[HN Gopher] Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables
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Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables
Author : kulpreet
Score : 152 points
Date : 2021-05-28 22:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aboveavalon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aboveavalon.com)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I want a watch that stands alone.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean isn't that the Apple Watch with cellular? You can even
| set up with its own phone number.
| tompazourek wrote:
| Do you still need an iPhone to set it up, etc.?
| wetpaws wrote:
| And yet it can't make a smartwatch with a power consumption less
| of a freaking nuclear submarine. Wearable balttery should be
| counted in weaks, not fractions of a second.
| sfblah wrote:
| I find the article's mention of the "static smart speaker mirage"
| unconvincing. I use Amazon Echo at home and have found its voice
| recognition and capabilities vastly superior to those of Siri. In
| my opinion it's fair to say this is an area where Apple is flat
| out losing to the competition. I too had assumed the watch or
| phone would provide all that functionality, but it appears I was
| mistaken.
|
| I think the major lead Apple has in wearables has to do with
| ecosystem. I wear and Apple Watch because I want to listen to
| Apple Music while running. Doing so is clumsy with any other
| device.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Don't understand why this is upvoted. The math used to get to 10+
| years assumes competitors address each element of the lead one-
| by-one:
|
| > Custom silicon / technology / sensors (a four to five-year lead
| over the competition, and that is being generous to the
| competition)
|
| > Design-led product development processes that emphasizes the
| user experience (adds three years to Apple's lead)
|
| > A broader ecosystem build-out in terms of a suite of wearables
| and services (adds two years to Apple's lead)
|
| Why would competitors wait to start on emphasizing user
| experience and broader suite of wearables until after they create
| "custom silicon" (whatever that means)? And the claim that user
| experience is superior for an Apple itself is unsubstantiated. As
| an Android/Windows person, I would most likely have a better
| experience with an Android-based wearable than an Apple-based
| wearable because of the integration. If the claim is that Apple
| has a lead against competitors for owners of Apple products, why
| is that interesting enough to write a blog post? I bet Apple has
| a lead in Lightning to 3.5mm headphone dongles too.
| shitRETARDSsay wrote:
| Basically, I upvote anything Apple.
| jayd16 wrote:
| What a joke. Google, Facebook and Microsoft have face wearables
| in the market already. In Google's case, they've had enough time
| to do a full, release and kill cycle. And the Quest runs Android.
|
| How is that an Apple lead?
| ska wrote:
| > How is that an Apple lead?
|
| Because they have a wearable that people (and not just people
| in a niche) use and buy in significant numbers?
| jayd16 wrote:
| Does this logic mean Casio is the AR leader? In my eyes it
| seems like a ludicrous leap.
| ska wrote:
| Did you miss the significant numbers part?
|
| Apples watch is a mainstream consumer electronics hit. The
| closest other thing close to comparable I can think of is
| the fitbits - at least their simple ones. Nobody in AR (or
| face wearables) is playing in that space at all.
|
| I think "decade lead" is unsupportable. But the article is
| right that all of their competitors or potential
| competitors are well behind in some combination of
| capability in hardware, software, manufacturing, ecosystem.
| Most of them in all categories.
| jayd16 wrote:
| More numbers in a completely different tech stack is
| meaningless. How does a watch give you any learnings on
| an AR headset?
| ska wrote:
| I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make. That
| in some putative future where AR headsets become a
| meaningful product category for wearable Apple might not
| be in a strong position?
|
| True but not really germane.
| jayd16 wrote:
| If the article isn't implying Apple is ahead in AR
| wearables I guess I don't understand why AR wearables are
| brought up at all.
| krrrh wrote:
| I think people underestimate how big of a factor weight is going
| to be when it comes to face wearables. Apple's lead in terms of
| performance/watt is so massive at this point, they're going to
| have a few years where no other AR solution can even compete.
| defaultname wrote:
| I work in the AR space and it is incredible how much Apple is
| preparing their entire platform for a _massive_ push into AR.
| For years they have been laying a very robust groundwork with
| their APIs (ARKit, RealityKit, SceneKit), the inclusion of
| LIDAR on their iPhone 12 Pro / iPad Pro, and likely the entire
| iPhone 13 line. These are all things that are effectively
| gimmicky and seem like failures with little uptake, but all of
| it is just prepping for the inevitable headset in the very near
| future.
|
| They are going to absolutely dominate the market so completely.
| krrrh wrote:
| The addition of UWB to phones was another prime example of
| this. It makes airdrop moderately easier now, big deal, but
| locating objects accurately in space with high resolution is
| a huge problem for AR, and with airtags Apple will have way
| more experience with this technology in real world situations
| than anyone.
| setBoolean wrote:
| That baffles me sometimes. A lot of people see some features
| that they think of as gimmicky on their own. But then all of
| the sudden Apple releases something new that utilizes all
| those little features and combines them to something
| groundbreaking.
| jayd16 wrote:
| They can't even make a pair of headphones under 300 grams.
| krrrh wrote:
| AirPods must outsell AirPod Pros by what, 100 to 1?
|
| Each AirPod weighs only 4g.
| dagmx wrote:
| 260g https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MXJA2ZM/A/beats-
| studio...
| jayd16 wrote:
| Fair enough but they would have to change out the Apple
| design language. I find it odd that we seem to assume Apple
| would do this for a headset and not headphones though.
| cmsj wrote:
| You make an extremely good point. One could guess that a first
| version of AR glasses would be not unlike the functionality of
| the watch - a few Complications, some Notifications, simple
| apps for stuff like navigation/music.
|
| They have all of that, powered by a tiny system-in-package and
| a little battery.
| shados wrote:
| I know it's not quite the same and is a lot more complicated,
| but...
|
| What was Microsoft (PocketPC) and Palm's lead in hand held
| computing back in the days, right before Apple shit over
| everything they did in one announcement?
|
| Wearable as currently imagined kind of suck. Making them better
| while keeping the same concept is just gonna make something that
| sucks faster/lighter. Someone needs to come in and take the world
| by storm with something we didn't think of yet. Maybe that will
| STILL be Apple, but it could be someone else.
| pjmlp wrote:
| In what concerns Microsoft, if they had doubled down on WP7
| model (Silverlight + XNA) and just opened the C and C++
| toolchain to app developers (NDK style), instead of rebooting
| the ecosystem multiple times, their stuff would probably still
| be around.
| MichaEiler wrote:
| Thank you. I was wondering about this too. Breaking app
| compatibility between WP7 and WP8 was IMHO the death sentence
| for the platform...
| pjmlp wrote:
| Except that doing it once wasn't enough.
|
| 8.0 had separate models for phone, tablet and desktop.
|
| Then 8.1 unified tablet and desktop, while keeping phone
| apart for view code, so UAP was born.
|
| With Win10 everything got merged together as UWP and the
| whole One Core marketing happened.
|
| Then since the WinDev team had some score to settle, C++/CX
| was deprecated and replaced by C++/WinRT, which to this day
| after 4 years in development, still expects developers to
| manually edit IDL files and the generated code without any
| kind of Visual Studio tooling support.
|
| Now they have WinUI 3.0 with 1700+ issues on Github, with
| Project Reunion just hitting 0.8, with the very long term
| roadmap of unifying everything, assuming it doesn't get
| canned as well.
|
| So most of us that believed on the ideas behind WinRT just
| gave up, and went back to classical Forms/WPF/Win32.
