On an emotional level, you can't compare [Apple Watch and mechanical watches], and that is why I don't believe many serious watch lovers (who, again, would normally be racing to spend their cash on an Apple release) will go for this.
I suspect that the "serious watch lover" market is one that doesn't really figure in Apple's market estimates at all. On the contrary, Apple has traditionally tried to go contrary to the expectations of the archetypal "serious lover of X" user when entering the market of X.
The Macintosh was not for "serious microcomputer lovers". The iPod was not for "serious MP3 lovers". The iPhone was not for "serious smartphone lovers". (Those did exist back in early 2007 -- they were the rare people who actually knew how to install stuff on their geeked-out Nokia N95 devices, or were in love with the BlackBerry keyboard. They hated the iPhone almost unanimously.)
Personally I'm not going to get a smartwatch because I hate interruptions. I hate OS X notifications; I hate it when the phone rings; I hate reading Twitter (but it's an addiction that's sometimes hard to overcome). I certainly don't want a blob on my wrist endlessly buzzing and tapping away, trying to figure out my heart rate and mood and generally being a bothersome noisy little electronic snoop.
But at the same time, I can imagine that the younger crowd wants exactly that. I think the Apple Watch will be a hit, but maybe about 1 year after the launch once the price of the low-end model comes down and a few millimetres get trimmed off.
This "serious watch lovers won't go for this" is debatable. I'm one.
He compares the Patek Philippe 3940G, along with a photograph. I have and used to wear the rarer top model of that series, with several more complications and digits in the price. I love and collect complication watches. I hate digital watches -- I've kept only one in 25 years.
Since getting the Pebble Steel with leather band (preordered and meant to cancel when I decided I wouldn't use it), I haven't worn the Patek or any of the other mechanicals during my business day.
The moment to moment difference liberating me from "devices" during my business day is too valuable. I don't love it. But it changes my day.
Given your comment, it's an interesting contrast: I no longer wear any other watch besides the Pebble Steel because I hate interruptions even more than I love mechanical watches. The Pebble's soft vibration and glance-ability is so much less intrusive than checking a device, I'm unwilling to trade it.
Couple the manufacturing detail described here with the benefit to the flow of one's day, and I'd argue the Apple Watch is the first digital likely to appeal to mechanical watch lovers in highly connected jobs.
You moved from high-end automatic watches to a smartwatch. In the long term, it's worth considering whether people will move from smartwatches to mechanical ones. If people get used to the features of an iWatch in their 20's, will they ever decide it's worth spending many thousands of dollars on a piece of jewelry that displaces all that functionality? If not, automatics may go the way of film cameras.
Whatever their merits as engineering marvels, expensive watches are Veblen goods that are worn to display wealth. Similar mechanisms can be put into pocket watches, but that's a much smaller market. Expensive watches have the appeal they do because they fall on the same continuum as everyone else's watch. Change the middle of the watch market and the current high end will look as absurd as a Vertu brick phone.
> If not, automatics may go the way of film cameras.
I think you're missing the fact that the mechanical watch industry is already post-apocalypse (i.e., the Quartz Crisis that started in the 70s).
The current mechanical watch industry does not exist for anything other than emotional reasons and won't see that much of an impact from another $400 electronic watch.
As a collector myself I think it's an interesting development for the industry and I'm sure I'll buy some version of the Apple Watch. I doubt it will replace one of my mechanicals as a daily wear.
I guess his point is that the high-end mechanical watch market only exists at all because of, as you say, collectors. It's older people with a bit of cash to spend on a luxury item. But those 40 year-old people grew up with cheaper versions of the same thing, and so there was a recognizable appeal in the higher-end watches. If today's 20 year-olds all buy smart watches, will they want to spend four figures on a mechanical watch when they're 40 with a bit of cash?
Expensive watches are pointless vanity goods. I would hope that as a society we are educated enough in 20 years that people will use their excess resources to help others instead of purchasing expensive jewelery with virtually zero utility.
Not to pick on you, but this attitude always frustrates me. Should all artists give up their work because creating it serves no "practical" purpose? There is a middle ground in all things, but who is to say where to draw the line?
I want to live in a world where watchmakers (and other artists) are free to make any awesome and expensive thing that they can imagine. Man does not live by bread alone.
I actively support artists and view creative contributions to society as extremely valuable. I think that a large portion of the future economy is in digital creative work. By contributing to kickstarter and indiegogo I help enable people to fulfill their creative dreams.
For things that can be digitally distributed at virtually no cost, or can be bulk produced at low cost (books, music, board games, etc.) I am fully supportive. For things that have a high economic opportunity cost, such as extremely complex watches, luxury cars, things of that nature, I have a very low tolerance because the cost is human life. As a species we have not yet reached a point where every human has the necessities of life. Once everyone has access to food, water, shelter, and internet (education), then I am all for exploring the limits of our potential in every regard.
Where do you get the idea that there's no economic opportunity cost without physical items? The whole idea of opportunity cost is intangible -- it's the difference between what you got by doing what you did versus what you could have gotten by doing something else. Distributing a book may be free, but writing a book requires maybe years of effort. Why are you giving that author a free pass for not spending that time building wells and schools in the South Sudan?
This is a completely naive and subjective approach. Please enlighten me as to how you intend to tell the time in the absence of a compatible power supply and/or power grid. Or when that severely limited lithium ion battery stops taking a charge after a year of use. Even if you had acceptable answers to those questions, it still leaves one to question the need for something which implements a subset of the features my phone has at the same cost.
Mechanical watches are moving art and are rarely purchased out of need. With the advent of perpetual automatics, they approach the ideal of mechanical perfection - a miniature machine which can accurately track time (and many other features) in extreme environments without the need of a power source. As such, they continue to appeal to many different people - with higher end, more complicated designs continuing to come about at higher prices. I'm a software developer and I love my automatics for both their technical merits as well as their aesthetic beauty. To each his own
This is a really toxic view of consumption. What level of consumption is moral to you? Can I buy a pack of chewing gum if I earn $100k? What if buying a $100k watch is a smaller percentage of my income than that pack of chewing gum?
Chewing gum aids in oral hygiene, it has utility. The opportunity cost is hardly anything. The opportunity cost of something that exists purely for aesthetic purposes is 100% of the cost of the good. In this case you're talking $1,000+ for a watch. I am always reminded of the scene in Schindler's list where he looks at the additional things he could have sold or gone without to save lives. On my death bed I don't want to look back with regret and wonder how much more I could have done to help people if I wasn't acting selfishly.
To me the moral level of consumption is as close to the minimum required to survive and make an optimal economic contribution to society. Everyone needs happiness and entertainment in their lives. The struggle is avoiding excess.
How does one hope to define "excess" if there's a carveout for "happiness and entertainment"? Beyond our Maslow needs, most of what we spend money on is arguably for "happiness and entertainment", no?
By attempting to make optimal entertainment choices. For example, watching a classic film that is in the public domain on archive.org instead of going to see the latest Disney production in the theater and paying $10 for a ticket. Borrow a book from the library. Have friends over for a game night instead of going out for drinks. There is no best solution. My hope is that people will at least try and make better choices.
I agree that most of what people spend their money on is the pursuit of happiness and entertainment. My view is that the path to true happiness does not lie in material goods or personal experiences. Rather, helping others in their struggles and seeing their lives improve leads to fulfillment.
"Optimal entertainment choices" is so vague as to be meaningless. If I can spent 25K on a vacation and not feel it hurt my wallet, isn't that an optimal entertainment choice?
I think that someone like you should figure out how to implement "conspicuous charity" - figure out a socially acceptable way for people to compete on displays of wealth and taste based on what charities they give to, and how much they give.
