“Loosely, the path of all consumer electronic categories is to evolve as ever more computer-y gadgets, until a tipping point occurs and they turn into ever more gadget-y genuine computers. The sample size (in terms of product categories) is small, but Apple seemingly tries to enter markets at, or just after, that tipping point — when Moore’s Law and Apple’s ever-increasing engineering and manufacturing prowess allow them to produce a gadget-y computer that the computer-y gadgets from the established market leaders cannot compete with. That was the iPod. That was the iPhone,” John Gruber writes for Daring Fireball. “That, they hope, is Apple Watch.”
“It was obvious that portable media players were being computerized. It was obvious that mobile phones were being computerized,” Gruber writes. “Who better to enter the market, in both cases, than the world’s best personal computer maker? It is not obvious — based on the watch market today — that wrist watches should or will be computerized.”
Much more in the full review – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Tech.pinions’ Ben Bajarin reviews Apple Watch: ‘Powerful’ and ‘completely new’ – April 8, 2015
WSJ’s Stern reviews Apple Watch: ‘Good looks and coolness’ – April 8, 2015
The Verge’s Patel reviews Apple Watch: ‘A masterpiece of engineering’ – April 8, 2015
WSJ’s Fowler reviews Apple Watch: ‘The first smartwatch worth buying’ – April 8, 2015
Yahoo Tech’s Pogue reviews Apple Watch: ‘Magical’
New York Times’ Manjoo reviews Apple Watch: ‘A power you can’t live without’ – April 8, 2015
Bloomberg’s Topolsky reviews Apple Watch: ‘The world’s best smartwatch’ – April 8, 2015
USA Today’s Baig reviews Apple Watch: ‘Second to none; I want one’ – April 8, 2015
Cogent, personal review.
“It is not obvious — based on the watch market today — that wrist watches should or will be computerized.”
Oh, it is quite obvious that they *will* be. “Should be” will take at least another 2 1/2 weeks. 🙂
Yes if watches are to survive outside of the rich jewellery and declining traditionalist market place they will inevitably have to go computerised especially and progressively as those varied devices that fit on the wrist (or else where) and do more or completely different things start to become more compelling and useful. Its simply a matter of when and ‘when’ usually revolves around when Apple take an interest. Of course for that to be fully realised the environment around the watch has to develop and transform for it to reveal its true potential but once people can progressively use it to replace fiddling in pockets whenever to enter places, buy things, use transit systems get and respond to all sorts of notifications and control your home, entertainment and other technology without searching for other controllers then it will never be the same again and what we think as cutting edge now will look stone age as we look back. Strange that some so called ‘tech visionaries’ are losing their vision.
Wow Gruber really comes off as suffering from some mild form of autism/OCD in this piece. Apparently he can’t possibly get used to looking at the clock on his computer screen while sitting in front of his computer and he refuses to even try. He can’t possibly just count to 20 in his head while grinding his coffee because that might result in him grinding for 18 or 22 seconds instead of 20. He seriously times his coffee grinding down to the second on his watch. That’s the type of personality I can not possibly get along with in real life, those people irk the shit out of me.
Those people tend to really like Apple products. Apple products are made by people who sweat the details.
Sweat the details?
Not recently.
I’d say there are definitely areas where they have not done a good job. I probably rant about Apple’s mistakes a couple times each week.
Then again, that’s partially because I expect better of them. Sounds like you do, too.
He’s worn a watch for almost 30 years, do you really expect him to be able to break a long standing habit in a week?!?!
All Yankees fans are assholes.
May the ghost of Thurman Munson visit you tonight and give you some insight as to who the real assholes are.
Even Rudy? 😉
Worse than that, It is a serious inconvenience when recalibrating a new coffee grinder, and then trying to get used to 17 seconds instead of 20, a nice round number. The vicissitudes of daily life are boundless 🙁
“You’re 16. You’re in school. You’re sitting in class. You have a crush on another student — you’ve fallen hard. You can’t stop thinking about them. You suspect the feelings are mutual — but you don’t know. You’re afraid to just come right out and ask, verbally — afraid of the crushing weight of rejection. But you both wear an Apple Watch. So you take a flyer and send a few taps. And you wait. Nothing in response. Dammit. Why are you so stupid? Whoa — a few taps are sent in return, along with a hand-drawn smiley face. You send more taps. You receive more taps back. This is it. You send your heartbeat. It is racing, thumping. Your crush sends their heartbeat back.”