| paxys wrote:
| That is in general a ridiculous claim to make when talking about
| consumer technology. No company has a decade-long lead in
| anything. If there is sufficient economic motivation competitors
| will always catch up in a year or two. It happened for
| smartphones, tablets, TVs, speakers, headphones, cameras, voice
| assistants and just about everything else.
|
| In case of the watch specifically I actually think there _isn 't_
| enough motivation to innovate considering the space hasn't blown
| up like everyone expected. If you take headphones out of the
| picture wearables as a whole is still a relatively niche device
| category.
| newscracker wrote:
| Pertinent point, IMO:
|
| > Google I/O 2021. At its 2021 developers conference, Google
| showed signs of finally taking wrist wearables seriously by
| ditching Wear OS and partnering with Samsung on a new OS. While
| it is fair to be skeptical that the effort will end up being
| successful, the announcement was a marked change from prior
| Google I/Os when wearables were all but ignored. Diving a bit
| deeper into Google's announcement, it's easy to see how far
| behind Google truly is in wearables.
|
| Google completely dropped the ball on Wear OS. To add to this,
| Qualcomm's wearable SoCs have also been lagging. Samsung is
| generally good at keeping pace with hardware, but has been
| hobbled by Tizen and a weak ecosystem. These things cannot change
| overnight, and Google's stewardship track record is something
| that doesn't improve drastically, regardless of any announcements
| it makes.
|
| For wearables as a whole, I don't believe Apple has a decade-long
| lead though. We'll have to wait and practically see what it does
| for AR wearables before concluding on a number.
| handrous wrote:
| I'd hesitate to put a time estimate like that on their lead in
| anything. They've had a "decade-long" lead on a lot of things for
| over a decade. The rest of the market (unfortunately) acts like
| it's decided not to actually compete directly with them _at all_
| , and to chase other segments instead, putting out products that
| might look kind-of similar but aren't really serious alternatives
| to most people considering the Apple version of whatever-it-is.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I didn't think I would like the Apple Watch as much as I do. I
| swear, add a camera, and I'll leave my phone at home.
|
| I know, it's not a mobile browser, not really much as a mobile
| messaging device -- but that's fine. One one hand, I'm not your
| stereotypical phone user that is always engrossed in the _black
| mirror_ but furthermore, the Apple Watch means I am even less
| inclined.
| nostromo wrote:
| I liked my Apple Watch for a while. Then... I forgot to wear it
| sometimes. Then everyday.
|
| I'd love to buy one again if it could hold a charge for several
| days. But the value proposition isn't high enough for the pain
| of daily charging.
| t-writescode wrote:
| I tend to charge mine in the shower or when I'm sitting at my
| computer at work. It handles a day just fine with a couple
| 30-or-hour long charges
| intellix wrote:
| Feel like I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. I hate
| wearing it and don't like wearing anything any kind of
| jewellery either. Only really wearing it for sleep tracking and
| I don't even do anything with the data. I don't really use it
| for time and I honestly can't think of any reason to use it for
| anything. The health stuff doesn't tell me anything is wrong
| with me and the notifications drive me insane vibrating on my
| wrist so I just turned it off and they've been off since.
| TENACIOUSANT wrote:
| Agreed on the haptics, a literal nightmare device with them
| enabled. But without I find it keeps me less tethered to the
| phone, and able to check on calls and messages during a
| conversation without breaking the flow
| t-writescode wrote:
| Turn off all the notifications. It's way, way better
| without them.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I leave the call notification on, since I feel like calls
| are time sensitive.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. I got the LTE connected Apple watch and I
| absolutely LOVE it. I leave my phone AND my wallet at home
| pretty much everywhere I go now. If I get a phone call, or a
| text, I answer it with my watch.
|
| I have phone, text, apple pay, music (spotify, pandora), maps,
| and so much more. Probably the only thing I miss is a browser
| to google something. But that's pretty rare that I need that.
|
| The best part is that all of these apps work natively, without
| the phone nearby, entirely over LTE or WiFi.
|
| Seriously if you hate carrying around a big phone, get an LTE
| connected Apple watch. It's a game changer.
| lettergram wrote:
| Pebble IMO was and still is the best wearable watch. I don't
| think anything worked better largely due to the long battery life
| and generally the e-ink design. Had they added different wrist
| bands with smart tech in it, it would have gone even further.
|
| I don't really think apple has a decade lead, what they do have
| is minimal innovation they're competing with. AND more
| importantly, a brand and ecosystem. That being said if Samsung
| came out with a decent watch similar to pebble and bundled it
| with their phones I think they'd be outselling Apple.
| drewg123 wrote:
| You should look at Garmin. They have models with battery life
| measured in weeks, not hours like the Apple watch. My 3+ year
| old 645 still gets 6 days of battery life.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I use a Garmin Tactix Bravo in tactical situations and it's
| brilliant! I think the battery lasts about two weeks.
| MrMember wrote:
| I bought an Instinct about a month ago and love it. I like
| the G-Shock aesthetic which I know isn't for everyone but
| it's everything I want in a watch. The battery life is
| amazing as you said. I charge it once a week and even
| regularly using GPS for fitness tracking it's usually at
| around 40% (it can be extended further by using a GPS mode
| that polls less frequently). The interface is responsive and
| straightforward (and button based instead of touch which I
| personally prefer). Like a G-Shock it's waterproof and
| appears to be near indestructible. I can't see myself wanting
| to replace it any time soon.
| 333c wrote:
| I had both the original Pebble and the Pebble Time. The battery
| life, always-on screen, and readability in the sun made for an
| incredibly useful experience. After my Pebble Time broke,
| rather than switching to another smart watch I got a simple
| "dumb" watch.
|
| Frankly I don't think I'll wear another smart watch that isn't
| a Pebble, which means I don't think I'll get another smart
| watch.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Pebble was a lot of fun for tech people who wanted a
| minimalistic watch, but the Apple Watch is in a different
| league altogether. The two aren't really comparable.
|
| There may be a niche market for low power, hackable, e-ink
| watches with minimal functionality, but the size of that market
| is orders of magnitudes small than what companies like Apple
| are addressing.
|
| Pebble ultimately fizzled out because the demand just wasn't
| there. It might be possible for an indie company to make
| something similar if they focus on staying lean and small, but
| it's difficult to cater to niche audiences with small TAMs
| where the barrier to entry gets lower every year.
| kentlyons wrote:
| I'm going to miss my Pebble when it finally dies. Still wearing
| my Kickstarter Pebble Time. One thing it did well was be a
| watch first, as opposed to a small phone on your wrist.
| Depending on your needs/expectations those are very different
| wearable experiences. Sure the nice OLED is great, but clearly
| that comes at the cost of battery life. This is especially
| notable if you use to wear dumb watches.
| Pxtl wrote:
| This. A smartwatch must be a watch first. A watch is small,
| always-on, and recharged rarely. Most smartwatches aren't -
| short batteries, screens that you have to shake to wake, and
| large.
| dgarrett wrote:
| A smartphone must be a phone first. A phone is large with a
| comfortable earpiece, has large easy-to-press physical
| numbers, and is plugged into the wall so it doesn't require
| recharging.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| A refreshed version with a thin display bezel and NFC to pay
| with NFC and I'd be sold.
|
| The timeline UI makes such much sense.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| I don't get why battery life is important beyond 24h. I just
| put the watch on its charger at night. Only downside is during
| traveling, one more thing to carry and possibly the watch won't
| make it through excruciating international travel.
