
Why I have finally taken off the Apple Watch - mafro
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/09/apple-watch-smartwatch
======
jbarham
I've had the Pebble Time for about a year and really appreciate it.

First, the fact that its "E-paper" display is always on means it works well as
an old-fashioned watch so I can instantly tell the time. (I still find it
crazy that the Apple Watch display is _off_ by default!)

Pebble's notification support works really well with Android so I can see at a
glance whether a new email or WhatsApp message is something I need to respond
to on my phone. Most of the time I don't, so I spend less time fiddling with
my phone.

The feature that I most appreciate that I hadn't anticipated is that the
Pebble vibrates and shows who's calling when someone calls me. Which means I
can keep my phone on silent all the time but never miss a phone call.

So I'm definitely a fan of the Pebble Time. Its UI is really simple and well
thought out, especially compared to the Apple Watch, and there's really
nothing else I need it to do, apart perhaps from being more physically
attractive.

~~~
taneq
It's actually a low power memory LCD on the Time, not e-paper like the OG. The
notifications and caller ID features are great, and being able to control the
media player on my phone is very useful when I'm on the bike.

I think they strayed from the path with Round because it sacrificed so much
battery life. It looks like Pebble 2 is going to be 7-10 days again though.

~~~
sp332
There isn't a "path". All versions of the Pebble are still available from
pebble.com and the Round version is still the thinnest smartwatch on the
market. It runs the same OS and (almost) all of the same apps as the Pebble
Time. It's a nice tradeoff to be able to make.

~~~
taneq
Windows 98 SE was still around when Windows ME was released, that doesn't mean
ME was good.

The key advantages of a Pebble over other watches were always battery life and
minimal-but-useful functionality. Take away the battery life and cram more
fruit into it and you just have an underpowered copy of the mainstream
smartwatches.

------
rubyfan
I was a former hater and said I'd never buy one but recently won a Apple Watch
Sport purely by chance. I tried it out and gave it an objective look, if I
didn't like it then I'd sell it. After the initial neat factor, I don't
remember to wear it every day (this is probably more me not remembering to
wear it and less a conscious decision. _But_ the scenario when I do make it a
point to wear is when I'm traveling or on a road trip.

The killer app was driving with the Apple Watch (not what I would have
expected). I found the GPS vibrating prompts, a glance at the watch for next
turn really awesome features and I try not to drive anywhere unfamiliar
without it. This is one area that's super subtle but really well thought out.

Again useful during driving, I also found the ability to skip music with my
hands still on the steering wheel to be incredibly helpful. Feels safer than
taking my eyes off the road to fumble my phone.

Would I pay for the next Apple Watch? Maybe. But I definitely no longer
consider myself an Apple Watch hater.

~~~
dionidium
_I also found the ability to skip music with my hands still on the steering
wheel to be incredibly helpful._

It's a sign of how broken and far behind automobile tech is that Alexa was
first developed for the kitchen and not the car.

~~~
hx87
Voice commands on car entertainment systems was available all the way back in
2008, albeit in a $120k car (Lexus LS600h L).

~~~
Alupis
>> It's a sign of how broken and far behind automobile tech is that Alexa was
first developed for the kitchen and not the car

> Voice commands on car entertainment systems was available all the way back
> in 2008, albeit in a $120k car

Voice command entertainment system are available in your run-of-the-mill $14k
car nowadays. 2016 Ford Fiesta S model has Sync 3 voice command system built
in.

~~~
dionidium
Meh. I've never used one of these car systems, but without any knowledge at
all I can confidently say that the experience and capabilities come nowhere
near matching Alexa. Totally different products.

I'd love to be wrong. But I doubt I am.

