The Apple Watch Thread

Ok, so Apple showed Series 3 today. No big huge diffs - except maybe, perhaps? No data port in the wristband connector as was rumored, so no sensor bands, no battery extension bands.

So what they did add is Watch has cellular capability now, and barometer. That's like, the two new features it got. Sure, there's the usual improvements, SoC gets a big speedup, wireless chip is updated, much lower power, much higher performance, yada yada. Cellular is the big one though - you can take calls, get notifications, download maps and other app data, and - I think this just might be big for some people - stream music off the internet. Wireless headphones and a wireless computer on your wrist streaming music into your ears - controlled by voice commands if you so desire - that could be real big thing with some people I feel.

I don't care so much myself; I hardly ever leave my home without my phone, but for people who are very active it might make a difference. A few times I've gone on walks without my phone and got irritated over having no height data registered during my exercise, and sometimes I forget my phone when heading down into the city. I have no music for my ears, and become cut off from the rest of the universe due to no internet/data connection. It's rare this happens though, as I said, personally I don't care that much. But others might, possibly a lot of other people.

I'll love seeing the teardown of this thing I'm sure, they must really have stepped up their integration efforts to fit a cellular chipset into a design that's literally just a few hairs thicker than the Series 2. Well, two sheets of paper thicker IIRC, so perhaps quite a bit more than just a few hairs, but still, barely any difference.

Not sure how cellular impacts battery life though - they literally said not a single word on the topic during the presentation. Can it run all day untethered from its iphone? I guess we'll know soon if people haven't cajoled it out of the PR people on the showroom floor yet... I haven't read any hands-on impressions yet.

Interesting that cellular isn't a huge gigantic price surcharge versus the uncellular version. 50 bucks, that's way less than Apple charges extra for cellular ipads. For once, Apple prices its premium device attractively to the benefit of its users. I think they want to steer people towards the cellular version TBH, not just bloodsuck them dry of every dollar they can wring out of their customers (like when they used to charge $100 for a 16GB iPhone flash upgrade, urgh.)

So, nothing earthshattering really, but a solid upgrade to what was already out there.

 

Also... New watch bands; "sport loop" they call it, woven nylon made with velcro fasteners. The nylon band I bought last summer - which I thought was white under the store fluorescent lights, but outside in the sun turned out to be vaguely pink-ish; "pearl", the motherfookers call it - is looking rather ragged and grubby by now.

There's a "seashell" sport loop band this time which is mostly like, light grey, but has pure white lugs which go well with the anodized aluminium of my watch casing (and again costs a fookin 50 dollars in the U.S.; more here no doubt!) I might hang onto my O.G. watch another year with a new band; the battery is still good, and the thing does just about everything the newer watches can do as long as I also bring my phone with me - except for swimming compatibility, and I don't swim these days anyhow (like maybe every other year or so), so it matters not.

 

Blah! Apple doesn't like my plan to continue using my original Watch another year! WatchOS 4 animations are quite sluggish, especially the new fancy "particles explosion" exercise ring closing animation and the (worthless) new app switcher they put in place of the old (very useful!) dock. It's unbelievable how something so graphically simple can run at such a low framerate on such a tiny resolution display.

How they fucked up the dock really irks me. The old dock showed the apps I wanted to have there, in the order I decided. This one shows everything I've used, and the order keeps changing as I use apps, making it impossible to keep things tidy, or even know exactly where an app is without possibly having to scroll through the whole damn list. Especially as said list grows with use, thus requiring pruning it out now and then. Urgh, terrible UI design!

Why, Apple, whyyy...?!

The old dock was fine! Actually it was great, except it should have scrolled vertically (and not been flipping flippin' cards forwards and backwards as it is now, making it harder to tap the exact app I want.) Card-flipping looks flashier I guess, but fuck flashyness if it comes at the price of useability.

Haven't had time to look at the actual improvements of wOS 4 yet, the improved workout and heartrate monitoring apps and so on, but from what I've read it looks like solid improvements. Flashlight functionality on the screen could be useful in a pinch, although I doubt it'll do wonders for battery life... (*ahem* Probably not my main concern should I ever need an emergency light... )

Toy Story watchfaces and so on... Ugh. No thanks, I'm not a child. Why aren't these optional, letting me reclaim the flash memory spent on such frivolousness? I have one face I use and like.

 

LPDDR4, whoah. What CPU core might they be using then, the A6 (which is the last CPU before they switched to 64bit) used now-ancient LPDDR2. So it smells like something custom built just for the watch then...? How custom is the question, of course.

 

Does it now though? It doesn't run the same apps as iPhone, and 64-bit software bloats significantly compared to 32-bit. While it does seem to have more RAM, it's only 256MB more than the first-gen (and also 2nd gen I believe), and you need some space to handle cellular capabilities, leaving less than would be ideal to absorb the bloating, or for increased pre-load buffering, to increase speed and slickness of the OS.