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Apple Watch: Initial Thoughts and Observations

121 points by rkudeshi 12y ago

jedanbik 12y ago
I can't wait to see the watches Casio and Nixon release next year.
tlb 12y ago
The combination of solid gold and the obsolescence period of wearable electronics is uncharted territory.
- nevster 12y ago
  It'll be fun to have the iFixit teardown! Given the cost of parts and assuming the chunk of gold accounts for more than 90% of the price, some sort of trade in system should cover this problem.
  - bhousel 12y ago
    It'll be more fun to see the Will It Blend...
- ojbyrne 12y ago
  Perhaps keep the bracelet, upgrade the body.
- TheCondor 12y ago
  For, what is effectively, an iphone accessory...
- 51Cards 12y ago
  Agreed, I don't see any decent percentage of even the high end market investing that much in a watch that will be largely obsolete in 2 years tops. You buy a Rolex to have it for years and pass it down. A $5000 watch that no one will want in 2 years is not a wise investment.
  - freshyill 12y ago
    Even if the electronics are obsolete, you've still got a chunk of gold hanging off your wrist. Gruber mentions this, and raises the possibility of trade-ins. They do it with phones, and it makes sense for watches made of solid gold.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      The only way you could make this work would be to make the electronics swappable out of the chassis, to give the object some sort of historical permanence for the owner. Of course, if you could do that though, then you're not really in the smartwatch business, since it would mean anyone could make compatible wrist-bands. Conversely - that might not be a bad business to be in.
      - freshyill 12y ago
        Well if it comes down to the bands, you just know there will be knockoffs. As for the enclosure itself, Apple seems really proud of their manufacturing process for these things. If the guts of the thing are swappable (even if only by Apple), it might be tough for anybody else to come up with a comparable knockoff.
    - lazylizard 12y ago
      i've never owned a gold watch(but have bought a couple of gold coins before) so i'm curious. do they come with assay certs and some sort of cert that say how much gold is present(like, in ounces)? and also, isn't it a little bit impractical in reality as well? gold being a soft metal will wear out if you wear it? then there could be less gold than what it says on the cert?
  - jnevill 12y ago
    That was brought up in Gruber's post as well. What is more audacious then dropping 10k on something that will be obsolete in 2 years. There's an audience for that kind of ridiculous spending and you can bet people will notice a 10000 dollar Gold iWatch strapped to your wrist and know that you are someone with so much money that having an obsolete piece of technology that costs 10k is no big deal.
- pvarangot 12y ago
  Maybe they are going to offer hardware upgrades for the top tier models. Luxury mechanical watches need service too, it's a very standard thing in the industry. Apple can offer a CPU/screen/sensor improvement every two years for about a thousand dollars for the luxury models and owners would pay it as they pay the water seal replacement for their Omegas and Rolexes... only Apple's margins are going to be sky high because it may be an easy thing done by a grunt in a tech service shop, and luxury brands have to send your watch to highly skilled engineers sometimes in another country. EDIT: I posted before finishing the article, Gruber thinks Apple may upgrade the electronics too, but for "hundreds" of dollars.
  - letstryagain 12y ago
    I feel like the most popular hardware upgrade would be 'making it thinner'...
    - nextstep 12y ago
      That's why I imagine Apple will somehow market a trade-in program. As Gruber writes, the gold watches will retain a lot of their value just from the metals in the case and bracelet.
      - letstryagain 12y ago
        Yea but not $5k worth. The Watch according to my calculations might contain about $1k in gold. So if they sell it at $6k like Gruber thinks, they won't be able to give you back much of that on trade in. Most people would probably just keep the watch with those prices.
- comatose_kid 12y ago
  Older models become collectible, like other luxury watches?
  - calciphus 12y ago
    Perhaps, though "check out my slow, non-functional slabs of Apple tech"... Apple abandons devices from OS upgrades and compatibility, batteries lose their charge. It'll very quickly (in terms of "collectibles") become a gold bar with a black rectangle in the middle.
tlipeep 12y ago
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
- jkubicek 12y ago
  I thought he was pretty clear when he said > If it actually doesn’t do much more, or allow much more, than what they demonstrated on stage last week, I am indeed going to be deeply disappointed, and I’ll be concerned about the entire direction of the company as a whole. But I get the impression that they’ve only shown us the tip of the functional iceberg, simply because they wanted to reveal the hardware — particularly the digital crown — on their own terms. The software they can keep secret longer, because it doesn’t enter the hands of the Asian supply chain. He thinks Apple is holding some details close to the vest and he has a plausible reason for why. Say what you will about Gruber's Apple partisanship, but he's always been great at reading between the lines of Apple's publicity events.
  - tlipeep 12y ago
