iWatch expected to ship in April

[Kaido]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/27/apple-watch-april-tim-cook/

 

[TheStu]

AppleWatch

 

[Eug]

Is anyone here actually going to get this? I most definitely won't.

 

[vi edit]

Is anyone here actually going to get this? I most definitely won't.

It's going to be released 7 months after the announcement. I think any interest in originally has since waned. Wearables as a whole are too raw of a product and too expensive for the little bit of additional functionality they provide.

I think most people at this point have realized they can still continue to function on a daily basis without a $400+ novelty on their arm.

 

[JAG87]

The classy thing to do would have been to release a nice looking analog watch (for which I would easily pay $400 anyway), with useful features such as Haptic feedback for notifications, NFC for apple pay, and of course sensors galore to measure health. At the very most I would have made the watch's dial with e-ink so you could have different looking dials and see who the notifications are from. That's it.

For me, Apple went completely in the wrong direction with this. A crown for user input? What year is this? They overdid it with this one, they tried to re-invent a product that people use for nothing besides a fashion accessory nowadays. And it looks ugly as hell.

 

[Kaido]

AppleWatch

FWIW, everyone IRL I know calls it the iWatch, same with the iTouch. It's not official, but it's what's generally used.

 

[Kaido]

Is anyone here actually going to get this? I most definitely won't.

No, my #1 rule with Apple is "never buy first-generation hardware"

I think it's neat, but they need to fix the battery life. I love my Jawbone UP24 because it gets 2 full weeks of battery life...I only ever have to charge it up twice a month. Granted, it's not as useful as an Apple watch, but as a wearable, I'd hate to have to remember to charge it up every single day like my phone. What's the point of sleep tracking if you've got it on your charger?

Also, my buddy got the Samsung Gear watch, and I will admit, it's actually pretty awesome. It's a generation away from being really smooth, but the promise is there...really neat.

 

[Kaido]

It's going to be released 7 months after the announcement. I think any interest in originally has since waned. Wearables as a whole are too raw of a product and too expensive for the little bit of additional functionality they provide.

I think most people at this point have realized they can still continue to function on a daily basis without a $400+ novelty on their arm.

Yeah, that was their problem...it needed to be available for pre-order ASAP with delivery by the end of the month. Technology geeks view this stuff as impulse buys. Waiting gives you too much time to think about it & decide to wait for the next generation.

imo, I think the best design would be a Microsoft Band with an e-ink screen. You'd get outside viewability, better battery life, the convenient under-wrist horizontal viewscreen, plus whatever notifications you wanted.

 

[Kaido]

The classy thing to do would have been to release a nice looking analog watch (for which I would easily pay $400 anyway), with useful features such as Haptic feedback for notifications, NFC for apple pay, and of course sensors galore to measure health. At the very most I would have made the watch's dial with e-ink so you could have different looking dials and see who the notifications are from. That's it.

Yup, I think that would have been a better first-generation choice. Then, when all of the other bands are getting shot down, they have a solid product, and a year later, introduce a color-screen version with good battery life.

Color e-ink would also be amazing, especially since they can curve it now. You'd actually be able to see the screen outside in the sun!

 

[Printer Bandit]

http://store.swatch.com/watches/dig...DEjjElLQYmK-ySBG3XzwrV5zPrl4jX1j28xoCZGHw_wcB

 

[Spicedaddy]

I don't wear a watch, but if I did I'd get a nice Citizen or something that would look nice 10 years from now. The Apple Watch will look cheap and stupid in a year.

Why use a tiny screen when I have a 5" phone in my pocket.

 

[Printer Bandit]

this is still my fav. watch from 1989.

i would get a hard on if i ever saw one in mint condition and with the orginal wrist band (be willing to pay 4 figures for it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64jZSoNcJoo

 

[mmntech]

The AppleWatch is probably the first new Apple product in a long time that I have genuinely no interest in. It's chunky, expensive, ugly, and it'll be obsolete within a year.

You can tell a lot has changed at Apple since Steve Jobs died. The iWatch is very much a reactionary product to the Galaxy Gear. Plus, if Jobs were still around, it would have been up for pre-order right after the announcement and shipping just a few weeks after that. Heads would have rolled had they delayed it this long.

 

[Eug]

The AppleWatch is probably the first new Apple product in a long time that I have genuinely no interest in. It's chunky, expensive, ugly, and it'll be obsolete within a year.

That about sums up my view of it.

 

[JEDIYoda]

this is still my fav. watch from 1989.

i would get a hard on if i ever saw one in mint condition and with the orginal wrist band (be willing to pay 4 figures for it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64jZSoNcJoo

rofl...I se those all the time out here...in Pawn shops and even Goodwill....

