
Meet the Apple Watch - harryzhang
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/09/meet-the-apple-watch/
======
crazypyro
I just don't think the watch market is really there. I feel like its shrinking
steadily among younger people as the need for a time teller is replaced by the
modern cell phone. I believe people have convinced themselves into convincing
companies that they actually want a high tech wrist watch when, in reality,
the market isn't that big and it is shrinking. I believe this whole craze
started with the pebble. People see and think "cool", but then realize after a
week of wearing it that they have no additional need being filled by it. There
are of course exceptions (joggers for example might be a specific use case),
but overall I think demand is lower than the current market saturation.

Also it requires an iPhone.

~~~
ksherlock
there's a reason the wrist watch replaced the pocket watch.

~~~
slantyyz
>> there's a reason the wrist watch replaced the pocket watch.

The funny thing is that I stopped wearing wrist watches when phones started
fitting in my pocket. So my phone, while having extra features, isn't very
different from a pocket watch.

And if there are a lot of people like me, you can make the argument that the
pocket (or purse) watch subsequently replaced the wrist watch.

~~~
aninhumer
Well yeah, the smart pocket watch obviously trumps the dumb wrist watch. The
point here is that now the wrist watch is smart again, it is likely to take
over again for the same reasons it beat the pocket watch the first time.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying they'll completely replace smartphones, just
that enough features can be moved to the wrist to make it worth wearing.

~~~
slantyyz
>> just that enough features can be moved to the wrist to make it worth
wearing.

I'm afraid it's not quite so simple as that. It also has to be more than
simply worth wearing.

* It has to be worth adding to the pile of devices that you're managing (remembering to charge, remembering to wear, connecting to your phone, security settings, etc).

* It has to be worth taking up another USB port in your charger (since it's not using a lightning or micro USB port)

* It has to be worth taking up more space on your nightstand for charging.

While I see a lot of benefits for sporty/health types and FOMO-afflicted
notification addicts, I'm not so sure it's going to eat up the market the same
way the iPhone and iPad did.

------
grey-area
This watch looks like it was designed by a committee:

Two ways to navigate the interface (wheel for zooming, to avoid touching the
screen, and panning by...touching the screen).

Tasteless misfeatures like customisable emoji [1] and drawing your own fail
whale on a tiny screen [2], and most inexplicable of all for an expensive
watch - very little attention paid to the actual watch face designs, which are
not even adapted to the square frame, and some of which have numbering
superimposed awkwardly over images like a butterfly or globe, or mickey
mouse...ugh [3]

[1]
[http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple024...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple0243.jpg)

[2]
[http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple025...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple0252.jpg)

[3]
[http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple021...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apple0216.jpg)

Combining all that stuff with materials like 18 carat gold or brushed steel
doesn't really make sense - it's as if they asked a different person about
each feature included and then mashed it all together in some frankenstein
mess. The fitness features look quite nice in contrast.

I actually think in future we'll all be using wearables like this far more
than phones - little status bands or com badges or glasses/contact lenses, but
this is not a glimpse of the future so much as a glimpse at the dysfunction in
the current Apple design process, post Steve Jobs, and their inability to
produce coherent products.

~~~
stefan_kendall3
My friends and I _love_ the stickers on messenger. On a new sticker day, it's
like the highlight of the day. They're fun and sometimes terrifying, and it
adds some fun to group conversations.

Maybe you're not the target audience.

------
cnbuff410
I think there are two things Apple did wrong here

1\. They have customized size and band, while not the shape. I for one love
round shape and hate the square shape, and I believe I'm not the only one with
this preference.

2\. They emphasized too much on the interaction with watch. IMO, watch is
supposed to notify you new things, have you glance over it and do some quick
responding. That's it. User should not use watch in the same way they use
phone.

In Apple watch's demo, they have too much interaction showing there and the
information on one screen is sometimes crowded. That's not a good sign.

I do like the new interaction pattern they introduced there though. Quite
innovative IMO.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "IMO, watch is supposed to notify you new things, have you glance over it
and do some quick responding. That's it. User should not use watch in the same
way they use phone."

Not enough people will pay several hundred dollars for that. I'm a geek and
heavy smartphone user and I wouldn't pay $50 just to get notifications on my
wrist. It needs to do more or there's only a small market.