    That's wishful thinking from Gruber so he can withhold judgement/criticism. Apple clearly demonstrated the fundamental functionality of their Watch and the hardware does determine the software — they have a hardware button dedicated to one particular feature ffs. Any additional functionality via WatchKit will at best be supplemental. It'd take a while for iOS developers to get to grips with the new paradigm. Furthermore, in his haste to differentiate Apple from the competition > 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. Call me biased if you want, but I think Android Wear is simply the result of the rest of the industry trying to get out in front of Apple, out of fear of how far behind they were when the iPhone dropped in 2007. On the surface, they do look like the same basic thing: small color LCD touchscreens on your wrist. But all Android Wear devices are larger and clunkier than the larger 42mm Apple Watch, and none of them are even close to the smaller 38mm one. Is there anyone who would dispute that Apple Watch is far more appealing to women than any other smartwatch on the market? The new Sony Smart watch(1) already has more functionality (gps, waterproof, longer estimated battery, transreflective screen visible in sunlight) than the specs of the AppleWatch while the Asus ZenWatch(2) matches it in feminine looks (if not in expensive materials). Both will be out before the AppleWatch and likely for lower prices than the cheap entry-level AppleWatch. AndroidWear OEMs are iterating faster with a wider range of options. Gruber is comparing actual shipping products (Moto360) to promised unreleased products from Apple, indeed he's hoping Apple exceeds their promises. That's his bias showing (1) http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/smartwear/smartwatch-3-swr50/ http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/smartwear/smart... (2) http://www.asus.com/Phones/ASUS_ZenWatch_WI500Q/ http://www.asus.com/Phones/ASUS_ZenWatch_WI500Q/
blainsmith 12y ago
And yet it is still square and ugly because of it.
- Cookingboy 12y ago
  I mean, different people prefer different things, but there are plenty of high end watches that's square/rectangle, even though circular ones are more common. Even with the Apple Watch, some of them look beautiful imo: http://i.imgur.com/qGvqIqK.png http://i.imgur.com/qGvqIqK.png http://www.iphoneheat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/apple-watch-gold-edition.jpg http://www.iphoneheat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/apple-w... http://images.chinatopix.com/data/images/full/11317/apple-watch-gold-edition.jpg?w=600 http://images.chinatopix.com/data/images/full/11317/apple-wa... When it comes to watch design, circle != automatically good looking, in my personal opinion, the Moto 360 is very cool for being circular, but the casing itself looks like one of those $100 dirt cheap Movado-lookalikes that you can get from an outlet mall.
  - EmmaGin 12y ago
    Those are all renders of AppleWatch (the initial Moto 360 renders were equally fantastical). Are there bystander photos of the working AppleWatch models that look as beautiful as the renders? I'm interested in the cheaper plastic model in particular as that's likely the one I'm getting — and the price makes it a fairer comparison to the Moto 360
    - grecy 12y ago
      Tons of actual photos here. Looks as good as the renders to me http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/hodinkee-apple-watch-review http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/hodinkee-apple-watch-review
- adventured 12y ago
  I actually like some square and rectangle watch designs, but in this case I dislike the particular overall shape of the Apple Watch. It has something to do with the combination of the thickness, and the specific rounding of the corners and sides, that I find off-putting aesthetically. I want to wear a watch, not a gadget. So I want the technology to be submissive to the watch. When you look at what is on my wrist, I want you to see a watch, not an iPhone mini-mini posing as a watch. We're still a decade away from this being possible.
drcode 12y ago
IT'S A F@#&ING KNOB! Just because you're Apple doesn't give you the right to call it a "digital crown".
- YuriNiyazov 12y ago
  As your comment rightfully deserves due to language and general non-contribution, you've been down-voted into oblivion. Nevertheless, educating the uninformed is a public service, so here goes: amongst professionals and connoisseurs in the watch industry, the "knob" is called a "crown", so they have every right to call it that; they didn't just make it up.
  - ossreality 12y ago
    then don't capitalize it.
  - drcode 12y ago
    To defend my position: They're not calling it a "crown", they're calling it a "digital crown", and digital knobs are common place objects that already have a name. If I build a car with a joystick instead of a steering wheel and call it a "digital steering wheel" everyone would say, "No, somebody invented that already, it's called a 'joystick'"... they would not say "I am going to educate the uninformed and tell them that among car connoisseurs, a joystick is called a steering wheel."
    - Watabou 12y ago
      And they would be right. Why? Because the joystick doesn't look the same as a steering wheel, so it's a stretch to call it a digital steering wheel (though you wouldn't exactly be wrong) The crown on watches and the crown on Apple Watch look the same. It's a crown with digital functionality. Thus, the digital crown.
    - YuriNiyazov 12y ago
      FWIW, I am surprised to discover that I am having this argument with someone whose work I've read and admire.
brentis 12y ago
Does it have a speaker? Let's make this the must have speaker like the iPad camera. (Never use either)
- gergles 12y ago
  It has both a speaker and a microphone!
- jgruber 12y ago
  Yes it has a speaker.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Kylekramer 12y ago
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 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.
- rtpg 12y ago
  > don't see how the overall point doesn't equally apply to the Apple Watch. This is something that nobody seems to want to acknowledge in (for lack of a better word) the Apple fanclub. If you look at the features of the Apple watch, they are basically the same as every other smartwatch released by Samsung and motorola (except for the NFC/Apple Pay stuff, which I am genuinly excited for). People are trying really hard to differentiate Apple Watch from the Android watches, but it all sounds so absurd because they are so similar (apart from the home screen zoom-UI). Even Apple made their watch square! And we know that Android Wear kind of sucks. So if they're not that different, Apple Watch will probably not be that great. The "digital crown" input mechanism is interesting. The Watch seems to have a crisp (tiny) screen. And the wrist bands look cool. But unless there's going to be some crazy battery in there, there's nothing revolutionary about this, and its functionally the same as the 6 watches that Samsung has released, and will probably be almost as underwhelming.