 

[Commodus]

The AppleWatch is probably the first new Apple product in a long time that I have genuinely no interest in. It's chunky, expensive, ugly, and it'll be obsolete within a year.

You can tell a lot has changed at Apple since Steve Jobs died. The iWatch is very much a reactionary product to the Galaxy Gear. Plus, if Jobs were still around, it would have been up for pre-order right after the announcement and shipping just a few weeks after that. Heads would have rolled had they delayed it this long.

No, it's not reactionary at all. The company stated that development started roughly three years before the announcement, or sometime in 2011. If anything, the obviously rushed nature of the Galaxy Gear suggests that Samsung hurried its smartwatch to market on the assumption that Apple would beat it to the punch. And given how every Samsung smartwatch has flopped so far, I don't think Apple was reacting to much.

Also, you've clearly forgotten how Steve Jobs worked. Apple unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, and shipped it in June; it announced the iPad in January 2010, and shipped it in April. See a pattern? When Apple enters a category, a wait time of months is typical, not rare. He was also the sort who'd rather ship late than meet an arbitrary deadline. A good-but-late product is still good; if you ship a bad product quickly, you may never overcome that poor first impression.

 

[mmntech]

No, it's not reactionary at all. The company stated that development started roughly three years before the announcement, or sometime in 2011.

That's the official company line but I'm not sure I believe it.

 

[dud]

IPass ...

 

[saeror]

lol

 

[HomerSapien]

I have a phone. I do not need something else to tell me the time.

 

[lucia]

Apple fights are silly and nobody wins. It is kind of amusing that some things as high quality as Apple products are almost the new generic, but I give them props for getting a lot of other companies to bring up their game.

 

[ControlD]

I don't know. The only thing I see really as a potential problem for the Apple Watch is price, but that doesn't seem to be a huge issue with Apple products in general.

I was in the "smart watches are stupid" camp as well. My wife bought me a Pebble for Christmas and honestly, it's awesome. It's amazing how many people still come up to me and want to know about the watch. I think it will only take a small amount of people to start wearing the Apple Watch and things will start to gain momentum.

I just don't know about the price. The Pebble is an easy purchase at $99. It is also not a device that locks you into either Apple or Android. The Apple Watch at $349 (? can't remember the price for sure) is a tougher sell and will only appeal to people that never plan on switching platforms.

 

[ponyo]

It's going to be released 7 months after the announcement. I think any interest in originally has since waned. Wearables as a whole are too raw of a product and too expensive for the little bit of additional functionality they provide.

I think most people at this point have realized they can still continue to function on a daily basis without a $400+ novelty on their arm.

This is basically my thought. I would've bought one last year. Now I think I can wait and see if it's truly great. But I don't think it is and think the whole wearable concept has long ways to go. If I had faith in iWatch and the wearable sector, I would buy stock in InvenSense right now but I don't. I'm still watching the category with interest to see if the hype is real and can be sustained.

 

[poofyhairguy]

think the whole wearable concept has long ways to go.

Maybe for some. I couldn't live without my Wear device now. Well I could, but it would be like if I took your smartphone. I use it ALL the time, and it has been such a benefit for me in so many situations that I feel it is the biggest improvement in the mobile experience since dual-core hit.

With that said, when I bought my G Watch I knew I was paying to be an early adopter and that within two years there would be watches that would be way better. I just didn't want to wait the two years, so I got the thing as cheap as I could (around $100) so that way at most I am "wasting" $50 a year or so when I toss it for a better model. That money is worth it for me to have that improvement in my life (even if its not as good as it will be) for the two years I otherwise wouldn't.

If I had put $350 into it then that would be a different story. I would have wanted a device that was EVERYTHING that is obvious that will come in this segment- OLED, round screens, NFC, etc. The Apple Watch with that square screen already looks dated before it launches. That would make me very nervous about the waste value being a lot higher.

 

[Commodus]

That's the official company line but I'm not sure I believe it.

That's roughly the ballpark for large Apple projects. When Jobs took the stage for the iPhone event at the start of 2007, he said "I've been waiting two and a half years for this." It shipped the phone in June, or around three years after work started.

And you have to ask... where's the evidence that Apple saw the Galaxy Gear, said "oh damn, SMARTWATCHES" and developed the Apple Watch from scratch in the space of a year? If it were rushed, the company wouldn't be waiting until April to ship.

Besides, the notion that Apple is reacting to the Gear partly originates in that same revisionist history which pretends that the iPhone was an LG Prada copy (despite no official pictures emerging until *after* the iPhone event) and that Google was a pure font of originality. I'm not saying you think this way, but there are a lot of diehard Android fans who I suspect would break out in hives if they had to admit that Apple develops great ideas all on its own.