“The Apple Watch is finally upon us and, for the first time in recent memory, an Apple product is getting tepid reviews from many of my colleagues in the tech press,” Avram Piltch writes for Tom’s Guide. “Most like the hardware and appreciate the apps, but many doubt that anyone really ‘needs’ a wrist-worn device, because you can perform the same tasks on your phone. Their problem isn’t really with Apple’s device but the very idea of smartwatches.”
“While it’s easy to doubt the utility of the Apple Watch and competitors like the Pebble, Moto 360 and Samsung Gear 2, you could have made the same arguments about tablets in 2010 or smartphones in 2007,” Piltch writes. “A well-made wrist device like Apple’s new offering has a ton of utility today. The age of smartwatches has arrived, even if not everyone can see it yet.”
“The methods we use to retrieve and share information have moved from the desk to the lap and then the pocket,” Piltch writes. “The wrist is the next stop for information technology before it reaches your head and, in the distant future, the inside of your body.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote yesterday:
…Advice to not buy an Apple Watch because “the next Apple Watch will be better” is, to put it plainly, stupid and self-defeating. If you do not buy because the “next generation will be better,” you’ll never own anything at all.
We are so unbelievably glad that we bought the first iPhone and the first iPad. Outside of our “jobs,” we’ve never regretted either purchase and, in fact, we’d have enormous regret if we sat around waiting around for the “next gen.,” depriving us of participating in and experiencing major paradigm shifts. We knew they were first generation products. That made us want them all the more.
If you’re on the fence, get the Apple Watch Sport. Its resale value will hold up just fine and you’ll get much out of being an “early adopter.”
Absodamnlutely!💥👀😱😜🚀📦👍🏿
FutureMedia displays one problem that is a result of Apple now focusing its OS updates to create more emoji and flatter meaningless icons rather than prioritizing fundamental OS performance. Now Mac forums are littered with one-word tweets and ugly emoji rather than discussion of Mac hardware and software.
Not exactly sure what you’re talking about? iOS 8 was the largest update to iOS EVER. Yes, there will be a few more issues popping up than past upgrades, but to say all they’re worried about is aesthetics rather than stability/performance is asinine.
most bloated iOS ever, yes.
long overdue fixes that should have been implemented last year? yes
functionality improvements? not so much.
still carrying 32 bit code? yep. make the transition already.
MDN has crystallized my thoughts on the matter perfectly. there’s no beating – deep heating, AND early adoption of a first generation Apple device. Lot of joy in that being part of yet another tech journey with our favorite fruit company, among the many other non-tech joys of life.
I don’t understand why people are voting this down. Anyone want to comment?
Because there are android fanboys trolling this site constantly.
Yeah I’ve noticed that too. Sad isn’t it they have so little joy in their lives and wish to spread their terminal misery elsewhere?
MDN — any way you can clear trolls from the site periodically ?
Or can you let the loyal faithful vote certain trolls to be exiled from the site based on majority vote? Sort of like in ancient Athens, where voters could exile egregious citizens from the city-state.
right, let’s throw freedom of speech out the window. that always improves democracy, right?
who do you propose decides what is a “trolling”? is there an MDN policy? is it saying anything you disagree with? or just what silverdick doesn’t like? his 2:43pm comment was so very helpful to the discussion, wasn’t it?
I was thinking more along the lines of exiling folks like, for example, Tawana Brawley and Reverend Al Sharpton. (Look, it up if you don’t know who what I am talking about.) The threat of banishment can make people a whole lot more civil.
I am all for free speech. But I remain firmly opposed to trolls and those who “game” democracy to their own ends.
Cheers !
You don’t understand democracy. MDN is someone else’s home — not yours. The owner allows people in and can kick them out if he so chooses. You’re a guest and I am too. You don’t have an absolute freedom of speech inside someone else’s house. Once you run your own site, you’ll understand.
Like you demomboy?
Hmm.. I guess I’m just gullible today. The funny thing is that his “sentiments”, which I realize now could be sarcastic, actually mirror my own feelings. I do enjoy being the early adopter. I bought the first iPhone, the first Titanium laptop, the first iPad and had a Mac SE back in the day, and intend to buy an Apple Watch. It has only enriched my life.
Marketers know that “early adopters” are actually a very small subset of a market. MDN and certain commenters here go out of their way to poke a sharp stick at people who are willing to take a more measured approach at adopting all-new products, but the reality is that supply is constrained anyway and waiting a few months or a year is a much more attractive approach by us “rapid followers”. You know, Apple itself is now a “rapid follower”. It hasn’t released an all-new product category since Cook took the reins.
Competition’s hired/ bribed guns to knock apple products !
Not so much guns as pea shooters.
We don’t need an Apple Watch now. We’ll decide what we need you idiot, Avram. Just another American journalist who’s more opinionated than a tyrant.
Hey Avram, you need a date, with a real girl, now!
LOL… what a tool.
Don’t look in a mirror, you’ll scare yourself from all of your black eye makeup.
This was a post regarding one of the roid trolls horrible, not free speech, statements.
I’m reminded of the quote attributed (probably erroneously) to Henry Ford…
“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”
In retrospect, I wish I’d kept my iPhone1, which I gave to my nephew; unfortunately the phone was stolen from him later on. I am buying the watch, and keeping it this time; might turn it into an art object encased in a glass frame when it reaches ‘collectors’ status.
