Slashdot Mirror
Apple Announces Apple Watch Series 2 With GPS, Water-Resistance and Faster Performance (theverge.com)
In addition to two shiny new iPhones, Apple has announced its second generation Apple Watch today, calling it the Apple Watch Series 2. The appearance is nearly identical to the original Apple Watch, with the exception of the new (optional) ceramic build material. The biggest changes can be found under the hood. The Verge reports: "The built-in GPS allows the device to perform mapping on its own, no phone required. The company also upgraded the processor in the device, now called the S2, and the display. The Series 2 has a dual-core processor Apple says is 50 percent faster than its predecessor, with double the graphics performance thanks to a new GPU. The display is now 50 percent brighter as well. The company also renewed its longstanding partnership with Nike with a special Nike+ version of the Apple Watch. It resembles a fusion of an Apple product with Nike's discontinued FuelBand fitness tracker, and it's designed for runners and workout junkies. The aluminum sport version of the Apple Watch Series 2 will start at $369, as will the Nike+ edition. The original Apple Watch is being rebranded as Series 1 and will start at $269, though it will come with the upgraded S2 dual-core processor. Preorders start on September 9th, while the watchOS 3 update will go live on September 13th."
So Apple will actually get people to actually wear a GPS now.
All Hail The True Masters
This new model is so fast, it'll only take it half as long to be forgotten about.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Can it last a weekend without charging?
It's bad enough I have to charge my watch once a week.
I tend to like Apple products, but the Watch - all smart watches, really - just isn't where it needs to be for me to want one. They're too big, too clunky, way too expensive and way too limited. Plus having just one-day battery life (or worse... they haven't really said what "Series 2" owners can expect, which is a bad sign) for something you only look at sporadically is ridiculous.
This isn't an Apple problem, though - it's because the underlying technology is just not there yet.
I think I'll be sticking to a fitness tracker for the next few years - I currently have a Garmin Vivosmart, but I might get the new FitBit Charge 2. I get 90% of the utility (notifications, alarms, reminders, texts), week-long battery life, and pay less than half what a smart watch costs. Additionally, having a gentle vibration on my wrist to wake me up in the AM is superior to something blaring on my night stand - and is something current smart watches basically can't do, since they'll be charging and not on my wrist.
#DeleteChrome
Apple's first attempt at the smart watch failed because it was grossly over-priced compared to the competition. I love my Pebble time, but would never have bought it for >$150
I don't know-- if I wanted that sort of function, a few hundred dollars doesn't seem to be too much to pay-- spending some money on something I'd be wearing pretty much 24/7 seems a good use of funds.
My problem is that I don't see why I'd want one in the first place.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
....and NO headphone jack.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Call me when I can change the battery in this thing every three years like a real watch. Otherwise it's a bit fucking pointless.
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
Now I can finally swim and dive with my iWatch for all of the NEVER fucking times I've ever needed/wanted to do that.
How long has it been since you've daily had something on your wrist 24/7? For me it was a couple of decades, in which time after I picked up a smartwatch I found it fine during the day when walking around, driving, shopping, etc... but anytime I was at a desk typing I'd have to take it off because it simply wasn't comfortable hitting the desk, or worse me when using a laptop.
This aside from it occasionally riding up on my arm a bit and needing re-adjustment during the night, or getting caught on things. Not to mention being a rather expensive item at the end of a long arm which tends to bump into things through a normal day.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I'll be sticking with my existing AppleWatch for a while I think, the GPS is a nice addition but I prefer to run with my phone anyway so I don't really need that. Apple really understands who the watch is most useful for though, between the waterproofing and the GPS they have really improved things for fitness uses (which is also my primary use).
I think it was also a nice touch to include the faster processor in the older model non-GPS watch they continue to sell.
