Inconvenient Truths About The Apple Watch

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It's pretty bad when a self described "die-hard Apple person" feels underwhelmed and disheartened by the Apple Watch.

This past Friday, the first day that the public was allowed to handle and play with the Apple Watch, everyone who had been obsessing over videos and photographs finally got the chance to use one firsthand. I made it to the Apple Store on Friday and was one of those people. I came away underwhelmed and a little disheartened.
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inb4sheep

But seriously, the people are just jealous they aren't able to make billions off of people who want to buy what they make.

OT: Not every idea can be a winner. But, this will kick off innovation in this market by other companies (I can't wait to see what kind of moron quotes that sentence and cry about what I said because they were too stupid to comprehend what I said)...and who knows, in the future there might be a useful smart watch.
 
My plans to buy one of these were destroyed by the horrible battery life of the heart rate monitoring. From what I could tell, battery life is seven hours while monitoring heart rate. A Fitbit Charge HR can run for a much longer period of time while doing heart rate monitoring, Apple is way behind on sensor efficiency.
 
It's backordered for months, but Apple should still throw some more money at marketing to keep their image in order.
 
Truth there that Apple's leather bands look like shit. It even makes Samsung's crappy fake plastic leather and stitching look good.
 
needs to have integrated cellular radio and kinetic charging. lots of Android 4G phone watches for around $150.
 
Apple is known by the fans and even some more objective folks as generally releasing very well refined products from the start and I would tend to agree with this. But it looks like this first Watch and the new Mackbook aren't particularly well refined with a number of rough spots.

It was quite interesting to see a number of reviews of the Watch and new Macbook spending a great deal of time talking about future releases of these products which will of course be better. I was kind of amazed by how much double speak there was in some of the Mackbook reviews, like "Apple reinventing the laptop" and it being the "laptop of the future" yet having a number of fairly large deficiencies today.
 
OEM said:
inb4sheep

But seriously, the people are just jealous they aren't able to make billions off of people who want to buy what they make.
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Hey not every bit of disgust or confusion about what attracts people to an object isn't a sign of jealous, I'm not jealous of the Kardashians but I am sure as fuck am confused about why a large enough portion of the public adores them so much that they stay in the public spotlight for everyone, hell Paris Hilton for the most part went away, why haven't they yet? That is not jealousy that they make more money than me by a lot for doing way WAY less, that's downright confusion.

When Apple first showed off the Apple Watch, I was stunned. It looked glorious and larger than life. Shiny and precision-machined. Like an object from the future that time-traveled back to the present just to blow everyone away.
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But yeah, this is a sheep, one with rose colored classes, when I first saw the Apple watch, my thought was "it looks like a watch, you know that thing that you put on your wrist to tell time that people used to use in days of yore, the things that were ironically by large made obsolete by products this very company ended up making"
 
heatlesssun said:
Apple is known by the fans and even some more objective folks as generally releasing very well refined products from the start and I would tend to agree with this. But it looks like this first Watch and the new Mackbook aren't particularly well refined with a number of rough spots.

It was quite interesting to see a number of reviews of the Watch and new Macbook spending a great deal of time talking about future releases of these products which will of course be better. I was kind of amazed by how much double speak there was in some of the Mackbook reviews, like "Apple reinventing the laptop" and it being the "laptop of the future" yet having a number of fairly large deficiencies today.
Click to expand...
Apple's 1st gen products have always been problematic and its long term fans are aware of that history. Many simply don't care for various reasons and that may be confusing to non-fans or new fans.

The Apple watch and new macbook fit with the historical trend.

BTW, it was microsoft that claimed to "reinvent the laptop" with the Surface Pro 3 in February. https://youtu.be/1QfnSoxyM3g

Tim Cook stated, "We challenged ourselves to reinvent the notebook" during the launch event in March and then proceeded to detail the all metal enclosure, fanless design, reduced logic board size, tiered battery design, full sized keyboard, re-engineered spring mechanism, re-engineered trackpad, and USB-C.

