product that's making any attempts are iterating to more cases. But the tie in to iphones is sad. Everyone else is still regurgitating the same garbage with their watches.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  The only killer feature that's still missing for me would be alarm clock tracking sleep phases and waking me up when it's most appropriate. I'll buy Apple Watch instantly. I've used iPhone apps but they're rather limited, but I really liked what they did even with that limitation.
  - adenverd 6y ago
    Sleep Cycle [0] does this with "Intelligent" wake mode, and has a standalone app for the Apple Watch. I'll also be shocked if this isn't a native feature of Apple's Sleep app within a year. [0] https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/12/sleep-cycle-apple-watch-app/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/12/sleep-cycle-apple-watch-app/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  The industry needs 2 strong competitors. I think it needs more than two.
pazimzadeh 6y ago
After 5 years, I still have to peck at buttons on my watch to pause/unpause workouts or switch songs when I bet you some slap gestures could do the trick
- gumby 6y ago
  why don't you talk to your watch? That's what I do. I don't find the voice interface that useful on the phone (and completely disabled it on my iPad and Mac -- ugh). But on the watch it makes a lot of sense.
  - pazimzadeh 6y ago
    What if I don't want to talk while running? Or under water?
    - gumby 6y ago
      I guess I just don't tweak things much while doing stuff. I only know of one gesture of the kind you mention: cover the watch face with your palm to silence an alarm or incoming call.
      - pazimzadeh 6y ago
        That is my favorite feature on the apple watch
lawrenceyan 6y ago
Do you see antitrust action rising with regards to the health data implications that smartwatches like the Apple Watch bring? In the EU already, we're seeing heavy probes on Fitbit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fitbit-m-a-alphabet-eu/headwinds-for-google-as-rivals-customers-criticise-fitbit-concessions-idUSKBN26N32J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fitbit-m-a-alphabet-eu/he...
- zaroth 6y ago
  I don’t get it. Monopoly doesn’t mean just a market that one product is clearly superior to the competitors. Monopoly is a market which has either natural or artificial barriers which preclude competition. What’s the natural or artificial barrier to entry in the fitness wearable market? It seems highly competitive to me.
  - lawrenceyan 6y ago
    Of course I personally don't agree with it, but this is the official stance on the EU side: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_1446 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_...
  - lukeschlather 6y ago
    The natural/artificial barrier is the data silo created by the fitness tracking. Monopoly isn't necessarily the right word, but it is rather frustrating that all these smartwatches by default beam all of your biometrics into a non-hippa-compliant datastore, and that these datastores don't interoperate. It's really tricky because right now Garmin, Fitbit, Apple, and the others are all basically financing their data portals through device sales. Which makes sense because I wouldn't have paid a subscription for it before I bought the watch, but now that I have the watch (Garmin) it is an invaluable service. But it seems wrong that the watch manufacturer owns the data - I would like a data storage company with strong privacy guarantees and strong analytics. But I'm not sure I trust any of these companies, it seems like they're all trying to figure out how to monetize my data by selling analytics to third-parties. (Even Apple.)
anonymousiam 6y ago
I will get one as soon as an iPhone is not required. I know they now have a "family" option, but it is still quite limited. I would love to be able to use my iPad Pro (with active data sim) for this. There is no technical reason for me not being able to do this. I am never going to switch to an iPhone, so it's on them. If they want to expand their market, this is an easy one for them.
- voisin 6y ago
  > I am never going to switch to an iPhone Out of curiosity, why?
  - anonymousiam 6y ago
    I like being able to open a shell on my phone. (Yes, I know there are some limited options to do this on an iPhone that don't involve jail breaking. They all involve emulation and have limits to their usefulness.) I like running an FTP server on my phone. When combined with wireless tethering, it's the only way to get data directly from a phone onto a government laptop. There are plenty of hackerish/security apps I use that are simply unavailable on the iPhone. Sharing data between apps is now at least possible on an iPhone, but it's still very cumbersome. I understand the need for security, but it comes at a cost to performance or usability. This is not an ideological issue. Everyone else in my family has iPhones, and I use my iPad all the time. It's just a personal choice that is driven by my use cases for a phone.
  - x87678r 6y ago
    I've always had Android so am well used to it. They seem cheaper, more open, more colorful, faster to type. My wife's iphone drives me nuts. I dont understand why they're so popular.
    - canofbars 6y ago
      I just switched from android after using it for the last 10 years. Largely I find them to be the same, the few things that really bother me is the lack of a back button and the lack of having photos sorted in the gallery. Its stupid how my camera photos get mixed in with memes saved off the internet. But the main reason by far I picked an iphone this time is Apple is not an advertising company and therefore doesn't have to disrespect my privacy. Its always comforting to open a page on an apple app and see a very plain text explanation of exactly what data the app stores, how it is always kept locally and if shared, apple only requests the bare minimum rights to provide the feature you are using. And then you look at a Google ToS that says "We can and will do whatever we want"
amelius 6y ago
But who likes the design? In my view, Apple tried to cater to the desires of both men and women simultaneously, and ended up with a sex-less watch that looks like it was designed by a committee.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Why do you need a watch that is designed for a particular sex?
  - shard 6y ago
    For many, a watch is a fashion accessory. Thus, a watch that fits their style is important. If their fashion style identifies strongly with a particular sex, then a watch that clashes with that style would be less appealing.
  - amelius 6y ago
    > Why do you need a watch that is designed for a particular sex? If you'd ask that question in a Rolex board-meeting, they'd show you the door ...
    - microtherion 6y ago
      Yeah, but Rolex primarily caters to men who are insecure in their masculinity, so they're a special case >:-)
      - smabie 6y ago
        Or maybe Rolex caters to people who have money and like watches?
        adjkant 6y ago
        Two things can be true at once
        canofbars 6y ago
messe 6y ago
I'll take an interest once they offer the cellular version in my country (Ireland—where their EU hq is based, of all places). Until then, meh.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >(Ireland—where their EU hq is based, of all places) You still have to cross the border to get to an Apple Store!
  - messe 6y ago
    What border? /s (sarcasm decreasing day upon day) It's bizarre that they have one in Belfast but not Dublin. I've never understood the logic.
obviyus 6y ago
I haven’t ever been too keen on smartwatches and never really tried anything beyond a Fitbit. I recently ordered a Series 6 and I’m absolutely loving it. I can positively say this device on my wrist is the best thing I’ve done for my health. The multitude of sensors are great, sure, but the real magic is how the watch motivates you. Closing rings is like crack. It makes me want to leave the bed and go for a quick run or cycle at 11PM. Having a cellular connection is fantastic and on occasion even lets me leave my phone behind. Coupled with their usually reliable software, I can 100% see why Apple’s approaching 100M Apple Watch users.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  I've never owned a smartwatch, but I can't think of another device that completely distracts users and breaks focus away from in-person conversations quite like these do. Maybe I just notice it more than folks that just use phones, but every time I'm talking to someone who checks their watch while we're talking reinforces my decision not to purchase one. Sometimes I feel like I've teleported from another decade or something when complaining about the lack of digital etiquette in our society, but there's just no way I can justify buying another notification factory.
  - macintux 6y ago
    I’ve found just the opposite. By tuning my Apple Watch notifications, I now only get the most important interruptions on it, and I can almost always tell what it is by the haptics. So my phone can buzz and beep all it wants, I can ignore it. My watch can buzz and depending on what’s going on around me, I can sneak a peek or disregard it. Furthermore, the watch is incapable of subsuming my attention like the phone. On a phone I have all of my usual distractions. My watch is too small to take me away from the people I’m with (as if that’s anything to worry about this year, sadly). The watch has liberated me from distractions when I’m among people. If the people you’re interacting with are being distracted, that’s their failing, not the watch’s.
    - thewebcount 6y ago
      Yeah, this was my experience as well. My phone was pretty distracting, but I was really able to cut down on the notifications I got on the watch and they were only the important ones, so now I'm more engaged than I was previously.
catchmeifyoucan 6y ago
Mixed feelings on this. Only because it paints the Apple Watch as the brainchild of this new-age health platform Watch still is an exclusive way to drive consumers to iPhone. Today, it's more capable than ever, but smartwatches weren't exclusive to Apple - Pebble, Android Wear, Fitbit and Garmin (which I had) did them. And better in some aspects. 4 years later, I'm still not blown away at the sensor technology on Apple Watch. (disc. I have one) Sleep tracking wasn't added till the latest release!!?? It's def. a fashion statement. Like blue iMessage bubbles, Apple Watch is a sign of luxury and exclusivity, and it looks solid. Apple owns an ecosystem, and at the center is the user. A computer on the wrist makes sense, it's always on, always there, and it's still a connected experience for when you can't have your phone. But I can't say Apple created a whole new industry - it only works because they own an ecosystem. Not because they have a fantastic wearable watch.
- vvanders 6y ago
