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Apple Watch Launches
An anonymous reader writes: The Apple Watch's release date has arrived: retailers around the world have quietly begun putting them on their shelves, and customers are beginning to receive their shipments. Reviews have been out for a while, including thoughtful ones from John Gruber and Nilay Patel. Apple has published a full user guide for the software, and iFixit has put up a full teardown to take a look at the hardware. They give it a repairability score of 5 out of 10, saying that the screen and battery are easily replaced, but not much else is. Though Apple designated the watch "water-resistant" rather than "waterproof", early tests show it's able to withstand a shower and a swim in the pool without failing. Ars has an article about the difficulty of making games for the Apple Watch, and Wired has a piece detailing its creation.
... PT Barnum. You know the famous quote.
I'm still not entirely clear what the Apple Watch is supposed to do for me, especially when it's still reliant on a cell phone to function.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Not PT Barnum, because I see this as a niche product that some people will really like. People who are fanatic about their fitbit and facebook feeds. Since it's "Apple" it may be a bit more popular than Glass.. but time will tell.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
So what, who cares. who even wears watches anymore? What is this the 80s when digital wrist watches were a thing?
Yes I want a tiny screen, inferior battery and all around crap experience please!
What time is it?
The watch conforms to the standard IPX7, which states "withstand immersion in water up to 1 meter for up to 30 minutes"
The video only tests fifteen minutes... I would have liked to see a half hour test, then see if it works, then back in for an hour and see what happened.
Apple recommends that you not swim with the watch, but if you're hardly going under water or not swimming very long it seems like it would be fine.
As for wearing the watch in the shower, it seems like it would be fine but it sounds creepy to me (yes I know Tim Cook says he does that). Even when I had fully waterproof watches I never wore one in the shower, it's like taping over parts you don't want to actually clean... defeats the point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ars has an article about the difficulty of making games for the Apple Watch
Honestly, I think games are a bit of a stretch. Maybe I'm just a stupid old man, but I kind of feel like smart-watches should do very little, but everything they do, they should do in a simple, obvious, transparent manner. If you want to play games, just pull out your phone.
Now of course someone is going to say, "What's wrong with extra functionality? If you don't want it, just don't use it." All I would say is, if I had my say in the design, I'd make the UI as simple as possible, and make the battery last as long as possible. Adding a bunch of unnecessary features and games that require a bunch of processing power are likely to run contrary to both of those goals. If you gave me the choice of being able to play Angry Birds on my watch, or shaving off a couple of ounces while extending battery life for 5 hours, I'd definitely choose the latter.
The selection screen appears to operate below 60 fps, it looks a bit jumpy to a gamer trained eye. You can't zoom in on photos with pinch, which I felt was a MUST for such a small screen.
It extends the battery life of your phone because you are not powering it on as often.
It allows you to filter notifications more than the phone does, so you can know quicker if you should pay attention to an alert.
It allows you to silence a call without even reaching into your pocket doing the Vibration Reaction Dance.
It gives you status on important things happening currently with fewer actions than a phone.
It's like a fitness band you wear all the time but without the single minded pointlessness.
And yes, it also tells the time without having to reach into a pocket...
If you aren't clear what it can do for you, then you may not need or want a smart watch. And that is fine. But there are many small uses which aggregate to form a model, different for each person, of how a smart watch can be useful to them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think the first generation will sell the most units and each successive generation will sell in fewer and fewer numbers. This is because IMO the watch is a novelty item without much utility and those buying it will quickly reach the same conclusion and never buy it again.
I ordered one and it will be delivered in mid-may (even though I placed the order 3 mins after midnight -_-)
Enjoy your Space Black watch, I know I will (sometime in mid May also). Pretty sure every other model is shipping earlier than stated.
Too bad they couldn't be ordered without a band that takes 100 man years of effort per link to create.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
said every writer at Wired.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
When I was the child I have been dreaming of the television on my watch. I can have tv, apple watch, on my wrist.
I realize that I no longer want television on my wrist, when i have smartphone and computer around.
What we really want is a telephone that would fit to a wristwatch, possibly supplement with a hearing aid like almost invisible earphone.
I have a second cellphone, dumbphone, that holds the charge for 20 days. Thus, long battery life in the new wristphone would be nice too.
Is there a version that has a cock-ring instead of a wrist band?
Thanks!
I mostly agree. Games where you are just doing things on a smart watch, make no sense to me either. The phone you have really would make more sense.
MAYBE a game where you were just responding to notifications every now and then and response time matters, would work.