As an aside, I think it's your money, and if you want to spend more than I would spend on a server (which is to say, way more than I'd consider spending on a car) on a fancy watch, well, I'm going to make fun of you a little bit, but ultimately, it's your money, and your judgement. But, if fancy watches are primarily signaling, which I believe to be the case, it seems to me that you could figure out how to get the same signaling value out of proving that you gave a certain amount to certain stylish charities.
High end brands could release limited edition colors of their products at a higher price with the additional money going to some efficient charitable organization. Who wouldn't want to have an EFF themed Tesla to show off?
Mechanical watches don't require sacrificing many features vs. quartz. Other than not having to wind or set it as often, the only real advantage of quartz is price.
That's what may change if these new smart watches find their killer app. No one really needed a calculator, heart beat monitor, or other gimmick on his wrist, so digital watches never pulled away on features. That might change now.
Would I rather wear an intricate piece of jewelry or see why my phone vibrated without reaching into my pocket? It starts to be a different calculation.
I'd not go that far - look at the Seiko 5, which I find more attractive than most of the Kinetic models anyhow, and gray market in the US, its much much cheaper, several years ago I bought two identical ones for my 30th birthday, should last me my lifetime.
Oh how I didn't know about the Seiko 5 at all? Was looking for a sports-appropriate watch recently, would prefer it to the eventually chosen Timex IQ Compass. Though the compass proved to be an useful complication!
I only recently got interested in mechanical watches. It's fun to have a mechanical marvel on my wrist for those times when I don't want to reach into my pocket to tell the time using an electronic marvel.
I'm not sure if I'd ever get a smart watch. Perhaps. I actually feel kind of attached to my automatic. If I stop wearing it for more than two days it will stop running. That just seems cruel to the little guy.
I find your analogy particularly fitting, albeit you miss the point, perhaps because you are not into either cameras or watches.
Compact cameras are not doing too good, because you can shoot pictures with your phone. DSLR and mirrorless though, are doing swell, with even better projections.
In the same way, I think low end watches (mechanical+smart) will suffer a big hit, but high end watches ($1k+ will not see any difference at all). It's just different market segments. You don't see Martinelli worried about Ikea opening a factory every eayr. They just sell to different people.
I've tried to make that point to people who claim that Apple has ever shrinking market share in the smartphone market. It might seem so to a person who has no idea about marketing, but in reality, Apple's share in the high end segment of the market is increasing.
The difference between cameras and watches is you can carry a smartphone and a DSLR. Unless you're going to start wearing two watches, you'll be giving up all the utility of a smartwatch for your wealth-indicator, which yes many people will be happy to do now, but that market can only shrink as the high-end smartwatch market grows.
I know several people that own $10K+ watches, and a larger group who own $1K+ watches None of them own only one super expensive watch... and a lot of them carry like three or four in a bag for different situations.
On the other hand, Leica and Hasselblad switched to digital along with everyone else. There's still a high end but it has to compete on technology, not just exclusivity.
Watch purists may go the way of vinyl purists, slowly dying out as the competing technology offers more and more convenience.
there is always Android wear SDK, free and waiting for Swiss watchmakers, when they decide to integrate alarms and notifications from your android handset
Your point on the politeness of the Pebble is exactly why I'm wearing one right now. I hadn't worn a watch in years, and when I got a Pebble for a project, I thought I would use it just long enough to write some code for it. But I love being able to fend off and deal quietly with the various intrusions of my digital life. I can fend off a phone call, see a text, or be reminded of an appointment without a fit of beepilepsy. It makes my life more serene even when I'm alone, but what really sells me on it is when I'm around others.
A Patek Phillipe 3940g costs around 40k-50k. With several more zeros that is what, 4 million? You gave up a 4 million dollar watch for a Pebble Steel? I mean, the point of a 4million dollar watch isn't even to tell time. It is to say "I can wear your life savings on my wrist"
Additionally, he says he's worried because the watch is not "the absolute best one you can buy".
Well, I don't think people buying 30,000 euros watches are such a big market that Apple should worry about missing them.
That includes former French President Sarkozy (he wears the same Patek Philippe watch), not really the "man with an okay job who lives in a nice apartment in some metropolitan town".
Really high end watches are a signalling device, not a practical device. It tries to convey the size of the bankroll of the wearer to others rather than that there is any additional performance somehow related to the price.
A $50 watch keeps time just about as good as a $10K watch.
And you might even get to keep the former when you're being held up on the way to your Ferrari.
Sometimes the 50 dollar watch performs better than the 10k one - Rolexes keep lousy time. I personally am quite the fan of the Seiko 5, it works, keeps time (when I remember to set it after not wearing it for four days), and at the least it will act as a decent chronometer even if I've not set it, I can tell how much time has elapsed by looking at it twice.
I don't know if I have a use case for the apple watch, I might buy one to try out, see if it works, but I will say -if nothing else, its uniformly a pretty object d'art.
I kind of agree. The article is kind of right in that it seems to be saying that they're not the same thing and that's right - the only real similarity is that they occupy the space on your wrist but that doesn't mean that it can't appeal to someone who likes high end mechanical watches (I have an IWC which I love but I'm still interested in the Apple watch).
After all, I have expensive leather shoes and trainers. Other than the fact they both go on my feet there is little similarity but I can and do own, use and like both.
Let's also not forget that most humans have two wrists. Perhaps it will become fashionable to wear a smart watch on one wrist and a high end mechanical watch on the other.
Of course that would remove any remaining doubt that the purpose of a $60,000 watch is to signal wealth rather than tell time.
Alternatively, maybe we'll see mechanical watches with a smart watch "complication". At the very least I'm sure we'll see partnerships between (some) high end mechanical watchmakers and smartwatch platforms.
My Breitling Navitimer only cost $10k and my Pebble, which is about 6 months old now, has been on my wrist for all of 8 hours. I've never worn it again after that one day because it does nothing I find useful. And in comparison to the Breitling the Pebble feels cheap. The only reason I have to not wear the Breitling is when I go more than a meter underwater. And for that I have a Suunto D6i.
It is debatable. Actually, it's being heavily debated on WUS right now (I assume that you know WUS = Watchuseek). I also love watches. They're on of my primary obsessions. I can't imagine wearing something like this, but I'll certainly take that PP off of your hands if you don't want it anymore. :)
As mentioned by Terretta and the original article, serious watch lovers have collections of watches. They could buy the watch just to add to the collection, worn as a conversation piece in addition to its smartphone peripheral feature.
Aside: I was totally surprised by how similar the watch looks to the original iPhone.
You really shouldn't use the character online. It's part of the "private use area", so different vendors are free to interpret it in different ways. On most systems, it looks like "□ watch".
I see some sort of hieroglyphic character that looks like a seagull over a pistol over a sort of upside-down fishhook. I have no idea what languages use this glyph.
+1 re: phone nerds. I had an HTC Apache (AKA Verizon XV6700) at the time, and I wouldn't give up on the idea of a physical keyboard. I was running my customized ppc kitchen BuildOS image (Win Mobile 6.1 stripped down iirc) before upgrading to the original Droid because of the much-higher-res screen. I ran Bugless Beast on the Droid and painstakingly updated it usually within 24 hours of a new release. Before the Apache, I had a Nokia 6600 with Symbian S60, and even as a kid I wrote VB5 for my 3Com Palm Pilot Professional.
