8 ms·

The Apple Watch

253 points by orteipid 11y ago

aleem 11y ago
I am quite excited about upgrading my watch experience and the next generation of connected devices, however, the biggest surprise for me is that Apple doesn't offer more gesture recognition. I always imagined the primary interface for shortcuts would be gestures such as waving away your arm to dismiss a message or flicking the wrist multiple times (if you try it right now, you can easily flick your wrist 3-4 times per second). It would make interaction that much easier and wrist flicking could even become a thing. One flick for health, two for time, etc. depending on the context. Another thing that could be mildly annoying for a lot of people is that it can only ever be operated by engaging both hands. Phone by contrast can easily be operated with one hand using the thumb. EDIT: If the watch has enough sensors, I am sure it could detect users not only flicking the wrist via rotation but also bending your hand down/up (which tends to pull/push the tendons on your wrist) though the watch would need to be worn snugly.
- robmcm 11y ago
  Hey Siri... No hands :)
- untog 11y ago
  (if you try it right now, you can easily flick your wrist 3-4 times per second). You'll also look very odd while you do it, which might have informed Apple not using it.
  - aleem 11y ago
    Haha, yes you're right. A person from a decade or two ago might find a lot of things odd such as taking selfies, Facebook checkins, talking on a bluetooth headset, holding a 5.5" phone to your ear when the 90s was all about miniaturisation, the shake-to-shuffle a song, etc. It's only an oddity because it's not common. I am sure that things will gravitate toward gestures as this space evolves. It just seems like a very convenient way to interface and offers the path of least resistance for users.
    - untog 11y ago
      It might become normal. But look at Google Glass - the "weirdness" attached to it absolutely had an effect on its success.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  I bet 5$ they tried it, but it gave too many false positives.
- freehunter 11y ago
  Flicking your wrist continuously can't be good for your joints...
q2 11y ago
Honest questions: How people can write such long articles? How many hours they might have spent in writing? Does anyone read it from the top to bottom completely? Is it not possible to express the whole thing in a small article without losing the gist? EDIT 1: Gruber's articles have lot of useful information,analysis and insights but I feel, current article is too lengthy. EDIT 2: Anandtech's reviews are also detailed but they are easy to select to go to required part of the review. Hope interface of DF may change in future.
- robmcm 11y ago
  It's not even complete, see the last reference to the interface. Oh and don't look up John Siracusa ;)
- skywhopper 11y ago
  Personally, I enjoyed reading through the article all the way very much. Gruber is not writing for people who want an answer to a particular question or who are looking for tabular comparisons. He gives you his experience with the watch, and a description how his opinions of various features changed after using them. He gives context for his opinions about it as a long-time watch-wearer, and detailed personal examples of its problems. I don't think a review that just gives an opinion without any context is useful. How can I judge the relevance to my life if I know nothing about the reviewer's? With something as personal and intimate as a watch, the details matter and the context matters.
- krallja 11y ago
  It's 11 pages long. You can't read that in one sitting?
ctdonath 11y ago
"Apple seemingly tries to enter markets at, or just after, that tipping point — when Moore’s Law and Apple’s ever-increasing engineering and manufacturing prowess allow them to produce a gadget-y computer that the computer-y gadgets from the established market leaders cannot compete with." A recurring event in the advance of technology. I saw it hit hard when Smith Corona's computer-y typewriters couldn't keep up with gadget-y word processing software, and the typewriter died. Likewise when computer-y photography (lots of image processing introduced into developing photos) lost favor with consumers vs gadget-y digital cameras. "the established market — watches — is not despised. They not only don’t suck, they are beloved. And the best and most-beloved watches aren’t even electronic. They’re purely mechanical — all gadget, no computer." Yet...all they do is tell time. Elegantly, yes, or cheaply, if you like...but time and little else. Attempts to add computer-y function failed for a decade, succumbing to horrible interfaces and anemic UIs; the author completely overlooks the computer-y phases which watches have gone thru (and failed miserably). That a $5 POS watch tells time more accurately, and with less maintenance, than my elegant $500 Movado or the improbable $500,000 watches seen on http://uncrate.com http://uncrate.com et al, was setting off warnings that the market was ripe for...something.
- Cookingboy 11y ago
  Your $500 Movado uses a cheap Quartz movement that costs about $5 anyway, so it's as reliable and accurate as any $5 POS :) Only mechanical watches require maintenance and are less accurate.
ThomPete 11y ago
Just like the iPhone wasn't a smarter phone but a smaller computer, I guess Apple Watch isn't a smarter watch but a smaller iPhone.
- brianpan 11y ago
  The iPhone was a computing device in a form factor that the market was able to relate to as a phone. The Apple Watch is a computing device in a form factor that the market will be able to relate to as a watch. 'Phone' and 'watch' are just entry points. The form factor, UI, and controls will dictate what it actually is. I'm fairly certain, NOT a smaller iPhone.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Not sure I understand. A laptop is a computer device, an iphone is a computer device and now a watch is a computer device. People wont buy Apple Watch because it's better watch just as they didn't buy the iPhone because it was a better phone. That is the point I was trying to make.
mikekij 11y ago
I'm a die-hard iPhone guy. I love when I meet someone, get their phone number, text them, and the message bubble is blue. I feel like we're in the same club. (Albeit a very large club.) However, I keep my phone in my pocket. Wearing a watch that millions of other people may have feels a bit weird to me. It's like taking that membership of the iPhone "club" and turning it into an external badge signifying membership. Watches become part of your visual identity, and I'm not sure that I want something that ubiquitous as part of mine.
- pluma 11y ago
  As opposed to people using their iPhones in public, using MBPs at conferences or wearing Beats headphones or those distinctive white Apple earplugs? This isn't exactly new. Teenagers were sticking white shoelaces in their ears before the iPhone was even a thing.
smegel 11y ago
I lose watches. Period. It's why I wear a near disposable $5 plastic eyesore from Target on my wrist. No way am I wearing a $500+ wrist computer to tell the time.
- kleer001 11y ago
  Same boat here. I lose jewelry. In my time I've worn earrings, ear cuffs, necklaces, dreadlock weaves, bolo ties, neck ties, zipper ties, hats, etc etc etc... they all get lost, they all get damaged quickly. And really, in the end, they just feel uncomfortable on my body. I haven't worn a watch in 15+ years and have never regretted it.
qmr 11y ago
People still pay attention to this guy?
51Cards 11y ago
Article aside for a moment, I find it fascinating that with this release so many people are discussing smart watches and their interfaces as something completely new with no established precedents. I've had my Pebble for almost 2 years now and my LG G watch for about 8 months. From my perspective this seems like a late-comer to a market that is already well under-way? I would expect more existing market comparison conversation. Edit: for the record I love both of them after being initially dubious about the usefulness of such a device.
- prawn 11y ago
  I suspect Apple have somehow framed the product for reviewers so the alternatives in the market don't come to mind, even if the reviewers don't realise that they're ignoring them. As one example, they could've picked recipients who they know haven't previously worn a smart watch.
  - aetherson 11y ago
    The Verge reviewer compared it to Android Wear.
- steveklabnik 11y ago
  Gruber explicitly discusses this in the piece, see the bit about 'Apple seemingly tries to enter markets at, or just after, that tipping point'.
- FusionGaming 11y ago
  I agree, I have had my Pebble for a year and it works perfectly. Tells me when I get an e-mail or text message. I also keep my phone on silent all the time since I can get the notifications directly and can decide if I need to reply or if I can ignore it for later. I can also check my stocks and there are tons of apps on the pebble appstore. The battery life is also very nice and lasts a full week. The SDK is also pretty nice, I've made some simple apps with it.
- npunt 11y ago
  Late to the party based on what timeframe? 2, 3, 5 years from now it won't look that way. There were mp3 players before the iPod (I had one! it sucked) and smartphones before the iPhone (I had one! it sucked as well). Early-adopter products exist in a niche where their shortcomings are accepted and embraced because people like their concept. But we can't mistake that for meeting the high standards of the broader consumer marketplace. Remember when the iPhone was released? There were other smartphones like the Treo and BlackBerry, but none worked the way the iPhone did. That's what defining a market is about - entering where there may be 'competition' but as soon as you release, nothing competes.
pchristensen 11y ago
"Without the Taptic Engine, Apple Watch is not a compelling device." This is why I value Gruber's reviews. He's unabashedly pro-Apple, but he's also critical and observant.
- prawn 11y ago
  Is he really being that critical if he observes their product would fail without something it already has? I know it's not a direct comparison, but you wouldn't call me insightfully critical if I noted that a car was not a compelling device without wheels.
  - atonse 11y ago
    Yes but this analogy only holds true if every other car has hexagonal wheels, and the apple watch "car" has circular ones.
    - lultimouomo 11y ago
      Yes but this makes the analogy a criticism of other cars, not the Apple one.
- rtpg 11y ago
  So the Taptic Engine is just rumble right? I know phones are different, but pretty much all my phones (Android) have had the whole "different vibrations for different notifications" thing for years. I don't know how Wear's ecosystem is, but I imagine it does the same. I understand he's not saying it's not present in the competition, but I'm trying to get what the fundamental differences are >When my phone vibrates, it feels like it’s telling me, Hey, I need you now. When the Apple Watch taps me, it feels like it’s telling me, Hey, when you get the chance, I’ve got something for you. I don't know, but if I get tapped on the wrist, that feels a lot more like a "hey I need you now" thing.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mschuster91 11y ago
A bit of sidelined, but still... > You simply hold the connector near the back of the watch, where magnets cause it to snap into place automatically. I would instantly buy a phone without a traditional connector port for headphone and USB - just metal pads flush with the surface (maybe laid in rubber to be watertight) and kept aligned by magnets. Seriously, the amount of devices failed due to either bent (e.g. during gaming) or rusted/dust-damaged Micro USB connectors (and don't forget the headphone connectors, where even the tiniest damage can be heard) is ridiculous. The only real option is to buy one of CATs smartphones or (iirc) one of the Galaxy series with protectors over the connectors - but again, the protectors start to annoy after a while. Too bad Apple holds a patent over MagSafe - and then doesn't even employ it in their phones!
