7 ms·

Apple Watch Is and Isn’t

35 points by donmcc 12y ago

S_A_P 12y ago
I see this being moderately successful for apple. This is probably one of the first product launches that I saw where I thought all the work they did was cool, but just can't see myself ever wearing one of these. In fact I stopped wearing watches in general because I had a smartphone pocket watch. The less jewelry I can have, the better...
- bane 12y ago
  It's one of the few Apple products that really made me sit up and say "wow, they really produced something that's a better, more polished version than the competitors, nicely done!". And then I realize I got rid of watches when I start carrying a phone around with a clock on it and have no interest in returning to wearing them at all. I got rid of them for a reason, and the burden of pulling my phone out of my pocket every once in a while isn't so bad that I feel the expense plus discomfort of any kind of watch is a good tradeoff.
CoolGuySteve 12y ago
I think the problem is that when you talk to "watch guys", they're all after a very specific aesthetic and functional goal. But that market is extremely small and self selecting. Meanwhile, the mass market watch is something very different (and nearly extinct after the cell phone display accomplished the same goals). So let's learn from two wildly successful watch brands in the 90s: - The information density on the Apple Watch display more comparable to something like the Timex Ironman watches than a mechanical watch. Apple also implies their watch can 'take a lickin' with their sapphire display and completely encased motherboard design. - The ability to customize the bands and face designs is in line with Swatch in the 90s. People will likely buy several band accessories the same way Swatch's customers bought multiple Swatches. The only thing not mass market about the Apple Watch is it's price. I'm guessing the low end of the product line will fill out the same way the iPhone did. They will keep all the tooling and production the same, but gradually reduce the price to $100 while they work out the software kinks. But in the end, the product will be amazingly successful because it has the DNA of amazingly successful predecessors.
- letstryagain 12y ago
  > I'm guessing the low end of the product line will fill out the same way the iPhone did. They will keep all the tooling and production the same, but gradually reduce the price to $100 while they work out the software kinks. The iPhone's price did not drop over the years. The cheapest iPhone 6 you can buy today is $650. The original iPhone launched at $600 back in 2007. EDIT: I'll eat my hat if Apple ever sells a Watch for $100.
  - wodenokoto 12y ago
    The original iPhone was 600 dollars ON contract, which was later dropped to 500. Yes, some people figured out how to crack the SIM-lock, so they could use a different sim card and not activate the AT&T contract that you were supposed to activate when first connecting it to iTunes, but that's an edge case that doesn't change the fact that it was sold on contract. The 650 dollar price for iphone 6 is OFF contract. So the iPhone price has significantly dropped over the years.
    - gareim 12y ago
      Well, the price drop of the iPhone only happened once and then hasn't really happened since (besides selling older models for cheaper). Is once enough to denote a trend? I'm willing to bet that Apple will release a cheaper option next year, but maintain the $350 "flagship".
    - shalmanese 12y ago
      The original iPhone was on contract but unsubsidized. The iPhone 3G was launched at $199 with a 2 year contract and every iPhone since then has stuck exactly at that price point at launch.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        You guys are only talking about the states right?
  - leonaves 12y ago
threeseed 12y ago
Most of the top shelf watches are going to be fine. It's the Casio, Seiko and Swatches of the world that are going to be in trouble. As is every fitness tracker or health monitor. But the best quote for me is this one: "In the future though I see a risk: a generational fracture. The old people, you and me, sticking to the good old mechanical watches and the young people sticking to digital watches - their comfort zone."
- x0x0 12y ago
  I'm curious how good the heart rate tracking is. Most current fitness gadgets suck terribly at tracking heart rate while exercising. afaik polar or garmin plus a chest band is the only thing that does a good job, whereas most fitbit type gadgets are only good at calculating resting heart rates. If apple can crack that, they'll find a lot of purchasers. And garmin / polar will be roadkill: their devices are expensive, single use, a big hassle (that damn chest strap is annoying, plus now you have two batteries to worry about), with shitty software.
  - craigmccaskill 12y ago
    The heart monitor technology used via diodes on these smart watches isn't very accurate. I can't seem to find the article I was reading but I remember a roughly +/- 10bpm error rate. That's also roughly what I've experienced myself on the LG and Moto watches I've tried. That said, if you buy a Garmin or similar heart tracker watch, they package it with a Heart Rate monitor transmitter you strap around your chest. Garmin would love to be able to cut costs and keep everything in one piece of hardware, but the prosumer crowd who buy this hardware for Triathlons etc would be furious if the product was inaccurate.
  - spudlyo 12y ago