~~~
Alupis
Alexa helps Amazon encourage you to buy more products. I don't see how that
would actually be appropriate embedded in an automobile.

~~~
dionidium
I use my Echo every day and never once to buy a product. I use it to get
sports scores, hear the news, check the weather, check my calendar, get
answers to simple questions, play music (across multiple services), and so on.

There is actually no more suitable place imaginable for performing those
functions by voice than behind the wheel. I don't want a replacement for the
dials on my dashboard. I want the breadth of _services_ Alexa provides.

------
tunesmith
I'm surprised that hardly anyone is mentioning the activity wheel. That's the
killer feature as far as I'm concerned. I don't know much about the science
behind it, like if filling your activity wheel actually means you are doing a
somewhat good job at being healthy, but I know that my settings are definitely
keeping me more consistently active than I would by default otherwise. It's a
key part of my life now, and I've filled that damned wheel about 95% of the
days that I've owned the watch. Given that I'm not sure I would have improved
my habits without it, I feel like it has definitely improved my life.

Other things that the watch has been a nice addition for - checking the
weather over the next few hours by spinning the dial is very convenient.
Receiving/reading messages while the phone isn't out.

The rest of it, not so much. The watch could be better at showing the time
when you want to see it; I often have to tap the face. I rarely use Siri. I
ignore calendar/mail entirely, phone works better. I dislike Apple Maps and
use Google Maps instead. I could theoretically be in the market for a
smaller/slimmer Apple fitness device.

~~~
eric_h
> checking the weather over the next few hours by spinning the dial is very
> convenient

Holy shit I have no idea why I never thought to do that, that's a great
feature.

I agree that the watch is not a life changing tech upgrade like the iPhone
was, but personally, I find the features on the watch that I do use to be
convenient and compelling enough that I still put the watch on every morning.

Really, the killer feature I want is disable the god damn screenshot feature
on the watch, or at least give me a button in the photos app to "purge all
watch screenshots" because fully half of my photo library is accidental watch
screenshots, and I haven't had the time to come up with a way to script it.

Oh yes, and apple pay when a vendor accepts it is just down right awesome.

------
skywhopper
It's not for everyone. I agree that trying to put real apps on the thing was
clearly done too early. But for me, the weather widget, GPS prompts, silent
and unmissable notifications (and good integration on some apps like PagerDuty
where I can Ack a page from the notification itself, no waiting on an app to
launch or pulling out and unlocking my phone), and quick timer setiing (I use
this multiple times almost every day--to remind myself to rotate laundry or
check on what I'm cooking or all sorts of other tricks to help keep my ADHD
brain on track) all combine to make something that has improved my life at the
margins. I hadn't worn a watch in 20 years but Apple came up with one that was
worth wearing to me.

------
jgrahamc
_But a few fundamental flaws of the watch suffice to explain 95% of the
issues: the watch is too slow to act as a speedy alternative to your phone;
the user interface is too fiddly to use on the move; the notification model is
too limited to do anything other than encourage you to pull out your phone
repeatedly; and Siri sucks._

I was an Apple Watch naysayer until I bought one. Now I like it (I don't
_love_ it) but it's a useful addition. I disagree about the notification
model. It means I can look at a message and decide whether it's important and
for short responses reply from the watch.

~~~
taspeotis
I'm an Apple Watch user. I like it, but it was expensive when I bought it (the
AUD/USD exchange rate isn't favourable). For the utility I get out of it
(health tracking, quick iMessage replies, turn-by-turn directions, weather and
stocks at-a-glance) I think it's a three star product based on the original
price.

And Apple Pay support in Australia is ... lacklustre. We only just got one
bank behind it. If my bank supported Apple Pay it might be four stars.

If it were half the price (closer to ~AU$330), it would be five stars.

~~~
jgrahamc
Yes, I agree that price vs. functionality is poor. I don't understand the
appeal of Apple Pay at all (at least in the UK). We have contactless debit
cards for quick payments and the last thing I want to do is hand over banking
details to a third party.