|
| So it won't matter to me if the watch lasts a day or a week,
| it's off my wrist when I sleep and goes on it's charger.
| kentlyons wrote:
| Several years ago I did some research (published paper here:
| http://kentlyons.net/pubs/dumbwatch-iswc15.pdf) and one of
| the findings I thought was interesting was there were 3
| groups of people that implied different battery needs. One
| seemed similar to what you describe: people that took their
| watch off at night (so could charge it then). Another group
| wore their watch 24/7. And the final group which I wasn't
| expecting, but made sense in retrospect, was people that only
| wore their watch when out of the house. When they got home
| they'd take it off like setting down their keys.
| btowngar wrote:
| I'm T1 diabetic and use my watch for monitoring my glucose
| levels. I wear it 100% of the time, aside from showering when
| it charges. Charging quickly and having a minimum of 24hrs of
| charge is really important to me. Apple Watch hits both of
| those.
| ValentineC wrote:
| Do you have a separate accessory for monitoring glucose?
| I'm really looking forward to the Series 7 which is
| rumoured to have blood glucose monitoring.
| cozzyd wrote:
| If you want to track your sleep that doesn't work so well
| usaphp wrote:
| I never understood the point of tracking your sleep or even
| steps. It's not like knowing that I had N hours of deep
| sleep will somehow change my sleep the following night.
| Same with steps, it's pretty easy to understand without a
| tracker when you were active and when you weren't.
| abawany wrote:
| For me, it's the nags (e.g. Garmin's 'time to be active')
| that make it worthwhile to get me out of my groove. Also,
| the sleep tracking includes things such as SpO2
| measurement, which can help one see if changing sleep
| positions makes a difference. I feel somewhat confident
| in saying that my Garmins have likely extended my life by
| a few years.
| handrous wrote:
| I think people use them to: 1) figure out what's
| affecting their sleep quality, not necessarily just
| duration, and 2) trigger alarms within a window, rather
| than at a specific time, when the device registers that
| they're between REM sleep cycles so waking up to the
| alarm is less shocking and unpleasant, and 3) have an
| alarm or pager-duty-type alert that doesn't bother anyone
| in the bed with them.
| graeme wrote:
| What gets measured gets managed. Both my fitness and
| sleep improved after tracking.
|
| At the start I was able to use the sleep tracking to
| troubleshoot sleep issues and improve. After that, it's
| mostly a warning system for when I may need to nap later
| (and thus plan for it) or make sure to get to bed early.
|
| The steps are also a fun social thing. My dad and I talk
| about them and have streaks of 10,000. If we handle our
| days well, that's what we'd get anyway. But somedays, you
| slack. Being accountable to each other is a fun game and
| we walk more and are happier for it.
|
| The key to this kind of tracking is you mostly _don't_
| think of it. It happens automatically in the background.
| graeme wrote:
| Everyone says this without trying it. I wear my Apple Watch
| to sleep. In the morning I shower and charge it. It is
| fully charged and lasts till next morning.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| No problems here either. Lately I just wear it in the
| shower and charge it for a while when I sit down at my
| desk to work. It charges fast enough and I don't miss out
| on any activity tracking while I'm typing away at my
| desk.
|
| I plug my phone in to charge at the same time. It's
| really not a big deal.
|
| The only time it might matter is if I was doing a weekend
| camping trip or something, at which point the connected
| features of the Apple watch are less useful and a
| minimalistic Garmin would make more sense.
| maxerickson wrote:
| You missed their meaning. They meant that taking your
| watch off overnight to charge it gets in the way of sleep
| tracking.
|
| Edit: People aren't reading carefully.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27321770 clearly
| means what I've stated and then the parent says that they
| must not have tried charging their watch at some other
| time.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Still loving my Pebble, but sad as I've watched the battery
| life dwindle to ~4 days. I even put my phone in airplane mode
| overnight, which has extended it a bit. Does anyone else have
| any tips on how to make a Time Steel last?
|
| (I considered putting the Pebble into airplane mode, but it
| seems to be less reliable reconnecting to the phone if I do
| this.)
|
| What do Pebble-lovers get if they don't want an Apple Watch? I
| was hopeful about the Fossil hybrid smartwatches, but the UI
| just wasn't there (two clicks to see more of a message?).
| Garmin is on my list, but they have so many models I can't tell
| which ones are best, or where they are in their upgrade cycles.
| modeless wrote:
| I recently replaced the battery in my Pebble Time Round.
| Replacements are on iFixIt. It's not easy, but not impossible
| either. For me, it's well worth another 5+ years of use while
| I wait for someone, anyone, to make a decent competitor.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Awesome. How does it affect water resistance?
| modeless wrote:
| I re-sealed mine with Sugru. It is as waterproof as it
| was before, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately I used
| too much and some of it got squashed under the glass so
| it's slightly visible. It's really hard to use the
| correct (very small) amount. There are other adhesive
| options that I haven't tried.
| jollybean wrote:
| And BlackBerry was always the best for communications.
|
| I think we're confusing 1) tech 2) product 3)
| marketing/positioning and 4) brand.
|
| All of that together, Apple has a very powerful entrenched
| lead.
|
| They can launch almost anything and own the category, the are
| firing on all pieces.
|
| Google doesn't have either the supply chain, distribution or
| hardware-product discipline.
|
| And who else is going take on Apple's machine?
|
| So from a tech perspective, it's doubtful they are '10 years
| ahead' but from an operational perspective, it sure feels that
| way.
| emsy wrote:
| I had several pebbles (2 b/w and the colored one) and now have
| an apple watch. You don't know what you're talking about, the
| tech in the apple watch is years ahead. There's much to
| criticize about the apple watch but it does the important
| things just so much better than the competition. I also never
| understood the focus on battery life. I put my watch on the
| charger whenever I go to sleep. If I forget it either still has
| more than 50% charge or I can charge it quickly. I don't care
| for edge cases (camping etc.)
| lilactown wrote:
| One of the few things I used my smart-ish watch for is
| tracking my sleep.
|
| Without a large screen and turning off all notifications, I
| get about 3-4 weeks of battery with my current watch.
| Personally I rarely take it off.
|
| I'd like at least a week of battery if I were to adopt any
| other smart watch. For me personally, I enjoy thinking less
| about the battery of a device that I mostly use for passive
| personal data collection and telling the time.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| You must not care about sleep tracking? That's why I find
| battery life annoying on the apple watch, it always runs out
| by the end of the day. Luckily, it does charge really fast so
| 30 min before falling asleep and its back on.
| cglace wrote:
| Do you have series 6?
