
The Apple Watch - orteipid
http://daringfireball.net/2015/04/the_apple_watch
======
DigitalSea
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.

~~~
bane
He's definitely a shill. Imagine a couple years ago, when Gruber couldn't even
bring himself to pretend to provide critical analysis of Apple products. I
used to just flag daringfireball posts as soon as I saw them. These days
there's at least information content in his posts so I usually leave them
alone.

But Gruber also spends an extraordinary amount of time these days using
framing devices to either draw false comparisons that put Apple on top, or
minimize the cases where Apple clearly screwed up. You could easily cut this
review down by 2/3rds just by getting rid of the superfluous framing he uses
throughout and not lose any information at all. The amount of hemming and
hawing in this makes me think that he's not really buying it this time. It's
not a crap device, but it's not clear what it's good for and it's not strictly
better than just a normal watch. He didn't really effuse about Apple's stated
use-cases for the device. His hope throughout is that maybe it'll appeal to
non-watch wearers?

You'll also notice that he carefully doesn't compare it to all the other smart
watches in the growing segment. He pretends like it only is comparable to
regular watches, like the Apple watch was introduced into a market vacuum, cut
from whole cloth (Apple's magical genius cloth), and completely uninformed by
the three decades of smartwatch development.

~~~
clarky07
lucky for gruber, Apple has released an awful lot of good products recently.
iPhones have stupid customer satisfaction numbers. They aren't the most
valuable company in the world by a mile because everything they release is
crap.

Obviously Gruber is a big fan of Apple, but your criticism of him is a bit
harsh. I assume he didn't spend a lot of time comparing it to Android wear
because he hasn't spent a ton of time using Android wear.

I'm a little afraid of the first gen bugs, and some of the reviews I read
today weren't completely sold, but pretty much every single one that I read
said it was far and away the best smartwatch they've used, even if they still
weren't completely sold and gave it meh reviews overall.

~~~
bane
Gruber is terrible. I'm completely unapologetic about my opinion about him.
He's everything that's wrong in tech news today. He's been able to carve a
niche for himself preaching to a choir of folks with large disposable incomes
by providing unashamed regurgitation of Apple's marketing bullet points so
that people can reinforce their beliefs by having another bullet point that
they made the right technology purchase. If his recent posts continued his
tradition of information free praise, I'd still be flagging them off the
front-page. I can think of very few tech writers as well known as him who
offer less useful information than he does on any topic.

You are right, Apple didn't get where they are by producing crap, but they
also didn't get where they are without getting it wrong sometimes, and it's
_really_ hard to find cases where Gruber recognizes that without bookending
and drowning issues in a thousand words of qualification. Sure, he gets to
point to the sentence among dozens where he mentions something that might,
just _maybe_ , be wrong, but the context he places issues in minimize and
excuse these issues away.

The question he needs to be answering is not if the Apple Watch is the best
smartwatch on the market, I don't doubt that it is. But it's, "are
smartwatches a good idea?". He's not capable of answering that question
honestly because to Gruber, anything Apple does is a good idea, Apple is doing
a smartwatch, therefore it must be a good idea. He waits till Apple tells him
how to think, then he write a post recycling and expanding on their marketing
direction -- and he does this completely unironically.

If you read his review with a critical eye it boils down to this:

\- It's a terrible watch (there's about 1,000 words trying to weazel around
what a shitty watch it is)

\- The industrial design is nice

\- He hasn't found much value in the expressed use-cases it shipped with

\- If you don't wear watches, you'll probably be more interested in it than
people who already wear watches

There, almost 6,000 words boiled down to the 4 main bullet points, and only
the hardware received any real praise. I think it's interesting that these 4
bullet points are echoed in most of the early reviews I've seen. The problems
he mentions, then tries to bury, are expanded on in more honest reviews.

They aren't really problems with Apple's version of the Smart Watch per se,
but with the idea of Smart Watches as a class of product. It's really hard to
come up with a Smart Watch that makes any kind of sense, and it's pretty clear
that Apple hasn't been able to justify it (and if Apple can't crack that nut
who can?)

Will Apple sell millions of them? Yeah probably. I wonder how many will be to
people who made their purchase decision after reading daringfireball?