~~~
x0x0
yup. I keep my phone on vibrate in my pocket; the fundamental question they
have to answer is why the hell do I need to pay $400 just to get notifications
on my wrist? I presume the answer is look at all this cool stuff too! fitness
/ ui tracking, quick interactions, etc

------
whiddershins
I think it is great to be skeptical, and it is fun to slag on Apple,
especially if they insist on having U2 play their event.

But on a more serious note, I won't underestimate the potential for a widely
adopted device that is:

1) always visible to the user. Yes, in my opinion taking my phone out of my
pocket and putting it back in again is one of those irritations you don't
notice until it goes away and then you wondered how you lived for so long
doing that dumb behavior. Setting your phone on the dinner table, constantly
looking at it when you are trying to walk around town ... the watch could be
subtly revolutionary for those thousands of glances a day.

2) always _touching_ the user. I am extremely excited, or at least intrigued,
by what is possible with persistent two-way haptic communication. Without
having used the dev kit, and without feeling the actuators, I don't know how
nuanced the communication can be. But there could be a whole new world here.

Just a thought from the "maybe they aren't idiots at Apple" perspective.

~~~
sirn
I got really excited when they mentioned about haptic feedback for turn by
turn directions. That was the moment I feel how a wearable could become an
extension to our _sense_. If it could provide me some information without me
using or looking at it, then that's really indeed a whole new world.

I can't wait to see it in action.

------
daddykotex
I think this design is much uglier than the Moto 260[1].

[1] [https://moto360.motorola.com/](https://moto360.motorola.com/)

~~~
Gormo
Wow, that's probably one of the most unusable, non-responsive product pages
I've ever seen on the web.

After clicking the link, I stared at a black screen containing nothing but the
"Moto 360" logo and a throbber for about 10 seconds before the actual page
content started to display.

Scrolling is just completely broken: moving the mouse wheel in _any_ direction
will scroll the page _down_. But there's no at-a-glance summary of product
features, so you _must_ scroll through the whole mess just to find out about
the product. Animations and videos begin playing as soon as their section of
the page is scrolled to, without being triggered by deliberate user action.
One of the sections uses some sort of bloom effect on the text that doesn't
work properly and makes the text unreadable.

So after wading through all of that, I started reading some of the copy on the
page, and while I was doing so, I was spontaneously sent back to the 'loading
screen' with the logo and throbber while more content downloaded for another
5-10 seconds.

I'm on a 10 MB/s DSL connection at the moment. The page took a whopping 228.85
seconds (that's _three minutes and forty-nine seconds_ ) to load over 13 MB of
content.

And, after all of that, I still don't have a clear idea of why I'd be
interested in the product. This is just absolutely hellish web design.

~~~
sg47
If I understand correctly, OP's comment was not about the web page but on the
product listed on that page.

~~~
Gormo
I know, but he linked to the web page in order to provide background info on
the product he was discussing, and I wanted to point out the extreme
difficulty I had in actually obtaining that information from that site.
Apologies if my comment was a bit of a rathole (but perhaps it's less of a
rathole than actually attempting to visit that site would be).

------
cwal37
No talk of water resistance or battery life is pretty disappointing. Those two
things are key for something I would like to keep on my wrist for as long as
possible.

~~~
derwiki
For real. Will this last a week or a day? I like that my Pebble isn't another
smartphone that I have to charge on the daily.

~~~
mrslx
seems to imply its daily charge - 'easy to charge everynight'.

------
fakeasaur
I don't know If I'm an idiot, but I'm not seeing the huge deal here. Is the
space from the pocket to the wrist such a chasm that it merits making a device
like this?

~~~
TwiztidK
I think a watch would be extremely handy to have while running, cycling,
kayaking, etc. Something to track activity, change songs, or show a map when
you are unable to use your phone.

Unfortunately, the $350 price point is way too high for something like that.