- gburt 11y ago
  My Mio watch connects to its charger this way too. In the image below, you see both the heart rate monitor and the charging port (which attaches to a magnetic piece that connects to the wall). http://www.dcrainmaker.com/images/2014/08/IMG_8187.jpg http://www.dcrainmaker.com/images/2014/08/IMG_8187.jpg
- noinsight 11y ago
  Or you can buy a device that supports wireless charging and charge wirelessly. I have one (Nexus 4) and I'm never going back.
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    Useless when you want to hold your phone in the hand for a round of Real Racing or any other hq game, though.
sylvinus 11y ago
> Imagine: You’re 16. You’re in school. You’re sitting in class. Honestly, I think it's impossible for anyone above ~25 to imagine what it's like to be 16 in school today. Context and social dynamics have changed too much for anyone that old (and probably anyone at all) to be insightful about the behaviour of groups of teenagers using a yet unreleased product.
- alextgordon 11y ago
  I can imagine it but only if it's a private school.
72deluxe 11y ago
He is wrong in this article: CDs did not suck. Compressed audio sucked, unless you had NIHL and love reduced dynamic range and poor attack transients. I am glad CDs are still around to stop this MP3 slime from washing away all the uncompressed audio!
- aesthetics1 11y ago
  Apple wasn't marketing them to the audiophile - they came with cheap white earbuds, not Sennheisers. CDs did suck for the mainstream consumer. Consumers are still opting for streaming music over high-quality FLAC tracks saved to their phone/PC/etc. I think you meant to say: He was wrong as far as my use case was concerned.
  - 72deluxe 11y ago
    Yes, you're right. It is entirely my own use-case, and hopefully CDs aren't going away! In my defense, he said "CDs sucked" when he should have said "CDs suck in my use case" :-)
- xs 11y ago
  I thought CDs sucked. Scratched way too easy. Don't let some children borrow your CDs or else they won't play when you get them back. Cassettes were much more durable and even repairable. A CD warped by the sun is garbage, but a cassette warped by the sun can be salvaged if you put the tape in another cassette case. You could also tape two ends of the cassette tape back together if it gets torn or cut. Yes the song is garbled for a second but the entire album isn't ruined. A skipping CD is a more annoying sound than my alarm clock.
  - 72deluxe 11y ago
    CDs only sucked if you didn't look after them! The same was true of vinyls, and your mobile phone. If I drop my phone, it will be damaged. I never lend my CDs to those people who leave them in the wrong cases, bust the cases, leave CDs floating around drawers with pens, paperclips and scissors, attempt to get sleeve notes out by incessant gnawing at the edges etc. etc. Cassettes were pretty robust though. They survive handling by the older generation far better than CDs ever did (or will)
72deluxe 11y ago
I can't help wondering how dated such a device will look / feel next year, particularly as I saw Swiss watches in a shop the other day and they really are timeless bits of machinery.
DigitalSea 11y ago
Is John Gruber ever non-biased in his pieces about Apple? Given his history with the company, I feel like with Gruber we never ever get the real deal. Every article on every Apple product announcement starts out feeling well-intentioned and non-objective, but then always seems to segue into a subtle praise piece. I am not hating on him, he still makes some great points and he puts considerable amounts of effort into analysis pieces. I just feel like with Gruber we would never see an article honestly telling us something Apple have released is bad. > Also, though it sounds trivial, I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. Based on a culmination of reviews and early preview articles I have read, videos and basically everything I have read about the Apple Watch this statement seems kind of ironic. The second hand might be smooth, but the very real performance issues people have encountered with the watch mean the rest of the Apple Watch experience is anything but smooth. What's the point of a smooth second hand if the rest of the experience is somewhat crippled and unusable? I like the look of the Apple Watch and the very idea of it, but to an extent. It feels as though articles like Gruber's here are talking with reckless abandon, from the perspective that existing solutions aren't out there. From a user interface perspective the Pebble watch and Moto 360 especially are beautiful, well-crafted and smooth interfaces. Apple are not entering new territory nor are they introducing any ideas or improvements into the space (besides the physical appearance). Lets not pretend that there aren't as equally good, if not, better smart watches out there. They might not have had the same amount of design and research put into them, but I think there is such a thing as over-engineering something. I am pretty happy with my Pebble watch, the battery life is great and so too, is the battery life. I am by no means an expert, but I like nice watches and to me the Apple Watch will never match the build quality, feel and longevity of a nice traditional mechanical watch even if it is only from a battery life perspective.
- threeseed 11y ago
  It is ridiculous to say that Apple hasn't introduced any new ideas or improvements to the smartwatch space.
  - DigitalSea 11y ago
bane 11y ago
For people who want to skip all the non-critical Apple praise and marketing regurgitation and don't want to spend their time filtering out the endless variety of framing devices Gruber uses to try to turn Apple's lemons into lemonaid here's a summary review: - Using the watch as a watch is broken. He spends almost 1,000 words across 8 paragraphs talking about how broken it is. It may be accurate, but it's overly complex, fussy and unreliable to get it to show you the time. - The water resistance is unacceptable for a device intended as a fitness companion, some of this is due to compromises to the overly complex design. - As a watch targeting people who wear watches, it's probably a failure. He repeats some variation of this a number of times. - the build quality feels high, not as high as the early press hands-on - the rubber watch band is easy to size and the material feels good, but swapping out bands is "fiddly" - the watch is designed to hide the bezel, but in good lighting you can see it, again reminding that it isn't a great watch - the shape (square) is not a good watch shape - the gender-neutral design comes off as modern - battery life will get you through a day of moderate usage - the induction charger is easy to use and works as advertised - one of the main marketing points, that it's a health and fitness device, is not useful to him in any way and he has no interest in it - some of the fitness features intrude into non-fitness uses in a bad way - other fitness features seem pretty accurate and potentially useful - the digital crown works basically like a mouse scroll-wheel - touch, the crown and haptic feedback work as well as you'd expect and they work together well - haptic feedback works so well that you can turn off sound for notifications - he had a 50% failure rate on the haptic feedback on his test watches requiring him to get a replacement watch during his week-long review - the digital touch features were untested, though he provides a cute story of two rich teenagers flirting in class he provides no actual coverage of the feature tl;dr none of the smart watch features were particularly interesting and it's not a great watch to use for time keeping It's not really surprising, it's the same problem all the smart watches have, it's not really clear that the extra expense and fuss of a smartwatch, on a severely compromised display and interaction platform is worth it. The target audience he holds out hope for, non-watch wearers who wouldn't know any better, are probably not going to start wearing an expensive fussy fiddly device that provides no unqualified benefit that they have to charge every day. I'm not a watch wearer and the only smartwatch I'd even consider is something like the Pebble and that's only because it's focused on a) being a watch b) notifications c) not making me charge it all the time Except that I'm literally surrounded by clocks nearly all the time, so I don't need to tell time. My phone already vibrates and makes sound, and it's usually letting me know something that I'm already being notified about on my monitor. The one use-case I can really see for a smartwatch is to help with navigation, especially while walking since walking around with your phone out getting turn-by-turn isn't all that great. But it's something I need literally once or twice per year.
nickgrosvenor 11y ago
It's ironic that the people who attack the Apple watch under the pragmatic guise that a regular watch performs better, are forgetting the fact that a regular watch is completely superfluous. In this day and age, with a phone on you, and everyone else, you can always get the time. A watch is a relic of the past. It's Tradition. It's ornamental. It's redundant. With tens of thousands of brilliant people working day and night to build amazing third party apps, the smart watches can actually do things. A regular watch can't do shit. It's not a tool, it's not a workhorse. People that are satisfied with their traditional watches are kidding themselves, as much if not more than the people who will happily buy an Apple watch and tout it's features.
- damian2000 11y ago
  The regular watch, a dumb watch if you like has some big advantages over a smart watch or a phone. Its always on, can always be seen, the battery lasts for years, its waterproof. Having said that, I think these advantages are mostly important for niche uses - scuba divers for example.
- bo1024 11y ago
  I'm not attacking the Apple watch (or anything else for that matter), but in my daily life a smartwatch would be no match in utility, convenience, or features I need compared to my $50 Timex.
drawkbox 11y ago
I like the health monitoring aspects the most. Fitbit type of devices, tracking activities/health, have been picking up and will pick up more. Apple has jumped on that pretty well and traditional watches can't compete on those features. I stopped wearing watches but have thought about a Fitbit watch and why not have that be an Apple watch maybe.
pokstad 11y ago
Gshock watches already have digital crowns, so Apple can't patent them unless there is something new.
EliRivers 11y ago
I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. How can the the smoothness of an actual, physical piece of metal smoothly rotating in a circle at a constant angular velocity be "out-smoothed" by a 60 FPS simulacrum?
- josteink 11y ago
  Lots of mechanical clocks have hands and seconds which ticks one unit at a time, and doesn't move in a smooth movement. But that's obviously done intentionally through the mechanics and requires extra effort to "implement", so it's not a sign of a "low" quality watch either. Not sure what Gruber is hinting at here honestly.
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    I have one here in a clocks n' (stop) watches box that moves the second hand at a significantly higher rate than 60 per second, but I must admit I didn't know that was something special.
