“There are basically two main ways of using the Watch: pressing the Digital Crown to go to the home screen and picking an app, or swiping up from the bottom on a watch face to access the Glances, which are basically quick views into all the apps you’ve got loaded,” Nilay Patel reports for The Verge.
“Apple had several apps loaded onto the demo unit I played with: Uber, the SPG hotels app, Shazam, and a few others. What’s interesting is that Glances clearly aren’t the apps themselves — when you click on a button in a Glance, you get kicked out to a loading screen and then into that screen in the app,” Patel reports. “So clicking ‘unlock door’ in the SPG Glance actually opened the SPG app, and showed me the button again. And then I wasn’t on the Glances screen anymore. It’s not a major thing, but it took me a few seconds to understand what was going on.”
“The defining theme of the Apple Watch so far: it’s nicer than I expected and I’m sure the confusing interface settles down into a familiar pattern after you use it for a while, but I’m still not sure why you’d want to put this thing on your wrist all the time,” Patel reports. “Apple’s big task at this event was convincing people that a use case for the Watch exists, and at this moment it still feels like an awful lot of interesting ideas without a unifying theme. We’ll have to wait until we get review units in hand and spend way more time with one to really understand the value of the Apple Watch.”
Read more, and watch the video, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The value of the Apple Watch is immense. Doubters will come to understand soon enough or be left behind, still constantly (and needlessly) hauling out their iPhones (or pretend iPhones) all day long like 21st century luddites.
The writer is obviously angling for a review unit.
Yeah MDN, i’m REALLY breaking a sweat reaching into my pocket a dozen times a day…….. better go spend a thousand dollars for something that will be obsolete in a year or two. Say, why not spend $17,000.00 so I look like a complete luddite! iCal the date when YOU think we will have sold 10 million units so I can iCal YOU!
@RJ … 10,000,000 units? By end of 2015. Easily.
It’s interesting how many trolls are fixating on the fact that one of the models costs 17K. If you only value the technology and don’t care at all about higher end materials, you are free to buy the Sport model which tops out at $399. I guess if you really want to bash Apple, you can just pretend that your only choice is to buy a watch that costs at least 10K.
you got it.
Apple would be STUPID not to at least try to put out an expensive version, plenty of people for example buy handbags for thousands of dollars (and they contain no tech and probably a few tens to make in Asia ) , if Apple can sell a bunch for 17k why not?
meanwhile budget shoppers are not left out.
——-
the thing is Apple is expecting people to be addicted to their watches and when rich people go to a party, high end business meeting, they want to wear an expensive watch so Apple needs a high end version. ( e.g a rich dude wears a steel band watch when he plays racquet ball , then in the evening he changes to the 17k for the charity dinner, he wants the convenience of the watch but it has to suit the occasion). Ahrendts and the other fashion folk Apple hired probably worked out the strategy with Ive.
The cheapest sport model looks like shit bathe space black steel looks cool, but way overpriced. They are all overpriced. Apple is now completely lost.
I was pretty skeptic about this “watch” until yesterday, but: this Apple Watch gets it far more than any “other smart watch” out there. Too expensive? Oh no, dear! You get some lousy pseudo-smart-health-bracelet for around a third of the price, ok, but nothing to compare with the potential of this really smart one! And, again, Apple just brought the concept far beyond all those who wanted to be “first”… These people are only first by bringing out already obsolete and incomplete tools.
Can we iCal you iCaling them, isn’t this fun.
Most of the watch faces suck balls. Who decided a Mickey Mouse novelty was a good idea on a $1700 timepiece?
The whole point was you can have virtually ANY watch face, even a goofy retro one.
There’s naught been said yet that one can install custom watch faces.
In Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, a vintage Mickey Mouse watch—rare treasure that it is—is worth far more than that. Oh but it’s fiction.. maybe..
Hey he can have his own face there too… But it will depress him too much!
Trolls are out in roves
Probably all those people who wear novelty Disney character shirts, hats and ties who are scarily numourous I have found.
Better than the ‘scary’ number of “Keep Calm and….” t-shirts I see all over the place.
That’s a $17,000.00 timepiece and it’s a computer that also tells time.
$500 – $750 bucks or so and I can answer my phone with it and the health apps … I’m sold!
The modern pager updated = Apple Watch.
An over-priced, under-featured trinket.
The apps will make or break this watch . It strikes me as expensive . I used a Pebble for a while and the most useful part was notifications particularly caller ID .
I would like to see a teardown of the innards to try to figure out if it will be upgradable for future developments . For the high end it would make more sense if the case was reusable and the guts could be changed .