  - elblanco 12y ago
    > And we know that Android Wear kind of sucks. So if they're not that different, Apple Watch will probably not be that great. that's really the salient point isn't it? Apple's playing catchup, but shooting for targets that probably aren't all that great to begin with.
    - Watabou 12y ago
ossreality 12y ago
http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2014/09/android-wear-moving-forward-like.html http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2014/09/android-wear-mov... I feel like a lot of people haven't seen this recent announcement.
swang 12y ago
"The iPad/iPhone is soooo egalitarian!" "Is Apple losing the egalitarianism it never had? No, it had Macs, it was never egalitarian!" 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. 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.
- bane 12y ago
  Gruber deserves a prize of some sort of most concentrated example of cognitive dissonance ever put into writing for this post. It's really one of the worst of the worst I've seen.
  - jnevill 12y ago
    I am no Gruber fan and I am no Apple fanboi, but I think his points are dead on in this post. He is hedging his bets, repeatedly, but given that we know so little about the Apple Watch, that seems reasonable. At any rate, the main point of the article being that the iWatch is not a play into the Wearables market, but rather a move into the much more lucrative luxury watch market. Given how bloated that market is and the value that the Apple name bestows on its products, I think that it's a reasonable assumption. That being said, his "Apple is not a technology company" line is weak. That's like trying to argue that WalMart isn't in the retail business, but rather distribution. You see... they do distribution better than any other company in their space (which is retail) therefore they are in distribution.
    - bane 12y ago
      I respectfully disagree with your generous assessment of this post. I think if he had basically said something more like "IMHO, Apple Watch looks better to me than any of the Android devices out there" I'd be fine. But all this weird egalitarian bullshit, and backpedaling on his previous claims of disappointment was impossibly tiring. But I do agree that If there's a real point to made in his conjecture of where Apple is going with their prices, it's not only pushing upscale, but in a more Apple-y way, pulling upscale down. Meaning, bringing luxury items and buying habits into the mass market. Loads of people can afford a $500 watch, they just don't buy them because a) They don't need watches anymore b) If they do, there's a $20 watch at Ross/Marshalls that looks good enough and will get the job done. I think Apple is going to build a market for smart watches in a way that Google and Android can't because of their superior marketing and built in buying market. In 5 years, the thought of not owning a smartwatch will seem odd, but now the entire market will be in the $500 on up space instead of fighting it out at the lower price points. After all, Apple has built entire markets on things that we got along just fine without, mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, why not watches?
mladenkovacevic 12y ago
I have no interest in the exclusive "I make more money than you" objects so let's talk about that digital crown instead. 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. 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. 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.
- bane 12y ago
  > put a touch-sensitive pad along the whole side of the Apple Watch That's exactly what I thought when I first saw it explained. Coming from the iPod and all this touch sensitive stuff (and then the "hard tap" being introduced here) a physical thingamabob to fiddle with seems really odd.
  - stefanu 12y ago
    What about a cold weather? You can still turn the crown in gloves when it is freezing.
    - bane 12y ago
      My Note 3 works just fine with gloves on (there's a screen sensitivity mode intended just for that use-case)...and I'm not talking about using it with the pen. Touchscreen tech has advanced quite a bit since the old days. The demos of the watch show a mixed use-case. The crown for some things, the screen to complete the task. So unless they're supporting similar screen tech as what Samsung is featuring now, the glove use-case doesn't matter.
- 12y ago
dilap 12y ago
Here's a fun sport for Apple watchers, aficionados and detractors alike: has Apple jumped the shark yet in the post-Steve era? (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.) Let's play anyway. 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! 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. And then, on top of that, they bragged a bit about how many features the Watch was going to have. 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. 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: 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. If that's true, that means, what, Apple views secret-unveilings as its core principle? 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. Certainly hope to end up eating crow on this, though. :)
- IBM 12y ago
  Much like the iPhone announcement then.
  - blinkingled 12y ago
    Ugh, I am not sure if you are being sarcastic but it in fact is exactly unlike the original iPhone announcement. The OG iPhone solved a long standing problem that no one else had managed to solve elegantly. It did few things and it did them better than anything else before it. Apple Watch - well your turn to tell me how it is anything like the iPhone - Apple actually did not tell us what problem it is solving - why competitors' watches are horrible, why I need the Apple Watch etc. That's the worrying thing about this.
pbreit 12y ago
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.
marze 12y ago
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. HN is broken.
robszumski 12y ago
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? An interesting thought for the future: 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.
cyphunk 12y ago
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.
bigtex 12y ago
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? http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch-bozo http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch-bozo