Given those are the essential qualities of a notebook, it's difficult to take issue with his statement about the engineering teams' foci.
 
Don't get me wrong, I bash Apple with the best of them, but IMHO it isn't the fact that Apple made a bad smart watch that is the problem.

It's the fact that Apple made a smart watch at all that is.

There is no market for them.

No one has been able to make a smart watch that more than a small niche of people want. Not Pebble, not Samsung, not Motorola not LG, no one.

Apple obviously thought this was because existing products were lacking something, and that they could make it better, otherwise they wouldn't have followed into this market.

I disagree with that though. My perspective is that smart watches are a product in search of an application and a market. They are a gadget without any real usefulness compared to the smartphones we are all already carrying. The fundamental concept of smart watches in and of itself is flawed, and no company making one will have success doing so.

I mean, the biggest selling point for a smart watch right now is that you can read pop-up messages without having to stick your hand in your pocket and pull out your phone. (and once you read them, you are probably going to want to pull out your phone in order to react to them anyway). Everything else the smart watch (any smart watch) does, our smart phones already do, and do it better. It seems like a lot of added complexity (another device to charge, configure, make sure connects to your phone, etc, etc,) for very little benefit.

Now being a gadget lover, I am of course curious to play with a smart watch (not necessarily the Apple variety), but I can't help but think it would wind up being like my motorola bluetooth earplug, fun for a few weeks, until it gets relegated to a drawer and is never looked at again.

Now, Apple is obviously having some sales early on, as they always do as the Apple faithful have to have the latest Apple gadget. I just don't think that once that initial bump is crossed, there will be much of a market for the Apple watch at all.

Not because the Apple watch is a bad smart watch, but because smart watches just don't make sense at all.
 
The entire article is a testament to what's so very wrong with the buy-Apple mindset--it's largely fantasy & RDF all the way. This poor guy had created this monstrous fantasy about a cheap-as-crap costume-jewelry watch that Apple condescends to sell the suckers who buy its products--this whole, involved, intricate fantasy surrounding an Apple product--that if you notice is exactly like his fantasies about the other Apple products he owns. Did you get that this guy didn't like the watch at all...and yet he is still going to buy one? Amazing. Most of Apple's "loyal" customer base needs hospitalization...;) Apple has always been able to see these suckers coming from miles away--I feel very sorry for people so mesmerized by the Apple RDF that even when they find an Apple product to be utterly cheap and incredibly overpriced--they have this irrational compulsion to buy it, anyway. Jobs himself was kind of sick in that way--I guess it must be catching. Thank goodness I am immune...:) This stuff is mind blowing.
 
WaltC said:
The entire article is a testament to what's so very wrong with the buy-Apple mindset--it's largely fantasy & RDF all the way. This poor guy had created this monstrous fantasy about a cheap-as-crap costume-jewelry watch that Apple condescends to sell the suckers who buy its products--this whole, involved, intricate fantasy surrounding an Apple product--that if you notice is exactly like his fantasies about the other Apple products he owns. Did you get that this guy didn't like the watch at all...and yet he is still going to buy one? Amazing. Most of Apple's "loyal" customer base needs hospitalization...;) Apple has always been able to see these suckers coming from miles away--I feel very sorry for people so mesmerized by the Apple RDF that even when they find an Apple product to be utterly cheap and incredibly overpriced--they have this irrational compulsion to buy it, anyway. Jobs himself was kind of sick in that way--I guess it must be catching. Thank goodness I am immune...:) This stuff is mind blowing.
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Actually, your post is a testament to just how far Apple haters will stretch reality to come away with some justification to talk shit about Apple fans with no basis in reality.

The article described a die hard apple fan going to the store to check out the newest device and walking away feeling like it wasn't all it was hyped up to be. He then writes a blog post describing all that he dislikes about it.

The reason he has one on pre-order is because he writes apps and needs one to write apps for--just like any other serious developer who wants to make money both in the sense that you buy the device you need to develop for and in the sense that apple apps are indisputably where the money is.