  Agreed, as a Pebble and now Garmin owner the article seemed to gloss over the latter despite it having a fairly rich feature set.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >4 years later, I'm still not blown away at the sensor technology on Apple Watch. (disc. I have one) Sleep tracking wasn't added till the latest release!!?? I didn't buy an Apple Watch because of a) the cost and b) not wanting to charge a watch every day. My Amazfit Bip is 2.5 years old, and has * Heart rate detection up to every minute (automatically speeds up to real time during workout) * Bluetooth Smart sensor functionality, so I can use it to report heart rate to compliant apps like iSmoothRun * Sleep tracking * 25 days of battery life (real world, not specification) * GPS (although I never use it, preferring GPS on my phone through iSmoothRun) * Notifications display * More than 20,000 user-contributed watch faces * $60 price when I bought it; the successor Bip S is about the same price today It doesn't have Apple Watch's arrythmia or blood oxygen detection, and there is a UI bug that the company never fixed after it appeared last year, but otherwise Bip has done exactly what it promised and more.
- baby 6y ago
  it is useful sometimes, but a fashion statement most of the time. I feel like it is doing integration really well, but it is quickly going to get stuck with the sad segregation of ecosystems we have now. Battery life sucks, I've never used the sleep tracking and I doubt anyone can use it if you're supposed to charge the watch during the night.
gumby 6y ago
I am not a fan of the aboveavalon articles but this one has some good insight. Specifically the smart speaker->watch point.
burlesona 6y ago
I hate to say it, but having an Apple Watch is a little bit like it was having a cell phone for the first time. It unloads a lot of mental tasks, and quickly feels essential. With the cell phone, I didn’t have to remember peoples phone numbers anymore, and I could call or be called from anywhere. Eventually texting became a thing, but at first it was just that freedom to make much looser plans and adjust them on the fly, which was really difficult before cell phones. With the watch, it feels the same, but about health. Knowing how much I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc. makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on with my body and be more proactive about it. It’s also becoming a replacement for the cell phone. I usually still keep my phone with me because I want the camera, but I increasingly don’t take my phone with me when I want peace and quiet. I know that if a family member urgently needed to reach me they could get through to my watch. Meanwhile the watch does not distract me from what’s going on in real life around me. I suspect that if they do pull off the glasses, this is going to be the trifecta. Eventually the glasses can capture a visual record of whatever you saw, the AirPods potentially can capture whatever you heard, and the watch is capturing what’s going on with your body. It’s sort of a kindler, gentler Cybernetic future than I think earlier eras anticipated.
- somewhereoutth 6y ago
  For a moment there I thought you were about to say 'now I can see the time just by looking!'
  - crossroadsguy 6y ago
    That's the typical "Apple User" for you and the typical Apple product announcement.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- echelon 6y ago
  > With the watch, it feels the same, but about health. Knowing how much I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc. makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on with my body and be more proactive about it. Fitbit does the exact same thing and has for years! > Eventually the glasses can capture a visual record of whatever you saw, the AirPods potentially can capture whatever you heard, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10494231/The-places-where-Google-Glass-is-banned.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10494231/The-p... But this is Apple, so of course we're not up in arms about it. I'm really sick of the praise this company gets while it continues to strong arm citizens into locked-down computing devices. Your pocket computers can't run binaries as freely as American speech, and pretty soon your Macs won't be able to either. They've neutered the web browser and forced everyone under their thumb. Apple is setting itself up in front of every transnational activity its users perform. They're already a tax on everyone else trying to breathe air in the system, but just wait. Apple wants more of the pie and isn't going to stop. Apple isn't good. The DOJ needs to force them to open their platform or split them up. And of course I'm going to be downvoted.
elchief 6y ago
I don't get how you can use it for sleep tracking when the battery lasts 18 hours. Fitbit is good for 4 days
- tshaddox 6y ago
  I guess you charge it when you're awake but at home. Which, for many of us, is now all the time.
- Talyen42 6y ago
  You can wear it for 22.5 hours/day and charge for 90mins
- rimliu 6y ago
  My series 4 is a year and a half old and battery lasts for two days.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  I charge mine when I'm showering and when I'm eating dinner and that's more than enough.
- badwolf 6y ago
  I have a charger on my bathroom counter by my sonicare charger. Charge it while showering/brushing teeth/etc...
- canofbars 6y ago
  If I take my series 6 of the charger at 07:00 and wear it all day and all night, when I wake up at 07:00 again its at 50% charge. I can then charge it while having a shower. This seems to work fine for me. I take my watch off anyway while having a shower so putting it down on the charger is no issue.
  - elchief 6y ago
    Good info thx.
- samatman 6y ago
pineyboi 6y ago
I've worn a watch all my life, but going from a battery that lasts a year to one that lasts a few days is a giant leap of inconvenience for me. Also, watch platforms seem to me even tinier walled gardens than those of mobile phones. If I could see myself using anything, it would be more akin to the Pine Time[0] than the Apple Watch. I realize the Pine is still in it's infancy. [0]: https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/
- solarkraft 6y ago
  I'm somewhat excited for the Pine Time. On one hand battery life is good and you get multiple interesting software platforms, on the other hand none is quite ready yet (sure, time will probably deal with that), and the hardware is just a bit meh. With an e-paper screen (see Amazfit Bip or Pebble Time), more buttons and a more precise haptic feedback device the thing could be amazing. I might still buy it for the freedom aspect, but especially the first 2 are frustrating. I don't want to have to swipe around on the display of my watch.
iandanforth 6y ago
Is there a way to own one without an iPhone yet?
- CharlesW 6y ago
  Just for other family members without iPhones. There's a new feature called Family Sharing that allows your kids and parents to have an Apple Watch without requiring that they have an iPhone. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-extends-the-apple-watch-experience-to-the-entire-family/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-extends-the-app...
- baby 6y ago
  You can see any Apple device as a trojan horse for people to get into the Apple ecosystem, so probably never. It is extremely annoying to be honest, I have a few google Home and I can't play Apple music on them. It's ridiculous.
  - iandanforth 6y ago
    They've already got their hooks in, I have Apple laptops, I just prefer Android phones.
faizshah 6y ago
Is there any accurate solution for blood pressure monitoring with the apple watch?
somewhereoutth 6y ago
I remember when the first Apple watch came out, many of my co-workers bought one (company discount). We'd be halfway through a meeting and suddenly they'd all stand up in unison because their watch told them to.
- jxramos 6y ago
  Gotta get meet that stand quota!
- canofbars 6y ago
  When I got the watch it was on a weekend and I figured the stand ring was useless because how do you manage to not stand once in an hour. Then monday hit and it was telling me to stand up every hour and it always feels like it was just 10 minutes ago since the last reminder.
- samatman 6y ago
  Good. You were all starting to suffer lower back compression, and no doubt the CO2 levels in that room were off the charts. Better would be to make a rule that all meetings must conclude when people's watches start telling them "knock it off, you're an animal not a machine, stand up now or spend your last couple decades in pain".
- cwhiz 6y ago
  ...that isn't how stand notifications work.
  - thewebcount 6y ago
    Yes it is. If you haven't stood for 1 minute in the last hour then at 50 minutes into the hour you get a notification telling you that. I, too, work in an office of iOS users, and this frequently happens in our meetings. Everyone's watch goes off at the same time at the end of the hour.
- whiddershins 6y ago
  I had that on an airplane last year, it was hilarious and inconvenient and all I could think was ‘they gotta stagger this notification a little.’
kabacha 6y ago
I've been using various smart watches (currently on galaxy active) and I love them but I still feel that it's only slightly more than a meme. The core functionality is just gamification like step counts, "hey get up reminders" and some rather pointless blood metrics. What is great imho is the customizable watches and bands. The bands are like 1$ each and the are like a thousand of brilliant watch faces. I think smart watches are much better for fashion than function.
- canofbars 6y ago
  No matter what you do, a smart watch will always look worse than a regular watch without seriously crippling the watches features. If you want something that looks nice then get a normal watch. The core feature of a smart watch is fitness tracking. I love using mine for going on a run and seeing my heart rate as well as switching music. And then if I stop at a cafe I can use it to pay. All without bringing any phone or wallet with me.
- samatman 6y ago
