
A Week on the Wrist: Apple Watch Series 4 - gesticulator
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/apple-watch-series-4-review
======
emit_time
From the CDC:

More than 750,000 hospitalizations occur each year because of AFib. The
condition contributes to an estimated 130,000 deaths each year. The death rate
from AFib as the primary or a contributing cause of death has been rising for
more than two decades.3,4

AFib costs the United States about $6 billion each year. Medical costs for
people who have AFib are about $8,705 higher per year than for people who do
not have AFib.

AFib Facts An estimated 2.7–6.1 million people in the United States have AFib.
With the aging of the U.S. population, this number is expected to increase.
Approximately 2% of people younger than age 65 have AFib, while about 9% of
people aged 65 years or older have AFib. African Americans are less likely
than those of European descent to have AFib. Because AFib cases increase with
age and women generally live longer than men, more women than men experience
AFib.[1]

I think the inclusion of a ECG and afib detection is going to make a huge
difference in many people's lives.

Also consider that they may have raised the price, but not hugely
significantly. I've had two ECGs done in the past year, and I'm sure each one
cost my insurance more than the price difference of the watch.

One of my friends is highly skeptical of Apple's privacy and who will have
access to this data, but as far as I can tell Apple does not have access to,
or share health data with anyone. Although, maybe we should be concerned about
people giving insurance access to this data without realizing the implications
to their coverage/premiums.

[1]:
[https://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fs_atr...](https://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fs_atrial_fibrillation.htm)

~~~
saagarjha
> One of my friends is highly skeptical of Apple's privacy and who will have
> access to this data, but as far as I can tell Apple does not have access to,
> or share health data with anyone.

By default, the data stays on your device or is encrypted end-to-end if you
store it in iCloud. A while back you could share your heart data for a health
study, but you had to opt in.

~~~
emit_time
That's what I thought, I was trying to find information on their policies
about metadata collection or anything like that, I didn't spend much time
looking though.

But given Apple's stance and track record with privacy I'd be amazed if they
violated that with health data.

~~~
singularity2001
Once it's in the cloud, the government (NSA) can read it on demand, encryption
or not.

Edit: "No one else, not even Apple, can access end-to-end encrypted
information." Strong words, and AES-128, maybe I was wrong.

~~~
saagarjha
They can't if the only keys to access it are on your device, unless there's a
fundamental flaw in how our cryptography is supposed to work.

~~~
singularity2001
> unless there's a fundamental flaw in our cryptography

They compromised elliptic curves. Otherwise it depends on what Apple uses for
encryption.

~~~
newscracker
If this is your argument, then nothing on this planet is secure or safe from
the NSA. Take into account the speculative execution related flaws, like
Spectre and Meltdown, found in all major CPUs (including ARM based ones),
nothing is unbreakable.

~~~
singularity2001
There are many encryption methods safe from the NSA, but you are right, once
they attack the CPU backbones almost nothing on the market is unbreakable.

------
fhood
Haptic feedback is huge. I think it is one of the most important ui
innovations in the last few years, and the occasional ridicule apple receives
for putting so much effort into it is extremely misguided.

Haptic feedback removes the most crippling weakness of the touchscreen, the
inability to use it without looking.

~~~
saagarjha
> Haptic feedback removes the most crippling weakness of the touchscreen, the
> inability to use it without looking.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that. But it does make interacting with a touch
screen feel a lot more "physical".

~~~
fhood
I am more thinking about going. There is no reason why we wont soon begin to
see implementations where you can find interact-able elements without looking
by simply dragging your finger around on the screen.

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saagarjha
> The most apparent size difference is actually the thickness – the 0.7mm
> shaved off the back (mostly from the sensor array) makes a huge difference
> in terms of comfort and you feel it the moment you put one of these new
> models on.

Does it really? I think this is an exaggeration. I went from a 10.5mm first-
generation Apple Watch (which is _thinner_ that this one!) to a 11.4mm Series
2, and I couldn't notice the difference. So I'm not optimistic on this being a
perceivable difference–I guess I'll see on Friday.

~~~
runjake
I'll speak up and agree with the parent.

I don't really like the Apple Watch, so my bias is limited. But, I've had a S0
(returned), S1 (returned), and S2 (sits on night stand most of the time).

For whatever reason, the S2 is noticeably thinner and more comfortable for me.
It may be because I have relatively small, bony wrists but YMMV.

Hell, I'm not sure how Apple measures the thinness, but eyeballing a borrowed
S0 vs my S2, I can eyeball a thickness difference, albeit maybe just with the
glass circle thing jutting out from the bottom?

In case anyone is curious why I don't care for the Apple Watch:

\- I care about truly few notifications (texts).

