
The Poor Reviews of Apple Watch Now Probably Means It Will Be a Major Success - rawbzeee
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/technology/personaltech/in-apple-watch-debut-signs-of-a-familiar-path-to-success.html?ref=technology
======
nhangen
I have an Apple Watch and haven't worn it in weeks. There are a few reasons:

1\. It's too fancy. I work a lot with my hands, and am afraid of beating the
watch up with daily use. So far it's been fairly scratch and damage proof, but
it's only a matter of time before it makes contact with a surface that will
scratch it.

2\. The gesture doesn't work very well. I have to over exaggerate my viewing
gesture in order to see the watch's updates/alerts. I also can't wear it on
the inside of my wrist for the same reasons.

3\. It's rude. If I get an alert on my phone, while in the pocket, during the
middle of conversation, I can check when the conversation is over. Not so with
the watch. It's thumping and alerting me with every alert, which is a
distraction. Furthermore, there's nothing worse than talking with someone and
seeing them check their watch. Are they too bored? Are they in a hurry? No,
they're checking their phone/watch.

Overall, I didn't feel like it added any value, and felt like it made
interactions with people even more awkward.

~~~
gress
Honestly, if you bought a fancy watch and don't want to wear it because you do
manual work, that's a poor choice on your part and zero to do with the
product.

~~~
bunderbunder
I think you may have missed the point. Apple isn't trying to position this as
just a "fancy watch", they're trying to position it as the next must-have
consumer item.

~~~
gress
Watches designed for heavy manual labor are a niche, not a consumer item.

------
roymurdock
The whole "first generation" argument is flawed. Proponents of the Apple Watch
claim that the hardware and software of the Apple Watch will get better over
time. Fine. But the underlying form factor (a health tracker that makes it
easier to read notifications from your phone) will not change.

While the first gen iPhone started out buggy and feature-sparse, the form
factor was completely revolutionary: a phone with a touch screen and internet
capabilities. A mini-computer in your pocket, rather than just a phone. It set
itself up for future success as wifi, 3g + 4g networks, and the app ecosystem,
developed over the next decade.

People will argue that there will be a different ecosystem of apps for the
Apple Watch. The only input that it gets that is different from a smartphone
is from the user's wrist. Otherwise, apps will be even more restricted by the
small form factor of the watch. Who wants to play a game, read a book, or surf
the web on a watch? Nobody. It's a glorified fitness tracker (do I really care
about my pulse/heart rate? I just strap my iPhone to my arm and then I can
listen to music while I run too!) that obviates the need to take your phone
out of your pocket to check notifications. Which is simply awkward and rude in
social situations.

The smartwatch form factor is not revolutionary and does not enable a large
potential market for uses.

------
terhechte
I think a lot of this has to do with flawed expectations. I've owned the first
iPhone right after it was released, same with the iPad, and now with the
watch. iPhone and iPad had initial issues, software flaws, lacking features,
but all of them were still a pleasure to use and worked as advertised.

I feel that many people see today's iPhone and compare it to the watch, but
the original iPhone with iPhone OS 1.0 had only 2G, no GPS, no app store, a
miserable camera, couldn't record videos, no copy & paste, and a lot of flaws
that I'm probably forgetting right now.

But just like the other devices, the watch will start small and expand from
here. You could say the current incarnation is only the shape of things to
come.

I use the watch for three core features: As a remote for phone apps and
functionality in the phone, as a time keeping device, and for fitness
measurement (where it replaced my fitbit). The watch is a great device for
these three features, but it's not a phone replacement, and it won't be for a
long time I suppose.

~~~
crdoconnor
>I feel that many people see today's iPhone and compare it to the watch, but
the original iPhone with iPhone OS 1.0 had only 2G, no GPS, no app store, a
miserable camera, couldn't record videos, no copy & paste, and a lot of flaws
that I'm probably forgetting right now.

I'm still scratching my head today how they managed to turn that into a
success. I thought for sure with all of those issues it was going to be a
flop. I still don't understand why it wasn't.

~~~
Spooky23
It had a working web browser.

I had two smart devices at the time. A Windows Mobile iPaq or whatever it
called and a BlackBerry. The BlackBerry was the ultimate two-way pager, but
the browser experience was MISERABLE. Given that Citibank and JP Morgan owned
like 150,000 of the things, you'd think that the browser would render CNBC.
Not so!

The Windows Mobile Device was sort of better, but the browser was some sort of
scaled IE 5 derivative. It still had a stylus, and a Windows 95 style UI,
complete with checkboxes and other awkward UI elements. The only third party
app of any use was Google Maps.

The iPhone broke free of the carrier nickle/dime racket, had a good web
browser and offered a user experience 10x better than anything else. EDGE was
a bummer, but a slow network that would work was better than 3G without
anything to do. The touch interface, pinch to zoom, etc was a game changer.

~~~
soylentcola
I also had some earlier smartphones (Palm Treo, a couple of HTC PocketPCs
running Windows Mobile) and agree that the browser experience was tolerable at
best. I think I used Opera Mini and Opera Mobile depending on which ran best
on a given device.

Still, there were just so many things I had gotten used to (and not just
Google Maps and other nav programs like TomTom). I could still buy those
phones without carrier junk if I wanted to pay full price. The main issue was
that there weren't as many decent options for prepaid or MVNO deals and my
$45/mo Sprint plan came with unlimited 3G so it was as good as any $80+ plan
from ATT that I'd have had to get with an iPhone.