- ryanmonroe 11y ago
  Mechanical watches don't move continuously because movements of the hands are controlled by gears with a finite number of teeth. As for the "simulacrum" comment, don't forget that watches are just a mechanical simulation of a sundial.
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    don't forget that watches are just a mechanical simulation of a sundial I disagree. Sundials are rubbish for telling time and they look different throughout the year. A (decent) watch does not attempt to replicate the inadequacy of a sundial; it just tells you the time.
    - ryanmonroe 11y ago
      It could also be said that mechanical watches are rubbish for keeping time compared to their digital counterparts. Always gradually moving away from accurate timekeeping, they must be rewound to keep proper time. They don't sync with the official time distribution services so are not guaranteed to be accurate.
EGreg 11y ago
How does this guy always nail his articles? I think he's the only one I've ever heard of who gets paid so much to write blog articles.
- Synaesthesia 11y ago
  He's a thoughtful writer, and a writer first and foremost. He takes it very seriously. Frequently posts about things like style, typography and serious journalism.
- qmr 11y ago
  He writes them for other Apple blowhards.
- drinchev 11y ago
  Well this guy is the inventor of Markdown, so he's not only a paid blogger. I always find people like him as inspiration for me.
  - pluma 11y ago
    He wrote the original Markdown. Barely anyone uses the original Markdown. They just use semi-compatible formats (e.g. Github-Flavored Markdown) using software that calls them "Markdown". There is no spec for Markdown other than his buggy Perl implementation. He also didn't exactly appreciate the fact that other people tried to standardize "his" language. I'm not even sure Markdown in general can rightfully be called an invention (in the same sense as JSON is not considered such by its "inventor"). It's just one of several plain-text formatting conventions that happened to become popular (though, again, not really his exact implementation). In fact, because of the limited scope Gruber's original Markdown addressed and the redundancies he implemented (such as the different "bullets" for unordered lists) are biting implementers now that the format is used for other things than originally envisioned (by making extensions difficulty or unintuitive).
    - drinchev 11y ago
      Sometimes the idea is worth everything. Although you are right that people are getting more and more distant from the original markdown syntax. Google still suggest this as the first result on that specific keyword [1]. Something more. Categorising markdown as an invention may be a bit wrong, but it is a huge push to what now is becoming a standard ( at least in dev's world ) for many companies that have a user input feature. I can't just say everything he did is good ( I also miss standartization ), but for sure I can't neglect what he did. I still remember how markdown-featured textarea inputs redirected to [1] when I clicked on the help button. This alone makes his attribution great and that's why I prefer calling him "inventor of markdown", rather than paid blogger. 1. http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax
ohitsdom 11y ago
A great perspective, as Gruber typically gives. But his take on sending a heartbeat as a flirting 16 year old was awful. That was basically the same pitch for Facebook pokes, which initially were cute but quickly turned obnoxious. Sending taps sounds like it could be useful. Sending your heartbeat seems like a gimmick. Ultimately his last point is right, we won't know unless/until Apple Watch becomes a thing.
Thiz 11y ago
> It truly is a good and clever idea, and, presuming it is patent-protected strongly enough, the lack of a digital crown is going to put competitors at a disadvantage. I rather scroll using the edge of the screen, I hate reading on my phone and interrupting with my finger to scroll, that's why I swipe at the very edge of the screen, almost scrolling with the metal. When watches get thinner, and they will, the crown will give place to the scrolling edge, longer area, more ergonomic. And I hope nobody patents it.
- smackfu 11y ago
  It's kind of gross that basic UI controls can be patented like that.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- TapamN 11y ago
  Apple can't patent digital crowns because they didn't invent them. They probably have patented their specific implementation. The Timex Data Link USB smartwatch was using a digital crown back in 2002. It was used to scroll through entries, with tactile and audio feedback. There was a exponential speed curve to the scrolling; you could scroll slowly, one item at a time, or use a quick spin to advance dozens of entries in a second. Pulling the crown into the "set" position would allow you to edit the current item, and returning the crown to the home position would save the changes. Pushing the crown in from the home position would activate the light. It was a huge improvement over the older Data Link watches from the 90s, which only had a few buttons. Scrolling through items involved holding down a next/previous button, waiting for the auto repeat to kick in, and waiting until you got near what you wanted, then pressing the next/previous button a couple extra times to find what you wanted.
- bydo 11y ago
  Apple patented this in January 2009: "the touchpad is a touch-sensitive area of the device that, unlike the touch screen, does not display visual output. The touchpad may be a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from the touch screen 112 or an extension of the touch-sensitive surface formed by the touch screen."[1] They've yet to actually implement it in a device, though Palm used an offscreen gesture area on its Prē later that same year.[2] 1: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F7479949 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=H... 2: http://prethinking.com/home/2009/5/25/how-to-the-palm-pre-gesture-guide.html http://prethinking.com/home/2009/5/25/how-to-the-palm-pre-ge...
reubenmorais 11y ago
This is a very interesting article, and I like how it's written in the perspective of a functional watch user instead of being about fashion or watch collecting. I couldn't help but laugh at this part: > Also, though it sounds trivial, I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. Isn't a mechanical watch hand ∞ FPS by definition? Real life has got to be at least better than 144hz :)
- serve_yay 11y ago
  > Isn't a mechanical watch hand ∞ FPS by definition? You guys are so silly sometimes.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/a/apple-watch-review https://www.theverge.com/a/apple-watch-review I found this more informative because he used it a bit more like I expected someone to.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jonhester 11y ago
  Mechanical watches, think Rolexes, have smooth second hand movements but they are acutally still ticking, just about 6 times a second. The Apple Watch, on the other hand, has a second hand with 60 ticks per second so that the second hand is about 10 times smoother.
  - pcurve 11y ago
    True as long as there are sufficient number of pixel density to movement of 60 ticks per seconds.
    - idbehold 11y ago
      Antialiasing.
  - 11y ago
prawn 11y ago
His description of a video call being an image rather than a direct view, and the equivalent with voice, helps put the touch features in perspective. They go from gimmick to potentially the start of something. I wonder if that small postage stamp portal to your wife's wrist will be the notable precursor to larger contact features and eventually touch-featured clothing or (ooooer) playsuits? He has a fairly flowery and gushing writing style with Apple topics, but it's obvious he thinks everything through and looks for a deeper angle. I wonder if many people will buy a pair of these watches as something to experience with their partner? Touch or smooth/personal gestures are certainly a bit more personal and emotive than blue and green text bubbles.
EA 11y ago
“You’ll still be able to do with Apple Watch what you do with your current watch: tell the time (and if you want, the date) at a glance and trust that it’s accurate.” ...if you return your watch to a charging station daily. He goes on: That said, compared to a traditional watch, daily charging is terrible. Before entering into the smartphone market, I charged my cellphone less than 100 times per year. Now, I have to charge my smartphone at least once a day. It's a tax on my lifestyle that I don't mind paying. I hated the daily charging of my smartphone at first. Now, I plan my day and commutes with respect to a battery to ensure I have enough charge for me to interweave the technology in my pocket with my experiencing of the analog world. I suspect I and others will make the same allowance for a smart watch and the Apple Watch will be a very profitable device for Apple.
- nfoz 11y ago
  I use a Blackberry with a 3-day battery life. Many people have portable or add-on batteries for their phones.
- gaius 11y ago
  Doesn't it seem a little weird that you adapt your life around your gadgets rather than vice versa?
  - phdp 11y ago
    No? If the relative benefit is greater than the relative cost, it would make sense to adapt. It would be like going from a horse and buggy to a car and complaining about having to (gasp) stop in the middle of your journey to fill your tank up with gas. Sure, that one little piece of it is annoying, but owning a car is much more advantageous for transportation than a horse.
  - lmm 11y ago
    Humans are much better at adaptation than (so far) the things we build. I remember being surprised at how many things I was doing through a smartphone UI - and then I realised it's not because that's the only thing I can do, it's because that's the only way these services can understand me.
sebnukem2 11y ago
If I had to choose between a dumb watch that never needs recharging (like my Citizen Eco-Drive) and a "smart" watch that doesn't even last a full day, I'd choose the dumb watch. Who the hell think that a watch that can't even function a day is an acceptable product? This just blows my mind. And yet, I'm pretty sure they are going to sell millions of them. I wouldn't want one if it was free.
- njloof 11y ago
  My grandfather's watch only lasts a day between windings.
- mathgeek 11y ago
  > Who the hell think that a watch that can't even function a day is an acceptable product? You'll have your answer in a few days. You'll even be able to tell who these people are by looking at their wrists.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  In fairness, the time function for the Apple Watch will continue for 3 days. Comparing it's ability to do a whole lot of power-intensive activity (phone, video, etc) that the dumb watch can't do at all is disingenuous. We heard the same arguments about cell phones. Who would want a smartphone that would discharge in less than a day, when you could get a dumb phone that would hang on for days? or a wired phone that didn't have power problems (even when the power went out)? Then people discovered how darned useful that power-sucking capability was, and have adapted to charging daily. I do wonder when smart watches will include self-charging "eco drive", tapping wrist motion for energy.
  - takeda 11y ago
    Compare those 3 days to 2 years with my cheap watch.
- iMark 11y ago
  My phone battery only lasts a day. In the years before smartphones, multi-day battery life was taken for granted. Tellingly I barely use my phone as a phone. I suspect we will see a similar pattern develop with smartwatches, where telling the time will be only a single bullet point far down a much longer list of features.