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Yes I do, and I use it for a number of things including
| sleep tracking which its great at.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I love my Apple Watch but the battery life thing is annoying
| because I do want to wear it to bed so the alarm can fire
| without waking a sleeping companion.
| amatecha wrote:
| I mean, sure the Apple Watch is "years ahead". It not only
| came out two years later, but is developed by one of the most
| wealthy consumer tech/software companies in the world. Pebble
| was acquired by FitBit right around the time the second
| iteration of the Apple Watch was out, so there's really not
| much point in comparing the two in terms of technology.
|
| Despite Apple Watch's merits over the Pebble, I still miss my
| Pebble watches. The thing I actually miss the most is the
| physical buttons, so I can switch the currently-playing song
| with my watch without having to look at it. Having nearly all
| interaction with the Apple Watch being a touch screen is one
| big downside IMO -- still something it hasn't really "beaten"
| vs. Pebble Watch :)
| psychomugs wrote:
| I feel the same way with regards to the physical buttons,
| so easy to control by feel. I'd pay decent money for a
| phone case with external buttons for pausing/playing and
| other quick access functions.
| emsy wrote:
| The actual buttons on the pebble were terrible though but I
| do agree, it really sucks that this isn't possible. I
| remember having a jailbreak tweak that allowed to use long
| presses on volume up/down to skip songs. Something like
| this could be done with the crown on the watch but we're
| talking about apple, so don't even think about using the
| physical inputs for something useful.
| usaphp wrote:
| > can switch the currently-playing song with my watch
| without having to look at it
|
| Why would you need to look at your watch? If you are
| listening to music on your Apple Watch - you are probably
| using headphones, all of which have next/prev buttons or
| gestures.
| [deleted]
| salamandersauce wrote:
| What is years ahead? It has a better SoC than competing
| watches for sure but what's the point? I wouldn't be
| surprised if the first Apple Watch has a faster SoC than my
| Fenix 5 Plus but other than the time it takes for it to make
| up a random running route I don't really care because the
| device feels snappy. My Pebble felt snappy too. I think other
| than EKG (don't care about that) my Fenix has all the same
| sensors, GPS, NFC for payments, HR monitor, accelerometer,
| altimeter, WiFi, bluetooth etc. I do wish it was a little
| more open like Pebble to get some of those weird little apps
| back though.
|
| To me, a power hungry OLED touch screen seems like doing the
| important things wrong. It's harder to see in the sun,
| doesn't work with gloves or when it's cold, you need to
| actually LOOK at it to do something like pause music or
| change the album.
| dagmx wrote:
| A better SoC usually means better power efficiency, where
| the speed means it can get through tasks faster under the
| same wattage, so it helps battery life.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Which is then completely blown by the screen anyways?
| It's not like you're tearing up complicated calculations
| on your watch. This makes sense on other devices but not
| so much on a watch. My Garmin lasts a week with the
| screen always on, several hours of GPS on and music
| playing during workouts. The most draining thing is
| music.
| dagmx wrote:
| Yes but those screen features are what some people ask
| for (and always on can be disabled).
|
| The watch also does do quite a bit of processing on
| device, especially cellular ones. It's quite a different
| beast than the Garmin, even though they have crossover
| emsy wrote:
| The functionality. I can use it as a flashlight, call,
| dictate messages, listen to music without phone, control my
| phone camera, use it for 2FA, map navigation, notifications
| with images and control smart home stuff. And yes, much of
| this convenience is due to the walled garden. I never had
| issues reading the screen, which I did have with my color
| screen pebble.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| I can do most of that on my Garmin. Really only stuff
| that requires mic is not doable because it doesn't have a
| mic. And I guess notifications "with images". Heck some
| of it like 2FA I did on my Pebble!
| emsy wrote:
| I can't compare with the Garmin, but the Pebble
| experience was subpar. I stopped wearing mine after a few
| weeks and gifted them to my mother after a while (she
| loved the pebbles but had constant issues with
| connectivity on Android). On the other hand, I expected
| to return my Apple Watch (it was an impulse buy due to a
| discount). But it really grew on me. It's actually a "it
| just works" product (which I can't say of a lot of Apple
| products these days). A friend of mine has a Garmin, but
| afaik he can't do much with notifications. On the other
| hand I have quick replies, voice to text or depending on
| the app quick actions. That's just not in the same
| ballpark. Do I need it? No. But it's really convenient
| once you got used to it. I don't know how many times I
| set the timer with Siri because my hands were full or
| dirty. If a second SIM card wasn't so pricey in Germany I
| would probably get one and leave my mobile at home most
| of the time.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Yeah, quick replies only work if you have Android with
| Garmin and other smart watches because Apple doesn't let
| them.
|
| The only thing I really hate about the Garmin is that
| they kneecap CJK support by region locking it.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _If a second SIM card wasn't so pricey in Germany I
| would probably get one and leave my mobile at home most
| of the time._
|
| This reminds me: it's silly that the Apple Watch eSIM has
| to be from the same provider as one's iPhone, and some
| providers which offer a phone eSIM don't support
| provisioning it for the Apple Watch, and vice versa.
| soneil wrote:
| I know you said you don't care about camping, but I have to
| point out it's simply not as big a problem as people like to
| imagine either. I take a battery to charge my phone for maps
| anyway. The big difference between charging my watch camping,
| and charging my watch at home, is when I'm camping, I put it
| on the charger and take it off when it hits 80%. I don't just
| leave it there while I sleep.
|
| 5-8 days on 1 or 2 powerbanks is normal. Most people hiking
| more than that are going to find somewhere to stop and charge
| (and restock food) at least that often anyway. Truly hitting
| wilderness for 2+ weeks is the actual edge case where I'd
| want to leave my watch at home.
| nickbauman wrote:
| The sleep monitor is amazing this doesn't work for me.
| thekyle wrote:
| > I put my watch on the charger whenever I go to sleep.
|
| One of the things that always confused me about the Apple
| Watch (and other smartwatches) is that they market them as
| sleep tracking devices, but if you do use it for that purpose
| then I'm not sure when you're supposed to charge it. I guess
| you could charge it during a morning (or evening) shower but
| is ~30 minutes a day of charging enough?
| leokennis wrote:
| I charge it for 30 minutes while I get ready for bed and
| for 15 minutes in the morning while I dress and brush my
| teeth. For the other 23 hours and 15 minutes I wear it.
| I've yet to see it dip below 30% (except for days when I do
| all day hikes and have my outdoors map + gps tracking on
| the watch).
|
| So I could probably make do with just the 30 minute charge
| in the evening.
|
| Before Apple Watch I used (in order) a Jawbone Up, a Fitbit
| don't know the name and a Garmin Vivofit. All three are by
| far way crummier than an Apple Watch. Both in comfort,
| build quality and functionality.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _I guess you could charge it during a morning (or
| evening) shower but is ~30 minutes a day of charging
| enough?_
|
| As someone who does this, yes. (It's more like twice a day,
| roughly ~30 minutes each.)
|
| If it helps, I also usually turn on cinema mode on my
| Series 5 before I go to sleep.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| You can set up sleep timings in the watch app on iPhone
| and the watch will automatically enter sleep mode in that
| range. It'll mute notifications etc. as well, and give
| you a sweet notification on your iPhone when it's done
| charging.
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| Around 10 years ago I wrote a Linux driver for the OCZ Nia, a
| super cheap EMG device. The Nia was actually a $10k medical
| device for paralyzed people to control computers with their face
| and tongue repurposed as a gaming input and sold for $120.
|
| While I'm certain the technology has advanced, what surprises me
| most is how basic these finger reading devices seem. They're
| basically some electrodes on your skin near major nerve centers
| and a little bit of signal processing, like barely any signal
| processing.
|
| It's about time this technology entered the mainstream. I was
| waiting for VR with occular/vagus nerve sensing for depth of
| field emulation but I guess hand sensors are the next best thing.
| leoc wrote:
| There was also the Myo armband by Thalmic Labs, later North,
| later a division of Google. Apparently it didn't work very well
| though.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The implementation shown in the video strikes me very much as
| an accessibility feature (which is a fine thing). By
| comparison, pressing the stateful stop button on my exercise
| watch is quick and straightforward.
| tengbretson wrote:
| Aside from some niche health-focused areas, the only value prop
| that wearables currently have to most people is in tech ecosystem
| integration. This just so happens to be an area where apple is
| head and shoulders above their competition.