Sounds interesting for folks with mutual interest (I guess?) But this gonna get annoying and creepy REAL quick.
“Touch is an intimate sense. I see and hear dozens, often hundreds, sometimes thousands of people in a day. Most days, I touch only a few. Some days, I only touch two: my wife and my son.” -Gruber
Has he considered that maybe there’s a reason for that?
😉
Won’t play do me, I got hijacked to: https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/conversion/?ai=BgCAh7LklVeuwGtK0hASs_YGwCY3L3YEHAAAAEAEgADgAWP3XmvxbYMnW3o38pMwUggEXY2EtcHViLTI2MTQ2NjYyNjE1Nzk3NDGyAQ93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb226AQcxeDFfeG1syAEC2gEqaHR0cDovL3d3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbS93YXRjaD92PURYUl92TThJd0o4wAIC4AIA6gIZNDA2MS9lbWJlZC55dHB3bXB1LmNvbWVkefgC_NEekAOkA5gD4AOoAwHQBJBO4AQBkAYBoAYy2AYC2AcB&sigh=rMBJoUDlKMA&label=part2viewed&sdkv=h.3.0.0. 👎😬😡
especially if you find out you were pounding heart on someone you did not mean to pound !-)
Don’t you need some kind of contact information to send taps/heartbeats between Apple Watches? Then wouldn’t you have already gotten up the nerve to ask said crush for that info? 😀
My Watch. Wait. And See.™ is ringing true:
“That said, compared to a traditional watch, daily charging is terrible. Most quartz watches run for several years on a $10 battery. Mechanical automatic watches are self-winding — their mainsprings stay wound from the natural motion of your arm while you wear them. I have a Citizen Eco-Drive watch powered by solar energy that I bought six years ago and without ever having done a thing to power it other than expose it to light, it still keeps nearly perfect time.”
Steve Jobs has left the building folks.
I have some similar complaints.
I have to fill my car’s tank with gas periodically. Every so often I need to eat. My water softener keeps using up the salt. I need to shower every day to be clean.
What’s up with the batteries in flashlights going dead and needing to be replaced?
Now I have to click the charger to the back of my Apple Watch every night???? WTF! Oh the humanity!
(Talk about a 1st world problem!)
You don’t get it. Imagine having to fill up your car every single day. Imagine having to charge your laptop, iPhone, or iPad every single day? Well, here’s the difference between these latter and the Apple Watch: YOU CANNOT USE IT WHILE IT’S CHARGING, UNLIKE THE OTHER DEVICES.
Finally, 1 day battery life on a watch is absurd: it’s a device that wants… needs… to be ultra portable and long-lasting. To NOT have to be taken off of your body for some time.
Example: you go hiking and camping for 5 days. Good luck with the Apple Watch. It’s a dead duck. It severely limits it as a watch. If I’m going anywhere, I’ll take my Casio that’s solar powered with literally infinite power.
And you can’t get things like sleep analysis while it’s off your wrist.
Your phone, iPad, etc. are also dead on the trail unless you bring a generator, solar panel, extra batteries, etc. to charge them. If you hike from dawn to dusk then try a solar backback. There are also compact, thermoelectric generators which create power using the heat of a fire.
And without a proactive power management plan, your digital camera is going to be dead, too…been there, done that.
And sure, there’s toys like those solar backpack ideas, most of which are pretty lame – – and even if they’re not, if the hike is in the woods/jungle/rainforest (any sort of meaningful tree canopy), especially between 10-3, you’ve just lost ~75% of its theoretical potential. The conventional solution of carrying a bag of replacement batteries ends up looking pretty darn good (weight, cube, cost, capability). BTDT too.
First, the iPad is going to last a while, but never mind that.
Here’s what you’re both missing: the Apple Watch’s battery life is terrible compared to WATCHES. Yes, it does more than traditional watches, but when you’re out in the bush, etc. there are watches that can: tell the time, date, temperature, atmospheric pressure, and other things that will last years without the need for batteries.
For these reasons the Apple Watch is extremely limiting as a watch. A watch is something that needs to be worn, not sitting around plugged into a wall. It’s a major limiting factor in terms of how you can integrate this product into your life.
