Apple Watch is official

diabolus said:
I have the Sony Smartwatch 2 (which works with any Android phone, costs +- R1700 ) and here is what i do with it:

1. Notifications (Calls,Emails,Whatsapps, Facebook etc). It's got full colour screen so you see full emails, full photos etc. I can also respond to the notifications on the watch itself (although not something i do often).

2. Fitness Tracking. This is probably where i think the biggest market shakeup will occur with the Apple Watch. All these Fitbit, Garmin, TomTom, Nike stuff you get these days. Both Android and Apple smartwatches is going to kill it. I had a Garmin GPS watch with which i run,cycle and track all my speeds/cadence/heartrate/distance with. Now i use my smartwatch to do all of that AND use my favorite tracking services (i.e. Strava/Endomondo etc) AND have it do live tracking via Phone AND display whatever i want it to display on my watch (i.e. my current distance + speed + altitude, all coming from my phone of course).

Ironically the price of the top end Garmin GPS watches are easily R5k+ , yet it does less than a standard smartwatch + phone combo with the right combination of apps.

3. Controlling various apps. I use streaming music services and audible audio books while driving, which is not always controllable with bluetooth handsfree kits. I can now control them from my watch in various ways. I can control my camera on my phone too, and can redefine the term "selfie" ;-) . I can also use navigation via the smartwatch , there is a map app , but getting text notifications from Google Maps to turn left/right works quite well too.

4. And probably most important of all : See the time,date,weather and whatever else i want to see with customizable watch faces. It's amusing that even though we all have this on our phones, you don't end up looking at it if you have to fish out your phone out of your pocket everytime.

I'd say if you got one of these phablet phones or even just a pretty big phone or tablet, the watch can solve alot of the discomfort ;)



Anyway, initially i also went "this was rather silly to get, i don't think i will use this as much as i thought" . Now i am getting wayeee to used to simply lifting my hand to check a new whatsapp/email and ignoring it ;) .

It also comes in handy in meetings when you don't want to look too obvious about reading things on your phone (can for example read Reddit RSS etc posts on the watch).

My watch lasts about 3 days before i need to charge. It's water resistant and display works quite well in bright sunlight.

So i don't expect anything less from Apple's Watch. Since all these watches are OS locked, except i think the Pebble, the Apple Watch will probably take the entire iphone market...which is a big market to have such exclusivity in. Apple is going to make money out of this either way.
Click to expand...

Nice. How about doing a review with pictures in the Reviews forum?
 
diabolus said:
I have the Sony Smartwatch 2 (which works with any Android phone, costs +- R1700 ) and here is what i do with it:

1. Notifications (Calls,Emails,Whatsapps, Facebook etc). It's got full colour screen so you see full emails, full photos etc. I can also respond to the notifications on the watch itself (although not something i do often).

2. Fitness Tracking. This is probably where i think the biggest market shakeup will occur with the Apple Watch. All these Fitbit, Garmin, TomTom, Nike stuff you get these days. Both Android and Apple smartwatches is going to kill it. I had a Garmin GPS watch with which i run,cycle and track all my speeds/cadence/heartrate/distance with. Now i use my smartwatch to do all of that AND use my favorite tracking services (i.e. Strava/Endomondo etc) AND have it do live tracking via Phone AND display whatever i want it to display on my watch (i.e. my current distance + speed + altitude, all coming from my phone of course).

Ironically the price of the top end Garmin GPS watches are easily R5k+ , yet it does less than a standard smartwatch + phone combo with the right combination of apps.

3. Controlling various apps. I use streaming music services and audible audio books while driving, which is not always controllable with bluetooth handsfree kits. I can now control them from my watch in various ways. I can control my camera on my phone too, and can redefine the term "selfie" ;-) . I can also use navigation via the smartwatch , there is a map app , but getting text notifications from Google Maps to turn left/right works quite well too.

4. And probably most important of all : See the time,date,weather and whatever else i want to see with customizable watch faces. It's amusing that even though we all have this on our phones, you don't end up looking at it if you have to fish out your phone out of your pocket everytime.

I'd say if you got one of these phablet phones or even just a pretty big phone or tablet, the watch can solve alot of the discomfort ;)



Anyway, initially i also went "this was rather silly to get, i don't think i will use this as much as i thought" . Now i am getting wayeee to used to simply lifting my hand to check a new whatsapp/email and ignoring it ;) .