Apple Pay seems like the sort of thing that's _needed_ in the US because of
the woefully backwards payment infrastructure.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I find I use Apple Pay a lot in the UK despite my contactless cards because I
cycle so my phone and wallet are in my bag - it's nice to only take the phone
out. A cheap Apple-Pay-on-my-wrist would be cool, but I'd probably still have
my phone in my pocket so I doubt it'd be a meaningful improvement at all. It's
all very small though, like you said contactless debit cards are fine.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
In Australia, you can get a "pay tag", basically a sepearate chip attached to
your credit account. The back has an adhesive that you can stick to the back
of your phone or whatever. This is usually free.

------
ohthehugemanate
Dammit smartwatch industry, this isn't rocket science. The core values a watch
brings are time on your wrist, notifications, and low maintenance. The core
upgrades are simple apps (stopwatch, timer... ), waterproof-ness, and fashion.

Those are your dimensions. If you do anything that compromises those product
fundamentals, you are making a bad decision.

If Pebble came out with a good looking, waterproof watch with a week long
battery, they would dominate the market. The fact that they have done so well
against the marketing juggernaut that is apple, is a tribute to how close
they've come to these core product traits.

~~~
delecti
> If Pebble came out with a good looking, waterproof watch with a week long
> battery

I'm curious which one of those you think they currently aren't meeting,
because they currently have the latter two, and the Pebble Time Round is a
fairly attractive looking watch IMO.

~~~
samastur
I can't speak for the original poster but I find none of their watches
remotely attractive. They are no worse than other watches in that price range,
but I don't wear those either for the same reason.

------
joshstrange
I had a Pebble Steel and quite liked it but switched to the Apple Watch when
it came up. I agree with some of the other points here:

* Apps suck 99% of the time

* Apps are slow

* The UI is hard to use (especially while moving)

* Siri is SLLLLOOOOOWWWWWWWWW

When siri does work it's awesome but I find myself just saying "Hey Siri" (to
activate my phone) or holding down the home button for a second to activate it
much more often. The watch is just too slow most of the time and nothing is
more frustrating than telling it to do something, it failing, and then me
having to go do it on my phone. Also when most people ask me about it I say "I
like it but it's far too expensive for most people to justify, I even have a
hard time self-justifiying it to myself now that I've had it". Notifications,
weather, upcoming events, time, fitness/activity? All great and it's why I
wear it daily but it's been months since I launched an app on it. I'll see
where Apple goes with it but I'm very much so considering switching back to a
Pebble Time or other Pebble device as they are cheaper.

~~~
spyspy
I like to say that I don't regret buying it, but if it got lost or broken I
wouldn't be in a rush to replace it.

------
melling
"You don’t use your watch at night, because you’re asleep"

Your Watch, or a better version of it, could monitor your sleep.

[https://blog.cardiogr.am/what-do-normal-and-abnormal-
heart-r...](https://blog.cardiogr.am/what-do-normal-and-abnormal-heart-
rhythms-look-like-on-apple-watch-7b33b4a8ecfa)

"It’s that smartwatches are a solution in search of a problem."

Also not true. Health and safety are a huge reason most people will be wearing
a smartwatch, or wearable, in the future:

[https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-
everyo...](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyone-
will-wear-a-smartwatch/)

------
dfar1
So next time I take my watch off for less than a month I shall too write an
article. Clearly the author didn't need a watch, but bought one anyway. Then
as expected didn't use it. Less then a month of not wearing a watch, doesn't
seem like long enough either as the watch doesn't do everything the phone
does, so there's no need to wear it frequently unless you like having a watch,
which is not the case here.

This article almost seems as clickbait... I could also write about how I
bought a $500 coffee maker, and stopped using it after 9 months, because I
actually don't drink much coffee. I just thought that having a nice coffee
maker would improve my life.

------
busterarm
Unfortunately for me, they'll never get past the fact that I appreciate
watches for their movements. A watch is entirely an aesthetic choice -- you
have to want their aesthetic.

I have a 50-year old Rolex Air King (way older than me, family heirloom) and I
can't imagine switching to anything else anytime soon. It's simple, no-
nonsense and a beautiful watch. I appreciate other, fancier watches and might
wear something on the high end for a really posh event, but that's it.