| makecheck wrote:
| Apple's lead seems to be more in tangential things that are very
| hard to replicate: Apple Pay, supporting the highly popular
| iMessage, etc. These can never work with any other device.
|
| There are definite flaws in the device. I find buttons
| unnecessarily hard to tap for instance (they should offer more
| vertical space), and the face is so sensitive that it routinely
| triggers unwanted actions. It is really annoying to start
| something I _want_ (like a timer) and notice some time later that
| I somehow accidentally _stopped_ the timer by hitting my watch on
| something.
|
| As far as 3rd parties, I have seen a general trend of apps
| gradually withdrawing their support for watchOS. There just
| aren't that many useful things to do on a small surface. For apps
| suited to this (timers, reminders, etc.) it is fine.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yep. Apple's game has always been marking up marginal utility,
| and that's ultimately what you pay for here.
| nradov wrote:
| Apple Pay isn't much of an advantage. Samsung and Garmin have
| the same thing.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| When Samsung had mst they had a pretty big lead on the
| competition, but seems like they dropped it.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| Can't use Garmin pay to pay for train / bus fare, or at least
| not as widely as Apple Pay.
| simonh wrote:
| They have competing products, they don't have competitive
| products. There's an important difference.
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| Can't speak for U.S. banks, but in Europe more banks seem to
| support Apple Pay than Garmin.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| To start a timer, raise your watch to your mouth and simply say
| "start 1 hour timer".
|
| You don't even need to say "hey Siri". It starts listening on
| the gesture of raising it to your mouth. Genius.
|
| Raise watch to mouth and try things...
|
| "Text Danielle ____" "Open Pandora" "Open wallet"
|
| There are also settings to disable active watch face unless
| it's raised. I have that enabled and never have issues
| accidentally hitting it. Check your settings and let me know if
| that helps.
| varispeed wrote:
| Do they collect this information somehow? I mean by wearing
| this device and using e.g. a timer, do Apple employees can
| find out for example how often did particular person use the
| timer and for how long?
| tshaddox wrote:
| The raise-and-speak feature is extremely unreliable. It seems
| to refuse to trigger if you've interacted with the watch in
| the last few seconds, so if you try to speak to it and it
| doesn't trigger, it certainly won't trigger when you
| immediately try again.
|
| It also triggers all the time accidentally when my watch was
| nowhere near my mouth. I frequently look at the watch and see
| a message like "I don't understand that" with a transcription
| of something it thinks I said.
|
| "Hey Siri" is also unreliable, mostly because if you hesitate
| for a few too many milliseconds it thinks you've finished
| your query. I almost exclusively use Siri by holding the
| power button on my iPhone or Apple Watch.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Google put a ton of R&D effort into gesture sensing with short
| range radar (Soli) but it doesn't seem to have gone much of
| anywhere as yet. I don't think this type of interface is as
| important as the author claims.
|
| https://atap.google.com/soli/
| valine wrote:
| Google's gesture sensing went nowhere because it was laughably
| bad. It routinely failed to recognize gestures, was poorly
| integrated into the OS, and couldn't even be sold in several
| countries because of its use of radar.
| judge2020 wrote:
| It was such a gimmick on the Pixel 4, probably because it
| required you position your hand over your phone. However, if
| you can just make the gesture of turning a knob regardless of
| your hand position (which a wearable probably could do), that
| seems like it'd have a use case.
| gnu8 wrote:
| The article seems to be saying that Apple has a decade-long lead
| in wearables over a list of companies that don't even make
| wearables. That is a clever trick for giving the article a bold
| title, but the result is a fairly uninteresting and uninformative
| Apple jerk-off piece. It is akin to saying "Quaker Oats has a
| 150-year lead in edibles" where Apple doesn't even make food.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| So who are the most capable competitors to Apple in wearables?
|
| Among my friends and colleagues, those who don't buy Apple
| Watch often buy Garmin watches instead. In the area of fitness
| tracking watches, Garmin seems to be serious competition. It's
| missing the full app ecosystem of Apple Watch but I think you
| can send messages and email to some Garmin watches over 4G, for
| example.
| blinkingled wrote:
| I have been using the Samsung Gear Active 2 for few months
| and it is pretty good. Battery lasts couple days. it does
| everything I need and the UI is pretty good and simple.
| MichaEiler wrote:
| Around here (Austria/Switzerland, Country Side) people only
| wear smart watches for fitness purposes. Meaning most folks
| buy Garmin or Suunto devices. Another reason might be that
| the market share of Apple is lower in general compared to the
| US/UK.
|
| Personally I love my Garmin Fenix watch. It lasts a week with
| light usage or up to 18 hours when using GPS. It also offers
| NFC payment. Notifications might be supported but I honestly
| don't need yet another device to bother me with messages and
| such... Meaning I disabled all of them ;).
|
| On another note: Apple might simply be successful because of
| consistency. They've been iterating and improving on there
| smartwatch platform for years whiles others change their
| whole product every few years (samsung) or simply neglect it
| (google).
| deepGem wrote:
| As a current Apple watch owner I was tempted to get a Garmin,
| just for the battery life. It is super annoying to remember
| to charge the Apple watch every 20 hours or so. I wish Apple
| got around to offering better battery life than adding
| features.
|
| I finally caved and bought an automatic. I just want a watch
| to show me the time accurately, last long and offer good
| water resistance as I wear the watch all the time.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Personally, the watch I grab most these days is a good ol'
| Timex Ironman. I pretty much only wear a watch when
| exercising and pretty much only care about the time while
| doing so.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Fossil is a pretty significant player in the industry, I own
| their Carlyle 5 model.
| nradov wrote:
| Garmin is now #2 in smartwatch market share. Fitness tracking
| features are generally superior to Apple but there are few
| useful 3rd-party apps. Currently only one Garmin watch has
| some limited LTE support so they generally need a smartphone
| Bluetooth connection for messages. Rumors say they'll be
| launching additional LTE models soon.
| bitwize wrote:
| In 10 years or so, everybody will have to have a wearables
| story -- because of the market for them Apple created.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| Yeah, the Apple Watch isn't even 10 years old...
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I strongly disagree.
|
| Apple is selling a ton of watches because the brand is currently
| so strong that it's a no brainer for most people.
|
| Also, the product is actually not bad.
|
| But, I don't find it attractive, I think the rectangular design
| was an early mistake that will hinder their design for a long
| time.
|
| The software look good mostly because Google did a really poor
| job when porting Android to this form factor.
|
| This is not the end of the story, and it won't need 10 years for
| competitors to catch up.
| dijit wrote:
| I disagree with your disagreement.
|
| Though I also disagree with the article itself, but for one
| particular reason: I don't think it'll be nearly 10 years to
| catch up.
|
| I was skittish on the idea of a watch I have to charge (nearly)
| every day, but it really has improved my life, in fact it's
| _nearly_ to the point where I don't need a phone.. since I can
| pay, take calls, respond to messages, play music (though, not
| browse the web or take photos) without having my phone anywhere
| near me.. I've trialled entire days with no phone and it's
| worked pretty well honestly.
|
| There's nothing coming close to this anywhere else.
|
| But, I think people catch up easier than they lead.
|
| A decade lead is absolutely unthinkable- if google/samsung
| wants to do wearables seriously I think it'll be 2 years at
| most -- especially as they're almost certainly working on it
| already, and they can use the product that's already on the
| market as a meter to measure against for anything they're
| building.