First it’s not $1,000.00 – it is $399 for a basic model. There are no technology differences just disposable income decisions. Second the reaction from the individuals I work with, which the majority own or use Apple products because they understand true value is…they can’t wait. Come on now let’s be honest this company continues to blow away everyone and anything in their path. If you just use it as a wrist watch and nothing else it’s cool. If you really want a Swatch? Then go buy one! I will be enjoying my experience with Apple Watch along with the 10,000,000 that will also buy one in the first 30 days…iCal me!
I have chosen to buy the $1,000 Stainless with Stainless band! Why…because I can.
Well, whoop de fuckin doo for you. Nobody cares.
Well, Wall Street was certainly blown away by Tim’s exuberance! AAPL really took off. Oh, wait … it didn’t.
The trolls and other assorted rats are really coming out of their holes today! Welcome to the light troll.
Doomed I tells ya, doomed ….. Oh wait a minute they aren’t despite your continuous protestations.
It. drives. me. crazy.
Sorry to hear I am not the only one. However, it only seems to affect my iPhone 6, not my Mac.
“Confusing interface”?
I’ll bet that was Jony Ive’s contribution.
Interface is noconfusing whatsoever! … at all!
Its sweet and a pleasure to use !
For starters check here
http://www.demoapplewatch.com
Competition pooping in their pants..
Solution: lets send our trolls out.
It is so obvious it is funny !
A flood of FUD won’t do the rats any good this time. Celebs, high rollers and fashionistas pay no attention whatsoever to the sneering hoi polloi or the grind writers. They rely on their own exclusive information channels and their standards are immune from assault.
The rest is grumbling from the trenches, which dissipates after a while when Doom doesn’t happen.
I don’t wear a wrist watch. I don’t even carry a pocket watch anymore and I don’t personally plan on buying an Apple Watch. But I think Apple will sell the hell out of the Apple Watch – especially the higher end ones. Fashion, especially high end fashion, is alive and well in the world! And the standard $349 price Apple Watch will be even more popular.
Lots of people will buy their first Apple Watch. The real question is will they buy a second one when the time comes. I can’t help but think of this as a short-term stopgap, a placeholder technology. I’ve got huge respect for Apple (and a houseful of Apple gear to prove it), but this just doesn’t float my boat. Lugging around a phone to get full functionality out of a watch keeps it firmly locked in weenie-land. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong, but it’s going to need months in the market before I can convince myself it’s more than another version of mine’s-bigger-than-yours.
The iPad is clearly a monster success but sales seem to have peaked. People don’t see the need to replace them very often. You may be right that Apple Watch peaks quickly too for similar reasons.
It will be interesting to see how things go from here.
Apple Watch is to Tim Cook as
Newton was to John Scully.
The first real new product after Steve Jobs, I predict they will have the same result. There will be people who love the product but not enough to make it a hit. Also the price difference between a cheap Apple Watch and a Gold Apple Watch would buy 8oz of 24k Gold but the watch guts and all is only 1.9oz thats some markup. Lets see how long before there is a gold plating service. Also Apple needs to make a commitment to battery replacement services at a fixed price being available for at least 10 year or so, to many of us have purchased Apple products that we can’t get batteries for IE the iPod Nano 6th ten (watch) I have that works perfectly fine but doesn’t a charge for more than an hour or so (you can get a battery but it costs more that the iPod did new).
Is there anything I can do on the Apple watch that I
can’t do on my iPhone 5s ? If not, I’ll keep wearing my
Seiko watches.
Did Steve cross the line? Absolutely. Was he wrong. Absolutely not. But, sometimes (more often than one would suppose) you have to shout to be heard above the din.
The one question that doesn’t seem to be being asked is how long are these things supposed to last? Not withstanding the battery and replacing that in time, what about the electronics?
In a world where technology gets obsolete or tired/worn-out in single-figure years, will we be handing down our 18karat gold Apple watch to our grandchildren?
What’s the lifespan of these devices? How many years of gym/sweat punishment is the watch going to take?
Holy smokes, fellas, I figured out this whole watch caper!
They’re tryin’ to drive down the price of the stock
so’s they can do the buyback cheap and reduce
the amount of the dividends paid out!
Then in a few years they roll out the car and
the robots and the stock soars again!
I’m a doubter… for the moment. That’s only because nothing about a watch excites me. Don’t worry. Unlike the anti-Apple crowd, I’ll actually read unbiased reviews and go play with them at the store.
Hell, I doubted the iPad (considered it merely a big iPhone). Then I kept reading up on them. Then played with them. Then wanted one. Now own two (technically, 3, but that’s because one shattered).
IMHO Apple missed the boat on one thing: engraving
…Surely someone considered that, but they just couldn’t provide enough space to make it work out.
You will tire of it after not long once the novelty wears off. You can take that to the bank.