I'm typing this on an iPhone 5, and I'll be pre-ordering the 6+ as soon as I can. This is my second iPhone; I started with a 4S. Fighting with Android became less and less appealing over time, and I currently only jailbreak iOS to get bluetooth / wifi tethering and because my physical mute switch is broken after a swim in the sink which I've worked around using Activator to toggle silent with a long-press on the status bar.
> Fighting with Android became less and less appealing over time
This rings true to me. I was long a diehard Android/Linux guy - even an explicitly anti-Apple person. 5 years of professional development later and I'm typing on my 15" MacBook Retina Pro which I have not had to restart in something like 42 days, thinking about which iPhone I'm going to dump my Galaxy SIII for in a few weeks' time.
I still run a GNU Linux on any desktop I have, and I actually don't see that changing anytime soon (my Linux complaints are generally with built-in peripherals on laptops which is hardly Linux's fault but still makes for a bad experience), but Apple has really won me over. I've got an iMac in my bedroom, an iPod I climb/bike/run/ski with. I can't see becoming a watch-wearer with the Apple Watch (I haven't worn a watch ever really) but it's not outside the realm of possibility.
I'm curious to see if Apple can do what Google couldn't, and make wearables a significant presence in the market, thus forcing other companies to react. If we leave other companies to break trail, as it were, I think the acceptance of wearables is still a little further off.
Has the switch to Apple devices happened because you have had increased purchasing power as a developer? Before these 5 years, you likely had disdain for Apple devices as being "overpriced" compared to PC equivalents, and thought "I could use Linux for that!" and would spend plenty of time hacking around to get things working.
Are you now an "Apple guy" because you have money to spend and no longer consider Apple devices overpriced for their value, and you now value your time more?
Just curious (this is what happened to me you see; I want to spend time getting things done, not faffing around).
Not the parent, but as someone with a similar history (Symbian / WinMo Hacker), I used to ridicule Apple at every chance I got. I used to be a hardcore PC Gamer (builder as well, and have built atleast 20 rigs for others).
When I was presented with the original iPhone, I was pissed but overtime as I came to see the merits of it, and by extension Apple hardware. At work I use an iMac, but my personal laptop still is a Lenovo (with Ubuntu 14.04). But I'll be pre-ordering the next MBP as soon as it is announced.
I don't have the patience that I earlier had to debug seemingly simple but drawn out errors/bugs. Apple nails the entire experience (s/w & h/w), and for a developer for whom Time = Money, this is the best possible investment one can make. I also wouldn't have considered Apple hardware had I not been working (and earning) substantially.
But I'm still not an Apple guy and for one-off setup stuff I stick with non Apple hardware (routers, etc). But I wouldn't call them overpriced, they work out of the box with as minimal config required as possible.
> Are you now an "Apple guy" because you have money to spend and no longer consider Apple devices overpriced for their value, and you now value your time more?
This is definitely a big part of it, yes. I could make it work with Android/Linux, but I can afford Apple products now. Also, as a 100% remote developer, I need my laptop/phone/ to be totally reliable, or it reflects on me professionally. For this reason also I am far less tolerant of say, random battery life issues with my phone. Additionally, some proprietary software (quite annoyingly) only runs in Windows/OSX. Again, I could boot a VM, but I'd rather not, and I suppose these days I can (literally) afford not to.
>> Fighting with Android became less and less appealing over time
> This rings true to me. I was long a diehard Android/Linux guy - even an explicitly anti-Apple person.
I keep hearing this but there's always some other reason lurking behind it.
I have never been an anti-Apple person. I use Linux on my desktop because I need something that just works. It must never fail on me and all tools I need must be readily available. Mac probably comes the closest, but speak with any Windows person and it's "yeah just install this usb driver to get the adb going and then install this binary stuff from a website and then..". No thanks, I have work to do.
I suppose the same can be true for the iPhone as well. Instead of rooting and installing homebrew and stuff to tether, just get something that works and click the button.
I don't "fight" my tools, Linux, Mac or otherwise. I get something that works instead. For the past decade, that has equated to Linux on a Thinkpad for me.
I absolutely agree. With Linux on a Thinkpad I never have to worry about my tools. They just work, upgrade without issue and don't get in my way. Suspend works, and the hardware is solid and upgradeable. I really can't fault the setup. They're not as shiny as Macs, but give me a Thinkpad any day.
I just realized I've used the same Linux installation for the better part of ten years. It has survived many in-place upgrades and two hardware changes (where I just move everything over, no need for a reinstall).
Since Linux users for the most part doesn't need to mess with drivers, it just keeps working. (And thank you everyone out there who keeps making this possible.)
> I use Linux on my desktop because I need something that just works.
Agreed - I still use Linux on my desktop for this reason as well. I can have years' worth of uptime, if need be. I haven't used a Thinkpad, which the comment below suggests is a better laptop/Linux experience, and I have had some annoying issues with Wifi drivers, etc while using non-Ubuntu versions of Linux. There's also inevitably some corporate software of some variety that you run into that needs IE/Safari, so it's nice to have them around. The software for my GPS has no Linux installer, and while that isn't a deal-breaking fact, I use that software to plan climbing and skiing trips, so it's nice to have. It's one more voice saying "pay for the convenience" I suppose.
I've seen a lot of folks recently wearing around-the-neck Bluetooth headphones. I was really skeptical of them and considered them a fad, but then received one as a present. I have subsequently been blown away by the value and convenience, and now believe that around-the-neck will be an important part of the future in wearable computing. I think the innovation was a combination of being small, light, well designed, effective wireless, long enough battery life, and an unobtrusive place to rest on the body.
Advantages:
- The absence of wires between my pocket and my head is a HUGE benefit. I now wear the wireless headphones by default, which are super convenient while doing routine activities like chores around the house, or changing clothes, or while traveling between house and car, etc. Wires get in the way and are inconvenient enough to stop me from using headphones (e.g., while buckling a seat-belt, or moving laundry around). Neck headphones are convenient enough to wear by default, and don't get in the way.
- The device overall is so convenient that I barely notice I'm wearing them. I frequently fall asleep while wearing them after listening to a book or podcast. They are small and light enough to evaporate from your senses.
- They're small enough to fit inside most shirts if needed
- Being continuously present around my neck removes the pain of unbundling wires from one's pocket. Those wires are always tangled. The neck device's wires are short and can't get tangled. The device magnetically contains its earbugs when not in use, so no dangling wires.
- Battery life is good enough that I can use them the whole next day even after leaving them on overnight (assuming audio isn't playing all night)
- While tethered to a primary device (smartphone or tablet), I can roam almost anywhere within my house within audio reception
I'm listening to audio substantially more now as a result of the device. While I think glasses would be far too intrusive, I've started wearing wireless headphones all day long by default now. I see many people doing it too. I could see these devices either replacing glasses or complementing them (move the processing units out of the glasses frame, and down around the neck, perhaps with an easily detached wire - a wire to the neck is probably doable).
What's not easy is finding new audio content dynamically while wearing them. I'm a big audiobook and podcast fan, so I listen to Audible and NPR and the like. But I have to prepare all my content ahead of time on another computing device to which the headphones are tethered. If the headphones were interactive, and commands were available by voice, to find and listen to books, podcasts, or the news, then I think they could form quite the electronic companion.
A full phone could probably be designed with that form factor (but no screen). Or imagine if I could control appliances within my house. TV, turn on. Search for "<the latest movie>". The headphones relay the command to my device, which instructs the house. There's a lot of potential there.
Around-the-neck could be great as part of Google Glass-like headwear devices, hosting a heavy-duty battery, processing unit, everything but the display really. As you said, a necklace is unobtrusive, as long as it is kept sufficiently flat. I see it going under the clothes as a strictly auxilliary part of the headwear.