~~~
nashashmi
> never get past the fact that I appreciate watches for their movements

How does this sound: _never get past the fact that I appreciate phones for the
calls they make_

We have to come to accept they are watches in name only. And mostly remote
controls for phones.

~~~
busterarm
That's great insight.

Along those same lines though, I don't want to wear two devices on my arm and
the remote control has to compete (aesthetically) with the watch.

Both are mostly useless to me -- I already have a phone. I'm still going with
the watch.

------
rickyc091
I think most people are in agreement that the app launch speed is horrendous,
that'll get better in time. For me the two best features has been the
notifications and dark sky as a complication. A few other things I use on a
pretty regular basis...

* Siri, set timer. (I just wish Siri was faster... it's pretty frustrating) * Locate my phone, this has been a life saver. As someone who runs a lot of events, I have a tendency to just leave my phone on a table and forget about it. * Having calls redirected to your wrist. This coincides with leaving my phone somewhere. Events are usually super loud so I wouldn't hear my phone anyways, but the pulsing vibration on the wrist is difficult to ignore.

\---

I purchased an Apple Watch for my mother who works in a more corporate setting
with a shared desk. She's constantly on her feet and she has no pockets to
keep her phone on her. The watch has been an incredible investment for her as
she use to only check her phone during lunch and as she left for work. These
days it's easier to get a hold of her in case of an emergency. When she's on
the go, her phone is typically in her pursue, so you can imagine the benefit
of the phone on her watch.

The Apple watch isn't for everyone, but there are certainly some people that
benefit from it more than others.

------
soylentcola
I think a lot of this comes down to cost. A $500+ smartwatch that's mostly
useful for notifications and the occasional wrist-based controls seems like
overkill to me, personally (but I imagine this depends on your disposable
gadget income).

But I picked up a Moto360 maybe a year and a half ago for $150 on sale and
while its main uses have also been notifications, the occasional voice/tap
command, and playing with making watch faces in Photoshop, I'm mostly OK with
that.

$150 for a computer-watch that can change its appearance and layout to match
your mood, occasion, or tie is pretty neat. But I don't know that it's $500
neat. Kinda like Travolta's $5 milk shake in Pulp Fiction, the Apple Watch is
a pretty cool gadget, but I'm not sure it's something I'd ever pay that much
for. But once you get into the $100-200 range, they start to become more
appealing.

And once the tech works its way downstream into cheaper products the way basic
smartphones have, I think they'll be fairly popular.

------
gloves
I had a similar experience to the writer of the article when my fitbit broke
when an update bricked it (or perhaps 'braceletted' it?

In the weeks between getting the warranty repair, I began wearing the watch my
grandad gave me before he passed away.

I found two things. 1\. I didn't miss anything about the fitbit - the main
thing I used it for was time, and the second most used feature - the step
counter - wasn't used for much more than something of general interest. I
didn't find that killer reason I needed the watch in my life, even though I
live an active lifestyle.

2\. I preferred wearing the old fashioned watch with sentimental value
attached. A watch is so unique as it can be passed through generations and is
worn daily by one person over a long period of time. Given the premium real
estate of my wrist meaning there is only one place for a device, I'd much
rather have something there which is something very special and dear to me,
than a gimmick.

~~~
whitehouse3
As an "Apple Guy" and a "Watch Guy" the occasional friend will ask me why I
don't own an Apple Watch. Your second point nails it. These machines are
intimate, lasting. They spend more time with us than anything or anyone else.
Simultaneous style, sentiment, and function with the added benefit that we can
pass them on to our children and grandchildren.

------
tombert
I used a Pebble for about a year, but the problem to me is that it never
really looks like a "watch", but more like a "computer that's on my wrist".

I'll admit that's a kind of pedantic little nitpick, and the Pebble is a great
little thing, but I switched back to my old Invicta chronograph after awhile.