| hinkley wrote:
| Most days I can put it on the charger when I get in the
| shower, and put it back on when I grab my keys and wallet.
| It's not like you have to charge it over night. Half hour
| will last you quite a while.
| dijit wrote:
| Depends a lot on the model and usage; I did that too (after
| recommendations from my friend) but ended up with low power
| warnings fairly often.
|
| And now of course the battery has significantly lower
| capacity than new, or the OS is much heavier. The watch was
| charged while I took a shower after the gym this afternoon.
| Was fully charged this morning. It's currently on 37% at
| 19:51.
|
| (for context, my watch is a 44mm (or, large) series 4)
| melling wrote:
| Apple needs a little competition. I expected the Watch to advance
| much quicker.
|
| 6 years ago I wrote this blog saying everyone would be wearing a
| smart watch within a decade. My reasons were "health and safety"
|
| https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo...
|
| " There has been much discussion on the need for smart watches
| like the Apple Watch. People have a hard time believing that a
| large market exists. I can't say with certainty that you'll be
| wearing an Apple Watch a decade from now but you'll definitely be
| wearing a smart watch from Apple, Google, or some new kid on the
| block."
| pram wrote:
| Looks like you were wrong.
| melling wrote:
| Yes, smart watches haven't advanced as much as I thought they
| would.
|
| Apple needs competition. They wouldn't make large screen
| iPhones until Android started winning, for example.
|
| Hopefully we get there. There's a lot of promise in
| wearables:
|
| https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/12/smartwatch-
| ca...
| amelius wrote:
| I've seen kickstarter projects with better wearables.
| farco12 wrote:
| Do you mind sharing some examples that have shipped?
| spamizbad wrote:
| Nokia had a decade-long lead in mobile phones.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| I'm not convinced the wearable market has been cracked at all.
|
| I feel when it finally is we'll roll our eyes at the current day
| smartphone concept.
| grouphugs wrote:
| all that data goes straight to the police, this is beyond a
| dangerous warning, not celebratory
| least wrote:
| I'm pretty skeptical that Apple has a decade-long lead on any of
| the other big players in the market. Any innovations that one
| company can make can be more quickly adopted than new innovations
| occur and there's nothing as far as software goes that Apple is
| uniquely positioned to create. The other factors mentioned such
| as silicon tech being years ahead of the competition is one that
| is hardly a factor for the smart watch category.
|
| On the other hand this is always the case and Apple's been the
| best at creating a general consumer wearable that appeals to the
| masses. Its integration into the apple ecosystem is a big selling
| point and that's probably the biggest factor that is basically
| impossible for competitors to replicate.
|
| On a tangential note, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the
| amount of work that Apple has put into its accessibility
| features. Assistive Touch on the apple watch will probably serve
| a remarkably small portion of the user base and perhaps costs
| more to develop than the return they'll ever see on it. Still,
| year after year Apple keeps advancing accessibility features in
| all of its products. This is definitely an area where big tech
| companies like Apple and Microsoft excel at.
| Mandatum wrote:
| The software side, they're so far ahead it's ridiculous. Google
| couldn't put out a watch to match the generation 3 Apple Watch
| today. They probably couldn't even do that in 2-3 years. Same
| goes for Microsoft's and Amazon.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > On a tangential note, I'd like to take a moment to recognize
| the amount of work that Apple has put into its accessibility
| features. Assistive Touch on the apple watch will probably
| serve a remarkably small portion of the user base
|
| On a similar note I'd like to point out that accessibility
| affects everyone. You don't need to be disabled to enjoy
| accessibility. My eyes are fine, (I think), but I find the
| iPhone X's lowest screen brightness too bright iOS's blue
| filter to be barely effective, so I use a custom color filter
| (almost full red) and "Reduce white point" and am super happy
| it's an option. People used and probably use assistive touch
| for things that don't compensate a disability, but just add
| useful features. The back tap shortcuts are just a nice
| feature. The zoom is nice if you want to show something to
| someone a bit further away. I could go on.
|
| As someone with perfectly fine hands I _love_ this feature
| because one thing I hate about modern smart watches (RIP
| Pebble) is that you have to touch and inevitably smudge up the
| screen. Bam, problem single-handedly (what pun are you talking
| about?) solved. Massive kudos. The other, more obvious
| advantage is that your other hand stays free, of course.
|
| > and perhaps costs more to develop than the return they'll
| ever see on it.
|
| As you see, the user base for such features is bigger than you
| may think. Besides collecting some easy sympathy points for
| helping disadvantaged people, Apple also seems to be huge in
| the business of servicing small, but under-served and vocal
| minorities (where can someone who wants a modern, small phone
| go?), which will turn into strong advocates for their brand.
| dhosek wrote:
| When I showed the designers at a company I worked at a few
| years ago how to enable screen zoom, they found it an
| imminently useful tool. Once enabled, ctrl-scroll zooms
| in/out on the display which is very useful for being able to
| check pixel-level details on, say, an HTML render.
| Fomite wrote:
| I'm skeptical anyone has a decade long lead on anything in the
| consumer electronics space.
| criddell wrote:
| When Tesla was starting up I was skeptical that they could
| overcome GM and Ford's century-long lead in car
| manufacturing.
| efields wrote:
| Your last p contradicts the first. Part of what makes apple
| products so good is the software, the depth and complexity of
| things like Assistive Touch doesn't happen in a few sprints.
|
| Their software isn't perfect, but it's so thorough that it
| allows them to do levels of polish that competitors have a hard
| time catching up to.
| least wrote:
| Once a feature is shown off in the real world it usually
| doesn't take long to replicate its functionality to an
| acceptable level. This give Apple a lead in that respect, but
| not years of a lead.
| whynotminot wrote:
| > silicon tech being years ahead of the competition is one that
| is hardly a factor for the smart watch category.
|
| What? This doesn't even make sense. This is by far the _most_
| important lead Apple has.
|
| Their ability to put performant and efficient chips into tiny
| devices is _why_ they have such a software edge. Other Android
| wearables suck because the underlying hardware is not able to
| power the experience without significant compromises.
|
| It's not an accident that WatchOS is vastly better than
| competing Android offerings. It's hardware driving software
| possibilities.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I don't really agree. I've owned a Fossil Carlyle 5
| smartwatch with WearOS and an Apple Watch 3, and Apple's lead
| is definitely on the software side of things. I actually
| really dislike the material build of the Apple watch. The
| screen is designed to expose as much of the surface area as
| possible to scuffs and scratches, while the body of the watch
| feels larger than any other smartwatch I've used. The Apple
| Watch got hotter than the Fossil, somehow, and the sensor
| bump is also much more pronounced.
|
| Anyways, it's not like this is up for debate anyhow. Ask any
| analyst who's watched the industry for the last decade,
| they'll still tell you that Apple's advantage is in the
| software world. If iMessage and MacOS were available on other
| hardware, Apple would be selling two crazy handfuls of
| nothing to customers. The average consumer doesn't care if
| their laptop has faulty graphics, a keyboard failing en-masse
| or soldered storage. They just want the little blue bubble to
| pop up when they send a message from their computer.
| Recognizing that, Apple arguably makes more compromises than
| anyone else in the industry. Their concept of "iteration"
| really only involves bringing their product to the next most
| common denominator.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| > Apple's lead is definitely on the software side of
| things.
|
| It's their lead in hardware that makes that software
| possible.
| whynotminot wrote:
| > I don't really agree. I've owned a Fossil Carlyle 5
| smartwatch with WearOS and an Apple Watch 3, and Apple's
| lead is definitely on the software side of things.