  don't forget: - convenient timers on a complication: use this a few times a day - an alarm which can wake me up without jarring my brain, this being the only alarm I've ever used where that's the case: five times a week - 2048 - ability to set reminders by speaking to it - heart rate tracker which actually works. I let my heart rate get below 130 between weight sets, and like to check my peak after a set as well. Also, it likes to alert me when I'm having one of my infrequent panic attacks. You'd think I'd notice anyway, but, not always - unlocks my computer when I'm wearing it. This is a tiny affordance but really a nice one - pay for groceries without bringing my phone or wallet out. Do I have to? No. Do I like to? Yeah, I'll cop to that. It's nice - take the occasional call when my phone is in another room or I don't want to dig it out. Works long enough to say "hey I'll call you back", which is usually about all I want to say - remind me what the date is, because I'm terrible at that. Granted that my automatic watches would do that too - when I'm feeling nostalgic, load up a watch face that shows me pictures of times when I was happy, and people I love - pause and play music/podcasts/whatever I'm sure I'm missing a few, but I'll also say this: it's way less fashionable than my automatics. It's actually kinda dorky when you get right down to it. But it's so much more functional that I just don't care, I've made my peace with it. Someday, I'll get to leave the house again and do fancy things, and I have a couple timepieces for those occasions. But in the meantime, and the rest of the time, it's a smartwatch for me.
deleted 6y ago
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ponker 6y ago
I’d love to wear an Apple Watch but just can’t stand to have anything on my hands. Don’t even wear my wedding ring.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  That is exactly my issue. I would love the health tracking features, but I can’t stand wearing watches or rings
  - canofbars 6y ago
    Have you tried just dealing with it for a week? I find watches to be very annoying at first but after a while I don't even notice them.
dzonga 6y ago
it must be nice to drink apple kool-aid. I have a garmin fenix. I have the so called apple health features. crazy features like hike tracking, offline maps. and you know what my battery lasts a month on average.
- cycrutchfield 6y ago
  you're like the blackberry guy who thinks the iphone sucks because it doesn't have a physical keyboard. nobody cares
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  I tried one on at an expo before a half-marathon years ago. I also borrowed one from my trainer to see how I liked it (it is expensive and he was actually planning to sell it to get the latest iteration). The battery life and utility for offline use are fantastic. But, it was also really damn heavy. Noticeably heavy (maybe the latest incarnations aren't so heavy?). As someone who always wears a watch, but usually ones with few complications and relatively small (compared to many men's watches) it was uncomfortable. That was my biggest take away and the main reason (besides the fact I don't do any long backpacking trips anymore so the offline mapping and really long battery life were less critical) I selected the Apple Watch. A watch, to me, shouldn't make you notice it's presence whenever you move your arm. Plus they're even more expensive than the Apple Watch.
  - cbHXBY1D 6y ago
    My Forerunner 245 is lighter than an Apple Watch. A Forerunner 945 has all the Fenix 6 features but is lighter. A Fenix 6s is also light too.
shanecleveland 6y ago
I’ve had one sine series 0. Have the 6 now. I love all of the details and small tools I can pack into complications. I have multiple faces with various functions I routinely use. I am rarely without it. I would have never spent more than $100 on a traditional watch, and any watch I had before I could never get consistent about wearing.
thesquib 6y ago
I don't understand why you need to have a watch to tell you how you feel.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  It's measuring the response from when it told you how to feel.
makecheck 6y ago
It’s so interesting how many single uses of the watch make it hard to go back to life beforehand. In other words, even if I did nothing else with the watch, I’d still miss it if it was gone. For instance, Apple Pay on a watch seems magical (and even better with COVID): you double-click, move your wrist closer and you’ve paid, after a pleasing confirmation “bzzz” on your wrist. As amazing as paying with your phone was, that just seems clunky once you use the watch. Now Apple just needs to make watch faces easily customizable. The rush to customize phone screens in iOS 14 should show them, people want to personalize their stuff!! Having the same OK-ish face gallery for years is easily the main downside of the Apple Watch.
- woutr_be 6y ago
  I actually felt much better once I took of my watch, it's been lying in a drawer for almost two years now, and I don't miss it at all. The constant notifications made life really stressful (I know you can turn them off), I even had a few people ask me if I had to go somewhere, because every time I had a notification, I had the urge to just look what it was. The health tracking was really great, although I didn't had the cellular version, so I always had my phone with me anyway, which made the watch kind of useless. I'm sure it might be different if you have the cellular version and you can go for a run just with your watch. Apple Pay always felt kind of awkward, mostly because of the placement of the terminals, so I always had to turn my wrist very awkwardly. Plus I always had my phone with me anyway, which does the same thing. That's my experience with the Series 3, it's possible I might have a different experience now, but I really have no desire to buy a new one.
  - massysett 6y ago
    The watch is kind of meh for me, and I have the cellular version. Sometimes the notifications are handy. But if I want to respond to a text, the watch is useless unless I just want one of the canned responses like “Ok”. It is handy for working out. As an actual watch, I have one of the older ones without an always-on screen. So when I worked in an office, I actually went back to an old-fashioned watch because it’s hard to discreetly turn on the Apple Watch screen. So I would just wear the Apple Watch when working out. Now that I work from home I wear the Apple Watch all day but I don’t get a ton of utility out of it. I do check the outside temperature occasionally but for that I could just open my front door. Overall, if I knew this thing would be only as marginally useful as it is I’m not sure I’d buy one. The always-on face would make it more useful but I’m not eager to go spend even more money on this category.
mjcohen 6y ago
Since I am not too active, I find the the Pebble Time does exactly what I want - time, messages, alarms, timers and lasts three to four days. I am grateful to Rebel to making it still work on Android 10. If Android stops supporting it, I'll mournfully have to replace it. Until then, I have a backup ready.
Androider 6y ago
Lots of praise for the Apple Watch here. Here's my take as a first-time Apple Watch Series 6 user who really tried to make it work, but just couldn't. I returned the watch today as the 14-day return window came to a close. For a smart watch, it's remarkably dumb. To me it felt like you have to tell it everything you do, when you plan to go to sleep, when you start exercising, etc. You can enable the "automatic workout detection feature", but it's automatic in name only. Instead, it will literally pop-up a dialog for you to pick an activity from a list as you're working out. Same thing when you stop, another manual confirmation required. The heartrate function isn't continuous at all, something I was unware of. It samples at a 10 minute internal, except if your arm is moving (what). The sleep tracking has zero details. All of these are things that a $150 Fitbit nailed 5 years ago (I haven't worn one of those either for years): automatic workouts, continuous heart rate, automatic rem stage tracking etc. The audio handling is bizarre, press play in Spotify or Overcast and my iPhone 50 feet away starts playing, despite having Airpods in and paired. Why would you ever want to do that? Audio routing and making the watch have a silent vibrate-only with no alarm on the iPhone is two things I never did figure out in the two weeks I had the watch. But worst of all, as someone else said, it's a massive notification factory. I mean, constant, continuous, incessant pinging, buzzing, vibrating, unread red dots etc. Out of the box, it probably pinged me 25 times an hour, a lot of it emails sure, Slack, but also remembering to breath and stand and wash my hands and everything in-between, all of the latter ones I ended up disabling within the first week as too annoying. Yes, you can (must) configure notifications in detail (depending on how many apps you use, literally hundreds of toggles), but what a terrible experience. Ultimately I decided that I want something that makes my life simpler, not another gadget that I have to babysit (and charge every day), with anxiety inducing notifications. That's without going into the bugs... in the 14 days I had to unlink and re-pair the watch twice as it permanently lost the connection to my iPhone 11 Pro despite power cycling both devices multiple times. From reading Reddit this seems to have been a persistent issue over the years with the watch and nothing unusual. Except when you do, you have to literally start from scratch in creating your watch faces, configuring your zillion notifications, etc. After returning the device, I just felt relieved.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  Just reading this stresses me out. I have a habit of checking my phone every half hour or so for notification, but that's it, almost everything is turned off (vibration and sound) exceptions being my wife and kids. Half hour checks (or hourly) is enough for just about anyone. The human race got by without smartwatches for a million years or so, we don't really need them and they just sound like an interruption strapped to your wrist.
DavidPiper 6y ago
A really interesting read, and I agree with a lot of the points made - except this one: > Apple created an entirely new industry – something that isn’t found much in the traditional Apple playbook. I would have thought this is exactly what Apple's blockbuster successes are known for. The original Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch - all industry-defining products.
pmontra 6y ago
I stopped wearing watches 30 years ago and I won't do it again for a smart watch unless my doctor tells me so and there are really no alternatives. So, no Apple, no Samsung, no anything. It's a product category dead on arrival for me. I can consider smart glasses because I'm wearing them anyway. But they must be light and survive sport activities, including sweat (cycling in summer with a helmet.) Finally, given the widespread concerns with privacy, tracking, advertising etc (yesterday's discussion about smart TVs) the less smart they are the better.
- solarkraft 6y ago
  What's your reason for not wearing a watch? I have found it to be quite pleasant.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    I understand I'm an outlier, by far. I had a watch since I was a kid. Then I started having a clock on the computer at university, plenty of clocks at home and everywhere I went. I started to put my clock in my pocket and left it at home forever after a few years. I took it with me only when I went hiking. Knowing time is important for safety. I've been feeling uncomfortable wearing anything around my wrist since I got used to have it free.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