~~~
matthewmcg
Kayaking...if you keep your phone within Bluetooth Low Energy range in a
waterproof sack.

~~~
mcphage
> if you keep your phone within Bluetooth Low Energy range

300 ft.

> in a waterproof sack

Probably the one that contains your wallet and keys as well.

~~~
collyw
Not much use as a watch then.

~~~
TwiztidK
It wasn't mentioned, but I fully assume the watch will be waterproof (at least
water resistant). They incidentally come in contact with water too often
(rain, hand washing, etc) to not be.

The Moto360 is water resistant and the Pebble is water proof, so if the Apple
Watch isn't, it's seriously in trouble.

~~~
mcphage
No doubt the reason they didn't say yet, is because it hasn't been finished
yet. But yes, it will be at least water resistant, since if it's not, it would
be useless. Apple wants to sell these things, so it won't make them useless.

------
theg2
$350 and not out until "early 2015"

Dead in the water. That's insanely expensive and too late in the smartwatch
market in my mind.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I'll take that bet:
[https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/509092715783401472](https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/509092715783401472)

Also, I'm guessing that the "Edition" watches are going to sell for 10x that.
And there'll be a months-long wait to get one.

------
radicalbyte
Ugly. It looks like something from the 1980s. What happened to the beautiful
minimilistic design?

I can imagine Roger Moore and Christopher Walken wearing one in "A View To A
Kill".

------
julianpye
When they announced the feature of sharing your heartbeat with your partner
via vibrate, both my girlfriend and I went 'eeeeew'. Some things shouldn't be
done through technology, just like that Japanese remote kissing device :)

~~~
revelation
Well, I don't see the eww factor in sharing a number. But then I also don't
see the point, because the sensor will (just as the Motorola one) not reliably
work when exercising and theres no tracking mechanism anyway.

(There are optical heart rate sensors that are made for exercise, and they
have much brighter LEDs and specially designed case for shutting out exterior
light)

~~~
mcphage
> have much brighter LEDs

Where did they announce the brightness of the heart rate LEDs?

> specially designed case for shutting out exterior light

Well, it's sitting right against your wrist, pressed against it. I think
that'll block out enough light.

------
revelation
Seems like a complete reversal. You have the watch-like Motorola running
Android and looking like an actual watch, and here is Apples watch that looks
like a refined Pebble and has quirky stuff like quick exchange bands that were
previously more of the Android domain.

------
ap22213
Maybe I'm missing the point with these new devices, but I can't be the only
one not interested in ever wearing a watch again.

~~~
owenversteeg
Ehh, I have a nice mechanical watch. It and a notepad in my pocket mean I have
no use for a smartphone, and I can use it in places where a smartphone would
be inappropriate (rowing, exercising, during a concert, etc.) I doubt I'll
ever buy a smartwatch but I love my dumbwatch.

------
MisterBastahrd
Possibly the ugliest of all smartwatches, useless for the majority of people
out there, not likely to be on the wrists of most of the target demographic
(they already own watches and fitness bands), and incredibly expensive. Not
sure how many people need a watch to tell them that their phone is ringing.

Good job, Apple. While I'm sure there will be some adherents who will buy
whatever you will produce, the Android watch makers will already be on their
next iteration AND will have seen your specs to boot. Never thought I'd say
this, but Apple has fallen WAY behind in terms of product design.

~~~
ceejayoz
> not likely to be on the wrists of most of the target demographic (they
> already own watches and fitness bands)

You could've said that about phones and PDAs pre-iPhone.

------
pilif
Me personally, I don't see myself ever wearing a watch, but if I was, I would
be annoyed about that crown thing being on the right side of the watch.

As a more or less leftie, wearing a purely non interactive element on the left
hand as it is custom for watches is ok, but having to interact with that crown
thing using my right hand feels wrong.

