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I’d really appreciate longer battery life before they start thinking of making it thinner! The current battery life is fine for day to day use (lasts 28-32hrs,

I’d really appreciate longer battery life before they start thinking of making it thinner! The current battery life is fine for day to day use (lasts 28-32hrs, can be charged while getting ready in the morning), but it’s a pain having to remember to take the charger when you’re away for a weekend.

hinkley 5y ago
Definitely. My recollection is that the 3g came around the time that battery life was improved. Historically in Apple's product line, an improvement in either battery capacity or system efficiency was accompanied by a shrink in footprint. Batteries, especially the sorts Apple used in laptops, have some flexibility in shape and thickness. At this point I don't think they can make the display much larger than the 7 without increasing the footprint again. If they can keep boosting the efficiency per pixel, a larger display should mean slightly larger battery volume as well. I'm still a little bummed that their plan to incorporate batteries into the band never materialized. I was further disappointed when the hidden connector in the band slot went away after the beta program ended. (Also a little disappointed that the covers went magnetic with no way to include a small supplemental battery in place of the stiffeners). There are definitely some opportunities to expand the system to include these peripherals that we largely ignore. And there may be some opportunities to pack more of the circuitry into the curved areas on the sides of the watch. Currently the speaker takes up one side, the wheel takes a chunk of the other. I'm not sure how much of the band attachments require reinforcements at the ends but I would imagine it's the corners that matter the most there. I'm not sure how big the taptic package is in the 7 but in the 6 it was a significant fraction of the size of the battery. Also with the iPhone every time the screen got thinner either the device got thinner or the battery bigger. Not so with the watches. Thinner displays lead to an SPO2 monitor. How about we tap the brakes on more sensors for now and work on lifetime and package density for a couple iterations?
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  How about, it’s thin enough and lasts long enough and Apple needs new features to sell new watches.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    Whole sub thread is people saying it isn’t thin enough. Honestly I think the phone and iPad are too thin, and I’d appreciate it if a couple engineers got reassigned. Not the whole team mind you, but just a couple more pairs of eyes would be lovely.
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      You make it sound like there’s a weight loss program and you can just shuffle some consultants from thinning the iPhone to thinning the Apple Watch. Never mind of course that Apple doesn’t care what people in the typical Apple threads on HackerNews say. They care what sells.
      - hinkley 5y ago
        The 3G was a watershed moment for the iPhone. The 3Gs was my first one (I love Apple, but they have their flaws. I always buy the 'even numbered' versions where they've done at least one hardware revision on any new design) and a lot of people hopped on around then or the next model. I feel like the watch is waiting for a similar notch-up in sales. The other way to go is to make it into a standalone phone, which I am not sure I'm interested in (yet) but would be a reasonable approach. Given how they've handled the watch so far, I think that's more likely to happen than my thin watch request. Or perhaps they'll do both. Fat version or tall version with a phone, smaller version without.
        tinus_hn 5y ago
        The Apple Watch can actually already be used as a standalone device: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211768 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211768

hinkley 5y ago

Definitely. My recollection is that the 3g came around the time that battery life was improved. Historically in Apple's product line, an improvement in either battery capacity or system efficiency was accompanied by a shrink in footprint. Batteries, especially the sorts Apple used in laptops, have some flexibility in shape and thickness. At this point I don't think they can make the display much larger than the 7 without increasing the footprint again. If they can keep boosting the efficiency per pixel, a larger display should mean slightly larger battery volume as well. I'm still a little bummed that their plan to incorporate batteries into the band never materialized. I was further disappointed when the hidden connector in the band slot went away after the beta program ended. (Also a little disappointed that the covers went magnetic with no way to include a small supplemental battery in place of the stiffeners). There are definitely some opportunities to expand the system to include these peripherals that we largely ignore. And there may be some opportunities to pack more of the circuitry into the curved areas on the sides of the watch. Currently the speaker takes up one side, the wheel takes a chunk of the other. I'm not sure how much of the band attachments require reinforcements at the ends but I would imagine it's the corners that matter the most there. I'm not sure how big the taptic package is in the 7 but in the 6 it was a significant fraction of the size of the battery. Also with the iPhone every time the screen got thinner either the device got thinner or the battery bigger. Not so with the watches. Thinner displays lead to an SPO2 monitor. How about we tap the brakes on more sensors for now and work on lifetime and package density for a couple iterations?

tinus_hn 5y ago
How about, it’s thin enough and lasts long enough and Apple needs new features to sell new watches.
- hinkley 5y ago
  Whole sub thread is people saying it isn’t thin enough. Honestly I think the phone and iPad are too thin, and I’d appreciate it if a couple engineers got reassigned. Not the whole team mind you, but just a couple more pairs of eyes would be lovely.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    You make it sound like there’s a weight loss program and you can just shuffle some consultants from thinning the iPhone to thinning the Apple Watch. Never mind of course that Apple doesn’t care what people in the typical Apple threads on HackerNews say. They care what sells.
    - hinkley 5y ago
      The 3G was a watershed moment for the iPhone. The 3Gs was my first one (I love Apple, but they have their flaws. I always buy the 'even numbered' versions where they've done at least one hardware revision on any new design) and a lot of people hopped on around then or the next model. I feel like the watch is waiting for a similar notch-up in sales. The other way to go is to make it into a standalone phone, which I am not sure I'm interested in (yet) but would be a reasonable approach. Given how they've handled the watch so far, I think that's more likely to happen than my thin watch request. Or perhaps they'll do both. Fat version or tall version with a phone, smaller version without.
      - tinus_hn 5y ago
        The Apple Watch can actually already be used as a standalone device: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211768 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211768