bitsoda 11y ago
Gruber's scenario with the two high school kids sending each other love taps, scribbles, and heartbeats was poignant. While the Apple Watch isn't for me, I can't begrudge those who decide to buy one. I think back to the late 90s and how I wouldn't have met my wife if not for IMing a screenname a mutual friend of ours passed along to me. The internet, a crappy eMachines desktop, and AIM made this possible. Technically, I didn't "need" my own computer at the time, but it made interactions like this possible. Maybe the Apple Watch will create new interactions that could spark something great between people. Shrug
- ickwabe 11y ago
  My concern on this (connected watches generally) is the upgrade treadmill this might create. So a person would buy a ~$600 iphone + a $400 watch. How often would they upgrade the watch? Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. Will they do this with a watch? Will they need to? I have a Casio watch that I still wear that's 15 years old. And an old wind up that's 30 years old. I can't imagine that being the case for a smart watch. Apple and android watch makers are gonna want folks to upgrade as frequently as possible. Just seems both wasteful and needlessly expensive at the $400 price point. Consumerism gone a muck as twer.
  - jkestner 11y ago
    Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. I question whether this is the bubble that geeks live in. Plenty of people don't know there are new phones to get until their old one breaks. In the case that someone's upgrading when their contract gives them a new phone, I can see more of a strain, but they rarely think of themselves paying $600 for a phone. To an extent, Apple is producing the Watch to offset the slowing growth of smartphone sales, which tells me that people aren't buying them as often as you think.
    - Fuzzwah 11y ago
      I'm interested how long the average phone lasts before it breaks in your pool of anecdotal people? My social circle sounds similar to yours. I have two phone junkie friends who seem to be moving to a new phone every year. Then a handful of geek friends who upgrade their phones at the end of their contracts, which is normally two or three version numbers higher. That leaves the majority who upgrade when their phones break. These range from clumsy people who seem to end up keeping up with my phone junkie friends to some people still using iPhone 3's. But basically... the breakage upgrade cycle sees the majority of them upgrading every other year.
tw04 11y ago
It actually kind of saddens me to read his summary of how touch will be "awesome". A teenager is afraid to talk to a girl he likes so he sends her what amounts to a text on his watch? It feels like humans keep building more and more barriers to ACTUAL communication. I can't help but think at some point it will have serious negative effects on the human race. Part of growing up and maturing is learning to deal with difficult emotional situations, like being rejected by the girl you really have a crush on. What happens the first time that kid who was too afraid of rejection to talk to a girl he liked messes up in his "grown-up" job? Is he going to send his boss an apology over his watch? Or is going to break down in tears because he's never had to deal with an emotionally stressful situation "IRL"?
- gregpilling 11y ago
  I have had several employees in their early 20s that would only communicate with suppliers over email - I had to force them to use the phone. It was bizarre.
  - VLM 11y ago
    Phones are unprofessional and slow and impolite, and even if its legal, recording is just socially not done other than call center script readers. On the other hand, supplier writes in an email that he's shipping the microcontroller PCBs tomorrow, no kidding this time, you have a written record you can call him out on maybe the day after tomorrow, and unlike verbal phone calls no one freaks out if you stockpile emails, in fact its pretty much accepted. And this is exactly why someone lying to you or stretching the truth or making stuff up will refuse to do business by email and insist on using the phone. So your employees are in cognitive dissonance... you're trying to set them up to fail and they're either going to be annoyed or offended or even worse, apathetic about it.
    - gregpilling 11y ago
      "you are trying to set them up to fail.." - a bit of a stretch don't you think? I am referring to picking up the phone to call a supplier or similar. Basic commerce, not some elaborate plot to annoy, offend or cause apathy. More like "Bob, do you have blue widgets in stock?" Phones are not unprofessional, they are a tool. A communication tool. Phones are not slow, in fact they are a lot faster than waiting for an email that never comes.
bla2 11y ago
It's interesting that even gruber's review isn't all that positive.
- 7Z7 11y ago
  >even gruber.. I don't think Gruber is particularly biased about Apple - they're just his area of speciality. He thinks very deeply about them, and has done for such a long time that he has an acute sense of them. But I think he calls them out fairly when he thinks they're wrong, whether that's policy decisions, devices, or software.
  - bla2 11y ago
    That's not wrong, but Apple's the only company he's treating fairly. So it's still "writing on a curve", if you will.
  - skeletonjelly 11y ago
    I don't know if it can be your area of speciality and not be biased. He's the definitive Apple fanboy https://twitter.com/gruber/status/344163857234812928 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/344163857234812928
- prawn 11y ago
  The Verge's review gives it 7/10 and says it often lags, emojis are creepy, etc. But that's in a very over-produced review with a credits list of about 15 people!
acqq 11y ago
> Apple Watch’s screen remains off until you tap the screen (...) or it detects (...) that you’ve moved your wrist into a “tell the time” position. That's really the one of the biggest problems I can imagine. Pity that the "show the time at least somehow" wasn't engineered as a special feature, something like "e-ink for somehow time" and the OLED (if that's what they're using) for the full color. I know that nobody made something exactly like that, but I've read that a hybrid e-ink/LCD exists (1). Maybe it wouldn't look so pretty at the moment, but that's why the "magic" is needed, I don't think anybody designed any such hybrid specially for a smart watch. That e-ink or any other magic wouldn't have to be able to display everything, just the time. Even the big unchangeable segments like on old passive LCD watches would be (maybe?) enough. 1) And Apple even has some patents, discovered as early as 2011! http://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-patent-hybrid-display/ http://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-patent-hybrid-display/ Hmm.
- takeda 11y ago
  They did [1]. The color version is not yet available (first unit should be shipped in May), but the black and white ones were here since 2012. They actually got a wave of preorders right after Apple Watch was shown in March. Based on the back and white version, it indeed is not as nice looking, but I like that it comes as a watch that has smart functionality rather the other way around. And it lasts for 7 days. Can't comment much on the Pebble Time, but the color display actually looks quite nice, it is always on and still last for a week on a single charge. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5zFGkP2Uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5zFGkP2Uw
  - publicfig 11y ago
    That's not a hybrid display, only e-ink.
    - takeda 11y ago
      It's actually not e-ink, they call it e-paper, but it actually is a memory LCD. That said, it addresses the problem OP mentioned, which is ability to display content all the time. The color version has only 64 colors but this is something I'm wiling to sacrifice in order to have longer battery life, continuous time display and ability seeing the contents in the sun. What puzzles me is why nobody else is doing the same.
guelo 11y ago
I can barely stand reading Gruber because it feels like reading Apple marketing materials. But he is required reading because he is one of the few ways that Apple releases important industry information. It would be great to have a daringfireball tl;dr service emphasizing his forecasts and "predictions" (which are usually actually Apple leaks).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- notatoad 11y ago
  Did you read this review? Gruber's blind love for anything apple generally turns me off. In this article though i thought his fanboy-ism stayed pretty restricted to apple the company, and it seems like quite a fair critical review of the watch itself.
  - guelo 11y ago
    I didn't. I read the first few paragraphs and then couldn't take it and left the comment here.
- adamlett 11y ago
  > which are usually actually Apple leaks That's really interesting. How do you know this?
bitL 11y ago
So the smartphones replaced watches and now watches are going to have a sudden comeback? I must admit I got rid of all my watches except for a purely mechanical one with a mainspring since my first smartphone. For gym/swimming/running I have a special device with a chest strap - if Apple solved problems plaguing strap-less heart rate monitors I might be interested, however for $400+ definitely not.
roc 11y ago
Designing a 2015 smartwatch to fit the expectations of dumb-watches feels more and more to me like designing a 2007 smartphone to fit the expectations of the blackberry crowd (physical keyboard, removable battery). The digital crown looks like one such mistake. Swipe-to-scroll is so natural, particularly at this point, that moving back to an indirect method of scrolling seems just wrong. And doing so on a device that's already touch, and already using swipe-to-scroll, feels twice and wrong and unnecessarily confusing. I understand the intent and the goal, but the inconsistent use of the crown -- if it's so great, why can I still swipe to scroll at all? -- is a tell. It would have been better to simply detect swipe-to-scroll along the right edge of the bezel (if not along the right side of the frame itself) to effect "scrolling without obscuring". Four-ways-to-click (crown-click vs tap vs force tap vs tap-and-hold) is an eyebrow-raise-er all its own. Also: displays should be wider. At fifty- to one-hundred-percent wider the display would be far better for notifications and would make the selection of A/B buttons more clear and precise. The next time you get a notification on your phone, rest your phone on your wrist, so the notification is displayed roughly where a smartwatch would sit. Ask yourself whether that notification would still "work", if it were crammed into an Apple Watch-sized screen. Some certainly do. More can be made to work alright, if font size were reduced. IME, most simply don't work. There just isn't enough room to get enough meaningful information onto a screen that size, in a comfortable font size, for me to make good decisions about what can be ignored and what should be addressed. You can mitigate this problem if you can ignore all messages of a given type (e.g. don't even bother getting email alerts on your wrist). But even if you could do this, it would be better if you didn't have to. A screen that enables better decisions would make for a more useful object.
- schrodinger 11y ago
  I like the idea of the digital crown, because the screen's too small to swipe to scroll without obscuring almost everything.
- cgh 11y ago
  "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." --Rob Malda, on the iPod at its release in 2001