I could probably get used to it, but then, I can doost things with both hands,
but I can imagine some left handed people having trouble with this (or
obscuring their display when using it with the left hand)

~~~
adventured
I'm guessing either they'll make a left handed version, or you'll be able to
just flip it (positioning the crown to the bottom on the right hand wrist),
and the screen will be able to flip accordingly.

------
6thSigma
I'm skeptical about a few things - mostly regarding the dial. They are trying
to replace pinch-to-zoom, but how does it know where to zoom? Also, the main
UI screen with all of the apps looks ridiculous. They don't want you touching
the watch, unless it's to click on a tiny app icon?

I need to see this in person.

~~~
vamin
I wonder what the experience will be like for left-handed people. Can the
watch be rotated to have the dial on the opposite side?

~~~
51Cards
You could put the bands on reversed, and the software could invert the screen
but the knob would be on the bottom, vs. the top. It would work though not
ideal.

Overly not impressed by the crown control... people who wear watches that need
to be wound rarely do it while it's on their wrist. I would need to feel this
"dial" control to be convinced this is a good idea.

------
Someone1234
Three things:

1\. No word on battery. This has been a huge problem for other (sometimes
larger) watches. Does it have to be charged daily?

2\. More expensive than the competition ($350 Vs. $250 and $150, for the
Galaxy Gear+Moto 360/Pebble+Sony Smartwatch).

3\. They release in "early 2015" so miss this Christmas holiday season which
MIGHT negatively impact adoption (or not, dunno).

4\. iPhone only. I understand their reasoning but this will definitely limit
adoption somewhat (not really too surprising however).

The battery question is the biggest ??? hanging over this. A watch that can
barely last a day (e.g. Moto 360) is a huge negative to a lot of people,
myself included.

That's one area where the Pebble really excelled. With its eInk display, the
screen was always "on" and it would run for several days on a single charge.
We need a combination LCD/eInk panel to get the best of both.

~~~
skrause
Tim Cook said about the magnet connector "so that you can easily charge it at
night". So expect to charge it daily.

~~~
kbd
That's crazy. One of the great things about my Pebble being my alarm is that
vibration on your wrist is hard to sleep through. If you have to charge your
watch every night...

------
n0rm
Terrible design.

The high-end customers you desire will never abandon their shiny Swiss watches
for this.

The low-end customers will (once again) be claimed by Samsung.

I didn't really like him, but Jobs was indeed a visionary. Apple is losing
ground (alarmingly rapidly, I might add) after him. May he rest in peace.

~~~
dghughes
Low end customers and Samsung?

The Gear S smart watch is stand-alone (or tether), has 3G cellular, wifi and
looks far better than the Apple watch. It will probably cost about the same as
the Apple watch too.

------
arrel
To sum up: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

------
rnernento
"Watch", "Watch Edition", "Watch Sport" \- The bad Chinese knockoffs already
have their naming taken care of...

------
sixQuarks
How I miss Steve Jobs. He would never allow a POS like this to be revealed.

------
kunstmord
Ah, screw this. I was hoping for 1) A round watch. Indeed, it looks geeky at
best. 2) More talk about health options (sleep tracking?). Besides, after all
the specialists Apple hired, it just measures your heartbeat and walking
distance. An iPhone with an M chip can do that (OK, you won't probably have it
with you all the time, especially when jogging), but still. And instead
there's a load of talk about emoji, causing another user's watch to vibrate,
notifications, etc.

I would've been fine with less functionality app-wise, a nicer overall look
and a lower price. I don't need to watch photos and read twitter on my watch
(it still needs an iPhone for that, right? So what's the friggin' point?)

The wireless things like payments and opening hotel rooms are kinda cool,
though, but then again, I'd probably be too lazy/paranoid to enter the data
into the watch than to get out my wallet/hotel room key.

------
yodsanklai
I can see it as being slightly useful to monitor heart rate and piloting the
mp3 player, occasionally. But certainly not worth the cost and the burden (one
more device to recharge and carry around). Also, a watch is a personal item. I
wouldn't like to have the same watch as everybody else.