mshroyer 6y ago
I really want to like Apple Watch. Apple end-to-end encrypts your health data, so I trust their stewardship more than most other companies (including Garmin, who recently fell victim to a ransomware attack). And IMO Apple does a superior job supporting their previous-generation devices: They'll replace an old Watch battery for a low, fixed fee, and to my knowledge they generally make new watchOS features available to older devices. But I've worn my Garmin Fenix 5 Plus for the last couple years, and there's no way any existing version of the Apple Watch could replace it for me: - It has a transflective LCD display that, while not as pretty as Apple Watch's, is brilliantly visible in the brightest of daylight. - The battery lasts more than a week when not using GPS. - It communicates with all my bicycle accessories over ANT+, so I don't need to take my bike computer with me to record a short ride. - It has a button-operated user interface, so it's still perfectly usable when I'm sweaty and in the middle of an activity. - It has a nearly indestructible sapphire crystal. I was eagerly following Apple Watch Series 6's release. But given that they still haven't fixed their battery life, it's very likely my next watch will be a newer Garmin.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  > I was eagerly following Apple Watch Series 6's release. But given that they still haven't fixed their battery life, it's very likely my next watch will be a newer Garmin. The problem here is that, short of a revolutionary tech upgrade, Apple can't "fix" the AW battery life. They could maybe increase the official battery life from 24 to 36 hours. Then people would forget to charge in the morning/evening and run out of battery midday -> Angry customers. The same will happen for every value short of "one week", which is most definitely not possible with the current form factor and hardware design.
  - mshroyer 6y ago
    They could have made an incremental move in that direction, though. And incremental moves could build up to something more over multiple generations of the Apple Watch. I expected they'd be coming out with a more efficient SoC for the new Watch, and they did in the S6. But they chose to use the extra efficiency to divert more power to a brighter display instead of provide more battery life.
zmmmmm 6y ago
It's interesting to see Google to some extent, just sort of, bow out of modern computing. Watches, tablets, and VR are all more recent "frontiers" where Google just seems to be shrugging it's shoulders. I wonder if it's fatigue, some genius strategy too sophisticated for me to appreciate, creeping internal dysfunction or something else?
- puranjay 6y ago
  I used to think tablets were a "done" technology and would have no takers in a world of 6" smartphones. But I used the iPad Pro recently with the magic keyboard. While it would never replace my primary machine, I can see it easily become a big part of my productivity workflow. The tablet form factor has a lot to offer still.
  - dagmx 6y ago
    I've been surprised since the introduction of the Apple Pencil how much the iPad has become ubiquitous in the art world. I had greatly under estimated it when it first came out due to the first gen pencil and the lack of good productivity models at the time (ie most apps were very modal and limited to single tasks at a time etc) and the OS didn't really have split screen yet. Tons of Artists whom I follow have straight up stopped creating as much on their computers with a Wacom (Intuos or Cintiq) and are creating on the iPad.
- wmeredith 6y ago
  Has Google ever done anything well besides search? I know they have had a ton of other products thrown at the wall funded by their firehose of cash from search. Have they ever made money doing anything else?
  - dagmx 6y ago
    Maps, GMail, YouTube and Docs are all top of their class IMHO. Similarly Chromecast is superb. They've had lots of secondary products that were Greta but are now since dead. The issue isn't execution, they can execute well. The issue is longevity, and they deprecate often. If anything, their products are great but their product story is not
cblconfederate 6y ago
Nah, the watch is nothing but a gimmick. My bet is most people who try it won't buy a second one and will even stop using the first one. Taking off and on every day to charge is a huuuuge hassle , its much worse than a phone that naturally lends itself to being charged (because it rests on a desk anyway usually). But most of all the utility is not there, it wanes fast and the whole "breathe" thing is just ridiculous. The mi band is like $30 and lasts for a whole month on a single charge. Garmin watches seem to be popular with sports enthusiasts. "Normal" people dont have a use for a daily-charger phone. It's mostly a fashion item for all i know, one that needs extra effort.
- canofbars 6y ago
  No one wears a watch 24/7. At the minimum they will take it off to shower since most bands tend to hold water for ages. A shower time on the charger is enough to charge the watch. The Mi band is amazing for the price but its a totally different product.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    i never - ever took off my watch when i wore one. Same with the mi band for a short time that i used it. But ultimately i don't see the value of watches in general.
riston 6y ago
For me Apple Watch is missing the key features - Always on display - I would like to charge the watch only once a month Nice to have list: - GPS tracking possibility - Mobile notifications Currently Amazfit Bip fills the checkboxes for all the requirements so I continue using that :)
- mrweasel 6y ago
  I don’t care about the display, they should make a version without it. I would love to be able to have just the sensors and Health integration, but I don’t wear watches and the Apple Watch is to expensive and intrusive if you just want the health tracking.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  The Apple Watch has had an always-on display for 2 generations now.
rahoulb 6y ago
For me the Watch has become my dumb phone with benefits. My watch faces only really have complications for messages and calls (some have weather and workouts too) and as I have the cellular model I often leave my phone at home and am effectively distraction free. Unlike a dumb phone I still have podcasts, audiobooks and Spotify with me (I still have a copy of Apollo which does streaming but Spotify shut it down years ago). So I don’t need another device when walking the dog. Plus I can pay for stuff (no need to carry a wallet) measure activity (again walking the dog) and get notified of work emergencies (so if something fails I can message the client and head home immediately - most notifications are off though).
adav 6y ago
Love my Watch S4 - I can stay connected without the distraction of all the phone’s apps. I would like the watch to become the main device, with the “pocketable big screen” relegated to an optional map, camera and web browser satellite-type device rather than vice versa.
wodenokoto 6y ago
What are your thoughts on the SE? How important is always on display? Does not having it mean you have a distracting flashing from your screen when you move your arm, or is it always on just a marketing checkbox?
powerapple 6y ago
Do people use Apple Watch as a replacement for their iPhone? I am trying to reduce my phone usage. Not needing to carry my phone with me is an attractive idea to me.
mobiledev2014 6y ago
Surprised nobody is discussing the part about how smart speakers were a big dumb flop. I felt insane watching all my friends and family members getting these, asking them why? They never had answers. It was kind of scary honestly, a true illustration of consumerism. They’re cheap and they’re there so we bought them. Oh they harvest our data to sell us more stuff which we can’t explain our rationale for purchasing? Oops!
ChrisArchitect 6y ago
watches have been a fashion accessory only for years now. The high priced swiss etc watch market is purely a status symbol fashion thing for sure. Smart watches are an accessory as there's very little reason to not be with your phone or check your phone for the basics (time, notifications). All the perks you all like about the Watch are frivolous/luxury concerns. Even the health tracking. Having all the extra data and notifications (bleh, no more notifications!) are a luxury. Tap to pay, handy, sure, but man, is that a luxury. And all you parents out there loving the watch because you're juggling kids and don't know where your phone is half the time....... handy luxury, and maybe really you only need the one device (tied to the iphone still? bah) The pandemic has also changed everything. Other than perhaps wanting the health tracking in covid times which could save a life sure, no one should be moving around as much or in the same way as pre-covid to need a watch. It's just another watch fashion accessory that keeps you tied to your phone for convenience, but not necessary = luxury. You're paying a luxury fee for convenience that the Apple ecosystem has made you accustomed to from a glorified media company that happens to have some hardware made for you to access their media offerings. Just like the iPad made a market for tablets where there wasn't really one and for years despite competitors entering the market was really only for the Apple iPad and nothing else. meh/apple hate in this post, whatever, just a different viewpoint not expressed enough in this thread.
wdb 6y ago
Personally, I don't see the appeal of the Apple Watch, I stil have the initial one, but back I only used few times, maybe due the lack of push notifications on my phone. Also you have to charge it daily (think better these days), while a watch would keep ticking, they even had a longer power reserve, the watch I am going to pick up soon has 31 day power reserve. I just enjoy a nice watch, admire its engineering, the ticking sound, the smooth sweeping. Loving it. I currently I have a small collection of watches of 18 watches. About to receive my two grail watches.
dcchambers 6y ago
I kind of want an apple watch. The fitness tracking has gotten good enough that I would use it over my Garmin for tracking runs and cycling, and I can enjoy the extra features it has over the Garmin. But...it's a nonstarter because it requires you own an iPhone. Even for cellular models. I have no desire to buy an iPhone. I wonder how many sales they are missing to non-iPhone owners, or if they really just don't care. I don't personally think the Apple watch is good enough to be a system seller...but it is yet another entry into their entirely locked up, vertically integrated ecosystem. More than any other company, the lock-in with Apple is real. And IMO it's a shame they limit the potential of their products so much.