Also odd is that it's not like you can have a standalone Apple Watch app. You have to have a phone app also. So what does that do? Have a version of the game with a watch sized screen?
I guess if you consider a Tamagotchi (sp?) a game, that might work also, since you could "feed" it easily.
So there are some edge cases where games might work, but not the games that are being delivered currently.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt.
Come on, we all know anyone buying a $10-$17k version of the Apple watch is going to be in debt from the purchase, or even care it costs that much. Same with a car that costs over $100k.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The selection screen appears to operate below 60 fps, it looks a bit jumpy to a gamer trained eye.
In theory the Apple Watch is supposed to update at 60FPS (that is what developers are targeting for animated sequences).
I could be in that case something uses a framerate drop... although aren't the video links posted here all below 60FPS, which which case how could you tell?
You can't zoom in on photos with pinch, which I felt was a MUST for such a small screen.
And Apple has said (rightfully I think) that pinch is a bad idea on a small screen, because too much is obscured. The crown works very well for that (although third party apps will not be able to use it in that way for a while yet).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So constantly communicating wirelessly with a device on my wrist is more battery efficient than turning the screen on once in a while?
The OCCASIONAL communication the watch does over BTLE (it's not continuous unless needed by an app) is in fact WAY lower power than turning on a very large high DPI screen and backlight that most smartphones have now.
Except that you can't wear it all the time because it's not waterproof. You even have to take it off in the shower.
Didn't even bother to read the article summary all the way through, did you.
No it's not waterproof. But it's got a pretty standard level of water resistance, which means you COULD wear it in a shower, and I plan to wear it for visits to the pool (since most of my pool time is technically more "standing in water" than swimming).
Also, it only gets around 18 hours of use on the battery
Hint: That's around as much "battery" as most PEOPLE have also. :-)
which means it can't track your sleep like a lot of other fitness devices.
Then you can switch to a device that doesn't suck at monitoring sleep the way something on your wrist meant to mostly measure heart-rate does.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How long till we here the first crime associated with it? (e.g.; Mugging, snatch and run,...)
Does it have good security options?
Big deal. Fuck Apple
What is Apple's warranty policy for water damage?
In terms of warranty support, the iPhone is not meant to be at all water resistant. Thus the sensors, and sometimes refusing to service if it's be obviously compromised (though Apple is sometimes lenient if you have Applecare).
The watch though is a different story. Although they may have water sensors inside, the expectation and warranty promise is that it can take significant contact with water. Rain is absolutely fine, immersion down to one meter up to 30 minutes long is also fine.
So if you bring in a water damaged Watch, it's a lot harder to say if it was because you exceeded allowed parameters. Perhaps it measures any duration under-water?
That said, AppleCare for the watch gives you up to two body replacements, so if you get AppleCare and swim for a day which wrecks the watch, you can probably just get a new body.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In exchange for wearing a 2nd device you need to charge every day or so. Not much of a win.
For those that run down phones in less than a day they may not have to do a mid-day charge any longer. That's actually quite a huge win.
Thereby saving you time only if you can ignore most notifications
You are ignoring the tiering of notifications possible with this arrangement.
Lol. true, but how much is that worth, right?
I guess you don't mind people wondering why you find the insides of your pants so suddenly interesting.
But retains the pointlessness of wearing a fitness band.
Well I basically agree as I don't use a fitness band and don't really plan to use any of the health features of the new watch. But I'm not turning that off either...
Functionality handled better by a non-smart watch.
Yes but that is balanced by the paucity of other abilities a non-watch have. That singular function has not provided enough value for a decade or so now to warrant my wearing a watch at all. But it IS more functional than pulling out the phone so for the HUGE number of people who have stopped wearing watches, that is a net positive feature
Honestly my main complaint with the apple watch is the lock in to apple. ...If you want a smart watch fine, but have the sense to buy one that works with any phone.
So then you must equally hate Android Wear.
Myself I personally think devices that are better integrated will provide notable better function, in terms of both performance and battery life.
I also ordered a Pebble Time, so I'll see...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There's no such thing as 'water proof' -- everything is simply water resistant up to a certain level, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
You don't have to get an iWatch anymore than you need a FitBit. Asking why anyone would want to use either, though, is "so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.".
IPX7? Is that some trademarked Apple 'standard'? If it's an actual Standard, why doesn't Apple have their own variant with a cute name? 'Thumblenitter' or something stupid like that would be alright.
I'm more worried about what happens when you plunge your hand in a can of Crisco, and I'm sure Tim Cook worries about that, too. But whatever.