    I love the consistency of the HR data I get from my old-school Polar watch and band, but you're right, after a few hours the band is pretty uncomfortable. I was quite disappointed with the Basis watch. Even when it did work my HR would often swing up and down unpredictably. If Apple nails the HR sensor, I will be stoked. I have often wanted to have an entire days worth of HR data so I can make better guesses about my daily caloric burn rate.
programminggeek 12y ago
The only thing that is "wrong" so far is the price for the average user, but so was the iPod, the iPhone, and my beloved MacBook Air. Give price a few years and it will be a mass market $99 (nano) $199 (standard) $299 (pro/luxury). So far there are 2 smart watches that have nailed the design the Moto 360 and the Apple Watch. The rest have a ways to go. A smart watch has to function pretty well as a nice looking fashion accessory before it ever is going to do anything else useful.
- nilkn 12y ago
  Personally, I think the Moto 360 is simply far too large. It looks fairly good on someone with a very wide risk, but a little ridiculous on someone with a small wrist (like me). This is a problem with circular displays. They naturally have quite a smaller area than the circumscribing square -- they're missing all four corners, every one of which can be used for a UI element. To compensate, the display just needs to be larger -- too large, in the case of the Moto 360, in my humble opinion.
  - axaxs 12y ago
    You do realize that, inch for inch, a circle has the highest area/perimeter ratio, right?
    - tzs 12y ago
      There are at least two constraints on wristwatch size. Let the Z axis be in the direction of the thickness of the watch. Let the X axis be in the direction parallel to your arm. Let the Y axis be perpendicular to the X axis and the Z axis. 1. You do not want it to extend along X axis too far toward the fingers, or it will interfere with moving your hand at the wrist. 2. You do not want to extend too far either way along the Y axis, or it will be too easy to accidentally hit things with it. The point of the post above yours is that if a circle with diameter D is an acceptable size--it doesn't extend too far in the X or Y directions to interfere with your wrist or hit things--then a square of side D will generally also be acceptable. The square will give you more face area than the circle.
    - 12y ago
cromwellian 12y ago
Ok, you're stuck in an airport and bored. You flip out your 4.7" or 5.5" phone. Can you spend an hour or more playing with it, consuming content, even doing work? Yes you can. Now, you're stuck in an airpot and bored. You keep your phone in your pocket and stare at your watch with a 38mm screen. Can you imagine spending an hour or two interacting with and consuming content on this thing? These watches deliver the information density of WAP feature phones with interactive models that are not much different (scroll wheel), plus panning and zooming on a tiny screen. The people projecting the launch of the 2007 era iPhone as an industry defining moment that's going to kick off whole new app business models I think are extrapolating without thinking about it. These devices are primarily best suited for sensors, and for information radiation tasks: notifying you of information and allowing quick response or dismissal. But a 300Mah "smart" device with a 38mm screen being something you're going to spend a lot of time downloading apps and using "on the device itself" (and not on the iPhone) I think is too far of an extrapolation. Maybe I'm wrong and this will be claim chowder thrown in my face in a few years, but to me, the trend towards bigger screens on phones is a perfectly example of why these watches will always be limited. Humans are visual creatures, and a device that has the screen size and interactivity of a virtual tamagotchi is a fashion accessory toy, not something we will build our whole life around like mobile phones and tablets.
- arrrg 12y ago
  Best case scenario I can see this becoming an iPod sized business. That certainly wouldn’t be bad and I could well imagine that’s exactly what Apple expects this to be. (The margins might be better, so they might be able to make more money.) Anything beyond that seems a fantasy to me.
- spudlyo 12y ago
  The watch isn't meant to compete with your phone for content consumption, it's for subtle notifications and alerts. Who is calling me? What meeting am I going to in 10 minutes? Who just texted me? I see myself getting a completely silent alert and then discretely glancing at my wrist during a meal or some other time it would be inappropriate to be fiddling with my phone. I can politely excuse myself if it's important. I don't expect to watch a movie on it, I just want it to look stylish and help me stay connected in a less douchey way. The fact that it may replace my Polar heart strap and watch when I'm working out (Hopefully it's more reliable than the Basis watch) is just icing on the cake. I have a feeling there will be some interesting third party applications, off the top of my head it might be nice to know when my boss is nearby, perhaps based on strength of his phone's bluetooth signal.
mathattack 12y ago
I find the most interesting thing about this article is the writer - Gassee. I am curious what the opinion on him is from current Apple employees and Apple watchers. Has time improved or hurt his reputation?
girzel 12y ago
Seems like, if you've got Siri on your wrist, and voice recognition got a little better, the screen would be much less of an issue.

