iWatch

[Alexko]

Regarding the thread title

Apple Watch is too long; I'll probably call it the iWatch anyway.

 

[rcf]

Regarding the thread title

Regarding the apple watch (and e-gadgets in general):

 

[zed]

Epaper displays have poor contrast, poor color dynamic range and low resolution. At least in the past, they update fairly slowly as well, so not really good for interactive moving graphics, but maybe that has been fixed now

You didnt read my original post, Im not talking about epaper

lets factually write out the merits of both

Zeds watch idea
+ better battery life, orders of magnitude better
+ water proof
+ can read in bright sunlight
+ always on
-+looks better (for 99.9% of people)
+ not outdated in a couple years time

Gralls Watch idea
+ it displays more info

umm what else?

A bit of a lopsided battle there folks

btw

and to get the phone out of my pants pocket and reliably press those itty bitty buttons on modern phones, jacket has to be opened up and gloves have to come off.

for a job I once had, I had to wear 2 pairs of gloves & ~3 layers of clothing, whilst phone in the pocket which I could only feel from the ouside as a rectangle block (which would either be upside down or not) yet I could operate the volume controls to control my music for my bluetooth headset, I'ld fiddle around prolly pressing the on/off button multiple times, I was shocked how well it worked.
Try this at home folks as an experiment, plug your headphones in (blutooth pref so no cord to tell which way the phone is facing) wrap your phone in a towel so you cant see it, just feel the general shape, try and change the volume you'll be surprised how well this works

And aluminium gets freezing cold and unpleasant to the touch immediately as wel

well you should be using a cheap 19th century material, perhaps use something quality created in the 21st century

 

[Malo]

I have a Samsung Gear (1st gen) and I really like it for work. I rarely wear it casually on the weekends etc, it's just not very useful to me other than work. For it's purpose I think it's very handy and was a great birthday present.

• Have work email alerts and text alerts going to the watch. When one arrives I can make a quick glance to see if it's something I need to attend to.
• A call comes in I can screen it without going to my phone in the holster
• Depending on what I'm doing I can choose to take the call on the watch as hands free to continue coding etc. (I have Sync in my car, don't need it for that). The call on the watch works very well for both myself and the other end, no issues with hearing each other
• Also some texts I reply on the watch itself using voice to answer.

There are many features I just don't use like the camera for photos/video and there are a bunch of apps I don't use either though a few are just handy on rare occasions. I think the new generations of the Gear would be better for me, completely waterproof and don't feature camera etc.

I don't understand the suggestion for always on. My watch senses the gesture with my arm to look at the watch and displays. It doesn't make sense for always on when it's just wasting battery?

 

[London Geezer]

Regarding the thread title

Genius!

 

[Davros]

I think its amazing how apple have taken the clock on your phone and managed to shrink it down so it fits on your wrist.

 

[Grall]

Lol, @Davros...

 

[zed]

Yeah Im doubting we will see sales figures any time soon at least officially

Some analysts estimate Apple could sell as many as 30 million Apple Watches this year. Apple said it doesn't plan to break out the results in its quarterly reports.
"We weren't going to release data on the watch," Williams said. "We spend too much time on the numbers. We'd rather spend time on the product."

Yeah right :smile:
Im shocked I tell ya, shocked

 

[London Geezer]

Yeah. As if there's two people there and both of them are too busy 'with the numbers' when they should spend all their time 'on the product'.

 

[Sxotty]

Personally I am hoping the Microsoft band 2 has a saphire screen so our doesn't scratch. Is waterproof and I too Want our to have e ink screen so battery lasts much longer. Otherwise it seemed great as a fitness tracker. I would much prefer to leave phone home on a run. I am not going to watc movies on my watch and therefore care little about how pretty it is. I do want to see it in sunlight though. Transflective or e ink.

 

[Grall]

Sapphire can still scratch; it merely does not scratch as easily as most other transparent materials...

Also, it is very, very reflective, so you might not want to have it on a fitness band after all, if you do any workouts/running outdoors; it could be problematic actually seeing what's on the screen if you're in full sunlight.