253 points by orteipid 11y ago

aleem 11y ago

I am quite excited about upgrading my watch experience and the next generation of connected devices, however, the biggest surprise for me is that Apple doesn't offer more gesture recognition. I always imagined the primary interface for shortcuts would be gestures such as waving away your arm to dismiss a message or flicking the wrist multiple times (if you try it right now, you can easily flick your wrist 3-4 times per second). It would make interaction that much easier and wrist flicking could even become a thing. One flick for health, two for time, etc. depending on the context. Another thing that could be mildly annoying for a lot of people is that it can only ever be operated by engaging both hands. Phone by contrast can easily be operated with one hand using the thumb. EDIT: If the watch has enough sensors, I am sure it could detect users not only flicking the wrist via rotation but also bending your hand down/up (which tends to pull/push the tendons on your wrist) though the watch would need to be worn snugly.

robmcm 11y ago
Hey Siri... No hands :)
untog 11y ago
(if you try it right now, you can easily flick your wrist 3-4 times per second). You'll also look very odd while you do it, which might have informed Apple not using it.
- aleem 11y ago
  Haha, yes you're right. A person from a decade or two ago might find a lot of things odd such as taking selfies, Facebook checkins, talking on a bluetooth headset, holding a 5.5" phone to your ear when the 90s was all about miniaturisation, the shake-to-shuffle a song, etc. It's only an oddity because it's not common. I am sure that things will gravitate toward gestures as this space evolves. It just seems like a very convenient way to interface and offers the path of least resistance for users.
  - untog 11y ago
    It might become normal. But look at Google Glass - the "weirdness" attached to it absolutely had an effect on its success.
agumonkey 11y ago
I bet 5$ they tried it, but it gave too many false positives.
freehunter 11y ago
Flicking your wrist continuously can't be good for your joints...

q2 11y ago

Honest questions: How people can write such long articles? How many hours they might have spent in writing? Does anyone read it from the top to bottom completely? Is it not possible to express the whole thing in a small article without losing the gist? EDIT 1: Gruber's articles have lot of useful information,analysis and insights but I feel, current article is too lengthy. EDIT 2: Anandtech's reviews are also detailed but they are easy to select to go to required part of the review. Hope interface of DF may change in future.

robmcm 11y ago
It's not even complete, see the last reference to the interface. Oh and don't look up John Siracusa ;)
skywhopper 11y ago
Personally, I enjoyed reading through the article all the way very much. Gruber is not writing for people who want an answer to a particular question or who are looking for tabular comparisons. He gives you his experience with the watch, and a description how his opinions of various features changed after using them. He gives context for his opinions about it as a long-time watch-wearer, and detailed personal examples of its problems. I don't think a review that just gives an opinion without any context is useful. How can I judge the relevance to my life if I know nothing about the reviewer's? With something as personal and intimate as a watch, the details matter and the context matters.
krallja 11y ago
It's 11 pages long. You can't read that in one sitting?

ctdonath 11y ago

"Apple seemingly tries to enter markets at, or just after, that tipping point — when Moore’s Law and Apple’s ever-increasing engineering and manufacturing prowess allow them to produce a gadget-y computer that the computer-y gadgets from the established market leaders cannot compete with." A recurring event in the advance of technology. I saw it hit hard when Smith Corona's computer-y typewriters couldn't keep up with gadget-y word processing software, and the typewriter died. Likewise when computer-y photography (lots of image processing introduced into developing photos) lost favor with consumers vs gadget-y digital cameras. "the established market — watches — is not despised. They not only don’t suck, they are beloved. And the best and most-beloved watches aren’t even electronic. They’re purely mechanical — all gadget, no computer." Yet...all they do is tell time. Elegantly, yes, or cheaply, if you like...but time and little else. Attempts to add computer-y function failed for a decade, succumbing to horrible interfaces and anemic UIs; the author completely overlooks the computer-y phases which watches have gone thru (and failed miserably). That a $5 POS watch tells time more accurately, and with less maintenance, than my elegant $500 Movado or the improbable $500,000 watches seen on http://uncrate.com http://uncrate.com et al, was setting off warnings that the market was ripe for...something.

Cookingboy 11y ago
Your $500 Movado uses a cheap Quartz movement that costs about $5 anyway, so it's as reliable and accurate as any $5 POS :) Only mechanical watches require maintenance and are less accurate.

ThomPete 11y ago

Just like the iPhone wasn't a smarter phone but a smaller computer, I guess Apple Watch isn't a smarter watch but a smaller iPhone.

brianpan 11y ago
The iPhone was a computing device in a form factor that the market was able to relate to as a phone. The Apple Watch is a computing device in a form factor that the market will be able to relate to as a watch. 'Phone' and 'watch' are just entry points. The form factor, UI, and controls will dictate what it actually is. I'm fairly certain, NOT a smaller iPhone.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Not sure I understand. A laptop is a computer device, an iphone is a computer device and now a watch is a computer device. People wont buy Apple Watch because it's better watch just as they didn't buy the iPhone because it was a better phone. That is the point I was trying to make.

mikekij 11y ago

I'm a die-hard iPhone guy. I love when I meet someone, get their phone number, text them, and the message bubble is blue. I feel like we're in the same club. (Albeit a very large club.) However, I keep my phone in my pocket. Wearing a watch that millions of other people may have feels a bit weird to me. It's like taking that membership of the iPhone "club" and turning it into an external badge signifying membership. Watches become part of your visual identity, and I'm not sure that I want something that ubiquitous as part of mine.

pluma 11y ago
As opposed to people using their iPhones in public, using MBPs at conferences or wearing Beats headphones or those distinctive white Apple earplugs? This isn't exactly new. Teenagers were sticking white shoelaces in their ears before the iPhone was even a thing.

smegel 11y ago

I lose watches. Period. It's why I wear a near disposable $5 plastic eyesore from Target on my wrist. No way am I wearing a $500+ wrist computer to tell the time.

kleer001 11y ago
Same boat here. I lose jewelry. In my time I've worn earrings, ear cuffs, necklaces, dreadlock weaves, bolo ties, neck ties, zipper ties, hats, etc etc etc... they all get lost, they all get damaged quickly. And really, in the end, they just feel uncomfortable on my body. I haven't worn a watch in 15+ years and have never regretted it.

qmr 11y ago

People still pay attention to this guy?

51Cards 11y ago

Article aside for a moment, I find it fascinating that with this release so many people are discussing smart watches and their interfaces as something completely new with no established precedents. I've had my Pebble for almost 2 years now and my LG G watch for about 8 months. From my perspective this seems like a late-comer to a market that is already well under-way? I would expect more existing market comparison conversation. Edit: for the record I love both of them after being initially dubious about the usefulness of such a device.

prawn 11y ago
I suspect Apple have somehow framed the product for reviewers so the alternatives in the market don't come to mind, even if the reviewers don't realise that they're ignoring them. As one example, they could've picked recipients who they know haven't previously worn a smart watch.
- aetherson 11y ago
  The Verge reviewer compared it to Android Wear.
steveklabnik 11y ago
Gruber explicitly discusses this in the piece, see the bit about 'Apple seemingly tries to enter markets at, or just after, that tipping point'.
FusionGaming 11y ago
I agree, I have had my Pebble for a year and it works perfectly. Tells me when I get an e-mail or text message. I also keep my phone on silent all the time since I can get the notifications directly and can decide if I need to reply or if I can ignore it for later. I can also check my stocks and there are tons of apps on the pebble appstore. The battery life is also very nice and lasts a full week. The SDK is also pretty nice, I've made some simple apps with it.
npunt 11y ago
Late to the party based on what timeframe? 2, 3, 5 years from now it won't look that way. There were mp3 players before the iPod (I had one! it sucked) and smartphones before the iPhone (I had one! it sucked as well). Early-adopter products exist in a niche where their shortcomings are accepted and embraced because people like their concept. But we can't mistake that for meeting the high standards of the broader consumer marketplace. Remember when the iPhone was released? There were other smartphones like the Treo and BlackBerry, but none worked the way the iPhone did. That's what defining a market is about - entering where there may be 'competition' but as soon as you release, nothing competes.

pchristensen 11y ago

"Without the Taptic Engine, Apple Watch is not a compelling device." This is why I value Gruber's reviews. He's unabashedly pro-Apple, but he's also critical and observant.

prawn 11y ago
Is he really being that critical if he observes their product would fail without something it already has? I know it's not a direct comparison, but you wouldn't call me insightfully critical if I noted that a car was not a compelling device without wheels.
- atonse 11y ago
  Yes but this analogy only holds true if every other car has hexagonal wheels, and the apple watch "car" has circular ones.
  - lultimouomo 11y ago
    Yes but this makes the analogy a criticism of other cars, not the Apple one.
rtpg 11y ago
So the Taptic Engine is just rumble right? I know phones are different, but pretty much all my phones (Android) have had the whole "different vibrations for different notifications" thing for years. I don't know how Wear's ecosystem is, but I imagine it does the same. I understand he's not saying it's not present in the competition, but I'm trying to get what the fundamental differences are >When my phone vibrates, it feels like it’s telling me, Hey, I need you now. When the Apple Watch taps me, it feels like it’s telling me, Hey, when you get the chance, I’ve got something for you. I don't know, but if I get tapped on the wrist, that feels a lot more like a "hey I need you now" thing.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mschuster91 11y ago