Even stuff we take for granted now like listening to streaming radio was
missing. I was (and still am) a huge fan of several Shoutcast stations that I
used via headphones or plugged into the car when everyone else was paying for
XM. I had a tuner card in my home PC with my cable connection hooked up and a
server app running so I could skim through my home media library or any live
cable station and have it piped to my old Windows Mobile phone.

Hell, you could even make video calls at whatever low resolution the front
camera had at the time and there were the precursors to services like
Periscope like Qik. The iPhone didn't even let you change the wallpaper or
ringtone for eff's sake.

That's not to rag on the stuff they did right. The iPhone wasn't targeted at
me. It was targeted at people who used their phones for texting, calls, and
maybe email or the early mobile web. Compared to those RAZRs and lower-end
Blackberrys, the iPhone didn't really take anything away. It added a much
better interface that was smoother and more responsive than anything on those
featurephones or my beloved PPC. And yeah, the web browser was the killer
feature. Passable web browsing was fine on my WinMo but the iPhone's browser
was so much nicer to use.

In the end I just couldn't give up my unlimited 3G, GPS, multitasking, third
party apps, or customization options in order to double my bill and pick up an
iPhone. Still, I am thankful to this day that they hit everyone else where
they were lacking (interface and responsiveness) so those later competitors
were forced to address that even as Apple slowly added in the features they
were missing from other smart phones.

Nowadays it's almost moot as the insane growth in mobile development has made
even $150 contract-free phones capable of all those fancy features.

~~~
Spooky23
I think the key is, Apple rev' their product in a year. Had iOS not existed, a
Treo would probably still be a thing.

------
codeshaman
> The Poor Reviews of Apple Watch Now Probably Means It Will Be a Major
> Success

It's good to look at the water in the glass, even when it's not even half
full. I guess.

The iphone made computing ultra portable, the iPad reinvented the couch, and
both of them revolutionized the toilet experience.

The iWatch doesn't quite revolutionize or transform anything. There is no
inherent advantage to having half-a-computer on your wrist at all times.

The iWatch is a fashion item at the moment - hackers don't seem to be
impressed with it as much (judging by the very few articles about iWatch on HN
:)). And if you don't impress the hackers, your days are numbered.

~~~
micampe
_> And if you don't impress the hackers, your days are numbered._

I don't know if the Watch will be successful in the long run, and I don't want
to post the slashdot quote for the millionth time, but that's exactly what
people said about the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

On the other hand, hackers were extremely excited about Maemo and Openmoko.

~~~
codeshaman
Yeah, you're right I guess. Hackers are very poor predictors of commercial
success, if not the opposite.

Although, I meant 'developers' when I used the term 'hackers'.. The watch is
very limited in the amount of freedom that it gives developers, and if you
can't attract them, then it's not taking off.

I'm sure Apple knows that a lot better than I do, so let's see how they attack
that problem in the future.

------
zeeed
This title gives me a headache for so many reasons.

------
cuillevel3
So the first version of the Apple watch has failed, but the author hopes for a
better second version, which may even be cheaper. Meanwhile he's happy about
the software updates.

I guess the "sold more units than the ipod" argument refers to the first
generation ipods, too?

~~~
mkirlin
"$1b+ in sales" == "has failed"? Christ, I hope everything I do fails so well.

~~~
kbody
Margins matter, remember of PS3 which was sold at cost and even with losses
since Sony was looking at profits from game sales.

~~~
matwood
And according to tear downs margins are considered pretty high. Not as high as
their other products, but they are certainly not selling at a loss.

I too find it funny talking about a failure of a product that had ~1B in
revenue (more than the MS Surface tablets in the same quarter), and where Tim
Cook said the sales were back loaded, i.e. accelerating.

Anecdotally I'm seeing more and more Apple Watches around.

 _EDIT_

I guess the Apple haters like down voting facts. Here are some sources from
yesterdays earnings call:

From the earnings call transcript ([http://www.imore.com/this-is-tim-
transcript-q3-2015](http://www.imore.com/this-is-tim-transcript-q3-2015)): _On
the Watch, our June sales were higher than April or May. I realize that’s very
different than some of what’s being written, but June sales were the highest.
The Watch had a more of a back-ended kind of skewing._

From the CFO ([http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2015/07/21/3730284_apple-
strong...](http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2015/07/21/3730284_apple-strong-
iphone-sales-few.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy)): _But Chief Financial Officer Luca
Maestri told The Associated Press that revenue from the watch amounted to
"well over" that $952 million increase. He said the watch sales were offset by
declining revenue from iPods and accessories, which are also lumped into that
segment._

------
dlss
> If E is a binary event and P(H|E) > P(H), "seeing E increases the
> probability of H"; then P(H|~E) < P(H)

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_o...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/)

------
Puts
I think theres an argument we are missing when only talking about the
technical aspects of the Apple Watch. To be honest, I think it's to expensive
for regular people. Even if it could bake you croissants and turn you a soup
bowl, most people already burnt their tech budget on a phone that used to cost
$200 and last three years, but now costs four times as much and is expected to
last for two.

------
gress
The reviews are not poor, and the Apple Watch has outsold the iPhone and iPad
over the same period in its lifecycle.

This is just a failure of journalism, or possibly an angle that pleases a
major advertiser.