|
| I don't disagree that the lead is in software. I'm saying
| it's also in Hardware too. You're making comparisons to the
| Apple Watch 3--that came out more than three and a half
| years ago. It's not helping your point that you feel the
| hardware for your android watch is in the same ballpark as
| Apple's oldest supported piece.
|
| > Ask any analyst who's watched the industry for the last
| decade, they'll still tell you that Apple's advantage is in
| the software world
|
| Please don't willfully miss my point. I'm agreeing with you
| that Apple has a software advantage. I'm telling you the
| software advantage exists in no small part due to the
| hardware advantage. Apple's SoC prowess is a massive
| advantage.
|
| >If iMessage and MacOS were available on other hardware,
| Apple would be selling two crazy handfuls of nothing to
| customers.
|
| Are we talking about the watch or not?
|
| >They just want the little blue bubble to pop up when they
| send a message from their computer.
|
| Damnit. If you had started with this line I would have
| known to not bother reading more of your post.
| aphextron wrote:
| "People who are really serious about software should make
| their own hardware"
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| what folks don't seem to grasp is that hardware _is_
| (conceptually) software, except it much harder to change...
|
| And it works the other way, too, c.f. Lisp Machine.
|
| And then there were mainframes B6700 had loadable microcode
| that 'swapped in' different instructions depending on the
| higher-level language being run: http://www.retrocomputingt
| asmania.com/home/projects/burrough...
| burnte wrote:
| The whole article is viewing things through some heavily tinted
| glasses.
|
| 1. Apple was early - Nope, Apple came late to the party, years
| after first movers were there.
|
| 2. Voice computing distraction - Again, nope. Amazon Echo
| devices and Google Home devices are HUGE. Headphones and
| earbugs come with Alexa and google Assistant integration. Apple
| tries with Siri but it's consistently far behind Amazon and
| Google there.
|
| 3. Wearables require design expertise. It's not enough to just
| throw together some leftover smartphone components and ship
| wearables. -- Yet, that's what Apple did with the first gen of
| Apple watch. Gen 1 was also dead in three years. Gen 1 was a
| pilot project.
|
| 4. Ecosystem and technology advantage. - These are Apple
| advantages, but not ten year leads.
|
| 5. No price and feature umbrellas under Apple. - Well, there
| are a lot of people still wondering what utility they have
| aside from a few "health" measures. I personally don't care
| about my heartrate all day, nor my steps, or a bad idea of
| calories burned. I don't need to monitor my O2 levels, nor get
| instant EKGs. I personally stuggle to see the point of smart
| watches. Notifications? I can see them on the phone screen,
| it's just as easy for me to look at it. Music controls? If I'm
| in the car the controls are on my steering wheel. At home I
| just say "Alexa, stop" or whatever. When I have
| headphones/earbugs in? I can tap the button on my headphones
| just as easily as I can tap my watch. What else would I use it
| for?
|
| There certain is a price umbrella, too, because you have to
| have an iPhone and be bought into that ecosystem.
| lscotte wrote:
| It's unfortunate that the Apple cult has enough power on YC
| to downvoted anything that's not positive towards it. Sad
| that only pro-Apple opinions are allowed here.
| D13Fd wrote:
| I was with you until #5.
|
| The Apple Watch is very useful. That's why people keep buying
| it.
|
| It's nice to get notifications on your wrist if you don't
| have your phone out 100% of the time. The alarms are silent
| and dead simple to set, and it can function as your wake up
| alarm in the morning, and sync with your phone as a backup
| alarm. It lets you unlock your phone while wearing a mask. It
| lets you pay for things instantly without taking your phone
| or wallet out.
|
| If you are someone who exercises, the utility goes up even
| more. It's great to control your podcast or music while out
| walking or running without digging around in your phone. It's
| perfect for tracking your workouts, because it's always on
| your arm and it tracks your heart rate.
|
| I agree that the EKG & O2 level features are pretty much a
| gimmick. But the watch generally is an exceptional piece of
| technology.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I agree that the EKG & O2 level features are pretty much
| a gimmick. But the watch generally is an exceptional piece
| of technology._
|
| They are until they aren't, you know?
| https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-watch-lifesaving-health-
| feat...
| D13Fd wrote:
| None of those people were saved by the EKG or O2 features
| (other than that one person noticed a slow heartbeat
| while playing with the EKG feature). They are talking
| about the "fall detection feature, heart rate
| notifications, exercise tracking and even the ability to
| make a call from your wrist."
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| > It lets you unlock your phone while wearing a mask.
|
| I'm really glad I passed on the Pixel 4, mainly because I
| hated the concept of face unlock on a phone (slower and
| less reliable? sounds great!). And this was before the age
| of masks. I love having a fingerprint reader on the back.
| The phone is unlocked as it's coming out of my pocket.
| Google switched back with the 4a and 5 so I picked up a 4a
| 5G. It's a shame Apple won't stick a fingerprint reader on
| the back, too.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| But aren't those features (notifications, alarms, exercise
| tools, music controls) in a bunch of other smart watches?
| D13Fd wrote:
| > But aren't those features (notifications, alarms,
| exercise tools, music controls) in a bunch of other smart
| watches?
|
| Yes, definitely. I was replying to:
|
| > I personally stuggle to see the point of smart watches.
|
| I do think the Apple execution and hardware is generally
| better, but really I was just comparing the benefits of
| wearing a smart watch vs. not wearing one.
| nickbauman wrote:
| Agree on all counts. It's very hard to put time horizons on
| anything. But I started wearing a Series 3 watch (3 generations
| old now) when I started a project my client in 2019 insisted I
| wear it as I was writing code that utilized HealthKit data from
| the Apple Watch. Check my past posts I'm NOT an Apple fan boi
| at all. But compared to the competition, there's nothing coming
| close to the integration and the UX out there. My partner has a
| Rage 4 and it's just garbage in comparison. It misses and
| drops, the display is like from the dollar store. HealthKit is
| absolutely bulletproof. Every single decision in that API is
| gold. Every time I think something might be poorly done it's my
| misunderstanding or they made the best choice you can make.
| Deep respect.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Apple Watch might be the best smartwatches but for me the
| concept or smartwatch is still novel and I'm not sure if I
| want to switch. I wear ordinary watches and they're good
| enough for me. The only killer feature that I need is waking
| me up in a smart way (monitoring sleep phases and boozing on
| my hand between 08:00 - 09:00, for example) but Apple Watch
| does not have that feature. Other features are just not
| interesting for me. And, honestly, for most other people
| around me. May be I'm in a bubble, but so far I saw Apple
| Watch only once in my life.
| yurishimo wrote:
| While I agree that the wake-up feature you described is not
| available from Apple directly, I bet there's a 3rd party
| app out there that does what you're asking.
|
| I use the Apple alarm now and when if I go to sleep with my
| watch on, it will gently buzz on my wrist and get more
| forceful until I turn it off. The sensors to track sleep
| are all on the device, but Apple doesn't seem to have any
| interest in building a "sleep cycle" tracker at this time
| for whatever reason.
|
| A cursory search turns up the "Sleep Cycle" app[0] with a
| ton of reviews and even an "Editors Choice" award. Maybe
| Apple is holding their horses until they 100% nail the
| implementation, but if you can live with 90% in the
| meantime, it would probably be worth it to you if this is a
| thing you're really wanting in your morning routine.