The more important announcement is really WatchOS 3.0 which also works on the older watches - it really improves usability, ditching the old "circle of friends" use of the side button in favor of your five top watch apps, and keeping them constantly refreshed with data so there's no launch delay. That will make a number of watch apps much more useful, along with the ease of switching watch faces and sets of complications for different tasks. So you'll see a large increase this year in really useful Watch applications, which will ramp up sales even further...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All you Negative Nellies are simply jealous of people with lots of money. I drive around in my Audi R8 (V10, thankyouverymuch) with my gold Apple Watch V1 hanging out the window on my wrist.
I never use the thing, but the chicks like guys with cash. My gold Apple Watch has gotten me laid more than anything else I've dumped spare cash on.
Stay in school, get a good job or start your own business. How many of you are posting from work at a job you hate?
Smart watches will become as popular as Smart phones only when they become functional enough to completely replace Smart phones.
Until then, most people aren't going to bother carrying around (and recharge) two devices when carrying around one will do.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Now I can finally swim and dive with my iWatch for all of the NEVER fucking times I've ever needed/wanted to do that.
By "dive" I hope you are referring to platforms/boards and not scuba. While 50m is plenty for sport scuba diving (30m/100ft is the recommended max and beyond that gets into more technical diving - physiology limitations not gear) mere water resistance is not sufficient for diving. Buttons need to be useable and not get depressed by water pressure.
FWIW a $75 Casio from the 1990s was perfectly suitable for scuba diving. It even had a pressure sensor that could be used in the atmosphere to determine altitude or submerged to determine depth. As a depth indicator it was fairly close to my analog depth gauge. A hypothetical future Apple Watch that is 100m rated and had a pressure sensor could be interesting. I wonder how large the pressure sensor in a dive computer is?
... but anytime I was at a desk typing I'd have to take it off because it simply wasn't comfortable hitting the desk, or worse me when using a laptop.
I always had this problem with any watch, but the Apple Milanese band (or the $21 knock off I got on Amazon) is the best watch band I've ever owned. Light, thin, breaths so no sweaty wrist ring, and completely flat across the bottom of the wrist so it doesn't bother me while typing. It's the first band in decades I can wear all day.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I don't know-- if I wanted that sort of function, a few hundred dollars doesn't seem to be too much to pay-- spending some money on something I'd be wearing pretty much 24/7 seems a good use of funds.
My problem is that I don't see why I'd want one in the first place.
I'm a developer so I purchased one. I used it for a while and I am sort of ambivalent. For what it does it does it well, however there is nothing really compelling. To be fair, aside from scuba diving, I have very rarely worn my Fossil analog watch in recent years.
Two interesting but minor things stand out for me:
(1) A tap on the wrist for turn-by-turn directions. I don't have to turn down the stereo for fear of missing the "voice" instructions from the phone.
(2) Controlling a slide show presentation. I can play the slideshow from the phone and control it from the watch, so I can travel very light.
I only modestly explored other functionality so I may have missed something. The fitness/activity tracking stuff is fine but I don't really see any significant advantage over a fitbit.
The watch is mostly a development or presentation device for me. I may wear it if I'm going to walk/hike/bike some new route to get distance traveled and other metrics but I could get that from my phone too. The heart rate being the only real, albeit minor, additional piece of info. Not having to pull the phone from my pocket for various uses is not a several hundred dollar bit of functionality to me.
The new watch may offer a third interesting but still minor thing for me, the GPS for hiking. I tend to do "real" hiking/camping, two or more days in a wilderness area with only a backpack. I'll set a GPS pin for where the car was parked, trail heads, camp, water, etc but generally the phone is powered down and in a waterproof bag. I can navigate with paper and mechanical compass and I'd rather practice to maintain those skills. The phone GPS is a backup I hope not to use. The phone may occasionally come out for photos. So the watch with GPS and better waterproofing may make it more interesting since the phone is not simply in my pants pocket but in my pack pocket in a waterproof bag. Still not compelling to me but if I have one for development anyway that may be another situation where I might actually use it. And one totally BS meme: that the Apple Watch lets you discretely check the time. BS. With the wrist flip necessary to activate the screen there is nothing discreet about it. Here, old analog watches rule.