A bit of sidelined, but still... > You simply hold the connector near the back of the watch, where magnets cause it to snap into place automatically. I would instantly buy a phone without a traditional connector port for headphone and USB - just metal pads flush with the surface (maybe laid in rubber to be watertight) and kept aligned by magnets. Seriously, the amount of devices failed due to either bent (e.g. during gaming) or rusted/dust-damaged Micro USB connectors (and don't forget the headphone connectors, where even the tiniest damage can be heard) is ridiculous. The only real option is to buy one of CATs smartphones or (iirc) one of the Galaxy series with protectors over the connectors - but again, the protectors start to annoy after a while. Too bad Apple holds a patent over MagSafe - and then doesn't even employ it in their phones!

gburt 11y ago
My Mio watch connects to its charger this way too. In the image below, you see both the heart rate monitor and the charging port (which attaches to a magnetic piece that connects to the wall). http://www.dcrainmaker.com/images/2014/08/IMG_8187.jpg http://www.dcrainmaker.com/images/2014/08/IMG_8187.jpg
noinsight 11y ago
Or you can buy a device that supports wireless charging and charge wirelessly. I have one (Nexus 4) and I'm never going back.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  Useless when you want to hold your phone in the hand for a round of Real Racing or any other hq game, though.

sylvinus 11y ago

> Imagine: You’re 16. You’re in school. You’re sitting in class. Honestly, I think it's impossible for anyone above ~25 to imagine what it's like to be 16 in school today. Context and social dynamics have changed too much for anyone that old (and probably anyone at all) to be insightful about the behaviour of groups of teenagers using a yet unreleased product.

alextgordon 11y ago
I can imagine it but only if it's a private school.

72deluxe 11y ago

He is wrong in this article: CDs did not suck. Compressed audio sucked, unless you had NIHL and love reduced dynamic range and poor attack transients. I am glad CDs are still around to stop this MP3 slime from washing away all the uncompressed audio!

aesthetics1 11y ago
Apple wasn't marketing them to the audiophile - they came with cheap white earbuds, not Sennheisers. CDs did suck for the mainstream consumer. Consumers are still opting for streaming music over high-quality FLAC tracks saved to their phone/PC/etc. I think you meant to say: He was wrong as far as my use case was concerned.
- 72deluxe 11y ago
  Yes, you're right. It is entirely my own use-case, and hopefully CDs aren't going away! In my defense, he said "CDs sucked" when he should have said "CDs suck in my use case" :-)
xs 11y ago
I thought CDs sucked. Scratched way too easy. Don't let some children borrow your CDs or else they won't play when you get them back. Cassettes were much more durable and even repairable. A CD warped by the sun is garbage, but a cassette warped by the sun can be salvaged if you put the tape in another cassette case. You could also tape two ends of the cassette tape back together if it gets torn or cut. Yes the song is garbled for a second but the entire album isn't ruined. A skipping CD is a more annoying sound than my alarm clock.
- 72deluxe 11y ago
  CDs only sucked if you didn't look after them! The same was true of vinyls, and your mobile phone. If I drop my phone, it will be damaged. I never lend my CDs to those people who leave them in the wrong cases, bust the cases, leave CDs floating around drawers with pens, paperclips and scissors, attempt to get sleeve notes out by incessant gnawing at the edges etc. etc. Cassettes were pretty robust though. They survive handling by the older generation far better than CDs ever did (or will)

72deluxe 11y ago

I can't help wondering how dated such a device will look / feel next year, particularly as I saw Swiss watches in a shop the other day and they really are timeless bits of machinery.

DigitalSea 11y ago

Is John Gruber ever non-biased in his pieces about Apple? Given his history with the company, I feel like with Gruber we never ever get the real deal. Every article on every Apple product announcement starts out feeling well-intentioned and non-objective, but then always seems to segue into a subtle praise piece. I am not hating on him, he still makes some great points and he puts considerable amounts of effort into analysis pieces. I just feel like with Gruber we would never see an article honestly telling us something Apple have released is bad. > Also, though it sounds trivial, I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. Based on a culmination of reviews and early preview articles I have read, videos and basically everything I have read about the Apple Watch this statement seems kind of ironic. The second hand might be smooth, but the very real performance issues people have encountered with the watch mean the rest of the Apple Watch experience is anything but smooth. What's the point of a smooth second hand if the rest of the experience is somewhat crippled and unusable? I like the look of the Apple Watch and the very idea of it, but to an extent. It feels as though articles like Gruber's here are talking with reckless abandon, from the perspective that existing solutions aren't out there. From a user interface perspective the Pebble watch and Moto 360 especially are beautiful, well-crafted and smooth interfaces. Apple are not entering new territory nor are they introducing any ideas or improvements into the space (besides the physical appearance). Lets not pretend that there aren't as equally good, if not, better smart watches out there. They might not have had the same amount of design and research put into them, but I think there is such a thing as over-engineering something. I am pretty happy with my Pebble watch, the battery life is great and so too, is the battery life. I am by no means an expert, but I like nice watches and to me the Apple Watch will never match the build quality, feel and longevity of a nice traditional mechanical watch even if it is only from a battery life perspective.

threeseed 11y ago
It is ridiculous to say that Apple hasn't introduced any new ideas or improvements to the smartwatch space.
- DigitalSea 11y ago

bane 11y ago

For people who want to skip all the non-critical Apple praise and marketing regurgitation and don't want to spend their time filtering out the endless variety of framing devices Gruber uses to try to turn Apple's lemons into lemonaid here's a summary review: - Using the watch as a watch is broken. He spends almost 1,000 words across 8 paragraphs talking about how broken it is. It may be accurate, but it's overly complex, fussy and unreliable to get it to show you the time. - The water resistance is unacceptable for a device intended as a fitness companion, some of this is due to compromises to the overly complex design. - As a watch targeting people who wear watches, it's probably a failure. He repeats some variation of this a number of times. - the build quality feels high, not as high as the early press hands-on - the rubber watch band is easy to size and the material feels good, but swapping out bands is "fiddly" - the watch is designed to hide the bezel, but in good lighting you can see it, again reminding that it isn't a great watch - the shape (square) is not a good watch shape - the gender-neutral design comes off as modern - battery life will get you through a day of moderate usage - the induction charger is easy to use and works as advertised - one of the main marketing points, that it's a health and fitness device, is not useful to him in any way and he has no interest in it - some of the fitness features intrude into non-fitness uses in a bad way - other fitness features seem pretty accurate and potentially useful - the digital crown works basically like a mouse scroll-wheel - touch, the crown and haptic feedback work as well as you'd expect and they work together well - haptic feedback works so well that you can turn off sound for notifications - he had a 50% failure rate on the haptic feedback on his test watches requiring him to get a replacement watch during his week-long review - the digital touch features were untested, though he provides a cute story of two rich teenagers flirting in class he provides no actual coverage of the feature tl;dr none of the smart watch features were particularly interesting and it's not a great watch to use for time keeping It's not really surprising, it's the same problem all the smart watches have, it's not really clear that the extra expense and fuss of a smartwatch, on a severely compromised display and interaction platform is worth it. The target audience he holds out hope for, non-watch wearers who wouldn't know any better, are probably not going to start wearing an expensive fussy fiddly device that provides no unqualified benefit that they have to charge every day. I'm not a watch wearer and the only smartwatch I'd even consider is something like the Pebble and that's only because it's focused on a) being a watch b) notifications c) not making me charge it all the time Except that I'm literally surrounded by clocks nearly all the time, so I don't need to tell time. My phone already vibrates and makes sound, and it's usually letting me know something that I'm already being notified about on my monitor. The one use-case I can really see for a smartwatch is to help with navigation, especially while walking since walking around with your phone out getting turn-by-turn isn't all that great. But it's something I need literally once or twice per year.

nickgrosvenor 11y ago

It's ironic that the people who attack the Apple watch under the pragmatic guise that a regular watch performs better, are forgetting the fact that a regular watch is completely superfluous. In this day and age, with a phone on you, and everyone else, you can always get the time. A watch is a relic of the past. It's Tradition. It's ornamental. It's redundant. With tens of thousands of brilliant people working day and night to build amazing third party apps, the smart watches can actually do things. A regular watch can't do shit. It's not a tool, it's not a workhorse. People that are satisfied with their traditional watches are kidding themselves, as much if not more than the people who will happily buy an Apple watch and tout it's features.

damian2000 11y ago
The regular watch, a dumb watch if you like has some big advantages over a smart watch or a phone. Its always on, can always be seen, the battery lasts for years, its waterproof. Having said that, I think these advantages are mostly important for niche uses - scuba divers for example.
bo1024 11y ago
I'm not attacking the Apple watch (or anything else for that matter), but in my daily life a smartwatch would be no match in utility, convenience, or features I need compared to my $50 Timex.

drawkbox 11y ago

I like the health monitoring aspects the most. Fitbit type of devices, tracking activities/health, have been picking up and will pick up more. Apple has jumped on that pretty well and traditional watches can't compete on those features. I stopped wearing watches but have thought about a Fitbit watch and why not have that be an Apple watch maybe.

pokstad 11y ago

Gshock watches already have digital crowns, so Apple can't patent them unless there is something new.