If your only reaction to an apple device is to froth at the mouth and roll your face across your keyboard you're simply x-ing yourself out of what now, like over 80% of the money in the app market? simply ridiculous to have that kind of reaction.


sounds like a mechanic who hates foreigners so much he refuses to use metric tools. good job, you just made it so you can't service most vehicles on the road both foreign and domestic. :rolleyes:
 
Zarathustra[H];1041546973 said:
Don't get me wrong, I bash Apple with the best of them, but IMHO it isn't the fact that Apple made a bad smart watch that is the problem.

It's the fact that Apple made a smart watch at all that is.

There is no market for them.

No one has been able to make a smart watch that more than a small niche of people want. Not Pebble, not Samsung, not Motorola not LG, no one.

Apple obviously thought this was because existing products were lacking something, and that they could make it better, otherwise they wouldn't have followed into this market.

I disagree with that though. My perspective is that smart watches are a product in search of an application and a market. They are a gadget without any real usefulness compared to the smartphones we are all already carrying. The fundamental concept of smart watches in and of itself is flawed, and no company making one will have success doing so.

I mean, the biggest selling point for a smart watch right now is that you can read pop-up messages without having to stick your hand in your pocket and pull out your phone. (and once you read them, you are probably going to want to pull out your phone in order to react to them anyway). Everything else the smart watch (any smart watch) does, our smart phones already do, and do it better. It seems like a lot of added complexity (another device to charge, configure, make sure connects to your phone, etc, etc,) for very little benefit.

Now being a gadget lover, I am of course curious to play with a smart watch (not necessarily the Apple variety), but I can't help but think it would wind up being like my motorola bluetooth earplug, fun for a few weeks, until it gets relegated to a drawer and is never looked at again.

Now, Apple is obviously having some sales early on, as they always do as the Apple faithful have to have the latest Apple gadget. I just don't think that once that initial bump is crossed, there will be much of a market for the Apple watch at all.

Not because the Apple watch is a bad smart watch, but because smart watches just don't make sense at all.
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They do make sense but like you said they are an extremely niche market. You are half right though. Apple is trying to make the Apple Watch into something it shouldn't be. Smartwatches are the sidekicks to your phones. They make some data easier to access. They shouldn't try to replace major phone functionality like apps (Instagram, Twitter) which Apple Watch tries to do and fails miserably in my opinion.

I have a smartwatch. I love it. It's convenient to have especially while driving since I don't have to keep looking at my phone to get information. My eyes simply look at my wrist which is right there near the steering wheel. It's nice to be bathing my kids (IP68 ftw) and able to see if the message coming in needs my immediate attention or not.

Hell even just walking through the mall pushing a stroller I can simply lift my wrist and see what the notification is. If it can wait I can just keep right on going and I never have to deal with pulling my phone out of my pocket and unlocking it.

Not to mention the joy it is to not have to pull my phone out during some boring ass meeting anymore to see a message or read an e-mail. Just flick the wrist, read, and go back to being bored without being rude.

Then there's being able to answer a text while driving without ever having to pull out my phone like the idiots out there do. Love it. Again though it's a niche market and I happen to fit that niche.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041546973 said:
Don't get me wrong, I bash Apple with the best of them, but IMHO it isn't the fact that Apple made a bad smart watch that is the problem.

It's the fact that Apple made a smart watch at all that is.

There is no market for them.

No one has been able to make a smart watch that more than a small niche of people want. Not Pebble, not Samsung, not Motorola not LG, no one.

Apple obviously thought this was because existing products were lacking something, and that they could make it better, otherwise they wouldn't have followed into this market.

I disagree with that though. My perspective is that smart watches are a product in search of an application and a market. They are a gadget without any real usefulness compared to the smartphones we are all already carrying. The fundamental concept of smart watches in and of itself is flawed, and no company making one will have success doing so.