35 points by donmcc 12y ago

S_A_P 12y ago

I see this being moderately successful for apple. This is probably one of the first product launches that I saw where I thought all the work they did was cool, but just can't see myself ever wearing one of these. In fact I stopped wearing watches in general because I had a smartphone pocket watch. The less jewelry I can have, the better...

bane 12y ago
It's one of the few Apple products that really made me sit up and say "wow, they really produced something that's a better, more polished version than the competitors, nicely done!". And then I realize I got rid of watches when I start carrying a phone around with a clock on it and have no interest in returning to wearing them at all. I got rid of them for a reason, and the burden of pulling my phone out of my pocket every once in a while isn't so bad that I feel the expense plus discomfort of any kind of watch is a good tradeoff.

CoolGuySteve 12y ago

I think the problem is that when you talk to "watch guys", they're all after a very specific aesthetic and functional goal. But that market is extremely small and self selecting. Meanwhile, the mass market watch is something very different (and nearly extinct after the cell phone display accomplished the same goals). So let's learn from two wildly successful watch brands in the 90s: - The information density on the Apple Watch display more comparable to something like the Timex Ironman watches than a mechanical watch. Apple also implies their watch can 'take a lickin' with their sapphire display and completely encased motherboard design. - The ability to customize the bands and face designs is in line with Swatch in the 90s. People will likely buy several band accessories the same way Swatch's customers bought multiple Swatches. The only thing not mass market about the Apple Watch is it's price. I'm guessing the low end of the product line will fill out the same way the iPhone did. They will keep all the tooling and production the same, but gradually reduce the price to $100 while they work out the software kinks. But in the end, the product will be amazingly successful because it has the DNA of amazingly successful predecessors.

letstryagain 12y ago
> I'm guessing the low end of the product line will fill out the same way the iPhone did. They will keep all the tooling and production the same, but gradually reduce the price to $100 while they work out the software kinks. The iPhone's price did not drop over the years. The cheapest iPhone 6 you can buy today is $650. The original iPhone launched at $600 back in 2007. EDIT: I'll eat my hat if Apple ever sells a Watch for $100.
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  The original iPhone was 600 dollars ON contract, which was later dropped to 500. Yes, some people figured out how to crack the SIM-lock, so they could use a different sim card and not activate the AT&T contract that you were supposed to activate when first connecting it to iTunes, but that's an edge case that doesn't change the fact that it was sold on contract. The 650 dollar price for iphone 6 is OFF contract. So the iPhone price has significantly dropped over the years.
  - gareim 12y ago
    Well, the price drop of the iPhone only happened once and then hasn't really happened since (besides selling older models for cheaper). Is once enough to denote a trend? I'm willing to bet that Apple will release a cheaper option next year, but maintain the $350 "flagship".
  - shalmanese 12y ago
    The original iPhone was on contract but unsubsidized. The iPhone 3G was launched at $199 with a 2 year contract and every iPhone since then has stuck exactly at that price point at launch.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      You guys are only talking about the states right?
- leonaves 12y ago

threeseed 12y ago

Most of the top shelf watches are going to be fine. It's the Casio, Seiko and Swatches of the world that are going to be in trouble. As is every fitness tracker or health monitor. But the best quote for me is this one: "In the future though I see a risk: a generational fracture. The old people, you and me, sticking to the good old mechanical watches and the young people sticking to digital watches - their comfort zone."

x0x0 12y ago
I'm curious how good the heart rate tracking is. Most current fitness gadgets suck terribly at tracking heart rate while exercising. afaik polar or garmin plus a chest band is the only thing that does a good job, whereas most fitbit type gadgets are only good at calculating resting heart rates. If apple can crack that, they'll find a lot of purchasers. And garmin / polar will be roadkill: their devices are expensive, single use, a big hassle (that damn chest strap is annoying, plus now you have two batteries to worry about), with shitty software.
- craigmccaskill 12y ago
  The heart monitor technology used via diodes on these smart watches isn't very accurate. I can't seem to find the article I was reading but I remember a roughly +/- 10bpm error rate. That's also roughly what I've experienced myself on the LG and Moto watches I've tried. That said, if you buy a Garmin or similar heart tracker watch, they package it with a Heart Rate monitor transmitter you strap around your chest. Garmin would love to be able to cut costs and keep everything in one piece of hardware, but the prosumer crowd who buy this hardware for Triathlons etc would be furious if the product was inaccurate.
- spudlyo 12y ago
  I love the consistency of the HR data I get from my old-school Polar watch and band, but you're right, after a few hours the band is pretty uncomfortable. I was quite disappointed with the Basis watch. Even when it did work my HR would often swing up and down unpredictably. If Apple nails the HR sensor, I will be stoked. I have often wanted to have an entire days worth of HR data so I can make better guesses about my daily caloric burn rate.