210 points by threatofrain 6y ago

This is actually taking longer than I thought it would. 5 years ago I wrote a blog post essentially saying everyone will wear a smart watch for health and safety reasons: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyone-will-wear-a-smartwatch/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo... It’s disappointing that Google hasn’t done a better job of competing. The industry needs 2 strong competitors.

ve55 6y ago
Competition by Apple and Google in these areas will imo always be a bit asymmetrical as long as Apple makes its money off of selling luxury products and services while Google instead makes its money off of advertisers or data.
- ericmay 6y ago
  I mean... at what point does something become a luxury product? What does it mean to be a luxury product? I see homeless people with iPhones, people put Apple watches on payment plans. I agree with your point about Google and ads, but I feel like this meme of Apple being a luxury product is slowly just not making sense to me.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    Yeah, I don't really buy the "luxury product" label either, but I suppose everything is relative. All the major brands of smartphones have offerings at similar price points to the iPhone lineup. And in the United States, iPhones have around 50% of the smartphone market share. The same largely applies to Apple's other product lines too, which the exception that they simply don't attempt to compete in the bottom-dollar markets for laptops or desktop PCs. So I would definitely say that Apple doesn't make junk for the race-to-the-bottom market, but I'm hesitant to call them a luxury brand.
    - ericmay 6y ago
      Thanks. I certainly think it’s a luxury product in certain markets, but not in the US. I’ve had others say it’s a status symbol or luxury product and I’m always thinking... a Ferrari is a luxury product. Moet and Chandon is a luxury product... but an iPhone that 50% of Americans have?
      - mjcohen 6y ago
        Not 50% of Americans, 50% of smart watch share.
      - fakedang 6y ago
        Artificial scarcity. It's the only reason why its perceived value is so high in the US, and later gets carried to other foreign markets (like China). Apple is this single entity that creates these products that run this unique OS alone, while Android manufacturers are a dime a dozen - too visible. If I don't get the latest Samsung, I don't mind because I'll just go ahead and buy the latest OnePlus or Huawei or something. But I have nowhere to go if Apple stores run out of the iPhone, and if I'm really bought into the whole design oo-la-lah shtick, I'll just camp outside the Apple store (aside: I have seen fewer campers with each passing year). Ferrari is a luxury product because every engine made is a machining masterpiece largely created by hand. Most and Chandon is a luxury product because it takes a good year and tons of time to perfect that taste. Apple fans may have had something to boast about with the design quality during the Steve Jobs years, but right now, there's little to boast about their mass-produced devices made by underpaid workers in a Chinese/Vietnamese/Indian factory, so they generate artificial oomph over things like the fonts or the app store or whatever. As a Tesla owner, I've seen the same kind of behavior from other Tesla owners, although I find Tesla to be a relatively flawed product compared to other cars such as a Porsche or an Audi. Honestly, I suspect that if Jobs were alive right now, he wouldn't be really happy with today's Apple. Out of the nearly a decade since he's passed, the only thing that was really revolutionary on Apple's part were the Airbuds. And with Jony gone, I suspect there's going to be less of that too.
  - ve55 6y ago
    I would say products where the product price is high, the social status of using the product is high, and the profit margin of the product is high. You could add some other details, but I generally think of those things when I use that term. With that said, it's true the term is a bit overused for a company like Apple. But regardless of the labeling, I think customers of Apple fitness devices will, on average, be happier than customers of Google fitness devices for the aforementioned reason.
    - deleted 6y ago
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  - canofbars 6y ago
    To me what makes the AW a luxury product is its something that absolutely no one needs (Except maybe old people). For almost all people buying it, its just a nice to have thing that makes things you could do before a little easier/better. For me I really enjoy using it for walking directions in the city. Yes I could use my phone but this lets me walk more naturally without looking like a phone zombie.
tw04 6y ago
Garmin seems to be doing just fine. And I don’t have to charge it every day.
- dwighttk 6y ago
  How many users?
  - kortilla 6y ago
    At least 1 that we know of
  - mauvehaus 6y ago
    A completely unresearched wild-assed guess: and order of magnitude fewer. But they're nuts, and they are loyal repeat customers and evangelists for the platform. After getting 2 hand me downs from a friend who upgraded, my partner sprung for a new one. Killer features for her: battery life of a week instead of a day and good backcountry navigation. Garmin connect does exercise challenges too, so there's a social aspect as well.
    - dwighttk 6y ago
      So is that guess 1 million or 10 million? the article is about how there are about to be 100 million Apple Watch users. I would definitely like longer battery life on my Apple watch. Barring that it’d be convenient if the chargers were like lightning and usb-c: available in every gas station, drug store, and dollar store.
      - mauvehaus 6y ago
        Probably somewhere in between? So maybe an order of magnitude and a half fewer? But yeah, the charger thing is real. Her new Garmin uses this weird housed pogo pin connector for charging. The last one used a cradle that hugged the back of the watch; no idea what the electrical connection is. I can only assume there's a good reason for the non-standard connector, and that it probably involves waterproofing? I have no horse in this race, to be clear.
GeorgeTirebiter 6y ago
Does Samsung count? https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearables/smartwatches/ https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearables/smartwatches/
- Austin_Conlon 6y ago
  How is their smartwatch software and SDK?
  - m45t3r 6y ago
    The software is pretty good actually. Have a Galaxy Active2, two day battery life, good health sensors, and I find the interface incredible easy to use (after one or two day of adaptation). The fact that it is round is a plus for me too (it looks like a watch if you turn Always on screen, though I use it off in mine). I don't know about the SDK though, but it does seem to have some apps (not that I use many of them).
- cycrutchfield 6y ago
  What's their market share like?
shard 6y ago
I have had a Samsung smartwatch for 5 years now and have been very satisfied. I'm not a big user of health functions, but sleep tracking, being able to see messages quickly without having to reach for my phone, and having an alarm on my wrist that is guaranteed to wake me up are the 3 biggest benefits. I also prefer a round watch face, it give a more classic feel. I feel a rectangular watch face shouts "I'm a smartwatch user!" a bit too much.
- bigdict 6y ago
  Meanwhile a round watch face shouts "I'm a round smartwatch user!".
  - shard 6y ago
    For me at least, a round watch face blends better, and it's harder to tell whether it is a smartwatch or not out of the corner of your eye without specifically checking the face of the watch. For square watches, I can pretty much tell it's a smartwatch, starting from the Pebble days.
benatkin 6y ago
I think Amazon has shown that no competitors are needed. If any are, it's just one. Apple/Microsoft and Apple/Google.
- canofbars 6y ago
  The Apple watch is only an option to iphone users. Since the majority of phone users do not have an iphone it means that the majority of people can not use an Apple watch.
nmlnn 6y ago
Don't they own FitBit?
delfinom 6y ago
Sadly apple watch is the only real product that's making any attempts are iterating to more cases. But the tie in to iphones is sad. Everyone else is still regurgitating the same garbage with their watches.
vbezhenar 6y ago
The only killer feature that's still missing for me would be alarm clock tracking sleep phases and waking me up when it's most appropriate. I'll buy Apple Watch instantly. I've used iPhone apps but they're rather limited, but I really liked what they did even with that limitation.
- adenverd 6y ago
  Sleep Cycle [0] does this with "Intelligent" wake mode, and has a standalone app for the Apple Watch. I'll also be shocked if this isn't a native feature of Apple's Sleep app within a year. [0] https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/12/sleep-cycle-apple-watch-app/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/12/sleep-cycle-apple-watch-app/
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tonyedgecombe 6y ago
The industry needs 2 strong competitors. I think it needs more than two.

pazimzadeh 6y ago

After 5 years, I still have to peck at buttons on my watch to pause/unpause workouts or switch songs when I bet you some slap gestures could do the trick

gumby 6y ago
why don't you talk to your watch? That's what I do. I don't find the voice interface that useful on the phone (and completely disabled it on my iPad and Mac -- ugh). But on the watch it makes a lot of sense.
- pazimzadeh 6y ago
  What if I don't want to talk while running? Or under water?
  - gumby 6y ago
    I guess I just don't tweak things much while doing stuff. I only know of one gesture of the kind you mention: cover the watch face with your palm to silence an alarm or incoming call.
    - pazimzadeh 6y ago
      That is my favorite feature on the apple watch

lawrenceyan 6y ago

Do you see antitrust action rising with regards to the health data implications that smartwatches like the Apple Watch bring? In the EU already, we're seeing heavy probes on Fitbit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fitbit-m-a-alphabet-eu/headwinds-for-google-as-rivals-customers-criticise-fitbit-concessions-idUSKBN26N32J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fitbit-m-a-alphabet-eu/he...

zaroth 6y ago
I don’t get it. Monopoly doesn’t mean just a market that one product is clearly superior to the competitors. Monopoly is a market which has either natural or artificial barriers which preclude competition. What’s the natural or artificial barrier to entry in the fitness wearable market? It seems highly competitive to me.
- lawrenceyan 6y ago
  Of course I personally don't agree with it, but this is the official stance on the EU side: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_1446 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_...
- lukeschlather 6y ago
  The natural/artificial barrier is the data silo created by the fitness tracking. Monopoly isn't necessarily the right word, but it is rather frustrating that all these smartwatches by default beam all of your biometrics into a non-hippa-compliant datastore, and that these datastores don't interoperate. It's really tricky because right now Garmin, Fitbit, Apple, and the others are all basically financing their data portals through device sales. Which makes sense because I wouldn't have paid a subscription for it before I bought the watch, but now that I have the watch (Garmin) it is an invaluable service. But it seems wrong that the watch manufacturer owns the data - I would like a data storage company with strong privacy guarantees and strong analytics. But I'm not sure I trust any of these companies, it seems like they're all trying to figure out how to monetize my data by selling analytics to third-parties. (Even Apple.)

anonymousiam 6y ago

I will get one as soon as an iPhone is not required. I know they now have a "family" option, but it is still quite limited. I would love to be able to use my iPad Pro (with active data sim) for this. There is no technical reason for me not being able to do this. I am never going to switch to an iPhone, so it's on them. If they want to expand their market, this is an easy one for them.

voisin 6y ago
> I am never going to switch to an iPhone Out of curiosity, why?
- anonymousiam 6y ago
  I like being able to open a shell on my phone. (Yes, I know there are some limited options to do this on an iPhone that don't involve jail breaking. They all involve emulation and have limits to their usefulness.) I like running an FTP server on my phone. When combined with wireless tethering, it's the only way to get data directly from a phone onto a government laptop. There are plenty of hackerish/security apps I use that are simply unavailable on the iPhone. Sharing data between apps is now at least possible on an iPhone, but it's still very cumbersome. I understand the need for security, but it comes at a cost to performance or usability. This is not an ideological issue. Everyone else in my family has iPhones, and I use my iPad all the time. It's just a personal choice that is driven by my use cases for a phone.
- x87678r 6y ago
  I've always had Android so am well used to it. They seem cheaper, more open, more colorful, faster to type. My wife's iphone drives me nuts. I dont understand why they're so popular.
  - canofbars 6y ago
    I just switched from android after using it for the last 10 years. Largely I find them to be the same, the few things that really bother me is the lack of a back button and the lack of having photos sorted in the gallery. Its stupid how my camera photos get mixed in with memes saved off the internet. But the main reason by far I picked an iphone this time is Apple is not an advertising company and therefore doesn't have to disrespect my privacy. Its always comforting to open a page on an apple app and see a very plain text explanation of exactly what data the app stores, how it is always kept locally and if shared, apple only requests the bare minimum rights to provide the feature you are using. And then you look at a Google ToS that says "We can and will do whatever we want"

amelius 6y ago

But who likes the design? In my view, Apple tried to cater to the desires of both men and women simultaneously, and ended up with a sex-less watch that looks like it was designed by a committee.

chrisseaton 6y ago
Why do you need a watch that is designed for a particular sex?
- shard 6y ago
  For many, a watch is a fashion accessory. Thus, a watch that fits their style is important. If their fashion style identifies strongly with a particular sex, then a watch that clashes with that style would be less appealing.
- amelius 6y ago
  > Why do you need a watch that is designed for a particular sex? If you'd ask that question in a Rolex board-meeting, they'd show you the door ...
  - microtherion 6y ago
    Yeah, but Rolex primarily caters to men who are insecure in their masculinity, so they're a special case >:-)
    - smabie 6y ago
      Or maybe Rolex caters to people who have money and like watches?
      - adjkant 6y ago
        Two things can be true at once
      - canofbars 6y ago

messe 6y ago

I'll take an interest once they offer the cellular version in my country (Ireland—where their EU hq is based, of all places). Until then, meh.