121 points by rkudeshi 12y ago

jedanbik 12y ago

I can't wait to see the watches Casio and Nixon release next year.

tlb 12y ago

The combination of solid gold and the obsolescence period of wearable electronics is uncharted territory.

nevster 12y ago
It'll be fun to have the iFixit teardown! Given the cost of parts and assuming the chunk of gold accounts for more than 90% of the price, some sort of trade in system should cover this problem.
- bhousel 12y ago
  It'll be more fun to see the Will It Blend...
ojbyrne 12y ago
Perhaps keep the bracelet, upgrade the body.
TheCondor 12y ago
For, what is effectively, an iphone accessory...
51Cards 12y ago
Agreed, I don't see any decent percentage of even the high end market investing that much in a watch that will be largely obsolete in 2 years tops. You buy a Rolex to have it for years and pass it down. A $5000 watch that no one will want in 2 years is not a wise investment.
- freshyill 12y ago
  Even if the electronics are obsolete, you've still got a chunk of gold hanging off your wrist. Gruber mentions this, and raises the possibility of trade-ins. They do it with phones, and it makes sense for watches made of solid gold.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    The only way you could make this work would be to make the electronics swappable out of the chassis, to give the object some sort of historical permanence for the owner. Of course, if you could do that though, then you're not really in the smartwatch business, since it would mean anyone could make compatible wrist-bands. Conversely - that might not be a bad business to be in.
    - freshyill 12y ago
      Well if it comes down to the bands, you just know there will be knockoffs. As for the enclosure itself, Apple seems really proud of their manufacturing process for these things. If the guts of the thing are swappable (even if only by Apple), it might be tough for anybody else to come up with a comparable knockoff.
  - lazylizard 12y ago
    i've never owned a gold watch(but have bought a couple of gold coins before) so i'm curious. do they come with assay certs and some sort of cert that say how much gold is present(like, in ounces)? and also, isn't it a little bit impractical in reality as well? gold being a soft metal will wear out if you wear it? then there could be less gold than what it says on the cert?
- jnevill 12y ago
  That was brought up in Gruber's post as well. What is more audacious then dropping 10k on something that will be obsolete in 2 years. There's an audience for that kind of ridiculous spending and you can bet people will notice a 10000 dollar Gold iWatch strapped to your wrist and know that you are someone with so much money that having an obsolete piece of technology that costs 10k is no big deal.
pvarangot 12y ago
Maybe they are going to offer hardware upgrades for the top tier models. Luxury mechanical watches need service too, it's a very standard thing in the industry. Apple can offer a CPU/screen/sensor improvement every two years for about a thousand dollars for the luxury models and owners would pay it as they pay the water seal replacement for their Omegas and Rolexes... only Apple's margins are going to be sky high because it may be an easy thing done by a grunt in a tech service shop, and luxury brands have to send your watch to highly skilled engineers sometimes in another country. EDIT: I posted before finishing the article, Gruber thinks Apple may upgrade the electronics too, but for "hundreds" of dollars.
- letstryagain 12y ago
  I feel like the most popular hardware upgrade would be 'making it thinner'...
  - nextstep 12y ago
    That's why I imagine Apple will somehow market a trade-in program. As Gruber writes, the gold watches will retain a lot of their value just from the metals in the case and bracelet.
    - letstryagain 12y ago
      Yea but not $5k worth. The Watch according to my calculations might contain about $1k in gold. So if they sell it at $6k like Gruber thinks, they won't be able to give you back much of that on trade in. Most people would probably just keep the watch with those prices.
comatose_kid 12y ago
Older models become collectible, like other luxury watches?
- calciphus 12y ago
  Perhaps, though "check out my slow, non-functional slabs of Apple tech"... Apple abandons devices from OS upgrades and compatibility, batteries lose their charge. It'll very quickly (in terms of "collectibles") become a gold bar with a black rectangle in the middle.