Out of interest, which headphones did you go with? I've been looking at wireless headphones but I've always been put off by not knowing their battery life. Aside from the manufacturer's ratings, which have a variable degree of accuracy :p
Why didn't you just buy a Nexus? (i used to battle Android updates to, but it's not Google's fault... The Nexus proves that) (1st smartphone was a iPhone 3GS, the rest were all Androids)
I'm trying really hard not to start a flamewar, but as someone who has exclusively used (and still uses) Android since the first Moto Droid, Google cannot be trusted, even with the Nexus brand. Take the Galaxy Nexus as evidence, where a similarly aged iPhone was still receiving the latest iOS updates. Or take NFC: Android users have been quick to mock Apple for using NFC, but every time I asked a clerk at the one store nearby that supported paying via a phone and NFC the clerk had never seen it used. Google doesn't tend to "finish the job" for lack of better words.
With respect to the grandparent and the "Fighting", I have to agree with the grandparent. There is NOTHING NEW in the iPhone 6 and yet I'm thinking about getting it and making it my first iOS device because I'm sick of fighting everything from updates to not having the latest apps (which are iOS first usually https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332000#up_4332278). The same thing happened with me and Linux as a desktop OS after years of use: http://xkcd.com/619/
To be honest, my Nexus 5 is the first device that is good (to me) right out of the box.
I've installed Cyanogenmod on every Android device before and Cydia on my first iOS device (my first smartphone was an iPhone 3GS).
The clerk you are talking about, will still not know what NFC is for payments in a year from now. It doesn't change anything that Apple now joined the same game with Apple Pay... It's more infrastructure related and demand related.
Just like the Apple Watch, there is no actual demand for NFC Payments from regular users.
There was demand for the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Also Maps applications are used a lot (Navigation).
We don't use watches anymore (check your smartphone), we still pay with our wallet and with cash.
"We don't use watches anymore (check your smartphone), we still pay with our wallet and with cash."
When I was living in the UK about 70% of my purchases were done with a chip and pin card, even a couple of beers at a pub.
This because in the end it was quicker and easier than using cash.
If NFC makes paying quicker and easier than using cash or cards, the demand will be there: by the end of the month there will be millions of iPhone6 customers waiting to test these new features.
If I were a shop/chain owner, I would be scrambling to try to please them, before the competition does.
Here in Canada, we have "contactless" payments on the major credit and debit cards. When it's time to pay, you just tap your card on the reader and it's done().
NFC payments using a phone would add a few more steps, so I think that the wallet and card is going to win out for me. It would be very hard to get it much simpler than it is right now.
() There are limits. My MasterCard, for example, will let me make contactless payments up to a total of $50. At that point it will require me to make a Chip&Pin transaction in order to reset the $50. When this happens the reader will just say "Insert Chip" or something.
Contactless is supported in the UK as well (usually up to a £20 minimum), but isn't nearly as widely supported as chip +pin, and I certainly don't know anyone who uses it regularly.
Once more supermarkets roll it out (I'm looking at you, Sainsburys), it'll start to get proper traction and kick on to being regular thing.
Also, it's often difficult to see whether a retailer has contactless even when you're standing Right There and then you do the normal chip+pin out of shame because you feel like a right fool with your card out.
I'm going out with some friends, everyone brings in 10 € into the shared "wallet".. (1 guy has an old Nokia, the rest is shared between Android, iPhone and Windows Phone). One guy has no wallet and only has Apple pay .
Next time he goes out with them, he will have his wallet. To give back the money he borrowed from his friends.
When the above situation can be handled.. There is an option for a walletless life. Where i live (Belgium), this won't happen within the next 2 years
The vast majority of men in the US will have their wallets with them regardless. The iPhone 6 will not, and is not designed to replace driver's license, etc.
For the ones that think a wallet isn't required anymore because of Apple Pay. How are you going to transfer money to your friend (with any other device or without a smartphone), with a transfer rate of 0% without cash?
If that problem is solved, there can be a future for a walletless life.
It costs you guys money to make bank transfers? Wow. For the record, I can send and receive money (for free) from my phone only needing the other person's phone number at this point. (Australian. Also, I've never used the pay-to-phone stuff because I just prefer to use their account number. I can do that for free from my phone too.)
It strikes me that our NFC infrastructure is way better than yours too. Somewhat a reverse of most patterns in tech-infrastructure. It's just a pity Google won't support the Nexus' NFC capabilities in Australia - I bet Apple will.
In fact, in young circles (in the US), this seems to have become the defacto way of transferring money socially between individuals. I don't think I have paid someone I know with physical cash in years.
Any number of services support ths - I believe Wallet, Venmo, Paypal and Square all offer some form of fee-less peer-to-peer transfer, because it has such a high value for organic growth as people send money to friends.
Supposedly the lack of updates for the Galaxy Nexus was down to the TI CPU they used. TI stopped working on mobile SoCs shortly after the Galaxy Nexus was released, so they no longer supported it and wouldn't provide any updated firmware needed for newer Android versions. The Verizon version was worse still for updates, but that's little surprise.
Either way, you're comparing 2 year old phones. I also got tired of fighting with Android and installing custom builds, but it's not really necessary these days. Stock builds are much more polished, and many of the more advanced features from OEM and custom builds have been integrated into stock Android. I recently got a HTC One and have found little need to root or install any custom ROMs on it - it does everything I need and doesn't seem worth the hassle any more.
I do agree with what you say about Google not "finishing the job". Many apps and services have been released with a lot of promise, but then been left relatively unchanged from early versions. If Apple Pay succeeds where Google Wallet has failed to gain traction, it will almost certainly be down to Apple making more of an effort to get merchants and services to support it. Perhaps they simly have more influence, but Google isn't exactly a small company, yet they often seem to fail in these areas. In particular, they make little effort to support things (Google Wallet NFC payments is one example) outside of the US. They're an international company, they have offices in many other countries, and yet many of their services remain US only, or take at least a year to be offered elsewhere.
It's relatively easy to update a gnex on your own, though[1]. I've spend maybe two hours keeping it up to date over the last ~3 years. Yeah, it would be awesome if that wasn't necessary, but in balance the benefits I get outweigh that inconvenience.
Having control over your own phone is a genuinely useful thing, not some abstract ideal. I've been using a wireless tether with a Verizon unlimited data plan for the last 5 years, something I simply couldn't have done with an iPhone. (And it's amazing how many hassles that removes -- I can get internet in the park, or in any shop no matter how shitty the wifi.)
1. I use this ROM: rootzwiki.com/topic/36706-romaosp62114-shiny-rom-ota-like-stock-android-444-ktu84p/#entry1031982
I was an Android early adopter T-Mobile G1/G2, then a Windows Phone, then iPhone. It's true though, it is easy to update your own ROM, I have an HP Touchpad I run android on.
I have all the control over my phone I desire to have, it does everything I could never need it to, I don't have to worry about my own ROM, or if updates to the system come, I press the update button when the phone tells me to do so, in short, I have the phone-appliance, a construct I am supremely happy with.
Apple products only have three errors (in order of likelihood):
1) You did it wrong.
2) It doesn't do that.
3) and rarely, It's an honest to god bug.
95% of the problems I've ever had with my phone are fixed by turning it off, and turning it on again - this ease of use led me to buy a Mac, another choice I'm quite happy with, it all more or less just works - and with the Mac I have enough freedom to replace the built in apps that don't work with ones that do - Chrome/Thunderbird/Adium instead of Safari, Mail.app and iMessage.
The Galaxy Nexus had a chipset that had been orphaned by TI (due to their total withdrawal from the industry), so Google kind of got the short end of the stick with that one.