TMWNN 6y ago
>(Ireland—where their EU hq is based, of all places) You still have to cross the border to get to an Apple Store!
- messe 6y ago
  What border? /s (sarcasm decreasing day upon day) It's bizarre that they have one in Belfast but not Dublin. I've never understood the logic.

obviyus 6y ago

I haven’t ever been too keen on smartwatches and never really tried anything beyond a Fitbit. I recently ordered a Series 6 and I’m absolutely loving it. I can positively say this device on my wrist is the best thing I’ve done for my health. The multitude of sensors are great, sure, but the real magic is how the watch motivates you. Closing rings is like crack. It makes me want to leave the bed and go for a quick run or cycle at 11PM. Having a cellular connection is fantastic and on occasion even lets me leave my phone behind. Coupled with their usually reliable software, I can 100% see why Apple’s approaching 100M Apple Watch users.

save_ferris 6y ago
I've never owned a smartwatch, but I can't think of another device that completely distracts users and breaks focus away from in-person conversations quite like these do. Maybe I just notice it more than folks that just use phones, but every time I'm talking to someone who checks their watch while we're talking reinforces my decision not to purchase one. Sometimes I feel like I've teleported from another decade or something when complaining about the lack of digital etiquette in our society, but there's just no way I can justify buying another notification factory.
- macintux 6y ago
  I’ve found just the opposite. By tuning my Apple Watch notifications, I now only get the most important interruptions on it, and I can almost always tell what it is by the haptics. So my phone can buzz and beep all it wants, I can ignore it. My watch can buzz and depending on what’s going on around me, I can sneak a peek or disregard it. Furthermore, the watch is incapable of subsuming my attention like the phone. On a phone I have all of my usual distractions. My watch is too small to take me away from the people I’m with (as if that’s anything to worry about this year, sadly). The watch has liberated me from distractions when I’m among people. If the people you’re interacting with are being distracted, that’s their failing, not the watch’s.
  - thewebcount 6y ago
    Yeah, this was my experience as well. My phone was pretty distracting, but I was really able to cut down on the notifications I got on the watch and they were only the important ones, so now I'm more engaged than I was previously.

catchmeifyoucan 6y ago

Mixed feelings on this. Only because it paints the Apple Watch as the brainchild of this new-age health platform Watch still is an exclusive way to drive consumers to iPhone. Today, it's more capable than ever, but smartwatches weren't exclusive to Apple - Pebble, Android Wear, Fitbit and Garmin (which I had) did them. And better in some aspects. 4 years later, I'm still not blown away at the sensor technology on Apple Watch. (disc. I have one) Sleep tracking wasn't added till the latest release!!?? It's def. a fashion statement. Like blue iMessage bubbles, Apple Watch is a sign of luxury and exclusivity, and it looks solid. Apple owns an ecosystem, and at the center is the user. A computer on the wrist makes sense, it's always on, always there, and it's still a connected experience for when you can't have your phone. But I can't say Apple created a whole new industry - it only works because they own an ecosystem. Not because they have a fantastic wearable watch.

vvanders 6y ago
Agreed, as a Pebble and now Garmin owner the article seemed to gloss over the latter despite it having a fairly rich feature set.
TMWNN 6y ago
>4 years later, I'm still not blown away at the sensor technology on Apple Watch. (disc. I have one) Sleep tracking wasn't added till the latest release!!?? I didn't buy an Apple Watch because of a) the cost and b) not wanting to charge a watch every day. My Amazfit Bip is 2.5 years old, and has * Heart rate detection up to every minute (automatically speeds up to real time during workout) * Bluetooth Smart sensor functionality, so I can use it to report heart rate to compliant apps like iSmoothRun * Sleep tracking * 25 days of battery life (real world, not specification) * GPS (although I never use it, preferring GPS on my phone through iSmoothRun) * Notifications display * More than 20,000 user-contributed watch faces * $60 price when I bought it; the successor Bip S is about the same price today It doesn't have Apple Watch's arrythmia or blood oxygen detection, and there is a UI bug that the company never fixed after it appeared last year, but otherwise Bip has done exactly what it promised and more.
baby 6y ago
it is useful sometimes, but a fashion statement most of the time. I feel like it is doing integration really well, but it is quickly going to get stuck with the sad segregation of ecosystems we have now. Battery life sucks, I've never used the sleep tracking and I doubt anyone can use it if you're supposed to charge the watch during the night.

gumby 6y ago

I am not a fan of the aboveavalon articles but this one has some good insight. Specifically the smart speaker->watch point.

burlesona 6y ago

I hate to say it, but having an Apple Watch is a little bit like it was having a cell phone for the first time. It unloads a lot of mental tasks, and quickly feels essential. With the cell phone, I didn’t have to remember peoples phone numbers anymore, and I could call or be called from anywhere. Eventually texting became a thing, but at first it was just that freedom to make much looser plans and adjust them on the fly, which was really difficult before cell phones. With the watch, it feels the same, but about health. Knowing how much I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc. makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on with my body and be more proactive about it. It’s also becoming a replacement for the cell phone. I usually still keep my phone with me because I want the camera, but I increasingly don’t take my phone with me when I want peace and quiet. I know that if a family member urgently needed to reach me they could get through to my watch. Meanwhile the watch does not distract me from what’s going on in real life around me. I suspect that if they do pull off the glasses, this is going to be the trifecta. Eventually the glasses can capture a visual record of whatever you saw, the AirPods potentially can capture whatever you heard, and the watch is capturing what’s going on with your body. It’s sort of a kindler, gentler Cybernetic future than I think earlier eras anticipated.

somewhereoutth 6y ago
For a moment there I thought you were about to say 'now I can see the time just by looking!'
- crossroadsguy 6y ago
  That's the typical "Apple User" for you and the typical Apple product announcement.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
echelon 6y ago
> With the watch, it feels the same, but about health. Knowing how much I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc. makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on with my body and be more proactive about it. Fitbit does the exact same thing and has for years! > Eventually the glasses can capture a visual record of whatever you saw, the AirPods potentially can capture whatever you heard, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10494231/The-places-where-Google-Glass-is-banned.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10494231/The-p... But this is Apple, so of course we're not up in arms about it. I'm really sick of the praise this company gets while it continues to strong arm citizens into locked-down computing devices. Your pocket computers can't run binaries as freely as American speech, and pretty soon your Macs won't be able to either. They've neutered the web browser and forced everyone under their thumb. Apple is setting itself up in front of every transnational activity its users perform. They're already a tax on everyone else trying to breathe air in the system, but just wait. Apple wants more of the pie and isn't going to stop. Apple isn't good. The DOJ needs to force them to open their platform or split them up. And of course I'm going to be downvoted.

elchief 6y ago

I don't get how you can use it for sleep tracking when the battery lasts 18 hours. Fitbit is good for 4 days

tshaddox 6y ago
I guess you charge it when you're awake but at home. Which, for many of us, is now all the time.
Talyen42 6y ago
You can wear it for 22.5 hours/day and charge for 90mins
rimliu 6y ago
My series 4 is a year and a half old and battery lasts for two days.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
I charge mine when I'm showering and when I'm eating dinner and that's more than enough.
badwolf 6y ago
I have a charger on my bathroom counter by my sonicare charger. Charge it while showering/brushing teeth/etc...
canofbars 6y ago
If I take my series 6 of the charger at 07:00 and wear it all day and all night, when I wake up at 07:00 again its at 50% charge. I can then charge it while having a shower. This seems to work fine for me. I take my watch off anyway while having a shower so putting it down on the charger is no issue.
- elchief 6y ago
  Good info thx.
samatman 6y ago

pineyboi 6y ago

I've worn a watch all my life, but going from a battery that lasts a year to one that lasts a few days is a giant leap of inconvenience for me. Also, watch platforms seem to me even tinier walled gardens than those of mobile phones. If I could see myself using anything, it would be more akin to the Pine Time[0] than the Apple Watch. I realize the Pine is still in it's infancy. [0]: https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/

solarkraft 6y ago
I'm somewhat excited for the Pine Time. On one hand battery life is good and you get multiple interesting software platforms, on the other hand none is quite ready yet (sure, time will probably deal with that), and the hardware is just a bit meh. With an e-paper screen (see Amazfit Bip or Pebble Time), more buttons and a more precise haptic feedback device the thing could be amazing. I might still buy it for the freedom aspect, but especially the first 2 are frustrating. I don't want to have to swipe around on the display of my watch.

iandanforth 6y ago

Is there a way to own one without an iPhone yet?

CharlesW 6y ago
Just for other family members without iPhones. There's a new feature called Family Sharing that allows your kids and parents to have an Apple Watch without requiring that they have an iPhone. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-extends-the-apple-watch-experience-to-the-entire-family/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-extends-the-app...
baby 6y ago
You can see any Apple device as a trojan horse for people to get into the Apple ecosystem, so probably never. It is extremely annoying to be honest, I have a few google Home and I can't play Apple music on them. It's ridiculous.
- iandanforth 6y ago
  They've already got their hooks in, I have Apple laptops, I just prefer Android phones.

faizshah 6y ago

Is there any accurate solution for blood pressure monitoring with the apple watch?

somewhereoutth 6y ago

I remember when the first Apple watch came out, many of my co-workers bought one (company discount). We'd be halfway through a meeting and suddenly they'd all stand up in unison because their watch told them to.

jxramos 6y ago
Gotta get meet that stand quota!
canofbars 6y ago
When I got the watch it was on a weekend and I figured the stand ring was useless because how do you manage to not stand once in an hour. Then monday hit and it was telling me to stand up every hour and it always feels like it was just 10 minutes ago since the last reminder.
samatman 6y ago
Good. You were all starting to suffer lower back compression, and no doubt the CO2 levels in that room were off the charts. Better would be to make a rule that all meetings must conclude when people's watches start telling them "knock it off, you're an animal not a machine, stand up now or spend your last couple decades in pain".
cwhiz 6y ago
...that isn't how stand notifications work.
- thewebcount 6y ago
  Yes it is. If you haven't stood for 1 minute in the last hour then at 50 minutes into the hour you get a notification telling you that. I, too, work in an office of iOS users, and this frequently happens in our meetings. Everyone's watch goes off at the same time at the end of the hour.
whiddershins 6y ago
I had that on an airplane last year, it was hilarious and inconvenient and all I could think was ‘they gotta stagger this notification a little.’

