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Slashdot Asks: It's Been a Year Since Apple Watch Release, What's Your Thought On It?
In an op-ed, Quartz's Mike Murphy writes that Apple Watch, the Cupertino-based company's first wearable device, hasn't been the success the company was hoping it to be. Apple unveiled the Apple Watch alongside the iPhone 6 at a media conference in September 2014. It wasn't, however, until April 2015 that the company began selling it. The Apple Watch has received a mixed response from people. While some have found the design premium-looking, almost everyone has complained about the battery life. Many have found the health-centric features of Apple Watch useful. though the lack of apps, in general, is a downer for many. Apple, which usually doesn't miss boasting sales number, remains tight-lipped on exactly how many Apple Watch units it has sold. Murphy writes: Every Apple product in the last 15 years or so has been two things: desirable and useful. They've made it easier for people to be creative, listen to a lot of music on the go, communicate with anyone in the world or find out any piece of information wherever they are. The Apple Watch looks good, but from a desirability perspective, some argue that the most interesting thing about it has been the collaborations it has had with Hermes, rather than the watch itself. Apple has always prided itself on 'thinking different', and has stood out by creating differentiating products. But different in the case of the Apple Watch right now just means "weird." Apple probably doesn't want a product where using one gets you referred to as "that guy." Do you own an Apple Watch? If not, are you planning to purchase one? Those who own it, what features do you like in the Apple Watch that you think other watches cannot offer.
though the lack of apps, in general, is a downer for many Apple, which usually doesn't miss boasting sales number, remains tight-lipped on exactly how many Apple Watch units it has sold.
Apart from the bad grammar here, I wonder if the lack of apps is because Apple hasn't released sales figures. If a developer doesn't know the size of the market, the developer can't calculate how many people might try an app and thus can't estimate return on investment. The same is true of, for example, clip-on gamepads for phones. Companies make games for PlayStation Vita instead of iOS-with-gamepad or Android-with-gamepad because Sony at least releases sales figures that are credibly greater than zero.
It's not that it's useless, it's that for something that costs between $300 and $700, it's not delivering all that much value. (Plus, you need to have first spent about that much on an iPhone to even use it)
If the watch had some value over your phone, such as being able to be a phone itself, or... something, people would adopt it. People love nothing better than shiny luxury trinkets that they think will set them apart from the common rabble as looking more affluent. The problem with this trinket is that it's just that. It doesn't really deliver real-world value that a fitbit doesn't also deliver.
I'm was never a fanboy or anything, but Apple really seems to have lost its way without Jobs. Products coming out that aren't ready for prime time, quality issues... never would have happened before.
The Apple Watch looks good and one day I hope to have one. Waiting for gen 2 or 3 before I commit.
Still rocking my original iPad though.
- We dream of the stars. Now let us return to them.
I bought my wife one at release. She is a big Mac user (iPhone since the iPhone 3, 4th Macbook, 2nd iMac) and although I wasn't sure about it, it seemed like a good present (it's jewelry AND tech.!). She has really tried it out as a USER, but it's a bit too difficult to really get into some of the features. She does like the health monitoring, but it really doesn't work very well at that. It doesn't seem to get her heart rate right much of the time, and it is vastly off base with her steps (it seems to totally not understand an elliptical). The ability to answer the phone is kinda ok...and she does use that occasionally, but with integrated bluetooth in her car, which would be the one time she might really use it, it ends up not being needed. She wears it only occasionally, and we may sell it. She does really like the butterflies.
You've already seen a plethora of comments slamming the idea of an expensive smartwatch (or in some cases slamming the idea of a wristwatch entirely). I'm a huge Smartwatch fan -- I spend virtually all my day in meetings, often not being able to use my laptop (tells you all you need to know about my job, I suppose). I was using a Pebble for years before my spouse got me an LG G Watch. Then a year later my spouse got me an Olio and as soon as I verified that it couldn't make it more than about 10 hours without needing recharging, I returned it.
When I got the LG G Watch, I made peace with the idea of charging my watch every day, which felt a bit blasphemous to begin with, but ... no big deal. I already charge my phone every day (though it's a bit annoying that there are practically no standardized Smartwatch charging standards). I just needed it to last until I go to bed at night, which is where the Olio failed.
These days, I'm using a big, chunky, Huawei Watch (http://www.gethuawei.com/huawei-watch) which I like quite a bit and makes it to bedtime with about 60% charge remaining.
So why not the Apple Watch? Simple -- I'm more interested in continuing to use my Android phone than I am using the Apple Watch. Apple, in an attempt to create a vertically integrated stack and bolster up the iPhone (or maybe just because they're lazy), has made their watch only work with the iPhone.
Apple is in serious decline right now but few people have taken notice.
The iPhone 6 was a design disaster. The SE is a weird counter-cyclical throwback. The iWatch was a dud. The iPad Pro was a fail. The new iPad is meh. The Mac Pro is an overpriced disaster.
Apple needs not just one, but a series of major wins or they're done.
I wouldn't say it's junk. My wife loves hers. Like a smartphone provides a subset of a full computer's functionality, a smart watch provides its own small set of functionality. The primary functions are really useful: time and weather at a glance; reliable notification of a phone call or SMS message in a noisy environment; health data which is very useful during exercise; Siri; and Apple Pay. Is that worth more than the cost of an iPhone? Different question.