EliRivers 11y ago

I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. How can the the smoothness of an actual, physical piece of metal smoothly rotating in a circle at a constant angular velocity be "out-smoothed" by a 60 FPS simulacrum?

josteink 11y ago
Lots of mechanical clocks have hands and seconds which ticks one unit at a time, and doesn't move in a smooth movement. But that's obviously done intentionally through the mechanics and requires extra effort to "implement", so it's not a sign of a "low" quality watch either. Not sure what Gruber is hinting at here honestly.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  I have one here in a clocks n' (stop) watches box that moves the second hand at a significantly higher rate than 60 per second, but I must admit I didn't know that was something special.
ryanmonroe 11y ago
Mechanical watches don't move continuously because movements of the hands are controlled by gears with a finite number of teeth. As for the "simulacrum" comment, don't forget that watches are just a mechanical simulation of a sundial.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  don't forget that watches are just a mechanical simulation of a sundial I disagree. Sundials are rubbish for telling time and they look different throughout the year. A (decent) watch does not attempt to replicate the inadequacy of a sundial; it just tells you the time.
  - ryanmonroe 11y ago
    It could also be said that mechanical watches are rubbish for keeping time compared to their digital counterparts. Always gradually moving away from accurate timekeeping, they must be rewound to keep proper time. They don't sync with the official time distribution services so are not guaranteed to be accurate.

EGreg 11y ago

How does this guy always nail his articles? I think he's the only one I've ever heard of who gets paid so much to write blog articles.

Synaesthesia 11y ago
He's a thoughtful writer, and a writer first and foremost. He takes it very seriously. Frequently posts about things like style, typography and serious journalism.
qmr 11y ago
He writes them for other Apple blowhards.
drinchev 11y ago
Well this guy is the inventor of Markdown, so he's not only a paid blogger. I always find people like him as inspiration for me.
- pluma 11y ago
  He wrote the original Markdown. Barely anyone uses the original Markdown. They just use semi-compatible formats (e.g. Github-Flavored Markdown) using software that calls them "Markdown". There is no spec for Markdown other than his buggy Perl implementation. He also didn't exactly appreciate the fact that other people tried to standardize "his" language. I'm not even sure Markdown in general can rightfully be called an invention (in the same sense as JSON is not considered such by its "inventor"). It's just one of several plain-text formatting conventions that happened to become popular (though, again, not really his exact implementation). In fact, because of the limited scope Gruber's original Markdown addressed and the redundancies he implemented (such as the different "bullets" for unordered lists) are biting implementers now that the format is used for other things than originally envisioned (by making extensions difficulty or unintuitive).
  - drinchev 11y ago
    Sometimes the idea is worth everything. Although you are right that people are getting more and more distant from the original markdown syntax. Google still suggest this as the first result on that specific keyword [1]. Something more. Categorising markdown as an invention may be a bit wrong, but it is a huge push to what now is becoming a standard ( at least in dev's world ) for many companies that have a user input feature. I can't just say everything he did is good ( I also miss standartization ), but for sure I can't neglect what he did. I still remember how markdown-featured textarea inputs redirected to [1] when I clicked on the help button. This alone makes his attribution great and that's why I prefer calling him "inventor of markdown", rather than paid blogger. 1. http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

ohitsdom 11y ago

A great perspective, as Gruber typically gives. But his take on sending a heartbeat as a flirting 16 year old was awful. That was basically the same pitch for Facebook pokes, which initially were cute but quickly turned obnoxious. Sending taps sounds like it could be useful. Sending your heartbeat seems like a gimmick. Ultimately his last point is right, we won't know unless/until Apple Watch becomes a thing.

Thiz 11y ago

> It truly is a good and clever idea, and, presuming it is patent-protected strongly enough, the lack of a digital crown is going to put competitors at a disadvantage. I rather scroll using the edge of the screen, I hate reading on my phone and interrupting with my finger to scroll, that's why I swipe at the very edge of the screen, almost scrolling with the metal. When watches get thinner, and they will, the crown will give place to the scrolling edge, longer area, more ergonomic. And I hope nobody patents it.

smackfu 11y ago
It's kind of gross that basic UI controls can be patented like that.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
TapamN 11y ago
Apple can't patent digital crowns because they didn't invent them. They probably have patented their specific implementation. The Timex Data Link USB smartwatch was using a digital crown back in 2002. It was used to scroll through entries, with tactile and audio feedback. There was a exponential speed curve to the scrolling; you could scroll slowly, one item at a time, or use a quick spin to advance dozens of entries in a second. Pulling the crown into the "set" position would allow you to edit the current item, and returning the crown to the home position would save the changes. Pushing the crown in from the home position would activate the light. It was a huge improvement over the older Data Link watches from the 90s, which only had a few buttons. Scrolling through items involved holding down a next/previous button, waiting for the auto repeat to kick in, and waiting until you got near what you wanted, then pressing the next/previous button a couple extra times to find what you wanted.
bydo 11y ago
Apple patented this in January 2009: "the touchpad is a touch-sensitive area of the device that, unlike the touch screen, does not display visual output. The touchpad may be a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from the touch screen 112 or an extension of the touch-sensitive surface formed by the touch screen."[1] They've yet to actually implement it in a device, though Palm used an offscreen gesture area on its Prē later that same year.[2] 1: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F7479949 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=H... 2: http://prethinking.com/home/2009/5/25/how-to-the-palm-pre-gesture-guide.html http://prethinking.com/home/2009/5/25/how-to-the-palm-pre-ge...

reubenmorais 11y ago

This is a very interesting article, and I like how it's written in the perspective of a functional watch user instead of being about fashion or watch collecting. I couldn't help but laugh at this part: > Also, though it sounds trivial, I enjoy the perfect 60 FPS smoothness of Apple Watch’s second hand — a smoothness no mechanical watch could ever match. Isn't a mechanical watch hand ∞ FPS by definition? Real life has got to be at least better than 144hz :)

serve_yay 11y ago
> Isn't a mechanical watch hand ∞ FPS by definition? You guys are so silly sometimes.
Shivetya 11y ago
https://www.theverge.com/a/apple-watch-review https://www.theverge.com/a/apple-watch-review I found this more informative because he used it a bit more like I expected someone to.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jonhester 11y ago
Mechanical watches, think Rolexes, have smooth second hand movements but they are acutally still ticking, just about 6 times a second. The Apple Watch, on the other hand, has a second hand with 60 ticks per second so that the second hand is about 10 times smoother.
- pcurve 11y ago
  True as long as there are sufficient number of pixel density to movement of 60 ticks per seconds.
  - idbehold 11y ago
    Antialiasing.
- 11y ago

prawn 11y ago

His description of a video call being an image rather than a direct view, and the equivalent with voice, helps put the touch features in perspective. They go from gimmick to potentially the start of something. I wonder if that small postage stamp portal to your wife's wrist will be the notable precursor to larger contact features and eventually touch-featured clothing or (ooooer) playsuits? He has a fairly flowery and gushing writing style with Apple topics, but it's obvious he thinks everything through and looks for a deeper angle. I wonder if many people will buy a pair of these watches as something to experience with their partner? Touch or smooth/personal gestures are certainly a bit more personal and emotive than blue and green text bubbles.

EA 11y ago

“You’ll still be able to do with Apple Watch what you do with your current watch: tell the time (and if you want, the date) at a glance and trust that it’s accurate.” ...if you return your watch to a charging station daily. He goes on: That said, compared to a traditional watch, daily charging is terrible. Before entering into the smartphone market, I charged my cellphone less than 100 times per year. Now, I have to charge my smartphone at least once a day. It's a tax on my lifestyle that I don't mind paying. I hated the daily charging of my smartphone at first. Now, I plan my day and commutes with respect to a battery to ensure I have enough charge for me to interweave the technology in my pocket with my experiencing of the analog world. I suspect I and others will make the same allowance for a smart watch and the Apple Watch will be a very profitable device for Apple.

nfoz 11y ago
I use a Blackberry with a 3-day battery life. Many people have portable or add-on batteries for their phones.
gaius 11y ago
Doesn't it seem a little weird that you adapt your life around your gadgets rather than vice versa?
- phdp 11y ago
  No? If the relative benefit is greater than the relative cost, it would make sense to adapt. It would be like going from a horse and buggy to a car and complaining about having to (gasp) stop in the middle of your journey to fill your tank up with gas. Sure, that one little piece of it is annoying, but owning a car is much more advantageous for transportation than a horse.
- lmm 11y ago
  Humans are much better at adaptation than (so far) the things we build. I remember being surprised at how many things I was doing through a smartphone UI - and then I realised it's not because that's the only thing I can do, it's because that's the only way these services can understand me.

sebnukem2 11y ago

If I had to choose between a dumb watch that never needs recharging (like my Citizen Eco-Drive) and a "smart" watch that doesn't even last a full day, I'd choose the dumb watch. Who the hell think that a watch that can't even function a day is an acceptable product? This just blows my mind. And yet, I'm pretty sure they are going to sell millions of them. I wouldn't want one if it was free.

njloof 11y ago
My grandfather's watch only lasts a day between windings.
mathgeek 11y ago
> Who the hell think that a watch that can't even function a day is an acceptable product? You'll have your answer in a few days. You'll even be able to tell who these people are by looking at their wrists.
ctdonath 11y ago
In fairness, the time function for the Apple Watch will continue for 3 days. Comparing it's ability to do a whole lot of power-intensive activity (phone, video, etc) that the dumb watch can't do at all is disingenuous. We heard the same arguments about cell phones. Who would want a smartphone that would discharge in less than a day, when you could get a dumb phone that would hang on for days? or a wired phone that didn't have power problems (even when the power went out)? Then people discovered how darned useful that power-sucking capability was, and have adapted to charging daily. I do wonder when smart watches will include self-charging "eco drive", tapping wrist motion for energy.
- takeda 11y ago
  Compare those 3 days to 2 years with my cheap watch.
iMark 11y ago
My phone battery only lasts a day. In the years before smartphones, multi-day battery life was taken for granted. Tellingly I barely use my phone as a phone. I suspect we will see a similar pattern develop with smartwatches, where telling the time will be only a single bullet point far down a much longer list of features.