That's an often bandied about excuse, but actually completely wrong - TI has continued to support existing customers and not only did Google go on to use an OMAP4 in Google Glass, but the Moto360 actually uses an OMAP3.
Google simply stopped supporting the Galaxy Nexus because they didn't feel like it.
That's short-term balance-sheet thinking. Which isn't a terrible way to make business decisions, but it definitely isn't the kind of thing that builds long-term consumer trust. There's a reason that Apple has tight supplier relationships and even makes a lot of their own chips: having committed to long-term value delivery, they work backward to make sure they can do that efficiently.
The new types of Linux desktops put me off (abandonment of typical desktop window management paradigms, removal of options), and I therefore stick with a Fedora 12 (!) VM running GNOME2 to write any Linux code on.
I too have the same problem with NFC, apart from here in the UK no Android payment systems are ready on the phone itself (you can only install it on some devices).
I also dislike the newer Linux desktop environments like Unity and Gnome 3, but XFCE, Cinnamon, and Mate are all an improvement over Gnome 2.
Agreed about NFC, it's frustrating that I've had NFC on my phone for 2 years now, but still not been able to use it for payments. EE does have an NFC payment service now, but for some reason they only let you use it on a few specific phones, not including my HTC. I'm not sure if this is down to differences in the hardware or just favouritism. I'm hoping that Apple Pay will at least push more places and services to support NFC payments in general.
Which message was that? I am still using GTalk on my phone (Android 4.1, no updates in site, such a relic of a phone to be two years old right? Xperia S - 32GB of storage and a decent camera, so why no updates? It's STUPID)
I notice that people attempting to communicate via Hangouts (on their phone?) doesn't notify me in Talk. If I attempt to call someone who has Talk on their phone from my web browser (therefore using Hangouts), they never get any notification. I can therefore never get in touch with my brother, unless I call him using Talk from my phone.
If someone attempts to talk to me via Hangouts, the message is shown in my inbox in the web interface, but NOT on my phone in GMail, nor in Talk on my phone. I therefore never find out about a message until I use the web interface, which I don't really do because I have GMail on my phone......
Just use Linux Mint w/Cinnamon. It feels like Windows 7 done right, and works almost great on Asus ultrabooks (they've broken something about battery life in Qiana).
Is F20 alright? Are things mostly working on it? I only ask because I have memories of my upgrades from FC1 to FC2 to FC4, to FC7 to FC10 to FC12 and things ALWAYS broke between them.
Here's an example: recently I wanted to get a route around a traffic jam. So, I tried to tell Google Now (on my Nexus 4) to "navigate to work". All of a sudden they took this feature away -- the only thing that comes up is a Google search trying to answer why this doesn't work. And nothing conclusive -- some people are having issues, others not. Android / Nexus was pretty good, but they keep on fixing it further till it's getting more and more broken.
Yes! They "fix" things that don't need fixing. Like their old Android Maps application - how does typing "OK Maps" logically mean you want to save offline maps? Why remove a menu item?
I keep the old one on my phone and resist installing the new one. Also, Google Local has gone?
That's the problem with cloud services I suppose, but at least if they had the decency to keep cloud services going whilst there were obvious users of them (without breaking things), that'd be appreciated. I mean, how long has MobileMe been going for OSX?
Really irritates me that I've put my home address (or an address very close to my home) in Google Maps, explicitly marked as home, but I can't type "home" as a destination. I have to start typing the address, then Google says "oh, you mean your home? Yeah I can do that".
My Nexus 5 is OK for $350, but after two years of trying the competition I'm going back to iOS next month. I like Apple's approach of getting the UX right and worrying about the other stuff (extensibility, standards compliance, filesystem, etc) after. Whatever incredibly nonstandard thing Safari does with text reflow is better than what Chrome (in 4.4) does, even if its more compliant. Having documents being able to open up in different apps is a huge pain in the ass. I download a PDF and for some reason it always asks whether I want to open it in Adobe or HP ePrint. But other times I'm stuck always opening documents in some app I don't want. Should I open this in YouTube or Chrome? Maps or Chrome? Just do the right thing and don't ask me! I still don't understand how the filesystem works. Older apps seem to have a different download folder or something than newer apps?
I'm not dumb. I used to write highly multithreaded network code for a living. I took Diff Eq in college! But Android makes me feel dumb, so I'm selling the N5.
I like being asked what to open it in. It means you can stop certain application pinching file associations, as typically happens in Windows (and iTunes is notorious for doing it on OSX).
When I used a Nexus 4 (stock), I could never figure out the opening in different apps. It would ask me if I wanted to open a reddit link in Chrome or Firefox or the reddit app. I would select Chrome and hit the "always do this" button, and the very next time it would ask again. The next time, it wouldn't ask. Then it would ask five times in a row.
It's almost as bad as "do you want to view this site in the tapatalk app?".
I think it's due to an app that can potentially use those links being installed and/or updated. It cancels the previous "always do this" otherwise you wouldn't be able to switch.
I think only the Nexus 5 started to catch up with the 4/5S in terms of speed and build quality. And it's only with CM11 on the N5 that it begins to reach the "smoothness" of Apple's UI (and yes, I know there are some tricks used).
I love the way my Nexus 5 runs. I use it just as much as my iPhone 5 and although it doesn't have the same UX niceties, it's still plenty smooth and fast.
What really frustrates me is the camera. Some photos are great, others look like the image has been made deliberately bad. I don't think the Nexus phones will deliver a great camera experience any time soon, and there's only so much compensation that G+ can make to a dull, blurry photo.
Who gives a shit. They're both converging on the same form-factors and features. It's good we have at least two successful smartphone platforms. If there were only one there would be less innovation and more price gouging.
Competition spurs innovation. Samsung copies from Apple whatever is successful there, Apple copies from Samsung/Google whatever is successful there. Would Apple have created a phablet if Samsung hadn't innovated and proved the market? Probably not. Samsung doesn't have the fingerprint reader, but it's probably coming. And then they'll have to think of something new to differentiate themselves.
“Samsung copies from Apple whatever is successful there, Apple copies from Samsung/Google whatever is successful there.”
That doesn’t really sound like innovation.
EDIT: Never mind, I didn’t pick up on the actual gist of your comment, that being the copying done by each company forces the other to come up with new, possibly innovative ideas to one up the competition.
Samsung didn't innovate the phablet, many people had released 5" devices before them. They have, however, sold many more than anyone previously ("proved the market").
> Personally I'm not going to get a smartwatch because I hate interruptions.
I hate those things too, but I'm still chomping at the bit for the Apple Watch (and plan to disable all notifications except SMS). Why?
- Wrist GPS while driving
- Siri without taking phone from pocket
- Music remote control (hopefully video, too)
- NFC payments
- Heart monitor (QS)
- Other cool apps as yet unimagined
I certainly don't blame anyone who doesn't want one; it's a bulky, expensive frivolity. But its UI affordances create opportunities for active use cases beyond the passive notifications that have characterized smartwatch functionality until recently.
I recommend trying GPS while driving without any screen at all. Pull up navigation on your phone or stand-alone unit, then place it in the center console where you cannot see it. Let it give you directions only though TTS.
This is how I've been using GPS for years now, I find that I pay much more attention to the road and actually have fewer navigational mistakes (probably because I am paying more attention to the road).
One of the features Apple has mentioned for its watch is its ability to use its little force feedback mechanism to make different pulses depending on whether you're supposed to turn left or right, so you don't actually have to look at the directions. It actually sounds like kind of a neat idea.