It also shows its lack of ability in the "apps" available. Just because you can produce a "tap 17 tiny buttons in the arcane sequence and you can view the state of your coffee pot" app won't ever make it a useful or practical app. And the non-primary functions that might be of value still require some form of setup, like telling the watch you want driving directions to be signaled on your wrist.
Some of this is first-gen product limitations; some of it is inherent to a small form-factor device that simply doesn't have an interface matched to the size of human fingers. What that says to me is it's overpriced for what it can do - that doesn't make it junk, but it means they aren't going to sell like smartphones.
John
My wife has had workout GPS watches and was very excited for the latest Garmin smartwatch, but found it frustrating in use and featureset. The screen was also not as nice as she was hoping. She ended up exchanging it for the Apple watch and enjoys it. She did look sort of crazy when testing it out, wearing it and her old GPS watch to see how accurate it was and all. She'd been carrying her phone for music anyhow, so that it required a smartphone for full functionality wasn't ideal for all situations but worked for her. The biggest downside is probably battery life: the old style Garmin GPS watches can be forgotten in a drawer for months and still have enough charge to be used for a weeklong camping/hiking trip, whereas she generally charges the Apple watch each evening. The most useful feature for me is that the watch can ping her phone so she no longer needs help finding it every 4 minutes. Unlike younger folks, I actually almost always wear a watch but I've not felt compelled to get a smart watch myself.
I tried one at a store once. It did not find it intuitive. I would swipe on the screen and unexpected things would happen. I would use the dial and unexpected things would happen. It made no sense. But then again, most Millennial/Hipster-"designed" UIs don't make sense to me. I found the watch experience to be a lot like the Slashdot Beta or the GNOME 3 experiences: they check off every box in the hipster trendy-UI-effect-of-the-week checklist, but I couldn't actually use them to do what I wanted to do!
Apple's managed to make a product that is the opposite of a status symbol. If you're wearing an Apple Watch, people think you're a tool and you bear watching.
I'm serious. I actually overheard two girls talking about some guy and one said, "He wears an Apple Watch" as if that was the equivalent of bikini briefs and socks with garters.
You are welcome on my lawn.
For me I gave up on watches upon noticing: when I am constantly aware of the time, I tend to focus more on management of tasks than the tasks themselves. Instead I'd rather just set alarms for myself and never see the time. On my phone it doesn't show the time unless I specifically call up the clock app. The last thing I even want a watch for is to tell time, but with all the different things the watch does I still don't think it's such a brilliant alternative to pulling a rectangle out of my pocket. If I don't have the hands/time to do that, then I can't really be focusing on a watch face for info either. Personally no wrist things help me do anything better.
Twinstiq, game news
Were it only true.
Apple is really good at directing their energy towards their intended end-user. They're not interested in businesses or bulk-buyers like the governments of the world because it's not their philosophy, counter to that of Microsoft-- which targets developers and business.
This magical layer of trust and customer schmoozing is at the very heart of what Apple does well. They are monolithic, and don't want their OS (as an example) used on other hardware, because they want to control the "experience".
The RDF that's imbued by their "just works", support mechanisms (creaking as they are), retail, are all designed to make customers trust them, and whatever they come out with next. In the case of the iWatch, and the constraints imposed on Apple TV by their media partners, they've cracked their trust. The iWatch isn't jewelry, isn't very functional (what can you do in the space of wrist-enabled device, after all?), and was poorly speculative. The reason there's no FM radio inside an iPhone is that they'd lose iTunes revenue, and the RIAA makes NO MONEY when you listen to a song on the radio, and so the radio is their odd enemy.
Apple ignores other products handily. Go ahead and try to connect it to Windows in a Windows meaningful way. Same answer with Android phones, or many, many other products. Apple is a master at controlling their ecosystems in the extreme, and making people love it because, hey, stuff works and it's "kewl". They invented zero of what they sell, but their are emperors of refinement and ecosystem. Their halo and legend and trust constitute the RDF, and that RDF is cracking because their dogged leader is gone, and they've become leaden and less able to attract outstanding talent because other organizations have figured out the means to attract really smart and enabled people.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Things I like:
1) Notifications on wrist. #1 use of device. Makes it worth the cost.
2) Super easy to see upcoming events/meetings. I just look at watch face and tap the tap the calendar in the lower right. Brilliant.
3) Paying with your watch for a coffee at McDonald's. Sometimes I'll just go there to buy a coffee just to impress the people behind the counter.
4) Looking at temperature and weather at a glance. See #2.
5) Design is nice.
7) Health tracking feature.
Annoyances:
1) Most apps are totally worthless. By the time you find and launch an app that does anything useful on your watch, you could have the real deal on your phone. Only the simplest of apps make sense like the stop watch or the timer.
2) Siri is worthless. It's very unreliable and only good for the simplest of requests.
3) Taking phone calls on the watch is kind of ridiculous. Very hard to hear what someone is saying unless you are in a quiet room and it's a hassle to hold your arm in the air to talk and listen for any length of time. Again, it's just much easier to whip the phone out. Though I will say it has saved me when phone is in the other room and an important call has come in.
4) Battery life is a joke if you use the exercise tracking feature over the course of the day. Then you'll be lucky to get to bed with it still charged.
5) Nothing is more annoying then when you go to look at your watch and it doesn't turn on and you have to tap it with your other hand.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.