tlipeep 12y ago

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

jkubicek 12y ago
I thought he was pretty clear when he said > If it actually doesn’t do much more, or allow much more, than what they demonstrated on stage last week, I am indeed going to be deeply disappointed, and I’ll be concerned about the entire direction of the company as a whole. But I get the impression that they’ve only shown us the tip of the functional iceberg, simply because they wanted to reveal the hardware — particularly the digital crown — on their own terms. The software they can keep secret longer, because it doesn’t enter the hands of the Asian supply chain. He thinks Apple is holding some details close to the vest and he has a plausible reason for why. Say what you will about Gruber's Apple partisanship, but he's always been great at reading between the lines of Apple's publicity events.
- tlipeep 12y ago
  That's wishful thinking from Gruber so he can withhold judgement/criticism. Apple clearly demonstrated the fundamental functionality of their Watch and the hardware does determine the software — they have a hardware button dedicated to one particular feature ffs. Any additional functionality via WatchKit will at best be supplemental. It'd take a while for iOS developers to get to grips with the new paradigm. Furthermore, in his haste to differentiate Apple from the competition > 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. Call me biased if you want, but I think Android Wear is simply the result of the rest of the industry trying to get out in front of Apple, out of fear of how far behind they were when the iPhone dropped in 2007. On the surface, they do look like the same basic thing: small color LCD touchscreens on your wrist. But all Android Wear devices are larger and clunkier than the larger 42mm Apple Watch, and none of them are even close to the smaller 38mm one. Is there anyone who would dispute that Apple Watch is far more appealing to women than any other smartwatch on the market? The new Sony Smart watch(1) already has more functionality (gps, waterproof, longer estimated battery, transreflective screen visible in sunlight) than the specs of the AppleWatch while the Asus ZenWatch(2) matches it in feminine looks (if not in expensive materials). Both will be out before the AppleWatch and likely for lower prices than the cheap entry-level AppleWatch. AndroidWear OEMs are iterating faster with a wider range of options. Gruber is comparing actual shipping products (Moto360) to promised unreleased products from Apple, indeed he's hoping Apple exceeds their promises. That's his bias showing (1) http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/smartwear/smartwatch-3-swr50/ http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/smartwear/smart... (2) http://www.asus.com/Phones/ASUS_ZenWatch_WI500Q/ http://www.asus.com/Phones/ASUS_ZenWatch_WI500Q/

blainsmith 12y ago

And yet it is still square and ugly because of it.

