I really think Apple kind of dropped the ball on their watch. Samsung's line of Gears is way more beneficial to me. With the new ones having their own number and ways of connection you don't even have to have your phone anywhere near you for the watch to function. They have mics, cameras, apps, and all that jazz. I have been using the 1st generation Gear for a little over two years now and haven't had any problems; I love my watch. I can change the face style to any design, picture, color scheme I want so that when I'm dressed up for an event or something I can take five seconds and make the Gear match my tie or undershirt or anything else. When I'm out skiing I can change to be fluorescent orange with the weather conditions under the time and even control what music I'm listening to while I time my runs. All without having to dig through all my snow gear to access my phone. The Apple watch doesn't really seem to have any features that make it something that is really useful. I suppose that might be said about a lot of products Apple pushes out nowadays. They seem to be on a slow decline ever since Jobs passed.
One of the biggest issues that Apple has faced since Jobs passed away is brand dilution. Before his death, it was pretty easy to pick out a Mac or iPhone from far away, as they were tech staples in popular culture. Unfortunately, beginning with the iPhone 5c, Apple tried to get too fancy. I thought the 5c could have been a throwback to the 1998 iMac, but they kept up with increasing options, which is arguably the opposite of what made Apple appealing. Too many choices is a bad thing for the common consumer, especially one that got used to Apple's standard black/white color choices, save a few generations of the iPod nano. Now there's, what, 38 options? Too much brand dilution. I don't know if I'd recognize an Apple Watch the same way I recognized the first iPhone, iPad, or iMac. Watches seemed like the next logical step, but they did it poorly. Too many choices too late hurt this release.
I couldn't agree more. My favorite part of Apple was always the limited number of options that gave you the distinct Apple feel. It seems like instead of moving forward they are moving sideways. Focusing on fancy, shiny things instead of innovative tech.
Oh no all these options, why are there so many options, said nobody ever.
20,000 a day? Anywhere else, these sales figures would look impressive. Apple has a reputation that makes this example the outlier. I did just talk with a friend who told me that the only thing the Apple Watch is good for is vibrating for notifications. More and more, I put my phone away at work and at home because I'm sick of having the weight in my pocket (first world problem, i know). I'd prefer to have something less obtrusive to alert me. Too bad I don't wear watches.
Remember back when phones were smaller than a Texas Instruments graphing calculator? I can't wait until we go back to itty bitty phones. If these things ran 4g with any sort of aplomb I'd totally have one.
Thing is, for most people, a smartphone is less a phone and more a small laptop. I make phone calls about once or twice a month, and text a few times a day at most. I browse the web, listen to audiobooks, take notes, and play games on my phone throughout the day.
Can't even do that much and I like the look of the Motorola watch more.
I was thinking about adapting the game we are making to watches, only to find out that that they use bluetooth to connect with the phone. Hopefully they can catch up before we look into it again. I still would love to come out early with a game for watches.
I think if Apple had released this a few years ago then it'd be doing much better. It seems that they're doing a lot less proactive innovating and are now falling more and more into reactive thinking. I regularly work with two Apple engineers who are usually completely aglow about whatever the new tech is that's coming out and when I asked them about the watch there was a somewhat uncomfortable, "Oh yeah....that." The problem is we've got devices that do most of this stuff for us. If I've got to keep a phone in my pocket to interact with my watch then what's the point of the watch? (And on a selfish side note, those watch faces need some work. Snoopy or GTFO.) I've got a Fitbit that shames me about my activity levels that I invested in when Apple didn't have a horse in that race, and why would I give up technology that I know and that works for the latest great shiny thing. But maybe therein lies the problem: Apple's still riding the wave of expecting people to get the latest greatest shiny thing even if it's not bringing anything new to the table and that model can't sustain itself forever.
As someone who kickstarted the pebble and has used it daily since then I can say that smart watches have a very narrow area of usefulness at this point. The text notifications are great, the changeable watch faces are cool, they have all the functionality of the fanciest watch, and there are some genuinely useful apps like pedometers, turn by turn directions, and time management programs. But at this point no smart watch is as good as they are being marketed. Even the most modest ads make them out to be way more than they are. My pebble really spends most its time just being a watch, and at its price point I'm OK with that. But when we get into apple watch prices that's when I just can't justify the expense for the limited utility. Wearable tech isn't a fad, it's the future. But we aren't in the future yet, there is a lot to be done before these things are as good as we want them to be.
I don't know. The ads show things you can do not necessarily things you will do. From there on you have to see what your personal use case is. For me a vibrating watch with multitimers that shows notifications was more then enough to justify a $70 open box price for a Pebble. Particularly considering that a decent vibrating watch starts at $35. The Apple watch looks a lot like a fullsized iPad to me: not a good value proposition. Except I don't forsee anyone sticking it in a keyboard case so it will have to compete with it's cheaper competition on it's own merrits.
I don't get the point in the apple watch. You have to keep your phone in the general area where you want to make/receive calls on the watch so that part is useless. Your phone can act as a pedometer/GPS, etc.. so that part of the watch is useless. The watch is just pointless in my opinion.
Honestly, I have forgotten that the Apple Watch was even available. Its not remotely on my list of things I want.... yet. The day that the watch can replace my phone is the day that I'll gladly wait in line, in the snow to pick one up. Okay, maybe not in the snow, but I'd wait.