Meet the Apple Watch

I just don&#x27;t think the watch market is really there. I feel like its shrinking steadily among younger people as the need for a time teller is replaced by the modern cell phone. I believe people have convinced themselves into convincing companies that they actually want a high tech wrist watch when, in reality, the market isn&#x27;t that big and it is shrinking. I believe this whole craze started with the pebble. People see and think &quot;cool&quot;, but then realize after a week of wearing it that they have no additional need being filled by it. There are of course exceptions (joggers for example might be a specific use case), but overall I think demand is lower than the current market saturation.<p>Also it requires an iPhone.

This watch looks like it was designed by a committee:<p>Two ways to navigate the interface (wheel for zooming, to avoid touching the screen, and panning by...touching the screen).<p>Tasteless misfeatures like customisable emoji [1] and drawing your own fail whale on a tiny screen [2], and most inexplicable of all for an expensive watch - very little attention paid to the actual watch face designs, which are not even adapted to the square frame, and some of which have numbering superimposed awkwardly over images like a butterfly or globe, or mickey mouse...ugh [3]<p>[1] <a href="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple0243.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;apple024...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple0252.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;apple025...</a><p>[3] <a href="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple0216.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;apple021...</a><p>Combining all that stuff with materials like 18 carat gold or brushed steel doesn&#x27;t really make sense - it&#x27;s as if they asked a different person about each feature included and then mashed it all together in some frankenstein mess. The fitness features look quite nice in contrast.<p>I actually think in future we&#x27;ll all be using wearables like this far more than phones - little status bands or com badges or glasses&#x2F;contact lenses, but this is not a glimpse of the future so much as a glimpse at the dysfunction in the current Apple design process, post Steve Jobs, and their inability to produce coherent products.

I think there are two things Apple did wrong here<p>1. They have customized size and band, while not the shape. I for one love round shape and hate the square shape, and I believe I&#x27;m not the only one with this preference.<p>2. They emphasized too much on the interaction with watch. IMO, watch is supposed to notify you new things, have you glance over it and do some quick responding. That&#x27;s it. User should not use watch in the same way they use phone.<p>In Apple watch&#x27;s demo, they have too much interaction showing there and the information on one screen is sometimes crowded. That&#x27;s not a good sign.<p>I do like the new interaction pattern they introduced there though. Quite innovative IMO.

I think it is great to be skeptical, and it is fun to slag on Apple, especially if they insist on having U2 play their event.<p>But on a more serious note, I won&#x27;t underestimate the potential for a widely adopted device that is:<p>1) always visible to the user. Yes, in my opinion taking my phone out of my pocket and putting it back in again is one of those irritations you don&#x27;t notice until it goes away and then you wondered how you lived for so long doing that dumb behavior. Setting your phone on the dinner table, constantly looking at it when you are trying to walk around town ... the watch could be subtly revolutionary for those thousands of glances a day.<p>2) always <i>touching</i> the user. I am extremely excited, or at least intrigued, by what is possible with persistent two-way haptic communication. Without having used the dev kit, and without feeling the actuators, I don&#x27;t know how nuanced the communication can be. But there could be a whole new world here.<p>Just a thought from the &quot;maybe they aren&#x27;t idiots at Apple&quot; perspective.

I think this design is much uglier than the Moto 260[1].<p>[1] <a href="https://moto360.motorola.com/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;moto360.motorola.com&#x2F;</a>

No talk of water resistance or battery life is pretty disappointing. Those two things are key for something I would like to keep on my wrist for as long as possible.

I don&#x27;t know If I&#x27;m an idiot, but I&#x27;m not seeing the huge deal here. Is the space from the pocket to the wrist such a chasm that it merits making a device like this?

$350 and not out until &quot;early 2015&quot;<p>Dead in the water. That&#x27;s insanely expensive and too late in the smartwatch market in my mind.

Ugly. It looks like something from the 1980s. What happened to the beautiful minimilistic design?<p>I can imagine Roger Moore and Christopher Walken wearing one in &quot;A View To A Kill&quot;.

When they announced the feature of sharing your heartbeat with your partner via vibrate, both my girlfriend and I went &#x27;eeeeew&#x27;. Some things shouldn&#x27;t be done through technology, just like that Japanese remote kissing device :)

Seems like a complete reversal. You have the watch-like Motorola running Android and looking like an actual watch, and here is Apples watch that looks like a refined Pebble and has quirky stuff like quick exchange bands that were previously more of the Android domain.