Cookingboy 12y ago
I mean, different people prefer different things, but there are plenty of high end watches that's square/rectangle, even though circular ones are more common. Even with the Apple Watch, some of them look beautiful imo: http://i.imgur.com/qGvqIqK.png http://i.imgur.com/qGvqIqK.png http://www.iphoneheat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/apple-watch-gold-edition.jpg http://www.iphoneheat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/apple-w... http://images.chinatopix.com/data/images/full/11317/apple-watch-gold-edition.jpg?w=600 http://images.chinatopix.com/data/images/full/11317/apple-wa... When it comes to watch design, circle != automatically good looking, in my personal opinion, the Moto 360 is very cool for being circular, but the casing itself looks like one of those $100 dirt cheap Movado-lookalikes that you can get from an outlet mall.
- EmmaGin 12y ago
  Those are all renders of AppleWatch (the initial Moto 360 renders were equally fantastical). Are there bystander photos of the working AppleWatch models that look as beautiful as the renders? I'm interested in the cheaper plastic model in particular as that's likely the one I'm getting — and the price makes it a fairer comparison to the Moto 360
  - grecy 12y ago
    Tons of actual photos here. Looks as good as the renders to me http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/hodinkee-apple-watch-review http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/hodinkee-apple-watch-review
adventured 12y ago
I actually like some square and rectangle watch designs, but in this case I dislike the particular overall shape of the Apple Watch. It has something to do with the combination of the thickness, and the specific rounding of the corners and sides, that I find off-putting aesthetically. I want to wear a watch, not a gadget. So I want the technology to be submissive to the watch. When you look at what is on my wrist, I want you to see a watch, not an iPhone mini-mini posing as a watch. We're still a decade away from this being possible.

drcode 12y ago

IT'S A F@#&ING KNOB! Just because you're Apple doesn't give you the right to call it a "digital crown".

YuriNiyazov 12y ago
As your comment rightfully deserves due to language and general non-contribution, you've been down-voted into oblivion. Nevertheless, educating the uninformed is a public service, so here goes: amongst professionals and connoisseurs in the watch industry, the "knob" is called a "crown", so they have every right to call it that; they didn't just make it up.
- ossreality 12y ago
  then don't capitalize it.
- drcode 12y ago
  To defend my position: They're not calling it a "crown", they're calling it a "digital crown", and digital knobs are common place objects that already have a name. If I build a car with a joystick instead of a steering wheel and call it a "digital steering wheel" everyone would say, "No, somebody invented that already, it's called a 'joystick'"... they would not say "I am going to educate the uninformed and tell them that among car connoisseurs, a joystick is called a steering wheel."
  - Watabou 12y ago
    And they would be right. Why? Because the joystick doesn't look the same as a steering wheel, so it's a stretch to call it a digital steering wheel (though you wouldn't exactly be wrong) The crown on watches and the crown on Apple Watch look the same. It's a crown with digital functionality. Thus, the digital crown.
  - YuriNiyazov 12y ago
    FWIW, I am surprised to discover that I am having this argument with someone whose work I've read and admire.

brentis 12y ago

Does it have a speaker? Let's make this the must have speaker like the iPad camera. (Never use either)

gergles 12y ago
It has both a speaker and a microphone!
jgruber 12y ago
Yes it has a speaker.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Kylekramer 12y ago

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 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.

rtpg 12y ago
> don't see how the overall point doesn't equally apply to the Apple Watch. This is something that nobody seems to want to acknowledge in (for lack of a better word) the Apple fanclub. If you look at the features of the Apple watch, they are basically the same as every other smartwatch released by Samsung and motorola (except for the NFC/Apple Pay stuff, which I am genuinly excited for). People are trying really hard to differentiate Apple Watch from the Android watches, but it all sounds so absurd because they are so similar (apart from the home screen zoom-UI). Even Apple made their watch square! And we know that Android Wear kind of sucks. So if they're not that different, Apple Watch will probably not be that great. The "digital crown" input mechanism is interesting. The Watch seems to have a crisp (tiny) screen. And the wrist bands look cool. But unless there's going to be some crazy battery in there, there's nothing revolutionary about this, and its functionally the same as the 6 watches that Samsung has released, and will probably be almost as underwhelming.
- elblanco 12y ago
  > And we know that Android Wear kind of sucks. So if they're not that different, Apple Watch will probably not be that great. that's really the salient point isn't it? Apple's playing catchup, but shooting for targets that probably aren't all that great to begin with.
  - Watabou 12y ago

ossreality 12y ago

http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2014/09/android-wear-moving-forward-like.html http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2014/09/android-wear-mov... I feel like a lot of people haven't seen this recent announcement.