~~~
timcederman
Totally baffled by your mindset. Why is Gruber terrible and everything wrong
with tech news today? Compared to Engadget et al he seems reasonably fair and
balanced. Please point me towards something he's written that's objectively
biased or bad.

~~~
bane
_Everything_ he writes is objectively biased. Have you ever read anything he's
ever written?

Tech news is already so full of bought promotions pretending to be articles,
fan boyism and subjective "analysis" it really doesn't need more. It's already
enough of a burden on the reader to try to figure out if a review of some new
product is being truthful or was paid for by an ad on page 23, or if the
editor has some platform to push or if the writer wants to keep using the
sources he's developed with some cool company.

Technology media is honestly pretty terrible in general, and very few of the
faults of the arena _don 't_ apply to Gruber. Except he's also a really great
writer. He's smart. So it's not quite out in the open like it might be on a
lesser site like a CNET review. But he has lots and lots of tools that he
employs to push his agenda.

Here's some literary devices that Gruber employs in almost everything he
writes:

\- Minimizing or Maximizing Framing devices (when Apple is right, he makes
them smarter than Gods, when they're dead wrong he makes it seem like a
reasonable alternative that's still better than anybody else)

\- False comparisons (Apple's apple's to everybody else's inferior oranges)

\- Jumbling of facts (often used to lead into a Min/Max Framing segment)

\- Information-like sentences (lots of facts and figures, but no actual
information)

\- Omissions (easy to excuse)

\- Emotionally driven excuses (Apple did it this way to pull at your heart
strings)

\- Setting then ignoring a thesis ("Here's why Apple's is amazing", then uses
the above devices to ignore that thesis when Apple doesn't live up to it)

He also likes to drop little bomb posts questioning the veracity and fairness
of the rest of the media, which subtly informs the reader that he's not like
_those_ journalists.

Here's his recent tech-news post history (I won't comment on his non-tech
posts):

\- ‘FINALLY’ OF THE WEEK - where he criticizes the tech media for using the
word finally in the following sentence "Cheap USB-C Cables for Your MacBook
Are Finally Here"

\- TRIPADVISOR, BOOKING.COM REVIEWS START APPEARING IN APPLE MAPS - where he
points out that Apple is a better company than Google because its Business
Development team secured data sharing partnerships for Apple Maps

\- HIGHBALL 1.0 - where he pumps up a cocktail recipe app. He drops the not-
so-subtle-jab at Google line "They might have actually found a good use for QR
codes."

\- MORE ON APPLE’S CONSTRUCTION HIRING - where he brings doubt into Apple's
probably illegal hiring policy for construction on their new campus w/r to
convicted felons. Of course the doubt he sews is framed that everybody else
_must_ be doing it so Apple discriminating against them is okay.

\- ROLLING STONE UVA RAPE STORY RETRACTION: A CASE STUDY IN FAILED JOURNALISM
- again a piece that subtly brings up the failings of everybody else who's not
him in providing trusted and Fox News style fair & balanced coverage of things

\- REPORT CLAIMS SAMSUNG PAID HUNDREDS OF ‘FANS’ TO ATTEND GALAXY S6 LAUNCH IN
CHINA - an uncritical regurgitation of a quote from the WantChinaTimes, with
an update of a quote from Samsung denying it. No insight or discussion from
Gruber, no sources checked.

\- ‘APPARENTLY NONE OF YOU GUYS REALIZE HOW BAD OF AN IDEA A TOUCHSCREEN IS ON
A PHONE’ - where he quotes somebody else quoting somebody from 2007 comparing
a Samsung flip phone to an iPhone

\- FELONS BARRED FROM CONSTRUCTING APPLE’S CAMPUS - another post from him on
this subject, this time excusing Apple because background checks on employees
of the richest most profitable company in history must be "expensive"

\- Reach for the Sky, Pando - where he criticizes the SF Chronicle for
breaking the story on Apple's discriminatory hiring process. He also takes
time to defend Steve Job's notoriously abrasive personality and the illegal
hiring practices Apple has taken part in previously w/r to tech workers.

\- JOANNA STERN’S GALAXY S6 REVIEW - where his only point is are that the S6
is an iPhone lookalike and Samsung's software sucks, and they aren't up to
competing against Apple's products. Of course he completely omits that the
article claims the S6, in balance, is a match to the iPhone 6. If your
information source was Gruber's take on the review, you'd think the S6 was a
cheap unusable knock-off. But the review doesn't claim that at all. He
carefully omits in his quotes where the review praises the S6 for a better
camera set, better battery life, faster recharging, bigger storage, cheaper
price and a better screen.

and on and on and on going back _years_.

