<i>My impression of Android Wear is that it’s best thought of as a wrist-worn terminal for your Android phone and for Google’s cloud-based services. An extension for your phone, not a sibling device. Android Wear devices are almost useless other than for telling time when out of Bluetooth range from your phone. I don’t think that’s a device that many people want; it’s a solution in search of a problem.</i><p>I don't see how the overall point doesn't equally apply to the Apple Watch. Playing music via Bluetooth only and an interface to a nascent payment system don't really change the fact this is still the iPhone's $350+ wrist buddy for the vast majority of its uses.
Gruber bends over backwards and twists himself in knots trying to explain why he isn't disappointed after considering the expectations he set before the event. I don't see anything different in the AppleWatch functionality compared to what he criticized Android Wear for earlier this year
Here's a fun sport for Apple watchers, aficionados and detractors alike: has Apple jumped the shark yet in the post-Steve era?<p>(The game's a bit Candyland-esque; we always arrive at "yes": if Apple's strategy is inflexible post-Steve, they're doomed, if they make any changes, they are also doomed.)<p>Let's play anyway.<p>The big, flashing, worrying sign of changed-for-the-worse Apple isn't any hullaboloo about Warhol and luxury, it's that Apple didn't show us a product!<p>All they have is a fancy looking piece of hardware and a bunch of tech demos with a UI that clearly isn't cohesive or thought out enough to work in the real world.<p>And then, on top of that, they bragged a bit about how many features the Watch was going to have.<p>This is real "danger Will Robinson" territory for Apple, in the traditional Gruber understanding of what makes Apple great: focussing on actual products with a a well-thought out core rather than a lard of features or pie-in-the-sky tech demos.<p>Gruber buries the lead a bit on this dramatic change. He doesn't get around to mentioning it until deep into the article, and then rather wavily dismisses the change with this bizarre explanation:<p>He suggests that Apple decided to demo a non-product because they couldn't keep the hardware secret long enough for the software to catch up.<p>If that's true, that means, what, Apple views secret-unveilings as its core principle?<p>But I think more likely is that Gruber mind is just going through reflexive contortions of justification here, and the truth is simpler: Apple is slowly losing the focus that for a brief few years really did make it unique among tech companies.<p>Certainly hope to end up eating crow on this, though. :)
I have no interest in the exclusive "I make more money than you" objects so let's talk about that digital crown instead.<p>I think Apple messed up here. I might be proven wrong after millions of people are joyfully spinning their little digital crowns between their thumb and forefinger a couple of years from now, but I would wager a small sum that I'm not wrong.<p>Would it not have been better to put a touch-sensitive pad along the whole side of the Apple Watch and/or give it the same pressure sensitivity as the front screen? Or if they chose a circular watch, give it a spinning band around the whole face of the watch. Much bigger controller, much more comfortable and better precision.<p>Perhaps there's some use case where the digital crown is a preferable method of input (setting a very exact numerical value for example), but I have a feeling those use-cases will be few and far between, and even then, the set-up to use the crown will require some form of touch and/or voice input.
"The iPad/iPhone is soooo egalitarian!"<p>"Is Apple losing the egalitarianism it never had? No, it had Macs, it was never egalitarian!"<p>Why was this in the article at all then? Using an analogy that in the end the author itself destroys is bad writing, or at worst extra reading for the reader for no gain. In his own article he never considers Apple egalitarian, yet he is asking a hypothetical question as though Apple was considered egalitarian to begin with.<p>PS. I'd have to disagree with even the statement that iPhone is "egalitarian" I would argue, there are tons of people in the world that buy Android because it's good enough, and cannot afford the cachet of Apple.
No doubt the most insightful essay on Apple's wrist computer/watch so far, and HN allows it to be flagged to the bottom of the 2nd page.<p>HN is broken.
I think Gruber's argument that this is Apple's first move into the mainstream, non-tech product scene is correct. The Mark Newson news was a huge indicator. They need two world-class designers to design electronics when Jony has already been killing it for years?<p>An interesting thought for the future:<p>Having two devices on a human gives you much richer spatial information, including accurate bearing and rotation speed plus measuring the difference in movement on the top and lower half of the body. Short term, this is great for fitness. Long term, this works well in a house with multiple other Apple products acting as sensors inside a home.
What a slippery balance. Apple typically makes products people replace once every 2 or 3 years. A watch has never fit this time frame of refresh. In-fact the whole attraction to a time piece is that it just works forever and is timeless. I wonder if anyone in the future will be wearing their grandparents iWatch. I highly doubt it. so the large price points, are going to likely fail.
If true, I'll be a bit disappointed. I would prefer that Apple continue having good success in the "accessible luxury" category and, if anything, go a even more accessible. It's mission should be to get it's terrific products in more hands. Not the opposite. It's outsized margins are no longer so important.
What I found interesting was no mention of "Bozo" Kevin Lynch being in charge of the Apple Watch development. Is he still a bad hire after seeing the debut of the Watch?<p><a href="http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch-bozo" rel="nofollow">http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch-bozo</a>