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Unless you've been hiding in a cave in Afghanistan you know about the Apple Watch. Well, it went on sale today. It may be a useful piece of technology or it may be a waste of money, but it's here and it's real.
For those Soylentils who like to buy tech gadgets and then tear them down, El Reg has already done it for you. Enjoy.
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For recreational use only.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday April 25 2015, @02:27AM
The watch will be successful only if it offers benefits to the wearer. From my personal POV, there are none. Perhaps if you receive tons of messages, that watch would be handy. Other than that, I don't know what it is good for - except as bling, of course. For most people it's just one more gadget to charge and to worry about.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sigma on Saturday April 25 2015, @02:57AM
The watch will be successful only if it offers benefits to the wearer. From my personal POV, there are none.
Nor is there benefit to most of us in spending thousands on Rolex, Patek Phillipe or Omega watches, but that hasn't stopped those companies being successful.
Apple are trying to crossover a commodity electronics gadget into the luxury products field, particularly with the pricey gold versions. Since the luxury watch market has traditionally valued exclusivity, craftsmanship and design, they'll need to pull the wool over a lot of big-spending eyes to get away with it.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday April 25 2015, @03:55AM
Nor is there benefit to most of us in spending thousands on Rolex, Patek Phillipe or Omega watches, but that hasn't stopped those companies being successful.
I don't know anyone who'd be wearing - or even owning - those watches. And it's not like all my friends are homeless beggars. I and all my friends are simply practical people who have no need to use jewelry to make themselves visible. But sure, there are those who'd like to pay for yachts and airplanes of Rolex and Omega CEOs - they are in full control of their wallet. I'd rather buy my own yacht (or an equivalent, since I have no affinity to water.)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Tork on Saturday April 25 2015, @03:34AM
The watch will be successful only if it offers benefits to the wearer. From my personal POV, there are none. Perhaps if you receive tons of messages, that watch would be handy. Other than that, I don't know what it is good for...
I'm an owner of a Pebble Watch who would like to have an Apple Watch, but it's a little out of my price range. Still, though, I think I can at least offer you a little insight. I get a fair number of important emails and texts. I bought the Pebble because on a couple of occasions I missed an important text because I didn't feel the phone vibrate in my pocket. I didn't think I would like it, but I actually do prefer having a watch that vibrates instead of making noise. In fact my phone has permanently been on silent mode since I purchased this device. Anyway, the way it works is the watch vibrates and shows me whatever notifications turn up on iOS's notification center. How does this help me? For one thing I don't have to get my phone out. In meetings that's great. At my desk it's greater than you might expect. I can just glance at my watch instead of bringing my email client forward. Plus I can dismiss it, so my phone's notification center doesn't fill up with stuff I've already seen. I often leave my phone on my desk or at home on the charger, the range of blue-tooth is good enough in both places to keep me up on whether or not I have have notifications waiting. Just this last weekend I was in my home town and when I arrived at the airport, with my hands full of baggage etc, I saw a text from my friend telling me where to go to get picked up! One other thing I like is that if I get a phone call I can glance at my wrist and, if so inclined, send it to voice mail if it's somebody I don't want to talk to right now. On a few occasions I had it set to give me news updates, but admittedly that eventually was toned down due to too much noise. I do like that the particular watch-face I use shows me the weather and temperature. That's handy at times.
In short I save time, it keeps my phone quiet, and I miss fewer important notifications. So why do I want an Apple Watch, but not enough to pay what they're asking? As I said before the watch just mirrors the Notification Center in iOS. It's great because lots of things funnel through there. For example: I subscribed to a Twitter feed that was covering a news story that I was following. I was getting updates about as fast as they were coming out! But the downside is that the Notification Center is almost always truncated. When I get an email I cannot read the whole thing. It's like sender, subject, and a line or two. Though that's usually enough I really would like to scroll the crown on the Apple Watch, see the entire email, and maybe even see pictures that are attached. There are times when I'm in meetings or in transit where that'd be me reclaiming some of my time. Also my wife often sends me photos via SMS, the Pebble Watch cannot view those but the Apple Watch would do a decent job of at least letting me know what it's about before I get my phone out. I also would like to be able to reply to an SMS with "Okay", "No", "Yes", "No" without getting my phone out. (I don't know that the Apple Watch can do that.)
My Pebble Watch has definitely given me some time back. Your mileage will vary, of course, but the utility is there. What the Apple Watch offers is better integration with the phone and, if successful, the promise of even better integration. I think I'd like to have an Apple Maps summary on my watch. I even think I'd use Siri more from the watch. It's not enough for me to drop the $400 I'd need to, mainly because the Pebble is still working quite well, but I am definitely keeping an eye on it.
Hope that clears things up a bit.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday April 25 2015, @03:38AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday April 25 2015, @04:08AM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday April 25 2015, @04:19AM
...what I'm unsure of is how much the middle ground will want such a watch - people who take and place three to five calls per day to their wife and kids.
I think the wildcard here is the apps. If the Apple Watch ever gets an App Store and it turns out good stuff, I may end up paying the $400 or so for it. Have a peek at this. [kotaku.com] Now I'm not saying any of those specific games are interesting to me but it is fascinating to see that sort of graphic on a watch. Maybe some killer app will come along. All it takes is for the middle-ground people to see somebody else with it and go "Sold!" I have a security camera in my apartment with a motion sensor. Right now it notifies my phone that motion was sensed, thus it makes my watch vibrate. I used recently to verify that my landlord had come and gone. I would definitely like it if that notification came with a photo from the camera. I'm almost certain that's coming.
I'll tell you one little thing my Pebble Watch does that has become nearly indispensable to me: If you shake the watch the backlight comes on. That is so... frickin... handy. Since the Apple Watch has even more sensors, well I just don't know what to expect developers to do with it. Let's see if Apple catches me on version 2.
Have a good weekend!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @11:16AM
Just a note, the Apple Watch already has an App Store.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lothmordor on Saturday April 25 2015, @05:19AM
Nice to know some people will get good use out of them. Until now, I was a little stumped on what need, exactly, smart watches were trying to fill. It's easy to dismiss the technology as nothing more than bling or status-symbol posturing, but high volume messaging makes sense. In fact, reading your post leaves me with the impression that these devices are basically better pagers. Sure, they do other things too, but that seems to be the technology gap they're filling.
Although, haven't they been for sale for three years now?
These are them, right? [tjskl.org.cn]