~~~
gurkendoktor
> \- JOANNA STERN’S GALAXY S6 REVIEW > If your information source was Gruber's
> take on the review, you'd think the S6 was a cheap unusable knock-off

The software is the only point he cares to comment on. But his introduction to
the quote is:

>> A rave review for everything but...

I had no trouble parsing this.

And for more context, this item preceded the link to Joanna Stern's review by
a few posts:

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/03/bohn-
galaxy-s6](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/03/bohn-galaxy-s6)

------
bitsoda
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_

~~~
tptacek
Gruber's scenario with the two high school kids was probably the worst thing
he's ever written. There needs to be an annual 500-word short story writing
competition, for best story turning on the sentence "But you both wore an
Apple Watch".

I say this as someone who generally admires John Gruber's ability to sell me
on 1000-2000 word blog posts on Apple minutia purely on the strength and
clarity of his writing. This post was painful.

~~~
ghshephard
It certainly pulled my heartstring. It also was the first piece I've seen
written that was forward looking about the purpose about a touch interface,
and it's implication for the advancement of HCI. Not sure what it was that you
disliked, but I guarantee you that an impartial observer would not say it was
"probably the worst thing he's ever written." \- perhaps it's fair to say it's
"the piece he's written that you've most disliked?"

------
reubenmorais
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 :)

~~~
jonhester
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.

~~~
sanoli
Correction: Rolexes tick 8 times a second (or 28.800 beats per hour, as is
used by watch people). 6 are the vintage ones.

~~~
Cookingboy
You are wrong. The movement moves at 8 Hz per second, but it actually takes
two cycles to actually tick once, so it's actually 4 ticks per second.

The old watches tick at 3 times per second on 6 Hz movements.

~~~
sanoli
No, I'm not. It's 8 ticks per second. I have one and I have checked. Look at
this video of the hand up close (it's a 28800 bph movement):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxgahvNH3q0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxgahvNH3q0)

------
51Cards
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
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
The Verge reviewer compared it to Android Wear.

------
roc
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.

~~~
urda
> 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.

That's not the point of the digital crown. It's to free your "swipe to scroll"
gesture which blocks a screen of that size, to a physical input. Apple has
been very clear on it's existence, and it's taking a classic component of a
watch and propelling it into the modern era.

Might want to rethink that first.

~~~
IanCal
> it's taking a classic component of a watch and propelling it into the modern
> era.

That's a spectacularly marketing-y phrase. It's a scroll wheel. There's
nothing wrong with that, but we don't need to dress it up as anything else.

~~~
kstenerud
Why does it even need to be a dial? Why not a touch-strip along the side that
you slide your finger along for scrolling?

The whole idea of a dial seems backwards. I've always hated dials on watches.
They catch on everything.

~~~
rimantas
With the touch strip you'd be limited by the length of it and 1:1 mapping for
scrolling.

~~~
kstenerud
Why does it have to map 1:1?

------
acqq
> 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
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
That's not a hybrid display, only e-ink.

~~~
takeda
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.

------
Thiz
> 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
It's kind of gross that basic UI controls can be patented like that.

------
prawn
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.

------
aleem
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.

~~~
untog
_(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
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
It might become normal. But look at Google Glass - the "weirdness" attached to
it absolutely had an effect on its success.

------
EA
_“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.

~~~
mikeash
I never quite understood the complaints about smartphones not having a multi-
day battery life. As long as it makes it from morning to bedtime and charges
to 100% overnight, what's the problem? Obviously if it _can 't_ make it to
bedtime on one charge, that's a problem, but nightly charging makes no real
difference. I imagine the watch will be similar. A one-day battery life for a
watch is kind of absurd, but it doesn't seem like it'll matter.

One exception to this is people who just never take their watch off. I did
this for a couple of years. Having to charge it every night would have been a
problem then. I don't know that people do this in large enough numbers to be
significant though.

~~~
zelos
If you travel, it's one more thing to carry. Plus, I occasionally forget to
plug the phone in to charge at night. My current smartphone makes it through
two days without charging, though.

~~~
mikeash
That's a good point. You'd probably want to carry the charger anyway (unless
it's just an overnight trip and your phone lasts many days) but even just the
travel itself can put extra demands on the phone, because of time zone changes
or watching lots of videos or whatever. A phone that's perfectly acceptable
because it can last 18 hours in normal use can cause problems if you're taking
a 14-hour flight and playing with it the whole way.