kabacha 6y ago

I've been using various smart watches (currently on galaxy active) and I love them but I still feel that it's only slightly more than a meme. The core functionality is just gamification like step counts, "hey get up reminders" and some rather pointless blood metrics. What is great imho is the customizable watches and bands. The bands are like 1$ each and the are like a thousand of brilliant watch faces. I think smart watches are much better for fashion than function.

canofbars 6y ago
No matter what you do, a smart watch will always look worse than a regular watch without seriously crippling the watches features. If you want something that looks nice then get a normal watch. The core feature of a smart watch is fitness tracking. I love using mine for going on a run and seeing my heart rate as well as switching music. And then if I stop at a cafe I can use it to pay. All without bringing any phone or wallet with me.
samatman 6y ago
don't forget: - convenient timers on a complication: use this a few times a day - an alarm which can wake me up without jarring my brain, this being the only alarm I've ever used where that's the case: five times a week - 2048 - ability to set reminders by speaking to it - heart rate tracker which actually works. I let my heart rate get below 130 between weight sets, and like to check my peak after a set as well. Also, it likes to alert me when I'm having one of my infrequent panic attacks. You'd think I'd notice anyway, but, not always - unlocks my computer when I'm wearing it. This is a tiny affordance but really a nice one - pay for groceries without bringing my phone or wallet out. Do I have to? No. Do I like to? Yeah, I'll cop to that. It's nice - take the occasional call when my phone is in another room or I don't want to dig it out. Works long enough to say "hey I'll call you back", which is usually about all I want to say - remind me what the date is, because I'm terrible at that. Granted that my automatic watches would do that too - when I'm feeling nostalgic, load up a watch face that shows me pictures of times when I was happy, and people I love - pause and play music/podcasts/whatever I'm sure I'm missing a few, but I'll also say this: it's way less fashionable than my automatics. It's actually kinda dorky when you get right down to it. But it's so much more functional that I just don't care, I've made my peace with it. Someday, I'll get to leave the house again and do fancy things, and I have a couple timepieces for those occasions. But in the meantime, and the rest of the time, it's a smartwatch for me.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ponker 6y ago

I’d love to wear an Apple Watch but just can’t stand to have anything on my hands. Don’t even wear my wedding ring.

mrweasel 6y ago
That is exactly my issue. I would love the health tracking features, but I can’t stand wearing watches or rings
- canofbars 6y ago
  Have you tried just dealing with it for a week? I find watches to be very annoying at first but after a while I don't even notice them.

dzonga 6y ago

it must be nice to drink apple kool-aid. I have a garmin fenix. I have the so called apple health features. crazy features like hike tracking, offline maps. and you know what my battery lasts a month on average.

cycrutchfield 6y ago
you're like the blackberry guy who thinks the iphone sucks because it doesn't have a physical keyboard. nobody cares
Jtsummers 6y ago
I tried one on at an expo before a half-marathon years ago. I also borrowed one from my trainer to see how I liked it (it is expensive and he was actually planning to sell it to get the latest iteration). The battery life and utility for offline use are fantastic. But, it was also really damn heavy. Noticeably heavy (maybe the latest incarnations aren't so heavy?). As someone who always wears a watch, but usually ones with few complications and relatively small (compared to many men's watches) it was uncomfortable. That was my biggest take away and the main reason (besides the fact I don't do any long backpacking trips anymore so the offline mapping and really long battery life were less critical) I selected the Apple Watch. A watch, to me, shouldn't make you notice it's presence whenever you move your arm. Plus they're even more expensive than the Apple Watch.
- cbHXBY1D 6y ago
  My Forerunner 245 is lighter than an Apple Watch. A Forerunner 945 has all the Fenix 6 features but is lighter. A Fenix 6s is also light too.

shanecleveland 6y ago

I’ve had one sine series 0. Have the 6 now. I love all of the details and small tools I can pack into complications. I have multiple faces with various functions I routinely use. I am rarely without it. I would have never spent more than $100 on a traditional watch, and any watch I had before I could never get consistent about wearing.

thesquib 6y ago

I don't understand why you need to have a watch to tell you how you feel.

cblconfederate 6y ago
It's measuring the response from when it told you how to feel.

makecheck 6y ago

It’s so interesting how many single uses of the watch make it hard to go back to life beforehand. In other words, even if I did nothing else with the watch, I’d still miss it if it was gone. For instance, Apple Pay on a watch seems magical (and even better with COVID): you double-click, move your wrist closer and you’ve paid, after a pleasing confirmation “bzzz” on your wrist. As amazing as paying with your phone was, that just seems clunky once you use the watch. Now Apple just needs to make watch faces easily customizable. The rush to customize phone screens in iOS 14 should show them, people want to personalize their stuff!! Having the same OK-ish face gallery for years is easily the main downside of the Apple Watch.

woutr_be 6y ago
I actually felt much better once I took of my watch, it's been lying in a drawer for almost two years now, and I don't miss it at all. The constant notifications made life really stressful (I know you can turn them off), I even had a few people ask me if I had to go somewhere, because every time I had a notification, I had the urge to just look what it was. The health tracking was really great, although I didn't had the cellular version, so I always had my phone with me anyway, which made the watch kind of useless. I'm sure it might be different if you have the cellular version and you can go for a run just with your watch. Apple Pay always felt kind of awkward, mostly because of the placement of the terminals, so I always had to turn my wrist very awkwardly. Plus I always had my phone with me anyway, which does the same thing. That's my experience with the Series 3, it's possible I might have a different experience now, but I really have no desire to buy a new one.
- massysett 6y ago
  The watch is kind of meh for me, and I have the cellular version. Sometimes the notifications are handy. But if I want to respond to a text, the watch is useless unless I just want one of the canned responses like “Ok”. It is handy for working out. As an actual watch, I have one of the older ones without an always-on screen. So when I worked in an office, I actually went back to an old-fashioned watch because it’s hard to discreetly turn on the Apple Watch screen. So I would just wear the Apple Watch when working out. Now that I work from home I wear the Apple Watch all day but I don’t get a ton of utility out of it. I do check the outside temperature occasionally but for that I could just open my front door. Overall, if I knew this thing would be only as marginally useful as it is I’m not sure I’d buy one. The always-on face would make it more useful but I’m not eager to go spend even more money on this category.

mjcohen 6y ago

Since I am not too active, I find the the Pebble Time does exactly what I want - time, messages, alarms, timers and lasts three to four days. I am grateful to Rebel to making it still work on Android 10. If Android stops supporting it, I'll mournfully have to replace it. Until then, I have a backup ready.

Androider 6y ago

Lots of praise for the Apple Watch here. Here's my take as a first-time Apple Watch Series 6 user who really tried to make it work, but just couldn't. I returned the watch today as the 14-day return window came to a close. For a smart watch, it's remarkably dumb. To me it felt like you have to tell it everything you do, when you plan to go to sleep, when you start exercising, etc. You can enable the "automatic workout detection feature", but it's automatic in name only. Instead, it will literally pop-up a dialog for you to pick an activity from a list as you're working out. Same thing when you stop, another manual confirmation required. The heartrate function isn't continuous at all, something I was unware of. It samples at a 10 minute internal, except if your arm is moving (what). The sleep tracking has zero details. All of these are things that a $150 Fitbit nailed 5 years ago (I haven't worn one of those either for years): automatic workouts, continuous heart rate, automatic rem stage tracking etc. The audio handling is bizarre, press play in Spotify or Overcast and my iPhone 50 feet away starts playing, despite having Airpods in and paired. Why would you ever want to do that? Audio routing and making the watch have a silent vibrate-only with no alarm on the iPhone is two things I never did figure out in the two weeks I had the watch. But worst of all, as someone else said, it's a massive notification factory. I mean, constant, continuous, incessant pinging, buzzing, vibrating, unread red dots etc. Out of the box, it probably pinged me 25 times an hour, a lot of it emails sure, Slack, but also remembering to breath and stand and wash my hands and everything in-between, all of the latter ones I ended up disabling within the first week as too annoying. Yes, you can (must) configure notifications in detail (depending on how many apps you use, literally hundreds of toggles), but what a terrible experience. Ultimately I decided that I want something that makes my life simpler, not another gadget that I have to babysit (and charge every day), with anxiety inducing notifications. That's without going into the bugs... in the 14 days I had to unlink and re-pair the watch twice as it permanently lost the connection to my iPhone 11 Pro despite power cycling both devices multiple times. From reading Reddit this seems to have been a persistent issue over the years with the watch and nothing unusual. Except when you do, you have to literally start from scratch in creating your watch faces, configuring your zillion notifications, etc. After returning the device, I just felt relieved.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
Just reading this stresses me out. I have a habit of checking my phone every half hour or so for notification, but that's it, almost everything is turned off (vibration and sound) exceptions being my wife and kids. Half hour checks (or hourly) is enough for just about anyone. The human race got by without smartwatches for a million years or so, we don't really need them and they just sound like an interruption strapped to your wrist.