It also comes in handy in meetings when you don't want to look too obvious about reading things on your phone (can for example read Reddit RSS etc posts on the watch).

My watch lasts about 3 days before i need to charge. It's water resistant and display works quite well in bright sunlight.

So i don't expect anything less from Apple's Watch. Since all these watches are OS locked, except i think the Pebble, the Apple Watch will probably take the entire iphone market...which is a big market to have such exclusivity in. Apple is going to make money out of this either way.
Click to expand...

Is it that good? That is very impressive to me, you might have convinced me to get one.
 
A Giant phone + smart watch seems like a pretty good pairing to me. I'll probably consider it once they add more health sensors and slim the thing down a bit.
 
SeRpEnT said:
Nice. How about doing a review with pictures in the Reviews forum?
Click to expand...

Nah thing is, the Smartwatch 2 is already old,and it's going to only get cheaper (might be good to keep a lookout for them, much cheaper way to get into this gadget market).It's also not running Android Wear (which is going to become the defacto android smartwatch OS) but similar to the older Samsung Gears with their custom OS. Sony is already releasing the Smartwatch 3 which is now on Android Wear.

Here's a review: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/26/sony-smartwatch-2-review/

Admittedly, it doesn't look that much different from the Apple one and Sony has been doing this replaceable/customizable watch band thing for awhile now. Either way, it's still a blocky square on your wrist, i'd pay R1500 for something like this, R4500 for it ? I don't think so.

EDIT: For those that are interested , you can buy the Sony SW here : http://store.orange.com/za/electronics/watch/sony-smartwatch-2-sw2-with-silicon-strap-251140/
 
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Shoaybd said:
Is it that good? That is very impressive to me, you might have convinced me to get one.
Click to expand...

I am only speaking from a Sony SW perspective, i'm pretty sure the Samsung Galaxy Gear / Motorola Smartwatches can all do exactly what i talked about here. Especially now that Google is standardizing the OS (Android Wear) it implies all the android smartwatches SHOULD function similarly.

The only catches are things like battery life. The Samsung Gear got a camera + mic (Sony one doesn't, so i can't talk into my watch like a CIA agent) and that alone can take a hit on battery life .

So all the Android Wear watches are voice operated, which adds another spin to it all, something i did not even mention in my post, since i'm not really into the whole Voice operating thing (our accents usually don't work that well).
 
Quite impressive technology in the Apple Watch, but the "designed for sport / fitness" is a bit of a far stretch and it is no more than a "casual gym watch"
  • Lack of GPS on the watch and the requirement to pair with a phone makes this just a gym watch. I doubt that you would go running with watch and phone in the rain. Considering the size of the phone, you will require a sportsband and I doubt people running would use it. I also don't think cyclists would use it.
  • Is the watch water-proof/resistant. It might be okay with sweat, but I doubt it would sustain rain or swimming
  • As with most touch-screen watches it has yet to be seen if the touchscreen works when covered in moisture (same applies if you run with gloves in winter)
  • No idea on battery life

I agree that multi-sport watches are not smart-watches, but at least they are fit-for-purpose (i.e. they are watches and do time/date and track multiple sports activities with built in GPS).

Lastly, I have yet to see a product which is a new product category within Apple which does not have major oversights/design flaws - think AppleTV, iPhone antenna gate. Although perhaps a small issue, I do think that Apple should have taken for example left-handed people into consideration (I know, it is only 10% of the population, but still). Will be interesting space to observe, when the Watch launches and if initial problems will be big or non-relevant - I certainly don't think I would get the Apple Watch as a replacement for a sports-watch and since I have a mobile phone, do not use a watch in the first place - so Garmin it continues to be for me.
 
cerebus said:
You notice that I said IF before that whole spiel right? It's not an assumption on anything, it's hopefulness that they can get something that does these things I'd like it to.


There's no news on that. I'm going with a worst case scenario of 1 day per charge.
Click to expand...

Yea, just messing with you bud :)
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Although perhaps a small issue, I do think that Apple should have taken for example left-handed people into consideration (I know, it is only 10% of the population, but still).
Click to expand...

They did. It's easily swappable to the left hand.

I agree that multi-sport watches are not smart-watches, but at least they are fit-for-purpose (i.e. they are watches and do time/date and track multiple sports activities with built in GPS).
Click to expand...

I think a lot will depend on the quality of data that they can get out of this.
 
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cerebus said:
I'm becoming everyone's Google butler these days

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/09/apple-watch-interface-orientation-choice/
Click to expand...