I am glad and proud that I came on board the Apple train with the MacPlus. It was not the original, but close enough. Still remember punching cards for my BASIC programs back in the day, and the Mac was indeed a revolution. Imagine that I’d waited to use computers till my current iMac27″ (the thin one) came out for sale. I an glad to have lived and participated in this amazing era; the rise of the computer. And we, in the Apple community, had a front row seat in humanity’s greatest leap to date.
I still have 2 original iPhones and 2 original iPads no regrets
BASIC on Punched cards? What kind of system was that? I started with FORTRAN on punched cards, but never saw a punched card with BASIC syntax.
I think I came on a few years after you.. My first programming on punch cards (though simple) was COBOL.
I plan to buy the Apple Watch at launch (the cheap one) and upgrade in a year or two to a more premium one. Win-win.
Sorry, this MDN propaganda piece notwithstanding, I’m not getting an Apple Watch.
MDN, please don’t insult people who aren’t early adopters by calling their decision “stupid” and “self-defeating.” Lots of happy iPhone owners and iPad owners did exactly that. They skipped the first models and bought something later.
Face it, lots of potential buyers haven’t been sold on the Apple Watch. But if it’s as good as we’ve been told, that will change.
It is not the decision not to buy that MDN calls stupid and self-defeating, but the reasoning of “the next one will be better.”
This is probably just an aftereffect of the recent rapid update run with iOS8.
Hear, hear. My allegiance to Apple depends primarily on its ability to turn out insanely great products. I don’t see the watch as being insanely great. Neither do I think that by skipping smartwatches entirely that my life will suck or be even marginally worse. I don’t see the value. I don’t see the world-changing potential (sorry, like most technology writers, I don’t take speed with my morning coffee). I see hype, and nothing but hype.
I see the trolls out in force.
E.g MacUser is a troll. Pretends to be a mac fan but every post he has bashes Apple.
The Apple Watch must be significant otherwise the trolls won’t bother.
as for buying first edition, buy it or not it’s your own decision but millions will.
If you buy the 349 model you can probably sell it next year for maybe half the price. Playing with new tech and learning about it for a 150 is a no brainer for many. Force touch, new fitness apps, play with various watch faces etc for 150? Even if you treat it as toy it’s value, my blue ray player that does nothing but play discs cost more…
I’ve noticed that too. he probably remembers when Macs just worked.
but criticism Apple can handle. it’s actually kind of healthy to have debates with people who don’t look at things exactly the way we do. way more interesting than reading a brainless Apple love fest all the time. and mu is at least civil. trolls are the are the asswipes to are just here to dish out personal attacks and nothing more …. and when they see how unpopular their comments are, they are the first to accuse MDN of being overrun by samsung employees or whatever. geez, even samsung isn’t gonna waste time reading MDN.
It’s being said hardly anyone will be buying an AppleWatch but Apple will be in trouble because the demand will supposedly outstrip supply. Huh!
/s
The articles are coming hard and fast as everyone and his mother has something to say about AppleWatch. Why is everyone so concerned and dubious about Apple’s decisions? I’m honestly not worried at all about AppleWatch sales. Apple is in the business of selling products and their profitable retail outlets are a testament to that fact.
> many doubt that anyone really ‘needs’ a wrist-worn device, because you can perform the same tasks on your phone.
Wrist watches have been around for a LONG time. When they first appeared, the “naysayers” probably said, I don’t need a watch on my wrist, because I already have one in my pocket, on a handy chain.
This is the important point… The use of wristwatches (the “dumb” type that just tells time) has gone down in recent years, but I’d say more than half of iPhone owners still wear them. They STILL find value in not having to pull out their modern-day pocket watch (their iPhone) just to see the time.
So, let’s say Apple does NOT create any new wristwatch wearers, but those existing wristwatch-wearing iPhone customers replace their dumb wristwatch with an Apple Watch. Over time, that’s hundreds of millions of Apple Watch sales, without creating a single new wristwatch wearer. Additionally, there are people who love wristwatches who do not currently use iPhone. They’d appreciate Apple creating a beautiful timepiece with “smart” functionality, and they’ll buy an iPhone next, just to use it with an Apple Watch.
I went from wristwatch to pocketwatch to using a cellphone/smartphone for my ‘timekeeping’ needs.. This is because I get a nasty rash wearing any kind of wristband for prolonged periods of time.. I’m sure there are quite a few others with the same problem. We just need a different type of wearable or other means to get the same/similar features.
People who are blind can’t use Apple Watch either. If you can’t wear anything on your wrists, you already have the solution in your pocket.
Actually, through Apple Watch apps and their limitless potential to focus on specific needs, both wide and narrow, Apple Watch could probably be quite useful for people with visual disabilities.
(But I don’t see a way around not being able to wear it on your wrist.)
If every naysayer counts how many times each day they read their phone, then they need the apple watch. Just for quick reader alone. If for nothing else, they need it. Reader alone! They just don’t know they need it yet.
No watch needed here, live rural, spotty mobile coverage and got a 50+ year old self-winding Eterna. Also, iPhone is legacy (4) and no tablet. Truly a troglodyte.