Definitely an interesting idea. I wonder if haptic feedback for GPS navigation could somehow be integrated into cars. The steering wheel might work.. except people are often pretty bad at keeping both hands on the wheel. Maybe in the seat.
Simple left/right indications are fine for walking, but not for driving. You need explicit lane guidance, or else you'll miss practically all your turns driving a new route.
Even if the GPS is accurate to a few feet, it doesn't know where the back of the line in the left turn lane is!
Agreed. To add to your point about fewer mistakes, it is sometimes difficult to correlate the picture on the screen with what you are seeing on the actual road, causing you to miss turns.
That's great when the route isn't intentionally confusing like in some cities. "Turn left in 1000 feet" when there is an intersection shaped like an asterisk is one example a ran into recently. I had to stop in the middle of the road (blocking traffic) and dig out my phone so I could see if I should slight left, turn 90 degrees left, or go through and slight left.
I find that the combination of distance updates and street name cover most of those cases, though there are indeed edge-cases where it doesn't work great.
Whenever I get into a taxi who is using a GPS unit, I get really scared. They seem to be new drivers who spend more time looking at the screen than the road, which is not good in Beijing.
But I have the feeling that Watch is not meant for driving situations :) It could be quite good while walking around a new city.
When driving in unknown territory (why else would you need a GPS) when the terrain is a bit more rugged a GPS can visually warn you at night of an upcoming curve and this can be a life-saver in countries where the roads are really bad.
Ummm, you shouldn't be looking at GPS while driving. It's easy enough to tether a smartphone to your car's console. I know on my last 3 phones (all Android) the GPS would actually interrupt the music when I was coming up on a turn, then return to the music.
As for music remote control, headphones generally have controls somewhere on them or the cord so you don't need to take your phone out.
Is looking at your watch whilst driving also dangerous? What about using your arm to change gear? How do you use dashboard SATnav if you shouldn't look at your GPS whilst driving? I have a TomTom that suckers to the windscreen and has a display on it. If it was dangerous to look at it whilst driving, would it show a map with turn-by-turn directions whilst driving?
> Is looking at your watch whilst driving also dangerous?
You never need more than a quick glance at a normal wristwatch.
> What about using your arm to change gear?
If you need to look at the gear shifter you're doing it wrong... (I drive a manual daily btw)
> How do you use dashboard SATnav if you shouldn't look at your GPS whilst driving?
You don't 'use' it. You take a quick glance to know when you need to turn. I'd say it IS dangerous to program your next destination while driving.
The issue isn't looking at your wrist watch, it's shifting your attention to your wristwatch. If the GPS on the watch had a simplified interface with say, only an arrow when a turn was coming up, I'd say it's a great idea. If it's a full map, you'd need to take your attention off the road for far too long while you loop at the map.
And again, all of it is more complicated and less effective than simply using the voice commands that any phone can already send through your car speakers...
I wasn't implying that you need to look at the gear stick - that'd be hilarious to see... once.
I would agree programming a destination whilst driving would be dangerous; my TomTom doesn't show a QWERTY keyboard for text input so it is even more frustrating.
Sadly my car (2008 VW Golf TDi GT Sport) does not understand that I have a phone. It knows how to pair with my phone via bluetooth for calls, but it does not work the other way around - my phone can't send audio to the car. The audio head unit is a bit thick (it will resume in the wrong place for MP3 CDs, and the optional iPod interface is really dumb and requires creation of playlists, which is not very helpful for a 160GB iPod; that's a lot of playlists).
Admittedly perhaps my car is considered old (6 years, 86k miles in a diesel) but I am certain that there are many more cars that don't have bluetooth duplex audio. It would be wrong to assume that all cars have it.
Come to think of it, my wife's car (2010 Mini Cooper) doesn't have two-way audio either! It's got a USB interface so the iPod works properly, and you can pair to make and receive calls via bluetooth but I don't think it can pipe audio to the car.
A quick glance when the wrist is already in eyeline is no worse than a quick glance at the speedometer or the rearview mirror. But in any case, the primary navigatory use would be to use it while stopped at a light. (And as mentioned, it's also awesome for walking.)
There are a lot of things you shouldn't do, but people do anyway. I'd rather someone looks at their wrist on the steering wheel or speak to their wrist instead of fidgeting with a phone or the GPS device in/on their dash.
Yeah well I'd rather people are drunk than texting while driving, and doing cocaine if nothing else would keep them awake at the wheel, yet I wouldn't suggest either is a safe practice...
Voice feedback and a HUD are probably the safest solutions when driving, still I like the idea of not having to take my iPhone with me to track my regular running activities (I'm not sure if this is supported by Apple Watch though).
Please don't use the navigation built into your car while driving.
Please don't look at your speedometer while driving.
Please don't look at your gas gauge while driving.
Please don't look at the clock while driving.
Please don't change temperature controls while driving.
In the US (with terrible driving schools), they teach you how to maintain control of your car while glancing at a screen for a brief moment of time, because it's necessary to do so. Looking at a GPS or at the radio is far different from doing something time consuming and interactive like texting.
If you think glancing at a GPS is an unacceptable risk, you should probably abstain from driving altogether.
> But at the same time, I can imagine that the younger crowd wants exactly that.
If anyone can build a market from scratch it is Apple, but why would the younger crowd want a watch at all? Unless you are older than 30 (or perhaps even older), you likely aren't in the habit of wearing a watch. What is going to compel the younger crowd to do so?
The modern smartphone has little in common with the devices that were known as telephones until about 20 years ago, yet it has retained the name. It's not easy to predict something like this. (In the film Back to the Future II, the hero's 2015 house is filled with telefax receivers. There's a scene where his boss sends a fax to all of them and printed pages start pouring out. This is how people imagined the future of telephones a mere 30 years ago!)
The meaning of 'watch' as a timepiece may soon become as antiquated as the meaning of 'phone' as a fixed receiver on an analog landline.
If you think about what smartphones are really most like, they're basically pocket-watches: big flat things with a metal case and a glass face that you flip open an optional protective cover to look at, which sit in your pocket when not in use, and trail a cord out of said pocket to somewhere else on your person (your ears, nowadays.)
That said, the word "watch" is likely a very good word to keep for the wrist-devices: their natural UX, given the limited possible set of affordances, is designed around passive alerts. Which is to say, they watch for events, and you watch them.
Great analogy. Just enormously big and inconvenient pocketwatches with a lot of complications. (/me wearing wristwatch and a SonyEricsson W580 in my pocket)
Exactly. In 2006, no one expected Apple to be in the business of making phones. And they never really wanted you to think of the iPhone as just a phone. It was more like an iPod that could make phonecalls and other magical things. They wanted to define a new product category, and they did. This isn't a watch, it's a way to see your iPhone all the time without pulling it out of your pocket; it's seeing all your notifications and looking good (as opposed to looking ridiculous like Google Glass).
> In 2006, no one expected Apple to be in the business of making phones.
My recollection of history is a bit different. What I remember is that people were practically begging Apple to build a phone. You might say there was a half-hearted attempt with the ROKR, in partnership with Motorola, but it didn't really address what people were seeking. The calls for a phone done the "Apple way" continued. Now, I do believe Apple ended up greatly exceeding the expectations of the customers with the iPhone and, as you suggest, perhaps even created a new market segment because of that, but was hardly a surprise to see them announce something phone-like.
hindsight is 20-20. Apple was oft quoted as saying they wouldn't do it. The ROKR was a disaster but perhaps made them realize they had to do it themselves.
> This is how people imagined the future of telephones a mere 30 years ago!