programminggeek 12y ago

The only thing that is "wrong" so far is the price for the average user, but so was the iPod, the iPhone, and my beloved MacBook Air. Give price a few years and it will be a mass market $99 (nano) $199 (standard) $299 (pro/luxury). So far there are 2 smart watches that have nailed the design the Moto 360 and the Apple Watch. The rest have a ways to go. A smart watch has to function pretty well as a nice looking fashion accessory before it ever is going to do anything else useful.

nilkn 12y ago
Personally, I think the Moto 360 is simply far too large. It looks fairly good on someone with a very wide risk, but a little ridiculous on someone with a small wrist (like me). This is a problem with circular displays. They naturally have quite a smaller area than the circumscribing square -- they're missing all four corners, every one of which can be used for a UI element. To compensate, the display just needs to be larger -- too large, in the case of the Moto 360, in my humble opinion.
- axaxs 12y ago
  You do realize that, inch for inch, a circle has the highest area/perimeter ratio, right?
  - tzs 12y ago
    There are at least two constraints on wristwatch size. Let the Z axis be in the direction of the thickness of the watch. Let the X axis be in the direction parallel to your arm. Let the Y axis be perpendicular to the X axis and the Z axis. 1. You do not want it to extend along X axis too far toward the fingers, or it will interfere with moving your hand at the wrist. 2. You do not want to extend too far either way along the Y axis, or it will be too easy to accidentally hit things with it. The point of the post above yours is that if a circle with diameter D is an acceptable size--it doesn't extend too far in the X or Y directions to interfere with your wrist or hit things--then a square of side D will generally also be acceptable. The square will give you more face area than the circle.
  - 12y ago

cromwellian 12y ago

Ok, you're stuck in an airport and bored. You flip out your 4.7" or 5.5" phone. Can you spend an hour or more playing with it, consuming content, even doing work? Yes you can. Now, you're stuck in an airpot and bored. You keep your phone in your pocket and stare at your watch with a 38mm screen. Can you imagine spending an hour or two interacting with and consuming content on this thing? These watches deliver the information density of WAP feature phones with interactive models that are not much different (scroll wheel), plus panning and zooming on a tiny screen. The people projecting the launch of the 2007 era iPhone as an industry defining moment that's going to kick off whole new app business models I think are extrapolating without thinking about it. These devices are primarily best suited for sensors, and for information radiation tasks: notifying you of information and allowing quick response or dismissal. But a 300Mah "smart" device with a 38mm screen being something you're going to spend a lot of time downloading apps and using "on the device itself" (and not on the iPhone) I think is too far of an extrapolation. Maybe I'm wrong and this will be claim chowder thrown in my face in a few years, but to me, the trend towards bigger screens on phones is a perfectly example of why these watches will always be limited. Humans are visual creatures, and a device that has the screen size and interactivity of a virtual tamagotchi is a fashion accessory toy, not something we will build our whole life around like mobile phones and tablets.

arrrg 12y ago
Best case scenario I can see this becoming an iPod sized business. That certainly wouldn’t be bad and I could well imagine that’s exactly what Apple expects this to be. (The margins might be better, so they might be able to make more money.) Anything beyond that seems a fantasy to me.
spudlyo 12y ago
The watch isn't meant to compete with your phone for content consumption, it's for subtle notifications and alerts. Who is calling me? What meeting am I going to in 10 minutes? Who just texted me? I see myself getting a completely silent alert and then discretely glancing at my wrist during a meal or some other time it would be inappropriate to be fiddling with my phone. I can politely excuse myself if it's important. I don't expect to watch a movie on it, I just want it to look stylish and help me stay connected in a less douchey way. The fact that it may replace my Polar heart strap and watch when I'm working out (Hopefully it's more reliable than the Basis watch) is just icing on the cake. I have a feeling there will be some interesting third party applications, off the top of my head it might be nice to know when my boss is nearby, perhaps based on strength of his phone's bluetooth signal.

mathattack 12y ago

I find the most interesting thing about this article is the writer - Gassee. I am curious what the opinion on him is from current Apple employees and Apple watchers. Has time improved or hurt his reputation?

girzel 12y ago

Seems like, if you've got Siri on your wrist, and voice recognition got a little better, the screen would be much less of an issue.