I mean, the biggest selling point for a smart watch right now is that you can read pop-up messages without having to stick your hand in your pocket and pull out your phone. (and once you read them, you are probably going to want to pull out your phone in order to react to them anyway). Everything else the smart watch (any smart watch) does, our smart phones already do, and do it better. It seems like a lot of added complexity (another device to charge, configure, make sure connects to your phone, etc, etc,) for very little benefit.

Now being a gadget lover, I am of course curious to play with a smart watch (not necessarily the Apple variety), but I can't help but think it would wind up being like my motorola bluetooth earplug, fun for a few weeks, until it gets relegated to a drawer and is never looked at again.

Now, Apple is obviously having some sales early on, as they always do as the Apple faithful have to have the latest Apple gadget. I just don't think that once that initial bump is crossed, there will be much of a market for the Apple watch at all.

Not because the Apple watch is a bad smart watch, but because smart watches just don't make sense at all.
Click to expand...

You've aptly described the reason I never bought into the smart watch hype. I have an old wristwatch sitting in a drawer that I abandoned shortly after I got my first smartphone. I've had no desire to rekindle that need for a bulky nuisance on my wrist. It always made working with, on, or in computers more difficult (or dangerous) and I'll be glad if I never need to wear one again.

Apple's watch doesn't look any more or less impressive than any others out there.
 
mope54 said:
Apple's 1st gen products have always been problematic and its long term fans are aware of that history. Many simply don't care for various reasons and that may be confusing to non-fans or new fans.

The Apple watch and new macbook fit with the historical trend.
Click to expand...

Not saying that Apple's first gen products were perfect but they tended to be better refined in that they tend take something existing and make some very significant improvement to it that sets it apart. There just doesn't seem be that type of thing going on with the Apple Watch or new Macbook.

mope54 said:
BTW, it was microsoft that claimed to "reinvent the laptop" with the Surface Pro 3 in February. https://youtu.be/1QfnSoxyM3g

Tim Cook stated, "We challenged ourselves to reinvent the notebook" during the launch event in March and then proceeded to detail the all metal enclosure, fanless design, reduced logic board size, tiered battery design, full sized keyboard, re-engineered spring mechanism, re-engineered trackpad, and USB-C.

Given those are the essential qualities of a notebook, it's difficult to take issue with his statement about the engineering teams' foci.
Click to expand...

Obviously the new Macbook and the Surface Pro 3 two significantly different visions of mobile computing. The Macbook focuses on simplicity and the SP3 focuses on functionality. Neither one is necessarily the "ultimate" evolution of mobile computing and no doubt products of both types will co-exist into the future.

I do think the Surface Pro 3 is a hell of lot more interesting because of it's superior functionality and attempts to do different things besides simply being a thin and light clamshell.
 
mope54 said:
BTW, it was microsoft that claimed to "reinvent the laptop" with the Surface Pro 3 in February. https://youtu.be/1QfnSoxyM3g
Click to expand...

The Surface Pro series has done to redefine the laptop than anything Mac has ever done. The whole intention of the surface was to show industry a different way of thinking about the line between a laptop, desktop, and a tablet and have it actually be a functional (and arguably decent looking and feeling) device.

I think they failed as a desktop replacement - several of my clients and coworkers have gotten on and it seems to have replaced both their laptops and tablets, for the most part, but not even close on the desktop front.
 
tempertantrum said:
The Surface Pro series has done to redefine the laptop than anything Mac has ever done. The whole intention of the surface was to show industry a different way of thinking about the line between a laptop, desktop, and a tablet and have it actually be a functional (and arguably decent looking and feeling) device.

I think they failed as a desktop replacement - several of my clients and coworkers have gotten on and it seems to have replaced both their laptops and tablets, for the most part, but not even close on the desktop front.
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Surface Pro put a keyboard on a tablet, then pretended it was a desktop and laptop replacement.
 
ocellaris said:
Surface Pro put a keyboard on a tablet, then pretended it was a desktop and laptop replacement.
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The new Macbook removed all of the existing ports, save the headphone jack, put back only one through which everything that connects physically has to go through and it's slower than all but the much cheaper i3 Surface Pro 3 version.