There's a part in this terrible move "Time Cop" (1994, set in 2004) where one of the characters uses this communications device that's a rectangular slab with a 2" or 3" bezel and is two or three inches deep, but has a touch screen. I thought, wow, this is what they thought an iPad would be, but what we have is actually better.
>If anyone can build a market from scratch it is Apple, but why would the younger crowd want a watch at all? Unless you are older than 30 (or perhaps even older), you likely aren't in the habit of wearing a watch. What is going to compel the younger crowd to do so?
If they're gonna buy it it won't be on the merits of its watch functionality. So it's not about being a watch, in the same way (or actually far more so) than a smartphone is not about the phonecalls.
It's a machine you wear on your wrist that also happens to tell time.
Mind you, what the "younger crowd" wants is not really that predictable in the sense of "why would they buy a watch".
If it becomes a kind of fashion statement, they'd buy it, the same way hipsters now buy vests and hats (the kind of which people haven't really wore since 50 years or so), huge headphones (something that was a tiny market a decade or so ago, despite everything being available), etc.
With the apple watch coming into the market. It'll be very interesting to see what schools do... Currently iPods / cellphones are ban in most schools. If it's seen, kids are typically given a warning. If they repeatedly fail to follow procedures, the device gets taken away. Watches will become a lot harder to regulate.
It's going to ruin cheating. With my Pebble, no one knows what it is other than an ugly watch, so no one tells me to take it off. With Apple, of course everyone will know what it is and what it does and the instructions will tell everyone to take off their smartwatch when they enter an exam.
That's probably the first practical use of the paired doodle thing they demoed that I've seen. I wonder if that works independently of the phone, or if it's done via phone bluetooth.
> Personally I'm not going to get a smartwatch because I hate interruptions. I hate OS X notifications; I hate it when the phone rings; I hate reading Twitter (but it's an addiction that's sometimes hard to overcome). I certainly don't want a blob on my wrist endlessly buzzing and tapping away, trying to figure out my heart rate and mood and generally being a bothersome noisy little electronic snoop.
I agree with the sentiment, but, based on my interactions with OSX and iOS, I assume it's not essential that the watch buzz and interrupt you all the time. I have all popups & notifications disabled in OSX and iOS, and they're still great tools when you're ready to pay attention to them.
I won't be getting an Apple Watch v1 (because it's not waterproof, and well, v1), but it wouldn't surprise me if I bought one down the line. I think there's a lot of interesting things that can be done with all the new sensors, and UX.
I was negative on the Apple Watch until my wife mentioned something interesting: she wants one so she can doesn't have to constantly check her phone for important work emails during family time. Its a huge boon for the Blackberry crowd--people like my wife and I who would otherwise put their phone on the table during dinner to keep an eye on it.
She's also pretty fashion conscious and while she isn't happy with the design, I think it passes the bar. She really would prefer something with Apple guts and external design by her favorite fashion brands, however.
The proper response to 'important work emails during family time' is to ignore them.
Unless you're the president of the United States or something to that effect. People have too little family time as it is once you start adapting what you wear in order to accommodate further encroachment on the little that remains soon there'll be nothing left.
Work can usually wait until the next day.
And if you do have to be on call outside of regular work hours make sure you're compensated for each and every minute that you're on call.
Doesn't almost every single existing android/smart wearable provide the ability to not "constantly check her phone for important work emails during family time"? At this point, apple needs to be doing more than their competitors in order to keep justifying their environment lock-in, _especially_ in the mobile space
Tory Burch isn't going to make watch bands for random Android Wear devices. I know it hasn't been announced, but look at the iPhone accessories market: most of the designer labels focus their efforts on Apple products. The tie-in to the Apple Watch is inevitable.
While waiting for the watch, a lot of people never open the Settings app so they don't realize that the notifications settings for Mail on the iPhone are pretty flexible, with VIP contacts and custom notifications per account.
Not to be too rude but has your wife tried simply, well, not checking her phone after work?
IMO most of these smartwatches are adding to the problem of constant interruptions, not solving it.
A lot of the article talks about the manufacturing process being so precise and sophisticated as a reason why the 'old school' watches are popular among his crowd.
It would be great to see apple release a video similar to the 'making the mac pro' that shows just how sophisticated and precise their manufacturing for the watch would be.. it might even get a few more people on board that have an interest in production quality.
I'm not a serious watch lover, but I imagine members of that group have larger collections than your typical microcomputer lover or smartphone lover, and place a high value on finding one that's different from any they already have.
The problem is there's no ecosystem and no added value.
The iPhone and iPad had apps, the iPod had podcasting and iTunes. WATCH has nothing equivalent. It seems to be a drastically cut-down iPhone you wear on your wrist, with a few haptic doodads added to create a USP.
It's aiming for a weird market that Apple has traditionally done well in - emotional spending and evangelism - but it's trying to cultivate desire by attempting to be explicitly fashionable, instead of offering 'magical' user benefits that lead indirectly to the perception of being fashionable. ('Show, don't tell.')
Obvious conclusion is that it's not a Jobsian coup like the last few revolutions were.
Maybe it could be with more thought about where it fits as a product, and what makes it unique. But currently 'small iOS wrist device for semi-fashionable people' seems like a challenging place to succeed in.
On the contrary, the iPhone (and iPod Touch) launched without an app ecosystem. Instead of having third party apps, Apple pushed for developers to produce web apps for Mobile Safari. It wasn't until iOS 2.0 that an API was released and the App Store was launched. In that time, the sole way to load apps onto these devices was with a jailbreak.
Additionally, the iPod launched when the iTunes Store was in its nascency. In fact, iTunes wasn't released for Windows until a few years afterwards. It wasn't possible to load apps (small games) on the iPod until the release of the iPod video.
With the promise of an API at launch, there is more of an ecosystem in place than existed for the previous products you mentioned.
I realise Jobs needed a push to get to the open app system, and was originally against it - or at least for something that was more like the Widget system on OS X, and not so much like the Objective-C monster the App Store turned into.
But my point - which apparently no one understands here - is that the products were always conceived originally, from the top, as part of a strategy that included a stack of support services and interactions with a user community.
I'm not seeing that on offer here.
Of course WATCH does apps. That was always a given. But the App Store is saturated, and once devs have produced the obligatory new watch faces, fitness, dating and friend-finding apps, my guess is that the opportunities for doing something compelling, original and gotta-have-that are smaller than they were with the original iPhone.
There will be an exception, or maybe four or five. There will not be thousands of potential gotta-have-that apps to match those that are available in the iPhone/iPad app store.
Apple has always been one of the few tech companies that understands that you don't sell hardware, or software - you sell a complete package of unique and exclusive benefits that happens to run on a hardware device.
That worked for the original Mac, then the OS X Mac, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad. All had obvious user benefits that were so intuitively compelling they barely needed explanation, and which were enhanced and supported over time with software services that made the package even stronger.
I'd be interested to know what the downvoters on this thread believe is the equivalent user benefit and software support package for WATCH.
I don't believe 'It does apps too and there's even an API, so therefore there's an ecosystem' is the most insightful answer to that question, or that it's what users are looking for to persuade them this is a must-have device.
Think outside the box a bit. The watch is potentially a new input device, can simplify action and interaction (just look at the watch rather than pulling phone out of pocket)
It's gonna take some time to figure out the killer apps for this computing paradigm. There's nothing at all wrong with the Pebble, it's just that the apps to make it worthwhile don't really exist yet. Apple has enough dirty money to get other people to do the heavy lifting in that arena.
It has NFC for payments, and Apple has partners for that. In that instance, and in many others, it's leveraging partnerships and infrastructure established for the iPhone. Just as the iPad leveraged iPhone, which in turn leveraged iPod's iTunes. e.g. maps, siri, appstore, music/video suppliers.