I wonder if they'll find a market for this.

------
k-mcgrady
It's still a little geeky looking - but much, much less geeky looking than the
competitors. I would personally prefer a round face but I can understand how
that make it harder to do such a useful/interactive UI. Round face is fine for
notifications but not as good if you're interacting.

------
post_break
Left handed people are kinda screwed with this thing.

~~~
ninkendo
I'm sure you can turn it around.

~~~
post_break
Then the button is on the top.

------
QuantumGood
Don't see how this fits with Apple's core competency—creating a hardware
device in a category where competitive devices have poor usability and limited
function. This is Apple's first "me too" mobile product, as far as I can see.

~~~
chrisstanchak
The iPod was a "me too" product.

------
osxrand
I am liking the idea of using the crown to help navigate around the interface.
Glad they thought about it a lot more vs just compressing the phone down into
a smaller UI (similar to the small iPod was). Also, how smoothly did those
icons on the home screen move around? For some reason I found that really
impressive, now to find out what the battery life is like (nice use of MagSafe
as well for charging, IMO)

Not a fan of those animated emoji at all. Not sure why they included those
tbh.

~~~
51Cards
I'm not seeing the crown being that effective. People who needed to use the
crown to wind/set a watch almost always took it off to use it effectively. I
don't see it being easy to use while it's on your wrist but I would have to
put my hands on it I guess to really feel it. I am a collector of antique
watches though, and none of them I would wind while wearing it.

------
matthewmcg
Anyone else have or remember the universal HomeLink transmitters that came in
cars? Your car had a button that could "learn" the sequence from most garage
door openers, apartment gate clickers, and the like.

I would love for this watch to be able to be able to clone all the various
NFC-type items and building access cards people carry around. I suspect there
are considerable technical and legal obstacles to this, but hey, there's an
API!

------
paulojreis
No "visible" Apple logo? Now, that's strange.

------
nfmangano
Too bad about it requiring a phone. I was hoping to be able to ditch my phone
and talk with a watch paired to a blue tooth headset. I'll keep dreaming.

------
patrickaljord
This is an Apple watch so they'll make billions of dollars out of it, no
doubt. It looks like a good product too. But it doesn't have anything special
compared to android based smartwatches, not even a round shaped one, plus I
prefer google now for smart alerts. Still, of course it'll sell well and
you'll still be able to install google now on it I guess.

------
brian_cloutier
We'll have to wait until a tear-down comes out, but there's no way this costs
$350 to make. Hasn't apple's strategy always been to sell hardware with a
healthy margin and make almost nothing off their software ecosystem. Could
this signal a change?

Even assuming this watch becomes insanely popular, will it really drive more
iPhone sales?

~~~
slantyyz
>> We'll have to wait until a tear-down comes out, but there's no way this
costs $350 to make

This should probably go without saying, but a bill of materials is probably
not very representative of the real costs of this product.

------
nokiaman
The marketing hype is ridiculous and the fanboys are going to be unbearable:

Ion strengthened glass.

18K Gold developed to be twice as hard as standard gold.

~~~
51Cards
"18K Gold developed to be twice as hard as standard gold."

Did they really say that? Ha! Who knew my 9K gold stuff was vastly superior to
higher grades.

~~~
femto113
18K just means "75% pure gold", it doesn't say what the other 25% is and there
are a lot of different alloys. Most commonly it's mostly copper, which
ironically is what gives it the standard "gold" tint (white gold uses metals
like silver instead). I assume they mean "we picked an alloy that's harder
than most".

~~~
nokiaman
Apparently Apple has their own metallurgists now... nauseating...

"crafted from 18-karat gold that our metallurgists have developed to be up to
twice as hard as standard gold."

[http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-
edition/](http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-edition/)

~~~
mcphage
> Apparently Apple has their own metallurgists now... nauseating...

Given how many things they make out of metal, they've probably had
metallurgists for years. I'm not sure what you find nauseating about that
idea.

------
rnernento
:( I was really hoping for something more impressive. This doesn't even hold
up to the Moto 360.