------
pinaceae
Same for me, because there is a fundamental flaw in the product:

It sucks at being a watch.

I can check my Casio without flicking my wrist. I can even take it off and
place it next to my keyboard and keep track of the time.

Not possible on the Apple Watch, even more infuriating by the inconsistent
detection of the wrist movement.

The Apple Watch is a watch that sucks at being - a watch.

~~~
dagwaging
this is one of the reasons i'm quite happy with my first gen pebble: the
screen is always on, so i can always see the time

i also got mine for half the original price, at $75

i think they were smart to focus on the things smartwatches actually do well:
notifications, and simple remote controls (i.e. for music, navigation)

having physical buttons makes it much more useful, since i can easily perform
actions without even looking at the watch, or with gloves on

and only having to charge it once a week is wonderful

i personally don't use activity trackers, but the newest pebbles include that
functionality

i think android wear and the apple watch both try to do too much, and end up
being good at nothing

~~~
jon-wood
The activity tracking is the Pebble's killer feature for me. While I like
getting notifications on my wrist, and being able to see the time whenever I
choose is nice, what I really love is passive tracking of how far I've walked
in a given day and how long I slept for. They've also just today released a
mood tracking app alongside the rest of the tracking which prompts you once an
hour for a quick summary of your mood and what you did in the last hour.

Being able to later go back and correlate all these things is awesome - even
now I know that on days I get out and exercise more I'm happier, soon I should
be able to give objective numbers on that, along with being able to determine
things like the correlation between caffeine and happiness/energy levels over
the day.

I'm pretty excited for the Pebble Core as well, especially since they
announced Alexa integration, I think its got a lot of potential for
drastically changing how we interact with mobile computing and moving on from
the current interactive glass paradigm.

------
vitd
When the watch came out, I thought, "Oh that's neat. Not neat enough to buy,
but neat." Eventually, I got a good discount on one and bought it.

While it may not be life changing, I _love_ it. I use it daily and for lots of
things. The reminders and notifications are extremely useful. Siri works great
for me. I send texts from it, I set timers while cooking, I check the weather
and time and next event I have scheduled. When getting dressed in the morning,
I immediately notice when I don't have it on because it's become such a part
of my life.

So I guess your mileage may vary. It turned out to be just what I was looking
for without even realizing it.

------
dmschulman
I never thought I'd be one to own a smartwatch. I enjoy wearing traditional
mechanical watches for quickly being able to tell the time as well as for the
fashion aspect, owning a wearable that would tie to my phone, delivering
notifications and giving me access to apps, didn't really appeal to me as I
prefer to disconnect rather than hyperconnect to my devices.

Being someone who does a fair amount of outdoor activity (cycling and hiking
mostly), and knowing a few people who are crazy about their Fitbits, I ended
up looking into some fitness tracker-oriented smartwatches, landing on the
Garmin Vivoactive HR with it's HR monitor and built in GPS. It's a very
attractive device for $250, especially if fitness tracking and mapping your
workout is important to you.

$250 is maybe the upper limit of what I'd want to spend on a smartwatch, but
the Garmin has been great for me as a simple intuitive device that knows what
it is good at and doesn't try to complicate itself.

Though you can cram a surprising amount of information and interactivity in
these devices, it goes against good sustainable user experience to make a
wrist-top computer as robust as a smartphone. Smartwatches should be a bundle
of sensors and quick intuitive bits of display information, not a surrogate to
my smartphone.

~~~
heleph
I bought a Fitbit because I wanted to nudge my physical activity from
sedentary into not noteworthy. I've been wearing it about three months and it
has helped me do that.

The other smart phone things I really love are notifications about phone calls
and alarms that make the phone vibrate. I almost always miss phone calls, so
it's nice to have the option to pick them up. The vibrating alarm is much
nicer than being woken by noise and also reminds me when I need to leave work
to make it home in time to see my kids.

I'd really recommend it as a relatively low cost thing to try For anyone who
is interested in trying a smart watch but doesn't want to spend a lot of
money.

------
RobotfromOT
I just paid for snacks at my local, rural, small-business-run convenience
store with my watch. Seamless. Apple Pay is another great reason to keep
wearing the watch.

