Slashdot Mirror
How Apple Watch Is Really a Regression In Watchmaking
Nerval's Lobster writes Apple design chief Jony Ive has spent the past several weeks talking up how the Apple Watch is an evolution on many of the principles that guided the evolution of timepieces over the past several hundred years. But the need to recharge the device on a nightly basis, now confirmed by Apple CEO Tim Cook, is a throwback to ye olden days, when a lady or gentleman needed to keep winding her or his pocket-watch in order to keep it running. Watch batteries were supposed to bring "winding" to a decisive end, except for that subset of people who insist on carrying around a mechanical timepiece. But with Apple Watch's requirement that the user constantly monitor its energy, what's old is new again. Will millions of people really want to charge and fuss with their watch at least once a day?
Has there been some change over recent years that has made phones hard to get out of your pocket? Why would you want to do anything on such a tiny screen when a bigger one is within reach almost 100% of the time?
It's a big enough fuss that people stopped using mechanical watches in the first place.
People stopped using mechanical watches because other watches were better. Also many
high quality mechanical watches self-wind as long as you wear them. Not wearing them
is actually a problem. They actually sell special cases to wind mechanical watches when
not in use: http://www.rakuten.com/prod/4-...
If the apple watch is better (in any sense of the word) then it has a chance. The only problem
I see with nightly charging is that (at least with smart phones), that usually means that
heavy users have to charge midday which IS a pain.
Analogously, cell phones are a throwback to old crank phones because you have to charge them before you use them. We used to have perfectly good powered land lines. Cell phones with their short battery lives and constant attention are for eclectic hobbyists I'm sure.
And don't get me started about notepads when a paper and pencil pad can store your information for a century or more with no format changes impairing data retreival. current ipads are the equivalent of undecipherable babelonian cuniform clay tablets. Ludicrous anyone would want to go back to such fragile formats for information storage
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The watch should keep good time. If the battery requires a recharge, then should one forget and pull an all-nighter, does the timepiece become less accurate?
I don't see why some of the functions could be sacrificed to provide longer battery. That'd suit most people I imagine. I welcome the day when all smart phones can go upwards of two weeks with normal use before needing a charge. The Moto G can go most of the week between charges and I use it a fair bit to ssh to my mail server to check mail, irc, web logs etc. So why should a simple watch require more frequent charging?
Why UNIX?