------
sylvinus
> 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
I can imagine it but only if it's a private school.

------
sebnukem2
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.

~~~
clarky07
Why is charging electronics such a problem? Do people wear watches while
sleeping? Why is setting it on the charger on my nightstand actually a
problem? This seems like an absurd nitpicky thing to complain about.

~~~
brk
I already have to charge (and bring cables and charger with sufficient ports
for): Laptop iPhone USB Backup battery (many long travel days) Wifi hotspot

Pretty much every day. By some counts, a watch doesn't really change that very
much, by other counts it pushes my daily-shit-to-charge list over the limit.
It's nitpicky when viewed in a vacuum, but not in relation to the overall
technology charging burden. It seems like we should be moving away from
charger dependencies, not towards it.

~~~
clarky07
i find it interesting that 5 is over the limit, but 4 is perfectly reasonable.
Personally i have 1, my phone, and increasing it to 2 seems like no change at
all personally.

~~~
brk
Sorry, to be clear, I don't consider 4 "reasonable". It's more like it's crept
up and I've set a pretty hard limit on more rechargeable tech.

------
pchristensen
"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
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
Yes but this analogy only holds true if every other car has hexagonal wheels,
and the apple watch "car" has circular ones.

~~~
lultimouomo
Yes but this makes the analogy a criticism of other cars, not the Apple one.

------
bla2
It's interesting that even gruber's review isn't all that positive.

~~~
7Z7
>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.

~~~
skeletonjelly
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)

------
bitL
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.

------
72deluxe
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.

------
mschuster91
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!

~~~
noinsight
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
Useless when you want to hold your phone in the hand for a round of Real
Racing or any other hq game, though.

------
ctdonath
"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
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.

------
EGreg
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.

~~~
ryandvm
Gruber has perfected the art of knowing your audience - and his audience is
people who are neck deep in the Apple ecosystem. His writing is practically a
prescription for managing post-purchase cognitive dissonance for Apple
consumers.

I think he's an excellent writer but let's be honest, he doesn't really
"review" Apple products any more than their marketing department. Apple could
re-introduce the Newton and Gruber would be writing about it's "elegant
simplicity" and "thoughtful processing".

I'm sure the Apple Watch is neat tech, but from what I've gathered, it's
suffering from "version one syndrome" a little more than most of their product
launches. That said, it will probably be a wild success anyway if only because
it's an even more conspicuous consumption signal than the iPhone...

~~~
timmins
> Apple could re-introduce the Newton and Gruber would be writing about it's
> "elegant simplicity" and "thoughtful processing"

While they have not re-introduced the Newton, his latest podcast mentions the
Newton and very similar in tone.

------
nickgrosvenor
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
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.

------
72deluxe
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!

~~~
xal
You need to read this: [https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-
young.html](https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html)

~~~
72deluxe
Very informative, thanks. I avoid 192kHz and record everything at 24bit 48kHz
when I'm recording (I would like some hard disk space left, particularly if
you're recording 24 tracks at once); 96kHz is only really useful in live
applications as you obviously get half the latency which is important if
you're flinging audio from one side of the arena to the other.

But with regard to the content within the audio file, uncompressed is
obviously superior to compressed. It is particularly apparent on decent
speakers, not earbuds.

------
guelo
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).

~~~
notatoad
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
I didn't. I read the first few paragraphs and then couldn't take it and left
the comment here.

------
drawkbox
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.

------
smegel
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
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.

------
mikekij
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
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.

------
ThomPete
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
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
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.

------
bane
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.

------
ohitsdom
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.

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

------
EliRivers
_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
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
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.

------
tw04
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"?

~~~
GuiA
I was the typical nerdy, shy, socially inept teenager who read the z80
instruction set documentation alone at the cafeteria during lunch. In the 10th
grade there was this girl I really liked, but my complete lack of social
skills prevented me from acting upon it.

I forget how, but I eventually found a way to add her on MSN messenger, where
we spent many evenings and weekends chatting. This allowed me to get over my
initial shyness; we eventually dated for about a year. She was my first
girlfriend, and I gained a lot in self confidence and social skills through
this experience.

I don't lock myself in the bathroom when I mess up at my job these days.

I think your message is either a silly straw man, or that you really don't get
teenagers.

~~~
toddmatthews
...But in this case, you'll first have to work up the guts to go ask her for
her phone number, so that you can go back to your desk and send her your
heartbeat.

------
q2
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.

~~~
skywhopper
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.