Shitty battery means it still sucks.
Actually, that is a little interesting-- does the GPS on the watch work on its own, or does it only work if you carry the iPhone with you in bluetooth range?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
So the first one wasn't even waterproof?
Serious question: does this "watch" keep good time? It has GPS, so it should never display the wrong time but what if it loses power and can't get a solid GPS signal? Will it just blink "12:00" like a neglected VCR? Does it have an actual RTC in it or is it just updated by GPS often enough to not notice a time drift?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The GPS works on it's own in the new one (the old one relied on your phone for position data). A lot of runners really wanted it in the watch so they didn't need to carry their phone while running. So both they and the muggers can now rejoice.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I use a Microsoft Band 2, and it has GPS built in. It REALLY drains the battery though. It is not something you want to use for anything more than a 1-2 hour cardio session.
I quite like the idea of a swim watch which can be slowly improved over time. Current swim watches are ok, but not great. So an apple watch whose swim tracking function improves, and gets better over time? Sounds great...
Is the iWatch still using a 24 hour day or has Apple improved on it?
How useful is a watch that you have to charge on a daily basis? I just find that to be a pretty high barrier to entry in terms of investing my dollars in a "hey look at me" gadget.
No word from Apple about whats going to happen with the Apple Watch Edition. Seriously if you are going to sell a $17,000 luxury item that will be obsolete 16 months after it is released you better have a good upgrade plan in place.
I will stick with my old school Casio Data Bank watch!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Great, so it still does less than my phone and still looks like an 80's calculator watch. Some one please tell me, why does anyone buy these?
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
How long has it been since you've daily had something on your wrist 24/7?
About a decade. I take my current watch off when I sleep. It took me a while to find one that I like, because most watches aimed at men seem to be designed to compensate for something and are huge and bulky. I have a very thin Skagen watch with a titanium mesh band, which weighs very little and doesn't catch on anything. I might be interested in a smart watch, but the current generation are a good 4 times thicker than my current watch, and if I carry a bulky thing on my wrist then I'm likely to knock it into things and break it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sir. Surely you jest. The Apple Watch Series 2 With GPS is a classic work of art. Your arm may be not worthy enough to don such an exquisite masterpiece.
Why does a watch device need to be high performance? It's a freaking *watch*.
Heaven forbid Apple actually did something useful and, say, increase the battery life so that the bloody thing lasts for more than a day between charges.
A conventional watch can go months, if not years, on a single battery. There's no excuse to put out a watch-like device that can't go less than a couple weeks between charges.
I have a Garmin Forerunner 920XT watch - and I love it. I use it for triathalons. It can track my workouts because it has internal GPS (that doesn't need a smartphone), it is waterproof so I can use it swiming (count strokes, and use GPS positioning for open water). I've always said the Apple watches were "cute" and flashy - but were completely ill-equipped for my purposes. Of all the people I train with - almost *everyone* has these newer high-end Garmin watches. *PLUS* you can do things like Bluetooth audio right from them. Now that Apple has made the changes with their new watches - at a price comparable to the competition - I think they are poised to litterally blow Garmin and FitBits high-end watch business out of the water. Where will it go from here? I think the next big step might be to add 3G/LTE Cell right into the watch - so it can be used for live tracking, and even for [crude] voice and text communication. (What happens if my bike falls apart in the middle of no where on a long ride? I have to carry my cell phone for such an eventuality).
Other than to service the hipster douchebag market, I just don't see a reason anyone needs to get something like this. My $200 zero maintenance solar powered 100m waterproof analog watch works just as well as it did when I bought it in 1990.
I'll just keep my old slow watch, thankyouverymuch. There already isn't enough time in the day to get everything done that I need to do.