When you are camping for 5 days, you shouldn’t be checking your email and tweets. Enjoy the outdoors! Take your Casio and leave the apple watch home. Surely you can live without the apple watch for 5 days! Now, when you are back home, do you really want to just check the time on your wrist? No! Take the Casio off and put the Watch back on, silly!
I get it.
I do charge my iphone every single day– at night while I sleep. It’s always at 100% when I start the day.
Some of my friends drive enough for work that they do fill their tanks with gas every day.
I won’t be using my Apple Watch while it recharges, because I’ll be recharging too, I do it every night, it’s called sleep.
Not everyone cares about sleep analysis, but you have me there.
If I go on a 5 day camping trip, guess what, I probably won’t take my Apple Watch either, but my ABT watch.
I have some advice, it’s free and worth every penny. Don’t buy an Apple Watch. You don’t get it. It’s obviously not designed for you.
Like it or not, the Apple WATCH will rightfully be compared to other watches because… it’s, you know… a watch.
Having to charge something like a watch every single day is annoying to say the least because it’s something you wear. And do NOT try and argue that it doesn’t matter when you’re camping, etc. The whole point of having something like a watch is so you can keep time, use a stopwatch, know the date, etc. NOT check Twitter, Facebook, and the like. That’s just a strawman argument.
I don’t check twitter, facebook or any of that on my phone. I mainly use my phone for practical things.
Timekeeping is the least of the reasons I want an Apple Watch. (I’m guessing that’s true for most people.)
I teach on the university level and also am a commercial photographer – in addition to looking after my 85 year old mother who lives on her own, and the rest of my family.
I am mainly interested in the watch’s functions to keep me informed when it is inappropriate for me to pull my phone out, which for me is most of the time during the day.
A Casio watch that “pings” won’t cut it, I would still have to pull the phone out to see who it is.
I have determined that an Apple watch would most likely be very useful for me – and I don’t need it 24-7 so the projected battery life seems fine.
Why does that put your panties in such a bunch?
Don’t buy one. Your “Problem” is solved.
It’s a watch? Find me a single person that buys an Apple Watch because they need it to tell time. People that want a traditional watch will buy a traditional watch.
Sorry but did I miss the Watch sleep analysis feature?
Oh right, it doesn’t do that, so why bitch about that?
As to battery life I suggest you read up on watch sized computer devices and what are typical run times. I think you will be impressed with Apple’s tech.
It is rather simple physics with battery life. If you do not understand that then go read up on battery tech and the current limits of state of the art batteries.
I love the Apple Watch and will be ordering on the 10th, but my Pebble watch, which up till now has been infinitely useful, lasts a week.
Talk about someone needing to ‘read up’. Just sayin’
Yes, the tech is impressive…but it still doesn’t compare to the “Status Quo” of an old-schol watch, whose “Power Management System” is 300x – 3000x better.
-hh
@dftr:
I get it ….
At present, I have two cellphones – personal and work. They both have to be plugged in, every . damn . night.
True, its not a “huge” deal, but it is a hassle.
Especially when on the road.
Especially when on the road with a personal iPad and a work laptop … now there’s four (4) mobile devices to figure out where & how to plug in.
To alleviate this plug problem, Radio Shack used to sell a nice little six inch long extension cord…it was much more useful than a three prong plug because it could take two charging warts. But no longer: it was discontinued because some regulator thought they were evil & unsafe because they were being used as a three prong plug instead of as an “extension”. Go figure.
“I have a Citizen Eco-Drive watch powered by solar energy”
can that take phone calls? or do 1% of what an Apple Watch can do?
“There’s An Egyptian Sundial which has not needed a recharge in 4000 years. Do you think the Citizen will match that?”
Loopusrangen and others:
Can the Casio take phone calls? Here’s the reality: nobody WANTS to take phone calls on a watch other than geeks doing it for fun. It’s a tiny speakerphone with crappy open air mic. You’re not going to use this that much.
But just so you know, you can get a Casio watch that pings you when an incoming call is coming on your iPhone or a text message. Can control music. Battery life on it? Wait for it… 2 years.
Here’s one model:
http://www.casio.com/products/Watches/Bluetooth_Sports_Gear/
I’m guessing the open air mic will have to be rather good since they are depending on it to make Siri work properly.. Personally I think voice activated assistants will migrate away from being used on wrist wearables and actually be more used via bluetooth connected bone-conduction earpieces.