~~~
kylec
Funny, even though I wear an Apple Watch every day I've gone back to using
Apple Pay on my iPhone instead. It's just easier than the contortions that are
sometimes required to get the Apple Watch close enough to the reader.

------
coldtea
> _But the most obvious alternative is to massively increase the amount of
> voice control the watch offers, and Apple simply doesn’t have the technical
> chops to do so. While Google and Amazon have been creating voice assistants
> that people seem to actually use and wax lyrical about, Apple … hasn’t._

Citation needed. Never found any of those assistants particularly impressive,
never mind hearing anyone waxing lyrical about it.

------
blisterpeanuts
>> _" But the most obvious alternative is to massively increase the amount of
voice control the watch offers, and Apple simply doesn’t have the technical
chops to do so. While Google and Amazon have been creating voice assistants
that people seem to actually use and wax lyrical about, Apple … hasn’t."_

This passage from the article jumped out at me. Is he saying that voice
recognition is the missing killer feature in an Apple Watch, whereas Android
watches hold the promise of adding such a feature because Google (and,
irrelevantly, Amazon) are better at it?

Without getting into a technical debate about which tech giants are ahead in
voice recognition and its applications, I am interested in the notion of
conversing with a smart watch.

The obvious application is to provide the time of day to a sight impaired
person, or (more trivially) to someone driving a car or operating heavy
machinery who can't glance down. Probably it could be programmed to guide the
sight impaired down the street, buzz if you veer off the sidewalk, etc.

Even there, it's merely a peripheral to the smartphone which can do all of
that and more.

My Moto 360 was purchased on a whim because it was on sale, and indeed I wear
it infrequently on a whim, usually when going to a tech event or a conference
that requires strict adherence to a schedule, and then only for its obvious
geek value. It's fun, my daughter loves changing the watch faces, and
occasionally it's even useful for discretely screening calls and texts.

I just keep thinking that some brilliant kid is going to stumble across a
killer application for these watches, and then we'll be off to the races.
Still scratching my head on this one, for now.

~~~
sickbeard
He's saying google now and cortana are better at being voice assistants than
siri.

------
beloch
The Apple watch came with some pretty high end cases but, even if it had been
a useful product, the rapid obsolescence curve made buying a nice case a true
waste of money. The same goes for all other smart watches on the market.

What I'd love to see is a smart watch that comes in two parts:

1\. A case

2\. The "movement"

If a smart watch manufacturer released a case and movement separately and then
committed to providing compatible movements in the future, suddenly you
wouldn't have to feel bad about buying a nice case. Upgrading the movement
every couple years would become relatively cheap. If the company made the case
an open standard, you'd likely be able to get one from your favorite watch
maker, making their smart watch a much more personal item, as mechanical
watches are.

This has already been done with mechanical movements. e.g. Many mechanical
watch manufacturers only make cases, and put ETA movements in them. Given how
long mechanical movements can last, it's just bizarre that this hasn't been
done with smart watches yet.

------
Zikes
What I want most out of a watch right now is something that for every outward
appearance is a normal analog watch, but has a small motor in it to vibrate
when my phone receives a notification.

I had a first-gen Kickstarter edition Pebble and for all of its gimmicks, the
knowledge that I would feel every notification and also never suffer from
phantom vibrations was the part I enjoyed the most. Stylistically I didn't
much care for it, and eventually gave it to a friend.

If someone were to just take a normal looking watch and make it vibrate when
my phone does, with no other change whatsoever, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

~~~
mikestew
_If someone were to just take a normal looking watch and make it vibrate when
my phone does_

I recall that at least one company does. I apologize, though, because such a
device does not fit my personal use cases and therefore I haven't the first
clue about telling you how to find it. (Does a quick search on "analog
smartwatch" to prove his point...) Oh, well, I guess you could start here:
[http://www.wareable.com/smartwatches/best-smart-analogue-
wat...](http://www.wareable.com/smartwatches/best-smart-analogue-watch)

------
threeseed
The Apple Watch is by far their weakest product since the Puck Mouse.