~~~
hxw
Can you pay using the moto 360?

~~~
rnernento
No, but I wouldn't be embarrassed to wear it in public... ;)

~~~
hxw
To each his own, I think the Moto 360 looks like a hockey puck :)

(I'm not Che or Maradona, so I'm not ditching my analogue watch for a smart
watch any time soon, even if I can pay with it..)

------
losvedir
At the end of the announcement they mentioned using it for NFC payments. But
anyone have an idea how that would work without the thumbprint scanner of the
iPhone? It seemed like that was one of the key features of the Apple Pay
announcement earlier in the keynote.

------
talles
I'm excited to see more about inductive charging. They showed anything about
it on the presentation (I couldn't watch).

And also, it is said that requires an iPhone. Does it have to be nearby it?
Are the phone and the watch always connected?

------
precyse
I rather prefer the Garmin Fit. Battery life is almost a year. It does only 2
things: whether I am active enough and sleeping enough. Do we really need to
have notifications on the watch. Not sure. May be i am too old.

~~~
blktiger
You can now get the vivosmart instead of the vivofit if you want
notifications. The tradeoff is your battery life drops to something like 7
days. That's still pretty good though.

(Full disclosure, I'm a current Garmin employee but I don't work in the
fitness area)

------
julianpye
Apple Watch has NFC - now that is something none of the Android watches have.
Don't pull your phone or wallet out, pay with your wrist. But by early 2015,
Android Wear will catch up.

~~~
daeken
That's the single feature that the Apple Watch has that I'm interested in.
Over the past year, I've been integrating NFC into a huge part of my daily
life (from implants to door locks to smart tags all over my house) and having
it in a watch is killer. Just not enough to jump back to the iPhone. Can't
wait to see the Moto 360 r2 with NFC.

------
crystaln
Looks like a beautiful product. Unclear to me why anyone would want one. Much
like Google Glasses, I'm straining to think of a compelling use case in my own
life.

------
stefan_kendall3
I'm buying at least 2. One for me, and one for my girlfriend. I may also get
one for my mom.

Mine is for development. I see 10x returns easily, possibly 100x.

~~~
collyw
What kind of apps do you see bringing in such revenue?

~~~
stefan_kendall3
I'm mostly interested in specialty/niche sports/fitness applications. All of
the built-in stuff is great for people who think running is where fitness ends
or need to be reminded to walk every day, but not so great for someone looking
to improve a 600lb deadlift or cut their 40m time.

I also think a handful of other fun apps could be profitable, like using the
local communication thing to send shock images/reaction gifs/dumb sticker
packs.

The first IAP Tamagotchi-type game will make a million dollars easily.

I'll probably stick to focusing on health and performance, but plenty is
possible.

------
rohunati
I think I'll stick with my jawbone up for now...

What I think is interesting, however, is what the apple watch will look like 5
years from now.

------
Zaheer
$350? That's fairly pricey!

------
ragecore
As someone who uses the NikeFuel, I've gotta say this watch is COMPLICATED.

------
elyrly
News overload: TC Disrupt, Hacker News, Product Hunt, Apple Event!!!

------
hxw
Finally, someone not trying to mimic analogue watches.

------
jarjoura
Sorry, I just had to be the one to say it. If SJ were presenting, he would
have focused 10 minutes on how this device was the best and most precise thing
at telling time. He would have shown how the hardware surpassed anything a
mechanical watch would have ever done and it would be the time/watch nerds
dream device.

With all the compromises in size and battery life, this is what you would gain
in return for it. Instead, it was sold as a "me too", complementary device,
just with Apple magic thrown in there.

So now in the end, I don't need a mini-iphone on my wrist or do I want one. I
can just as easily pull the phone out of my pocket as it takes the same amount
of time.

Such a shame really, because it's obvious that Apple had their brightest
engineers work long hours on it.