\- I expect to lift my wrist and look at the watch and see the date and time
immediately, every time. The Apple Watch doesn't really do this. Sometimes it
shows me an audio interface instead, which you can disable. But a lot of the
time, the Watch doesn't even flip on when I turn my wrist unless I turn it a
specific way and speed.

~~~
wycy
My S3 very reliably presents text notifications to me. I wonder why yours
doesn't.

As an aside, I'm also curious why you keep buying them if you just keep
returning them.

~~~
runjake
I didn't say anything about text notifications being unreliable. Sorry if my
wording is confusing.

On your second point, I kept going back and forth on the Watch's usefulness
and WatchOS was being frequently updated upon, delivering new features
rapidly. I'm over that now, hence my low interest in the subsequent S3 and S4
releases.

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komali2
Really wish someone would step up to the plate with an Android or open
platform smartwatch that even approaches the level of quality of the Apple
watches. Their watches are slick but I'm very much opposed to "buying in" to
the system. Correct me if I'm wrong, but an Apple watch without an iPhone to
talk to (and subsequent iCloud account, apple text messages, Apple music etc)
is just a very pretty watch with swappable faces, yea?

~~~
nradov
How do you define "quality"? There are smart watches from Samsung, Garmin, and
other vendors which are superior in some ways but worse it others. It depends
on what you want. All of those are open in the sense that you can write your
own apps.

~~~
komali2
Wait, I wasn't sure if any of those have a cellular radio in them - that was
the first thing that comes to mind. I do like the Galaxy Watch quite a bit
though, though it requires "buy in" to Samsung's suite of things (Samsung Pay
instead of Android Pay/Google Pay for example... which is just me preferring
google stuff over samsung to be fair).

~~~
nradov
The Samsung Gear watch includes 4G LTE connectivity just like the Apple watch.

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netwanderer2
This article has all the elements of a sponsored review but it was done
extremely well and the author provided many detail information which I have to
give him credit for that. The ECG feature is the only reason I would ever buy
an iWatch, if it works as advertised. Apple is smart to focus in the health
niche as there are no other valid reasons an average person would ever need a
smart watch in their life.

~~~
ghaff
>no other valid reasons an average person would ever need a smart watch in
their life.

I'm not a particular smart watch fanboy but here are a few reasons:

\- notifications (of which I use very few)

\- GPS tracking (hiking, running, etc.). That's partly health but not really.

\- Potentially do some phone-related things when your phone isn't handy.

------
rauhl
A couple of years ago I really wanted to get a smart watch. After reading and
reading and reading about them, I realised: buying a smart watch is actually
pretty dumb. For the same amount of money, I could buy an automatic watch
which will never need a battery replaced, never spy on me, never require
patches, never fall out of software support — and will be with me for years to
come.

So I went out and bought a few nice automatic watches, and I’ve been
incredibly happy since. Each of my watches tells time, each looks good, and
each will still be running years after every smart watch sold in 2016 is
powered off.

This particular Apple watch is IMHO too big, and mesh bracelets look very
1980s to me.

~~~
konschubert
Years ago I wanted to buy a computer but then I realized that I could also buy
a bike which is much better because a bike doesn't use electricity /s

~~~
wlesieutre
Any operation you can do on a computer I can do on my abacus. It never needs
to be charged and I enjoy the mechanical nature of its computations. Saved a
bunch of money too!

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MrEfficiency
Anyone have thoughts on if this is worthwhile?

Out of FAANG, I find Apple the closest to capitulation because they need to
keep their luxury product audience buying their product instead of competitors
who seem more willing to take risks.

Every Apple announcement seems more like an 'evolution than revolution' per
the article, and this doesnt seem any different.

Is this the best watch on the market?

EDIT: whoops- PRAISE APPLE, thank you steve jobs for your sacrifice.

~~~
saagarjha
> Is this the best watch on the market?

Without a doubt. Google Wear lacks focus, Pebble is dead, and there's more
offerings like Garmin or Fitbit that are nice but have a smaller scope. But
yes, this is still an "evolutionary" release.

~~~
ghaff
There are still a lot of tradeoffs in the space. The Garmin Fenix is arguably
better for serious runners and backpackers in part because of better battery
life and probably being more rugged.

But they're huge even for 6 ft. large-limbed me.

And I could never get my remanufactured Fenix 3 to consistently measure
distance accurately on twisty turny trails no matter what settings I played
with.

Battery life is definitely still an issue. In fact, I often travel with just a
cheap Timex so it's one less thing I need to bother with.

~~~
zumzumzum
The tracking issues have largely been cleaned up on the Fenix 5. It works well
enough day to day for me, showing notifications from apps on my phone, allows
me to blacklist apps, and has all of the features I need as a "serious" runner
and backpacker/hunter. The Apple Watch isn't playing in that space though.

~~~
ghaff
I was a bit on the fence between Apple and Garmin before a trip earlier this
year where I really wanted a new GPS watch. I decided to spring for the Apple
Watch but I wouldn't be surprised if there were another Fenix in my future at
some point.