swang 12y ago

"The iPad/iPhone is soooo egalitarian!" "Is Apple losing the egalitarianism it never had? No, it had Macs, it was never egalitarian!" 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. 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.

bane 12y ago
Gruber deserves a prize of some sort of most concentrated example of cognitive dissonance ever put into writing for this post. It's really one of the worst of the worst I've seen.
- jnevill 12y ago
  I am no Gruber fan and I am no Apple fanboi, but I think his points are dead on in this post. He is hedging his bets, repeatedly, but given that we know so little about the Apple Watch, that seems reasonable. At any rate, the main point of the article being that the iWatch is not a play into the Wearables market, but rather a move into the much more lucrative luxury watch market. Given how bloated that market is and the value that the Apple name bestows on its products, I think that it's a reasonable assumption. That being said, his "Apple is not a technology company" line is weak. That's like trying to argue that WalMart isn't in the retail business, but rather distribution. You see... they do distribution better than any other company in their space (which is retail) therefore they are in distribution.
  - bane 12y ago
    I respectfully disagree with your generous assessment of this post. I think if he had basically said something more like "IMHO, Apple Watch looks better to me than any of the Android devices out there" I'd be fine. But all this weird egalitarian bullshit, and backpedaling on his previous claims of disappointment was impossibly tiring. But I do agree that If there's a real point to made in his conjecture of where Apple is going with their prices, it's not only pushing upscale, but in a more Apple-y way, pulling upscale down. Meaning, bringing luxury items and buying habits into the mass market. Loads of people can afford a $500 watch, they just don't buy them because a) They don't need watches anymore b) If they do, there's a $20 watch at Ross/Marshalls that looks good enough and will get the job done. I think Apple is going to build a market for smart watches in a way that Google and Android can't because of their superior marketing and built in buying market. In 5 years, the thought of not owning a smartwatch will seem odd, but now the entire market will be in the $500 on up space instead of fighting it out at the lower price points. After all, Apple has built entire markets on things that we got along just fine without, mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, why not watches?

mladenkovacevic 12y ago

I have no interest in the exclusive "I make more money than you" objects so let's talk about that digital crown instead. 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. 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. 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.

bane 12y ago
> put a touch-sensitive pad along the whole side of the Apple Watch That's exactly what I thought when I first saw it explained. Coming from the iPod and all this touch sensitive stuff (and then the "hard tap" being introduced here) a physical thingamabob to fiddle with seems really odd.
- stefanu 12y ago
  What about a cold weather? You can still turn the crown in gloves when it is freezing.
  - bane 12y ago
    My Note 3 works just fine with gloves on (there's a screen sensitivity mode intended just for that use-case)...and I'm not talking about using it with the pen. Touchscreen tech has advanced quite a bit since the old days. The demos of the watch show a mixed use-case. The crown for some things, the screen to complete the task. So unless they're supporting similar screen tech as what Samsung is featuring now, the glove use-case doesn't matter.
12y ago

dilap 12y ago

Here's a fun sport for Apple watchers, aficionados and detractors alike: has Apple jumped the shark yet in the post-Steve era? (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.) Let's play anyway. 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! 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. And then, on top of that, they bragged a bit about how many features the Watch was going to have. 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. 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: 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. If that's true, that means, what, Apple views secret-unveilings as its core principle? 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. Certainly hope to end up eating crow on this, though. :)

IBM 12y ago
Much like the iPhone announcement then.
- blinkingled 12y ago
  Ugh, I am not sure if you are being sarcastic but it in fact is exactly unlike the original iPhone announcement. The OG iPhone solved a long standing problem that no one else had managed to solve elegantly. It did few things and it did them better than anything else before it. Apple Watch - well your turn to tell me how it is anything like the iPhone - Apple actually did not tell us what problem it is solving - why competitors' watches are horrible, why I need the Apple Watch etc. That's the worrying thing about this.

pbreit 12y ago

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.

marze 12y ago

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. HN is broken.

robszumski 12y ago

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? An interesting thought for the future: 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.

cyphunk 12y ago

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.

bigtex 12y ago

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? http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch-bozo http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch-bozo