Steve Jobs may have left the building but his spirit still haunts it, and Jony Ive holds regular seances. Within the Apple organization there exists an essential continuity of intent, the only thing of real importance.
Now that the Apple Watch will be released, perhaps it’s also time to explore how this is going to affect test taking.. “Will students please put away their calculators, cellphones, AND watches.. Thank you..”
And they might want to take there Google Glass of too. Well, that is, if they still existed….
Yeah, I guess HUD devices too.. Not that any kid could have afforded the Google Glass prototypes..
For those currently wearing a watch, the question because is there enough extra value for me to make the adjustment to Apple’s new product.
Those not wearing a watch (don’t see enough value in a dedicated timepiece) are going to view the product differently: The don’t feel they need a watch, but are obviously attracted to the other features. Why else would they buy one? The point? This won’t be viewed as a “watch” by the majority of users. Just as an iPhone is not viewed as a “phone”. (I’m guessing making a phone call on an iPhone represents maybe 5%, at most, of it’s total usage.)
At the same time it will be interesting to see if the Apple Watch leads to a reemergence to the traditional wrist watch. I can see people, wanting to make a statement, buying a traditional watch to make a personal statement against smart watches.
Anyway, my long winded point. This is not a “watch” which is why so many current watch owners are slightly offended by the product. Whether non-watch wears feel the same way has yet to be seen.
People are missing the whole point with the Apple Watch. The Apple watch is no more a watch than an iPhone is a phone. The iPhone is a computer that also happens to make phone calls like the Apple Watch is a functioning extension of that computer in your pocket that also happens to tell time and is worn on your wrist. If all you need to do is make phone calls and tell time, there are plenty of cheaper, more simple alternatives that I’m sure don’t need charging daily. Failure to make that distinction with either an iPhone or the Apple Watch is simply absurd! One day our iPhones and Apple Watches will be able to go days, probably weeks, without having to be re-charged. Apple is pretty darn smart, but they cannot defy the current limits battery science and like most designs and products, compromises are part of it and they can only try to reach the best possible balance between all aspects of a product, it’s design and function. Based on where Apple is with laptops, tablets, and smartphones, I think they do a pretty good job at reaching that optimal balance at a given point in time and feel comfortable they will do the same with their watch.
Agree with you there.. It’s the same with tablets and eReaders.. Tablets will do more but for the ones that have one specific purpose in mind (reading) and like the ‘feature’ of charging less frequently there is no contest. For a short time eReader sales dropped but has increased again due to ‘dedicated purpose’ becoming an important factor. I believe the same will happen with Smartwatches and traditional timepieces.
Chazman:
The failure you all make is assuming that people actually want a computer on their wrist. It’s riddled with all kinds of usability issues. Awkward bend in the arm to hold, the necessary raise/flick of the wrist to even get the screen to turn on with the Apple Watch, the crappy battery life, the tiny screen that limits anything you can really do on it compared to a smartphone…
It’s not demonstrated at all that this thing is both better at many things than a smartphone and that it has a reason to live.
Steve Jobs was clear in the first iPad launch: that in order for a tablet to have a reason to live, it needed to be BETTER at a set of tasks compared to other computing devices. The problem with the Apple Watch is it’s not better at anything other than maybe notifications. But the problem is the Apple Watch represents “Notification Hell”. That’s because it bugs you with every single notification and your ability to reply is hampered with the device/small screen/lack of keyboard. If you turn notifications off or significantly down you start invaliding the device completely because it really doesn’t do much else useful where you’d just bypass and reach for your iPhone.
When it comes to the Apple Watch being a one way communications street, you simply CANNOT talk to your watch to respond for instance. You need a quiet area to do that/private. This seriously hampers your ability to communicate with it. With the iPhone, you have headphones. You don’t even have to look at it to interface with it. “Siri, how do I get…” Again, the Watch has yet to demonstrate a reason to live. And the end result will be that it won’t demonstrate a reason to live because wrist computing is inherently flawed from the start.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Apple Watch will not be a runaway hit. Don’t bother arguing. Just watch, wait, and see. Then we’ll come back here in 6 months and look at your smug faces.
Are you kidding? This is MDN. In six month’s time the watch will be forgotten and it will be all iPhone 7, all the time.