It does have a GREAT use. I see everyday people using their cell phones in their cars while driving, phone on the ear. All new and luxury cars even. Im sure those cars have bluetooth, but somehow people dont know how to use or dont like how it sounds or whatever.
Since Apple watch allows to talk through it, Im sure it will diminished the chance of accident for those who drive with the phone on the ear. Since talking to the wrist allows the hand to grab the wheel, while if fit is holding a phone it is more difficult.
I know that Apple wont be able to promote it this way, but I really believe that iphone users will have fewer accidents of they use an Apple Watch.
I'm still not entirely clear what the Apple Watch is supposed to do for me, especially when it's still reliant on a cell phone to function.
It does have a GREAT use. I see everyday people using their cell phones in their cars while driving, phone on the ear. All new and luxury cars even. Im sure those cars have bluetooth, but somehow people dont know how to use or dont like how it sounds or whatever.
Since Apple watch allows to talk through it, Im sure it will diminished the chance of accident for those who drive with the phone on the ear. Since talking to the wrist allows the hand to grab the wheel, while if fit is holding a phone it is more difficult.
I know that Apple wont be able to promote it this way, but I really believe that iphone users will have fewer accidents of they use an Apple Watch.
This is fun.
Huh, I wonder why not.
Has Apple laid an egg?
Yes.
My own pet theory is that Apple only made sure the Apple Watch would be successful to piss *you* off, specifically.
Sort of, but better tiering of notifications really should just be part of the phone OS.
it is. Inherently though you can only get a simple sense of a notification happening in your pocket. Allowing more trusted notifications only on the watch means some that you may way to look at later but don't care about now, can be ignored. With just the phone they otherwise all get mixed up (unless you have sound on all the time which I find too annoying to those around me to do).
Meh, when my phone rings in my pocket and I know I don't want to answer it without even looking
How do you KNOW that? There are plenty of times when I may want to take a call if it's important.
I can easily click the side button to ignore it, through my pocket
I do that too but it's not AS EASY. Again it's the layering you are missing here.
Android is a single platform but not a single manufacturer ...That relies heavily on services from a single manufacturer, and it fairly useless without. Android Wear is every bit as pigeon-holed, in fact moreso since there are already far more Apple Watch apps to gain non-Apple functionality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sorry to call you out on this, but your attitude will destroy you in the end and I cannot help but warn you. Living a life with hate as a focus consumes you. Other people can sense it and will push away from you.
I'm not interested in Android Wear, but I wish it (and it's users) no ill. Same for Android. It's not for me but I am happy to admit, it is for someone.
It's why I ordered a Pebble Time too, because I like competition and different ideas and think the world is better for it. If you hate someone so much you wish their demise, all of that ill will just reflects back on your own character.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
bluetooth devices have existed longer than a large swath of children on this planet.
I'm pretty sure that issue has been fixed. If people don't use that, then why would they use apple watch?
I mean, hell, nearly every car sold today has bluetooth in the stereo also.
If you can't Google, I can't help you - but far worse, you cannot help yourself. You will not eat fish in your lifetime I fear, much less a day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The main features that I find useful. 1. playing music/podcasts without the need for an iPhone to my BT headphones 2. controlling playback from iPhone or appleTV 3. Maps app on my wrist 4. messages on my wrist 5. phone calls on my wrist 6. translation of Spanish, et.al. on my wrist 7. quick/easy note taking by voice transcription to notes apps 8. workout/exercise recording 9. bike riding apps 10. all the other likely cool software that will be developed for the thing in the next year. 11. easily record conversation covertly 12. control my camera and act as a viewfinder on iPhone (and likely other cameras with BT or NFC in the near future) This is enough for me to justify the $400 price. Unfortunately they are backordered until June.
Apple's moron identification system is now out. Now you'll be able to instantly tell which people are idiots just by looking at their wrist. Apple's ability to innovate knows no bounds!
Really, you're such an ardent and zealous fanboy that your reaction to that post was offence, rather than to chuckle at the Thumblenitter comment?
What a sad life you live.
Ho Ho Batman get a load of THIS http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tattoo-removal-surges-440-over-the-last-decade-2014-07-15?dist=countdown
Apple Watch does not work on skin that is Black or Red. So that knocks out a lot of Africans and African-Americans (Black) and Native Americans (Red).
False reading can be produced by skin that is Yellow: Sorry China and Japan and Korea!
Guess all of these people of color will have to get surgical skin grafts to play Apple Watch.
Now we know what the Apple Watch is ALL ABOUT! Ha
What a barn-burner for Apple Inc.