Probably existing developers (knowing objective-C, libraries, OS; swift too) will end up being the most important resource...
But I think you're right that it's simply not a general-purpose device, like apple2e, mac, iphone or ipad. It's too limited. It's more like an ipod, appleTV, game console or kindle.
BTW: I hate the way apple fanboys downvote any comment that can in any way be interpreted as remotely critical of Apple or Apple products. It's more interesting to have a discussion.
As it is, your first comment is so down-grayed, I can't actually read it.
It's the same issue really with EMV cards in the US, no one will install readers until there are cards, no one will issue cards until there are readers.
At the core of it, the physical card standard is 'good enough' for most people.
Apparently in Australia, half of card transaction < $100 are by NFC (in cards). So, there's demand for it.
Apple may have the market clout to drive adoption in the US. They have experience in getting partners together, to make new technology actually work. Yes, it may take time, and they may go niche by niche.
I think the 200 million iPhones are the ecosystem. I don't see an obvious point to the watch by itself - it seems like it's main "feature" is to expand what your iPhone can do.
The absolute most expensive iPhone is the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus - $950 w/o contract. But it's the highest-end phone in a world with millions of millionaires. This gives a way for iPhone customers to pay more to get more.
I think the watch is analogous to Google Glass. Glass is, essentially, an accessory. It adds a remote display, camera, and audio functions to an android phone. (It has bluetooth, not a cellular radio)
But Glass's full display makes it capable of being a standalone device (once the guts shrink enough).
Before long, a Watch can also be self-contained, technically, but remains limited by form-factor: tiny display. Unlike Glass, it must remain accessory... or so it seems.
But consider: the iPhone is primarily a consumption device. In many ways, it is predicated on many use-cases not requiring a full computer. Is it possible a Watch-size device will similarly turn out to cover many important uses? Obviously, you can use it as a phone. For music/video. To read txt messages/short emails. Casual games.
It's a real consumption device (unless Siri gets unrealistically good).
Maybe many web-site functions (i.e. the actual use of the website, not actual current website) can be delivered via Watch: lookup opening hours; store locators; product list/price/specials. Perhaps Watch versions, as we now have Mobile versions - and of course, Watch App versions).
After getting powerful enough, smartwatches could be full "peer" devices in your Personal Area Network, though.
Rather than tethering the watch to your phone and having the watch just being treated as another phone peripheral, you could just as well do the opposite: have the phone tether to the watch to serve as e.g. a keyboard and secondary display.
Sure for the Palm market - there were vendors making applications, people buying them, and people buying devices just to run those applications. At the time, you could subscribe to dead-tree magazines that had reviews, advertisements just for Palm devices and applications. The market was large enough to support many companies, and many people buying and selling software.
Even the TRS-80 Model 100 had it's own market for software that was thriving for about three years - complete with requisite magazine support.
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My hunch is that the new generation of people who recently discovered the recent application ecosystems are shocked to find out that some slightly-older people remember when this same exciting feeling happened before - I would imagine all the way back to the late 1970's when you could put a computer together yourself and sell software out of your garage.
I appreciate the hint that I may be younger than you, but I was involved in the eco-systems around the Sinclair ZX81 and the Spectrum, and later on with DECUS, so I have a pretty good idea how this stuff works.
My point isn't whether or not there's an ecosystem, but whether or not there's a planned ecosystem which is deliberately designed to add value, and created as a conscious strategy - not just something that happens by accident.
I wish people here would stop thinking about technology and think more about the overall user experience - which is not about hardware or software or ecosystems, but about creating gotta-have-that experiences and life-changing tools.
So far I don't see WATCH doing that. It might, and there may be plans, and we'll all be surprised a year from now.
But so far, there's no evidence that Apple are thinking about WATCH in those terms. And that makes it different to previous launches.
This is why I hedged with the word 'significant.' I completely agree that people were making and selling apps for mobile devices before the iPhone came along. Can we both agree that the ecosystem exploded in size and visibility to the general population only after the iPhone was released, though?
That's what happens when something becomes consumer focused rather than (essentially) B2B. Prices go way down, sales go way up. I paid $50 for a Palm app back in the day, and that same app would go for 99c today. That doesn't mean the Palm app marketplace was insignificant or unimportant. Smartphones wouldn't be here if their value wasn't proven with PDAs.
You're quite correct that the market is much broader now - not only are there more consumers, there's more developers.
But to me, this doesn't feel different - just larger.
Even the cycles seem to the same - with early adopters leading the way, the first wave of quick and dirty apps, then more polished apps, and then the tsunami of shovel-ware that kills the market for newcomers.
I find the number of downvotes on your comment to be slightly depressing. It's one thing for readers here to disappear posts that are absurd, thoughtless, insulting, or spam, but this is just a person who apparently has a dissenting opinion and maybe slightly overstated the point. It's no reason to prevent everyone else from reading it.
Yeah I agree - I think people are overusing / abusing the downvoting thing too much. Although I believe pg himself said that you could use a downvote just if you disagree, the implementation of gradually fading out the text means that one lone dissenting voice can be shown as not being important.
Which leaves me in the obscure situation of upvoting comments I disagree with just because I think they shouldn't have been downvoted.
They made mention of WatchKit in the keynote. It sure looked like there were third party apps on the devices demoed. (I think I saw a Path logo). It's not clear if these apps are sort of accessories that can be embedded in iOS Apps or watch specific apps.
Reading between the lines the impression I got is that the WatchKit API will let you define widgets that come with your app and that will be downloaded to the watch when the App is installed on the iPhone.
I think this shows there is an ecosystem- it's the App ecosystem and it's the most vibrant one out there. But it's not exactly the same (which may be the cause of the parents confusion)
Apple Watch augments your iPhone's capability and introduces novel use cases based on 'micro interactions' and ambient feedback. It's a consumption device. For now, it must be used with an existing iPhone. It will eventually become a fully independent and integrated device.
Regarding value.. imho, the next evolution of the technical maturity model for mobile will center around decision support. This is where I see wearables providing the most value, which may have significant impact to business process applications and sensor networks.
To the average consumer, this may mean having ambient access to specific economic information, transactional data or live media. It will become a part of your daily informata and utility / Internet usage.
On an emotional level, you can't compare [Apple Watch and mechanical watches], and that is why I don't believe many serious watch lovers (who, again, would normally be racing to spend their cash on an Apple release) will go for this.
I suspect that the "serious watch lover" market is one that doesn't really figure in Apple's market estimates at all. On the contrary, Apple has traditionally tried to go contrary to the expectations of the archetypal "serious lover of X" user when entering the market of X.
The Macintosh was not for "serious microcomputer lovers". The iPod was not for "serious MP3 lovers". The iPhone was not for "serious smartphone lovers". (Those did exist back in early 2007 -- they were the rare people who actually knew how to install stuff on their geeked-out Nokia N95 devices, or were in love with the BlackBerry keyboard. They hated the iPhone almost unanimously.)
Personally I'm not going to get a smartwatch because I hate interruptions. I hate OS X notifications; I hate it when the phone rings; I hate reading Twitter (but it's an addiction that's sometimes hard to overcome). I certainly don't want a blob on my wrist endlessly buzzing and tapping away, trying to figure out my heart rate and mood and generally being a bothersome noisy little electronic snoop.
But at the same time, I can imagine that the younger crowd wants exactly that. I think the Apple Watch will be a hit, but maybe about 1 year after the launch once the price of the low-end model comes down and a few millimetres get trimmed off.