Doh - everyone saw the picture and it is obvious that the watch will ask for what orientation is going to be displayed (i.e. lefty/righty). My point was that by just rotating the watch, the buttons will be at a different position - i.e. for a right handed person wearing the watch on the left hand, the button will be at the top right whereas when you flip it for lefties, the button will be at the bottom left, so not quite intuitive for left handed people if you ask me.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Doh - everyone saw the picture and it is obvious that the watch will ask for what orientation is going to be displayed (i.e. lefty/righty). My point was that by just rotating the watch, the buttons will be at a different position - i.e. for a right handed person wearing the watch on the left hand, the button will be at the top right whereas when you flip it for lefties, the button will be at the bottom left, so not quite intuitive for left handed people if you ask me.
Click to expand...

But also not the end of the world either :)
 
Found this - water resistance - I doubt it will survive rain, if you can not wear it in the shower:
For example, the Apple Watch is water resistant. Sweating, wearing it in the rain, washing your hands, or cooking with it are fine. Take it off before you swim or get in the shower, though.
Click to expand...

Who here still wears a "non-fitness watch" (i.e. anything but a watch you use for running, cycling or other sports)? I get the feeling that watches are disappearing and are being replaced with mobile phones, since you have it on you all the time any way. I don't get the point of getting notifications on your wrist because your phone is in your pocket - really?
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Doh - everyone saw the picture and it is obvious that the watch will ask for what orientation is going to be displayed (i.e. lefty/righty). My point was that by just rotating the watch, the buttons will be at a different position - i.e. for a right handed person wearing the watch on the left hand, the button will be at the top right whereas when you flip it for lefties, the button will be at the bottom left, so not quite intuitive for left handed people if you ask me.
Click to expand...

Yeah so it's at the bottom rather than the top. It's a bit meh but humanity is nothing if not adaptable. This too shall pass.
Who here still wears a "non-fitness watch" (i.e. anything but a watch you use for running, cycling or other sports)? I get the feeling that watches are disappearing and are being replaced with mobile phones, since you have it on you all the time any way. I don't get the point of getting notifications on your wrist because your phone is in your pocket - really?
Click to expand...

It's really more a question of whether a watch can do those things better than a phone. If it can, it has a future, regardless if it's just duplicating features. It may be just more convenient to get a notification on the wrist that you can quickly make a decision on what to do with, or to get a buzz on the wrist when driving rather than a voice prompt to turn off, or to exercise to listen to your own music and get fitness feedback while the phone stays behind, or I don't know what else... Or of course, I guess it may not be.
 
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fanie.dry said:
Nah, things don't break that easily. And Apple has good build quality.
Click to expand...

Tell that to all of the home buttons that dont work on apple phones.
Im sure my wife's iphone would listen and the home button would start working again :p
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Quite impressive technology in the Apple Watch, but the "designed for sport / fitness" is a bit of a far stretch and it is no more than a "casual gym watch"
  • Lack of GPS on the watch and the requirement to pair with a phone makes this just a gym watch. I doubt that you would go running with watch and phone in the rain. Considering the size of the phone, you will require a sportsband and I doubt people running would use it. I also don't think cyclists would use it.
  • Is the watch water-proof/resistant. It might be okay with sweat, but I doubt it would sustain rain or swimming
  • As with most touch-screen watches it has yet to be seen if the touchscreen works when covered in moisture (same applies if you run with gloves in winter)
  • No idea on battery life

I agree that multi-sport watches are not smart-watches, but at least they are fit-for-purpose (i.e. they are watches and do time/date and track multiple sports activities with built in GPS).

Lastly, I have yet to see a product which is a new product category within Apple which does not have major oversights/design flaws - think AppleTV, iPhone antenna gate. Although perhaps a small issue, I do think that Apple should have taken for example left-handed people into consideration (I know, it is only 10% of the population, but still). Will be interesting space to observe, when the Watch launches and if initial problems will be big or non-relevant - I certainly don't think I would get the Apple Watch as a replacement for a sports-watch and since I have a mobile phone, do not use a watch in the first place - so Garmin it continues to be for me.
Click to expand...
GPS is a battery hog and probably the reason for it's exclusion. It is not ideal by any means but as in all things tech compromises have to be made. It just means that position and distance cannot be measured without the aid of an iPhone when you're not on your feet.
 
This watch won't cost less than R4000 in SA. It might be a hit in the USA, but i doubt it will take off in SA.
 
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