DavidPiper 6y ago

A really interesting read, and I agree with a lot of the points made - except this one: > Apple created an entirely new industry – something that isn’t found much in the traditional Apple playbook. I would have thought this is exactly what Apple's blockbuster successes are known for. The original Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch - all industry-defining products.

pmontra 6y ago

I stopped wearing watches 30 years ago and I won't do it again for a smart watch unless my doctor tells me so and there are really no alternatives. So, no Apple, no Samsung, no anything. It's a product category dead on arrival for me. I can consider smart glasses because I'm wearing them anyway. But they must be light and survive sport activities, including sweat (cycling in summer with a helmet.) Finally, given the widespread concerns with privacy, tracking, advertising etc (yesterday's discussion about smart TVs) the less smart they are the better.

solarkraft 6y ago
What's your reason for not wearing a watch? I have found it to be quite pleasant.
- pmontra 6y ago
  I understand I'm an outlier, by far. I had a watch since I was a kid. Then I started having a clock on the computer at university, plenty of clocks at home and everywhere I went. I started to put my clock in my pocket and left it at home forever after a few years. I took it with me only when I went hiking. Knowing time is important for safety. I've been feeling uncomfortable wearing anything around my wrist since I got used to have it free.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

mshroyer 6y ago

I really want to like Apple Watch. Apple end-to-end encrypts your health data, so I trust their stewardship more than most other companies (including Garmin, who recently fell victim to a ransomware attack). And IMO Apple does a superior job supporting their previous-generation devices: They'll replace an old Watch battery for a low, fixed fee, and to my knowledge they generally make new watchOS features available to older devices. But I've worn my Garmin Fenix 5 Plus for the last couple years, and there's no way any existing version of the Apple Watch could replace it for me: - It has a transflective LCD display that, while not as pretty as Apple Watch's, is brilliantly visible in the brightest of daylight. - The battery lasts more than a week when not using GPS. - It communicates with all my bicycle accessories over ANT+, so I don't need to take my bike computer with me to record a short ride. - It has a button-operated user interface, so it's still perfectly usable when I'm sweaty and in the middle of an activity. - It has a nearly indestructible sapphire crystal. I was eagerly following Apple Watch Series 6's release. But given that they still haven't fixed their battery life, it's very likely my next watch will be a newer Garmin.

theshrike79 6y ago
> I was eagerly following Apple Watch Series 6's release. But given that they still haven't fixed their battery life, it's very likely my next watch will be a newer Garmin. The problem here is that, short of a revolutionary tech upgrade, Apple can't "fix" the AW battery life. They could maybe increase the official battery life from 24 to 36 hours. Then people would forget to charge in the morning/evening and run out of battery midday -> Angry customers. The same will happen for every value short of "one week", which is most definitely not possible with the current form factor and hardware design.
- mshroyer 6y ago
  They could have made an incremental move in that direction, though. And incremental moves could build up to something more over multiple generations of the Apple Watch. I expected they'd be coming out with a more efficient SoC for the new Watch, and they did in the S6. But they chose to use the extra efficiency to divert more power to a brighter display instead of provide more battery life.

zmmmmm 6y ago

It's interesting to see Google to some extent, just sort of, bow out of modern computing. Watches, tablets, and VR are all more recent "frontiers" where Google just seems to be shrugging it's shoulders. I wonder if it's fatigue, some genius strategy too sophisticated for me to appreciate, creeping internal dysfunction or something else?

puranjay 6y ago
I used to think tablets were a "done" technology and would have no takers in a world of 6" smartphones. But I used the iPad Pro recently with the magic keyboard. While it would never replace my primary machine, I can see it easily become a big part of my productivity workflow. The tablet form factor has a lot to offer still.
- dagmx 6y ago
  I've been surprised since the introduction of the Apple Pencil how much the iPad has become ubiquitous in the art world. I had greatly under estimated it when it first came out due to the first gen pencil and the lack of good productivity models at the time (ie most apps were very modal and limited to single tasks at a time etc) and the OS didn't really have split screen yet. Tons of Artists whom I follow have straight up stopped creating as much on their computers with a Wacom (Intuos or Cintiq) and are creating on the iPad.
wmeredith 6y ago
Has Google ever done anything well besides search? I know they have had a ton of other products thrown at the wall funded by their firehose of cash from search. Have they ever made money doing anything else?
- dagmx 6y ago
  Maps, GMail, YouTube and Docs are all top of their class IMHO. Similarly Chromecast is superb. They've had lots of secondary products that were Greta but are now since dead. The issue isn't execution, they can execute well. The issue is longevity, and they deprecate often. If anything, their products are great but their product story is not

cblconfederate 6y ago

Nah, the watch is nothing but a gimmick. My bet is most people who try it won't buy a second one and will even stop using the first one. Taking off and on every day to charge is a huuuuge hassle , its much worse than a phone that naturally lends itself to being charged (because it rests on a desk anyway usually). But most of all the utility is not there, it wanes fast and the whole "breathe" thing is just ridiculous. The mi band is like $30 and lasts for a whole month on a single charge. Garmin watches seem to be popular with sports enthusiasts. "Normal" people dont have a use for a daily-charger phone. It's mostly a fashion item for all i know, one that needs extra effort.

canofbars 6y ago
No one wears a watch 24/7. At the minimum they will take it off to shower since most bands tend to hold water for ages. A shower time on the charger is enough to charge the watch. The Mi band is amazing for the price but its a totally different product.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  i never - ever took off my watch when i wore one. Same with the mi band for a short time that i used it. But ultimately i don't see the value of watches in general.

riston 6y ago

For me Apple Watch is missing the key features - Always on display - I would like to charge the watch only once a month Nice to have list: - GPS tracking possibility - Mobile notifications Currently Amazfit Bip fills the checkboxes for all the requirements so I continue using that :)

mrweasel 6y ago
I don’t care about the display, they should make a version without it. I would love to be able to have just the sensors and Health integration, but I don’t wear watches and the Apple Watch is to expensive and intrusive if you just want the health tracking.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
The Apple Watch has had an always-on display for 2 generations now.

rahoulb 6y ago

For me the Watch has become my dumb phone with benefits. My watch faces only really have complications for messages and calls (some have weather and workouts too) and as I have the cellular model I often leave my phone at home and am effectively distraction free. Unlike a dumb phone I still have podcasts, audiobooks and Spotify with me (I still have a copy of Apollo which does streaming but Spotify shut it down years ago). So I don’t need another device when walking the dog. Plus I can pay for stuff (no need to carry a wallet) measure activity (again walking the dog) and get notified of work emergencies (so if something fails I can message the client and head home immediately - most notifications are off though).

adav 6y ago

Love my Watch S4 - I can stay connected without the distraction of all the phone’s apps. I would like the watch to become the main device, with the “pocketable big screen” relegated to an optional map, camera and web browser satellite-type device rather than vice versa.

wodenokoto 6y ago

What are your thoughts on the SE? How important is always on display? Does not having it mean you have a distracting flashing from your screen when you move your arm, or is it always on just a marketing checkbox?

powerapple 6y ago

Do people use Apple Watch as a replacement for their iPhone? I am trying to reduce my phone usage. Not needing to carry my phone with me is an attractive idea to me.

mobiledev2014 6y ago

Surprised nobody is discussing the part about how smart speakers were a big dumb flop. I felt insane watching all my friends and family members getting these, asking them why? They never had answers. It was kind of scary honestly, a true illustration of consumerism. They’re cheap and they’re there so we bought them. Oh they harvest our data to sell us more stuff which we can’t explain our rationale for purchasing? Oops!

ChrisArchitect 6y ago

watches have been a fashion accessory only for years now. The high priced swiss etc watch market is purely a status symbol fashion thing for sure. Smart watches are an accessory as there's very little reason to not be with your phone or check your phone for the basics (time, notifications). All the perks you all like about the Watch are frivolous/luxury concerns. Even the health tracking. Having all the extra data and notifications (bleh, no more notifications!) are a luxury. Tap to pay, handy, sure, but man, is that a luxury. And all you parents out there loving the watch because you're juggling kids and don't know where your phone is half the time....... handy luxury, and maybe really you only need the one device (tied to the iphone still? bah) The pandemic has also changed everything. Other than perhaps wanting the health tracking in covid times which could save a life sure, no one should be moving around as much or in the same way as pre-covid to need a watch. It's just another watch fashion accessory that keeps you tied to your phone for convenience, but not necessary = luxury. You're paying a luxury fee for convenience that the Apple ecosystem has made you accustomed to from a glorified media company that happens to have some hardware made for you to access their media offerings. Just like the iPad made a market for tablets where there wasn't really one and for years despite competitors entering the market was really only for the Apple iPad and nothing else. meh/apple hate in this post, whatever, just a different viewpoint not expressed enough in this thread.

wdb 6y ago

Personally, I don't see the appeal of the Apple Watch, I stil have the initial one, but back I only used few times, maybe due the lack of push notifications on my phone. Also you have to charge it daily (think better these days), while a watch would keep ticking, they even had a longer power reserve, the watch I am going to pick up soon has 31 day power reserve. I just enjoy a nice watch, admire its engineering, the ticking sound, the smooth sweeping. Loving it. I currently I have a small collection of watches of 18 watches. About to receive my two grail watches.

dcchambers 6y ago

I kind of want an apple watch. The fitness tracking has gotten good enough that I would use it over my Garmin for tracking runs and cycling, and I can enjoy the extra features it has over the Garmin. But...it's a nonstarter because it requires you own an iPhone. Even for cellular models. I have no desire to buy an iPhone. I wonder how many sales they are missing to non-iPhone owners, or if they really just don't care. I don't personally think the Apple watch is good enough to be a system seller...but it is yet another entry into their entirely locked up, vertically integrated ecosystem. More than any other company, the lock-in with Apple is real. And IMO it's a shame they limit the potential of their products so much.