The notifications are genuinely useful but the rest of it is a mess. App
startup times are long enough that it's quicker to pull out your phone, unlock
it and search for an app. Not that the apps are useful enough to warrant
opening them anyway. The data in glances isn't frequently updated so they are
next to useless as well.

And overall the UI is slow with superfluous animations. At the gym and want to
switch from indoor cycle to running. It takes 10-15 seconds.

And worst of all the rate of improvements is glacier slow so it could be years
before it gets better.

~~~
eddieroger
Even more than the iPod HiFi?

The Watch has it's problems, and your complaints are legitimate, but it's
hardly the weakest product since the puck mouse. Apple is just really good at
making us forget about the bad products. Despite WatchOS being 2.0, it's still
first-gen hardware, and everyone knows Apple is better on the second revision.

------
jdlyga
I like my Apple Watch. It's nice to see the time, weather from dark sky, and
the occasional text, and subway delay notifications. That's it.

------
sgtpepper43
I feel like Apple is killing smart watches. Android watches are cheap enough
that they can make incremental improvements and everyone would be fine with
it. Even then, I have the huawei watch, and it's already so, so much better
than the apple watch. And cheaper. So I worry that people are going to get fed
up with the apple watch before Android watches get a chance to really take
off.

------
scandox
When I was a kid I daydreamed about connected devices and how cool it would
all be. Now the devices I actually love:

Casio A168W-1 Electro Luminescence Silver. 5 years old.

Ipod Classic. 8 years old.

Kindle Keyboard. Maybe 7 years?

I actively loathe my phone. I like my laptop when I'm on the command line.

I think the essence of what I am trying to say is that I like devices with low
visibility connectivity.

We need to turn ubiquity into something much quieter.

------
andybak
At launch it superficially appeared to me that Google had attempted to go
further than Apple in rethinking the UI of watch apps. Apple seemed to have
plumped for a more conventional 'app launched on a phone' than the Android
watches

Can anyone that has used both comment on whether this perception was true and
if that mitigated any of the criticisms in this article?

------
kileywm
I've had a smart watch for about 2 months now. I've come to appreciate it the
most for one particular reason: notifications.

I silence (no sound or vibrate) my phone and rely on the watch for all
notifications. It's really quite peaceful for me and everyone around me.

~~~
efaref
SMS-based 2FA is also a dream when you can glance at your wrist and then type
the code in.

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mdemare
Killer app for me: alarm clock. I wear the Apple Watch at night, and it'll
wake me (vibrations) without waking my girlfriend.

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joseacta
I have a MS Band 2 and it has been great.

\- Does the fitness tracking really well \- Have the GPS for walks, bike rides
and running \- Have notifications \- Weather \- Multiple devices: Android,
Apple and Windows Phone \- Sleep tracking \- Watch \- Cortana

I really need to have it on me all the time. I only take it off for charging
while taking a shower.

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cloudjacker
hilarious because all of this was obvious to everyone that didn't buy the
watch

took the fan boys nine months to figure it out

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chillacy
Hey if you're looking for evidence, you'll find it. My story is the opposite.
I bought it to build apps on it, didn't really care for wearing it, until one
day I realized that my day was subtly worse if I forgot it at home. And that's
when I realized that it was useful in a small way. Now that I have my work
calendar and weather on the face, it's become quite nice to have.

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bitslayer
"While Google and Amazon have been creating voice assistants that people seem
to actually use and wax lyrical about, Apple … hasn’t. There’s no easy
solution there."

Until the Apple-Google merger. I for one welcome...