bitsoda 11y ago

Gruber's scenario with the two high school kids sending each other love taps, scribbles, and heartbeats was poignant. While the Apple Watch isn't for me, I can't begrudge those who decide to buy one. I think back to the late 90s and how I wouldn't have met my wife if not for IMing a screenname a mutual friend of ours passed along to me. The internet, a crappy eMachines desktop, and AIM made this possible. Technically, I didn't "need" my own computer at the time, but it made interactions like this possible. Maybe the Apple Watch will create new interactions that could spark something great between people. Shrug

ickwabe 11y ago
My concern on this (connected watches generally) is the upgrade treadmill this might create. So a person would buy a ~$600 iphone + a $400 watch. How often would they upgrade the watch? Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. Will they do this with a watch? Will they need to? I have a Casio watch that I still wear that's 15 years old. And an old wind up that's 30 years old. I can't imagine that being the case for a smart watch. Apple and android watch makers are gonna want folks to upgrade as frequently as possible. Just seems both wasteful and needlessly expensive at the $400 price point. Consumerism gone a muck as twer.
- jkestner 11y ago
  Lots of folks upgrade phones every year or every other year. I question whether this is the bubble that geeks live in. Plenty of people don't know there are new phones to get until their old one breaks. In the case that someone's upgrading when their contract gives them a new phone, I can see more of a strain, but they rarely think of themselves paying $600 for a phone. To an extent, Apple is producing the Watch to offset the slowing growth of smartphone sales, which tells me that people aren't buying them as often as you think.
  - Fuzzwah 11y ago
    I'm interested how long the average phone lasts before it breaks in your pool of anecdotal people? My social circle sounds similar to yours. I have two phone junkie friends who seem to be moving to a new phone every year. Then a handful of geek friends who upgrade their phones at the end of their contracts, which is normally two or three version numbers higher. That leaves the majority who upgrade when their phones break. These range from clumsy people who seem to end up keeping up with my phone junkie friends to some people still using iPhone 3's. But basically... the breakage upgrade cycle sees the majority of them upgrading every other year.

tw04 11y ago

It actually kind of saddens me to read his summary of how touch will be "awesome". A teenager is afraid to talk to a girl he likes so he sends her what amounts to a text on his watch? It feels like humans keep building more and more barriers to ACTUAL communication. I can't help but think at some point it will have serious negative effects on the human race. Part of growing up and maturing is learning to deal with difficult emotional situations, like being rejected by the girl you really have a crush on. What happens the first time that kid who was too afraid of rejection to talk to a girl he liked messes up in his "grown-up" job? Is he going to send his boss an apology over his watch? Or is going to break down in tears because he's never had to deal with an emotionally stressful situation "IRL"?

gregpilling 11y ago
I have had several employees in their early 20s that would only communicate with suppliers over email - I had to force them to use the phone. It was bizarre.
- VLM 11y ago
  Phones are unprofessional and slow and impolite, and even if its legal, recording is just socially not done other than call center script readers. On the other hand, supplier writes in an email that he's shipping the microcontroller PCBs tomorrow, no kidding this time, you have a written record you can call him out on maybe the day after tomorrow, and unlike verbal phone calls no one freaks out if you stockpile emails, in fact its pretty much accepted. And this is exactly why someone lying to you or stretching the truth or making stuff up will refuse to do business by email and insist on using the phone. So your employees are in cognitive dissonance... you're trying to set them up to fail and they're either going to be annoyed or offended or even worse, apathetic about it.
  - gregpilling 11y ago
    "you are trying to set them up to fail.." - a bit of a stretch don't you think? I am referring to picking up the phone to call a supplier or similar. Basic commerce, not some elaborate plot to annoy, offend or cause apathy. More like "Bob, do you have blue widgets in stock?" Phones are not unprofessional, they are a tool. A communication tool. Phones are not slow, in fact they are a lot faster than waiting for an email that never comes.

bla2 11y ago

It's interesting that even gruber's review isn't all that positive.

7Z7 11y ago
>even gruber.. I don't think Gruber is particularly biased about Apple - they're just his area of speciality. He thinks very deeply about them, and has done for such a long time that he has an acute sense of them. But I think he calls them out fairly when he thinks they're wrong, whether that's policy decisions, devices, or software.
- bla2 11y ago
  That's not wrong, but Apple's the only company he's treating fairly. So it's still "writing on a curve", if you will.
- skeletonjelly 11y ago
  I don't know if it can be your area of speciality and not be biased. He's the definitive Apple fanboy https://twitter.com/gruber/status/344163857234812928 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/344163857234812928
prawn 11y ago
The Verge's review gives it 7/10 and says it often lags, emojis are creepy, etc. But that's in a very over-produced review with a credits list of about 15 people!

acqq 11y ago

> Apple Watch’s screen remains off until you tap the screen (...) or it detects (...) that you’ve moved your wrist into a “tell the time” position. That's really the one of the biggest problems I can imagine. Pity that the "show the time at least somehow" wasn't engineered as a special feature, something like "e-ink for somehow time" and the OLED (if that's what they're using) for the full color. I know that nobody made something exactly like that, but I've read that a hybrid e-ink/LCD exists (1). Maybe it wouldn't look so pretty at the moment, but that's why the "magic" is needed, I don't think anybody designed any such hybrid specially for a smart watch. That e-ink or any other magic wouldn't have to be able to display everything, just the time. Even the big unchangeable segments like on old passive LCD watches would be (maybe?) enough. 1) And Apple even has some patents, discovered as early as 2011! http://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-patent-hybrid-display/ http://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-patent-hybrid-display/ Hmm.

takeda 11y ago
They did [1]. The color version is not yet available (first unit should be shipped in May), but the black and white ones were here since 2012. They actually got a wave of preorders right after Apple Watch was shown in March. Based on the back and white version, it indeed is not as nice looking, but I like that it comes as a watch that has smart functionality rather the other way around. And it lasts for 7 days. Can't comment much on the Pebble Time, but the color display actually looks quite nice, it is always on and still last for a week on a single charge. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5zFGkP2Uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5zFGkP2Uw
- publicfig 11y ago
  That's not a hybrid display, only e-ink.
  - takeda 11y ago
    It's actually not e-ink, they call it e-paper, but it actually is a memory LCD. That said, it addresses the problem OP mentioned, which is ability to display content all the time. The color version has only 64 colors but this is something I'm wiling to sacrifice in order to have longer battery life, continuous time display and ability seeing the contents in the sun. What puzzles me is why nobody else is doing the same.

guelo 11y ago

I can barely stand reading Gruber because it feels like reading Apple marketing materials. But he is required reading because he is one of the few ways that Apple releases important industry information. It would be great to have a daringfireball tl;dr service emphasizing his forecasts and "predictions" (which are usually actually Apple leaks).

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
notatoad 11y ago
Did you read this review? Gruber's blind love for anything apple generally turns me off. In this article though i thought his fanboy-ism stayed pretty restricted to apple the company, and it seems like quite a fair critical review of the watch itself.
- guelo 11y ago
  I didn't. I read the first few paragraphs and then couldn't take it and left the comment here.
adamlett 11y ago
> which are usually actually Apple leaks That's really interesting. How do you know this?

bitL 11y ago

So the smartphones replaced watches and now watches are going to have a sudden comeback? I must admit I got rid of all my watches except for a purely mechanical one with a mainspring since my first smartphone. For gym/swimming/running I have a special device with a chest strap - if Apple solved problems plaguing strap-less heart rate monitors I might be interested, however for $400+ definitely not.

roc 11y ago

Designing a 2015 smartwatch to fit the expectations of dumb-watches feels more and more to me like designing a 2007 smartphone to fit the expectations of the blackberry crowd (physical keyboard, removable battery). The digital crown looks like one such mistake. Swipe-to-scroll is so natural, particularly at this point, that moving back to an indirect method of scrolling seems just wrong. And doing so on a device that's already touch, and already using swipe-to-scroll, feels twice and wrong and unnecessarily confusing. I understand the intent and the goal, but the inconsistent use of the crown -- if it's so great, why can I still swipe to scroll at all? -- is a tell. It would have been better to simply detect swipe-to-scroll along the right edge of the bezel (if not along the right side of the frame itself) to effect "scrolling without obscuring". Four-ways-to-click (crown-click vs tap vs force tap vs tap-and-hold) is an eyebrow-raise-er all its own. Also: displays should be wider. At fifty- to one-hundred-percent wider the display would be far better for notifications and would make the selection of A/B buttons more clear and precise. The next time you get a notification on your phone, rest your phone on your wrist, so the notification is displayed roughly where a smartwatch would sit. Ask yourself whether that notification would still "work", if it were crammed into an Apple Watch-sized screen. Some certainly do. More can be made to work alright, if font size were reduced. IME, most simply don't work. There just isn't enough room to get enough meaningful information onto a screen that size, in a comfortable font size, for me to make good decisions about what can be ignored and what should be addressed. You can mitigate this problem if you can ignore all messages of a given type (e.g. don't even bother getting email alerts on your wrist). But even if you could do this, it would be better if you didn't have to. A screen that enables better decisions would make for a more useful object.

schrodinger 11y ago
I like the idea of the digital crown, because the screen's too small to swipe to scroll without obscuring almost everything.
cgh 11y ago
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." --Rob Malda, on the iPod at its release in 2001