Maybe I&#x27;m missing the point with these new devices, but I can&#x27;t be the only one not interested in ever wearing a watch again.

Possibly the ugliest of all smartwatches, useless for the majority of people out there, not likely to be on the wrists of most of the target demographic (they already own watches and fitness bands), and incredibly expensive. Not sure how many people need a watch to tell them that their phone is ringing.<p>Good job, Apple. While I&#x27;m sure there will be some adherents who will buy whatever you will produce, the Android watch makers will already be on their next iteration AND will have seen your specs to boot. Never thought I&#x27;d say this, but Apple has fallen WAY behind in terms of product design.

Me personally, I don&#x27;t see myself ever wearing a watch, but if I was, I would be annoyed about that crown thing being on the right side of the watch.<p>As a more or less leftie, wearing a purely non interactive element on the left hand as it is custom for watches is ok, but having to interact with that crown thing using my right hand feels wrong.<p>I could probably get used to it, but then, I can doost things with both hands, but I can imagine some left handed people having trouble with this (or obscuring their display when using it with the left hand)

I&#x27;m skeptical about a few things - mostly regarding the dial. They are trying to replace pinch-to-zoom, but how does it know where to zoom? Also, the main UI screen with all of the apps looks ridiculous. They don&#x27;t want you touching the watch, unless it&#x27;s to click on a tiny app icon?<p>I need to see this in person.

Three things:<p>1. No word on battery. This has been a huge problem for other (sometimes larger) watches. Does it have to be charged daily?<p>2. More expensive than the competition ($350 Vs. $250 and $150, for the Galaxy Gear+Moto 360&#x2F;Pebble+Sony Smartwatch).<p>3. They release in &quot;early 2015&quot; so miss this Christmas holiday season which MIGHT negatively impact adoption (or not, dunno).<p>4. iPhone only. I understand their reasoning but this will definitely limit adoption somewhat (not really too surprising however).<p>The battery question is the biggest ??? hanging over this. A watch that can barely last a day (e.g. Moto 360) is a huge negative to a lot of people, myself included.<p>That&#x27;s one area where the Pebble really excelled. With its eInk display, the screen was always &quot;on&quot; and it would run for several days on a single charge. We need a combination LCD&#x2F;eInk panel to get the best of both.

Terrible design.<p>The high-end customers you desire will never abandon their shiny Swiss watches for this.<p>The low-end customers will (once again) be claimed by Samsung.<p>I didn&#x27;t really like him, but Jobs was indeed a visionary. Apple is losing ground (alarmingly rapidly, I might add) after him. May he rest in peace.

To sum up: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

&quot;Watch&quot;, &quot;Watch Edition&quot;, &quot;Watch Sport&quot; - The bad Chinese knockoffs already have their naming taken care of...

How I miss Steve Jobs. He would never allow a POS like this to be revealed.

Ah, screw this. I was hoping for 1) A round watch. Indeed, it looks geeky at best. 2) More talk about health options (sleep tracking?). Besides, after all the specialists Apple hired, it just measures your heartbeat and walking distance. An iPhone with an M chip can do that (OK, you won&#x27;t probably have it with you all the time, especially when jogging), but still. And instead there&#x27;s a load of talk about emoji, causing another user&#x27;s watch to vibrate, notifications, etc.<p>I would&#x27;ve been fine with less functionality app-wise, a nicer overall look and a lower price. I don&#x27;t need to watch photos and read twitter on my watch (it still needs an iPhone for that, right? So what&#x27;s the friggin&#x27; point?)<p>The wireless things like payments and opening hotel rooms are kinda cool, though, but then again, I&#x27;d probably be too lazy&#x2F;paranoid to enter the data into the watch than to get out my wallet&#x2F;hotel room key.

I can see it as being slightly useful to monitor heart rate and piloting the mp3 player, occasionally. But certainly not worth the cost and the burden (one more device to recharge and carry around). Also, a watch is a personal item. I wouldn&#x27;t like to have the same watch as everybody else.<p>I wonder if they&#x27;ll find a market for this.

It&#x27;s still a little geeky looking - but much, much less geeky looking than the competitors. I would personally prefer a round face but I can understand how that make it harder to do such a useful&#x2F;interactive UI. Round face is fine for notifications but not as good if you&#x27;re interacting.