The new Macbook is a compromised a laptop as the Surface Pro 3 is which isn't even a laptop but in different areas. But that's really all the new Mackbook does for now, compromise everything just to hit a weight and thickness without adding thing else. No touch, no pen, less performance and no ports for current peripherals.
 
yep, that's all it really does

other than that list I wrote and the fact the logic board fits in the palm of your hand...nothing to see there
 
mope54 said:
yep, that's all it really does

other than that list I wrote and the fact the logic board fits in the palm of your hand...nothing to see there
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Which goes to the matter of making the new Macbook very thin and light. I'm not saying that the new Mackbook is a bad device and the fact of the matter that thinness and low weight are perhaps the biggest driving factor in mobile devices these days. But it does not change the fact that compromises were made in the design like using a relatively slow and low power CPU compared other ultraportable computers including even Apple's prior ultraportable computers.
 
I'm hoping the same "bigger is better" trend that bit smartphones will get us a pipboy in a couple years.
 
While I have no interest in one of these (I like my Swiss mechanical exotica far too much), the really inconvenient truth here is that Apple are very likely going to make more money in the first day of actual sales than ALL the Android Wear and proprietary alternative competitors have since they started.
 
Apple without Steve Job is like Ford without Henry Ford. Men with real visions and passion for their products, not like so many other CEO who care most about sales, revenue, shareholders.

Steve Job reinvented music player (ipod), reinvented smartphone (iphone), reinvented tablet (ipad), reinvented apps (app store), etc.

Apple Watch is Tim Cook's product, who is the master of supply chain and production but lacks vision of Steve Job.
 
Honestly the watch is a hard sell to those who actually want to use it more than just a fashion accessory...
 
foxnews said:
Apple without Steve Job is like Ford without Henry Ford. Men with real visions and passion for their products, not like so many other CEO who care most about sales, revenue, shareholders.

Steve Job reinvented music player (ipod), reinvented smartphone (iphone), reinvented tablet (ipad), reinvented apps (app store), etc.

Apple Watch is Tim Cook's product, who is the master of supply chain and production but lacks vision of Steve Job.
Click to expand...

What if I told you that pretty much all products you see from Apple right now is something Jobs planned, or would have done himself? These products are planned for years, at least their concepts. Ill bet jobs knew about them all before his death.
You cant ride the iPhones fame alone, so you have to make products which are feasible, like the iWatch. Not saying its a good product, just saying...
 
Igroock said:
What if I told you that pretty much all products you see from Apple right now is something Jobs planned, or would have done himself? These products are planned for years, at least their concepts. Ill bet jobs knew about them all before his death.
You cant ride the iPhones fame alone, so you have to make products which are feasible, like the iWatch. Not saying its a good product, just saying...
Click to expand...

possible but Jobs was known to kill final product if he doesn't like it. Or he could change it in its final design.
 
Igroock said:
What if I told you that pretty much all products you see from Apple right now is something Jobs planned, or would have done himself? These products are planned for years, at least their concepts. Ill bet jobs knew about them all before his death.
You cant ride the iPhones fame alone, so you have to make products which are feasible, like the iWatch. Not saying its a good product, just saying...
Click to expand...

I thought he swore against iPad Mini's?
 
I'm surprised I haven't seen any pun play on Iwatch being about pedophilia yet.
 
MrGuvernment said:
I thought he swore against iPad Mini's?
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He did the same for big phone too, but in the end the market spoke for itself.

His closed mindedness, or at least how he was perceived by the people is something people get hung up on. Apple couldnt have been releasing a 3.5" phone model and calling it a day, it was just a matter of time before they offered larger/smaller versions of their products for all walks of life.

I personally use a 5S because of its size. If Apple releases an iPhone 6 style phone but in a 4" size ill be all over that. I personally dont like large phones, even 4.3" seemed big when I bought it, and then returned.

In the end the markets speak, both financial and consumer. If Apple stuck to its "roots" as some like to point out, they would have gone nowhere. They rake in money by giving people options, which is what a successful company is all about.
 
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