For a small demonstration just how reflective sapphire is versus glass, hold up any iThing with the touch-ID feature to a lightsource so that the light reflects in the front face of the device, covering the home button. You should easily be able to notice a distinct difference in the brightness of reflection in the glass covering the bezel around the screen, verus the sapphire over the home button.

Sapphire is also heavier, less transparent and more brittle than toughened ion exchange ("gorilla") glass, meaning if you smack your band into a hard object (as might happen with things worn on the wrist), its screen shatters more easily.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I bought a watch, but a dumb one, after an unknown number of years.
Went to the weekly market (that's one a like a flea market but with new products) so it would be cheap and not on the internet, and got a cheap ass digital!

Exactly what I wanted lol. The band is plack plastic as is the watch body. I find it embarrassing to wear it without long sleeves - good thing I like to wear long sleeved buttoned shirts in hot sunny weather and hate short sleeved buttoned shirts, but with T-shirts I don't wear the thing or perhaps I'll get over it.

Old style LCD from the 80s/90s (not pixel based) is perfectly readable and low power. I did not want rotating handles because they can break and they're noisy. Also watch is lightweight and must have more years of battery life.
Smart stuff? it's safe to ignore it. Must suck to ponder removing the watch from wrist but if you do then you lose features.
With a crappy watch I'm relieved to remove it lol. It's already a gadget (that I can pull out of pocket too instead of pulling phone, lighting it up and trying to cover it from the sun to read it). I got it as kind of a psychological help to not procrastinate. Why a watch where you can play Tetris on it?

Higher end digital watch could be good. Non-pixel based e-ink could be an interesting novelty - there was a cell phone (Motorola F3) with two lines of segmented display using e-ink.

 

[Grall]

@Blazkowicz I love oldskool digital watches (and I think you should wear yours visibly and proudly like a true geek! lol), but if I was to buy something today I would want something "connected", to synergize with my phone.

Alas, applewatch isn't released in Sweden yet, so it really doesn't matter! Maybe the fruit company will let us scandinavian pleebs know when we can buy the darned thing at their conference on...the sixth, I believe. One can only hope, eh?!

 

[Sxotty]

Sapphire can still scratch; it merely does not scratch as easily as most other transparent materials...

Also, it is very, very reflective, so you might not want to have it on a fitness band after all, if you do any workouts/running outdoors; it could be problematic actually seeing what's on the screen if you're in full sunlight.

For a small demonstration just how reflective sapphire is versus glass, hold up any iThing with the touch-ID feature to a lightsource so that the light reflects in the front face of the device, covering the home button. You should easily be able to notice a distinct difference in the brightness of reflection in the glass covering the bezel around the screen, verus the sapphire over the home button.

Sapphire is also heavier, less transparent and more brittle than toughened ion exchange ("gorilla") glass, meaning if you smack your band into a hard object (as might happen with things worn on the wrist), its screen shatters more easily.

Thanks for info grall. I never knew that. Then fine change to gorilla glass. I thought that indestructible Kyocera had sapphire though. I just hope they don't focus on useless screen stats for a device like this.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Guess I'm old-school, but I expect the battery in my watch to last for years. For everything else I'm just gonna use the phone I'm carrying with me at all times anyway. The thing looks fucking hideous too.
This thing seems like the very definition of a product in search of a market. Then again it's Apple. If there's one company who might be able to foister useless crap like that on the mass market, it's surely them.

 

[Grall]

Yeah, you tell 'em like it is, Sieg...

 

[London Geezer]

And they did.

Did I see an article somewhere, saying they sold 30M of those things already? Or was it a nightmare?

Mandess.

 

[Sxotty]

Well I heard the band 2 might come out next fall so that makes me much happier than this fruit watch. Of course it may not be any better We will see. I don't mind having phone on bike ride
But it is madness on a run.

 

[Grall]

I don't mind having phone on bike ride
But it is madness on a run.

Just turn on Do Not Disturb on your phone, maybe?

 

[Sxotty]

Does that make it weightless too I just don't want to be bothered with the item. When I used to run with jogging stroller it did not matter, but now a watch is enough. I use a timex now, but I miss the GPS tracker.