Left handed people are kinda screwed with this thing.

Don&#x27;t see how this fits with Apple&#x27;s core competency—creating a hardware device in a category where competitive devices have poor usability and limited function. This is Apple&#x27;s first &quot;me too&quot; mobile product, as far as I can see.

I am liking the idea of using the crown to help navigate around the interface. Glad they thought about it a lot more vs just compressing the phone down into a smaller UI (similar to the small iPod was). Also, how smoothly did those icons on the home screen move around? For some reason I found that really impressive, now to find out what the battery life is like (nice use of MagSafe as well for charging, IMO)<p>Not a fan of those animated emoji at all. Not sure why they included those tbh.

Anyone else have or remember the universal HomeLink transmitters that came in cars? Your car had a button that could &quot;learn&quot; the sequence from most garage door openers, apartment gate clickers, and the like.<p>I would love for this watch to be able to be able to clone all the various NFC-type items and building access cards people carry around. I suspect there are considerable technical and legal obstacles to this, but hey, there&#x27;s an API!

No &quot;visible&quot; Apple logo? Now, that&#x27;s strange.

Too bad about it requiring a phone. I was hoping to be able to ditch my phone and talk with a watch paired to a blue tooth headset. I&#x27;ll keep dreaming.

This is an Apple watch so they&#x27;ll make billions of dollars out of it, no doubt. It looks like a good product too. But it doesn&#x27;t have anything special compared to android based smartwatches, not even a round shaped one, plus I prefer google now for smart alerts. Still, of course it&#x27;ll sell well and you&#x27;ll still be able to install google now on it I guess.

We&#x27;ll have to wait until a tear-down comes out, but there&#x27;s no way this costs $350 to make. Hasn&#x27;t apple&#x27;s strategy always been to sell hardware with a healthy margin and make almost nothing off their software ecosystem. Could this signal a change?<p>Even assuming this watch becomes insanely popular, will it really drive more iPhone sales?

The marketing hype is ridiculous and the fanboys are going to be unbearable:<p>Ion strengthened glass.<p>18K Gold developed to be twice as hard as standard gold.

:( I was really hoping for something more impressive. This doesn&#x27;t even hold up to the Moto 360.

At the end of the announcement they mentioned using it for NFC payments. But anyone have an idea how that would work without the thumbprint scanner of the iPhone? It seemed like that was one of the key features of the Apple Pay announcement earlier in the keynote.

I&#x27;m excited to see more about inductive charging. They showed anything about it on the presentation (I couldn&#x27;t watch).<p>And also, it is said that requires an iPhone. Does it have to be nearby it? Are the phone and the watch always connected?

I rather prefer the Garmin Fit. Battery life is almost a year. It does only 2 things: whether I am active enough and sleeping enough. Do we really need to have notifications on the watch. Not sure. May be i am too old.

Apple Watch has NFC - now that is something none of the Android watches have. Don&#x27;t pull your phone or wallet out, pay with your wrist. But by early 2015, Android Wear will catch up.

Looks like a beautiful product. Unclear to me why anyone would want one. Much like Google Glasses, I&#x27;m straining to think of a compelling use case in my own life.

I&#x27;m buying at least 2. One for me, and one for my girlfriend. I may also get one for my mom.<p>Mine is for development. I see 10x returns easily, possibly 100x.

I think I&#x27;ll stick with my jawbone up for now...<p>What I think is interesting, however, is what the apple watch will look like 5 years from now.

$350? That&#x27;s fairly pricey!

As someone who uses the NikeFuel, I&#x27;ve gotta say this watch is COMPLICATED.

News overload: TC Disrupt, Hacker News, Product Hunt, Apple Event!!!

Finally, someone not trying to mimic analogue watches.

Sorry, I just had to be the one to say it. If SJ were presenting, he would have focused 10 minutes on how this device was the best and most precise thing at telling time. He would have shown how the hardware surpassed anything a mechanical watch would have ever done and it would be the time&#x2F;watch nerds dream device.<p>With all the compromises in size and battery life, this is what you would gain in return for it. Instead, it was sold as a &quot;me too&quot;, complementary device, just with Apple magic thrown in there.<p>So now in the end, I don&#x27;t need a mini-iphone on my wrist or do I want one. I can just as easily pull the phone out of my pocket as it takes the same amount of time.<p>Such a shame really, because it&#x27;s obvious that Apple had their brightest engineers work long hours on it.