|
| [0] - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sleep-cycle-sleep-
| tracker/id32...
| mcny wrote:
| The only real complaint I have is 8GB is not enough storage
| to update watch os. But there is praise in the complaint: you
| can update it at all.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| On that note, it feels so un-apple like that their official
| way of resolving the storage issue with updates is to
| unpair the watch and pair it again.
| unparagoned wrote:
| I've got a Samsung watch and the the heart rate monitor has
| serious reliability issues. Apples is not only suppose the be
| better but you got blood pressure and o2 monitoring. I'm
| definitely going to switch over in the future
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| It gets weird as you age.
|
| When I was younger, I wanted my vitals. I bought numerous BP
| machines. I even bought glucose meters. I wanted to know what
| my body was doing.
|
| I wanted to know because I was young, and those numbers were
| always fine.
|
| Now--I just don't want to know. You can call it denial, or
| life is too short to measure health stats all the time,
| especially on my wrist.
|
| I'm also a Certified Hypochondriac. I've been one for ever. I
| don't anything on my wrist reminding me of my eventual death
| of cancer, or a heart attack.
|
| Now--I get a physical every three to four years.
|
| I don't want to know what my aging body is doing daily.
|
| If I had diabetes though, the upcoming glucose monitor would
| be a no brainer. This will be huge.
|
| I'm a Watchmaker, so my tastes might not be Apple's
| demographics? My perfect watch is something I can repair, and
| just tells time, and looks good on my wrist.
|
| I will admit Apple square watches have grown on me. I didn't
| like them when introduced, but now they look fine.
|
| Would I trade my '62 IWC with the 362 movement for any Apple
| watch; hell no.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Most of the Apple Watch health features are blocked in
| Australia because they were literally too lazy to submit the
| paperwork to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)!
|
| All a competitor has to do is submit their paperwork and they
| won't get any competition from Apple. Easy!
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Who's the mug in this situation? Apple, or the Australian
| people?
| threeseed wrote:
| ECG has been available in Australia for the last month.
|
| Only health feature that isn't approved is O2 levels.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Most of the Apple Watch health features are blocked in
| Australia because they were literally too lazy to submit
| the paperwork to the Therapeutic Goods Administration
| (TGA)!
|
| Why duplicate all the work done by the FDA? Just use their
| certificate. Save the taxpayer some money.
| anoncake wrote:
| Because the FDA only certifies that a device meets
| American laws?
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| If you believe unthinkingly following American regulatory
| authorities is a good thing, I have a few hundred 737 Max
| planes to sell you.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Because the FDA doesn't really do any work in the first
| place.
| foobarian wrote:
| There have been some wearables coming on the market claiming
| to measure blood pressure. Family member got one.
| Unfortunately it turns out to be so inaccurate that it
| created more stress for them out of frequently seeing
| alarming numbers.
|
| I wonder if blood pressure readout is one of those things
| like Theranos' assays from one drop of blood - not possible
| due to physics. It certainly is less obviously so.
| nielsbot wrote:
| No blood pressure
| voisin wrote:
| Rumoured in next one based on some acquisitions they did
| pre-pandemic.
| DennisAleynikov wrote:
| I have been using the samsung line of watches since before
| apple watch was ever a thing, despite some heart rate
| variance the leadership in payments samsung commanded was and
| still is unparalleled.
|
| people with apple pay carry a backup card, a samsung watch
| allows paying with magstripe emulation in case of legacy
| terminals. pre 2020 pandemic this was indespensible and there
| are still often inoperable nfc terminals and MST is a great
| backup.
|
| I hate the elitism around the apple watch and its minor
| changes to standard health tracking wearable tech that has
| had normal LTE and other full phone functions from the get
| go... not to mention the ridiculous requirment that an iPad
| isnt enough to set up a watch, you need to buy into their
| phones.
| least wrote:
| When I first saw that feature of the Samsung watch I
| thought it was really awesome. I still do. But I also
| remember it being excluded from some of their watches? Is
| that not the case anymore?
| lscotte wrote:
| I had an Android smartwatch years before Apple even came out
| with one. Typical Apple reality distortion field in effect.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| I've had multiple wearOS watches and switched to the iOS
| platform in the last year. It's frankly night and day, for
| the extra bulk in the wearOS watches you get worse battery
| life and dismal performance. A lot of the blame can be placed
| on Qualcomm's back for not keeping pace with wearable
| processors. I'm wondering if Google's Whitechapel and their
| cooperation with Samsung can improve this at all, but it's
| currently a sad state of affairs. Dieter of The Verge and
| Linus of Linus Tech Tips have made all the same points
| scattered throughout this thread.
| lscotte wrote:
| Downvoted by the Apple cult, of course!
| sQL_inject wrote:
| I'm have to sort of disagree, not a decade but easily half a
| decade lead. Source: I worked in this space years ago with what
| was, at the time, the leader in the space, and remember how
| many of my coworkers laughed at the Apple Watch unveil. Now
| Apple is the one laughing with a girthy, multibillion dollar
| schadenfreude.
|
| Apple has leads in silicon and cross-platform integration which
| is inarguably led to a better user experience, extended battery
| life, and smaller form factor. Try piecing together an Airpods
| Pro grade product with 'off-the-shelf' parts and half the
| firmware engineers.
|
| Apple has orders of magnitude greater scale through their
| supply chain, and a real clincher: technological mastery of
| material science; from CNC milled aluminum to tooling for high
| grade plastic resin, and can shoulder out competitors from even
| touching the raw material once they've even realized they need
| it.
|
| Apple has solid brand cachet, which drives loyalty which drives
| revenue.
|
| Apple has (last I checked) the highest revenue/sq. foot retail
| space in the world. Yes, the rest of retail is dying, but Apple
| controls the image, experience, support, and purchasing of all
| it's own products. Check out an Apple store on a Friday night
| in the Bay Area, it's incredible how packed they are.
|
| Arguably the most difficult thing for competitors to copy is
| the culture of industrial design and UX prioritization backed
| by engineering. Every other major competitor in their spaces
| shamelessly copies the externals without the same cohesion and
| mastery of internals -- it's embarrassing frankly (checkout the
| Oppo 'Enco X' earbud site, it's a poorly made rip off of the
| Airpods site).
|
| I don't own any Apple products, and I don't endorse their labor
| practices, but I respect their brand, products, and patience in
| releasing GOOD things at the right time. Consumers do too,
| judging by revenue.
|
| Apple's weakness is now their precarious position in bed with
| China, which will take decades to undo.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Apple has leads in silicon and cross-platform integration
|
| I stopped reading after this part.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Both are simple, factual and true statements? Why does that
| make you stop reading?
| orev wrote:
| I'm glad you highlighted the materials/manufacturing
| component, which I think is frequently overlooked by tech
| people (who mostly focus on the chips and software). Apple's
| ability to build millions of devices with such precision and
| tight tolerances is really a huge accomplishment.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| Just to clarify, Apple doesn't actually build any devices.
| They are built by Foxconn, mainly. It's still very
| impressing, of course.
| stingrae wrote:
| To be clear. Apple provides the designs, the build
| procedures, fixtures, and test stations. Foxconn provides
| the facilities and workers.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > Apple has (last I checked) the highest revenue/sq. foot
| retail space in the world
|
| Does this also correctly count the area of all Apple partner
| stores? In some countries they sell Apple devices but don't
| operate a single store themselves.
| dhosek wrote:
| The revenue/sq foot ratio is based on the sales from those
| square feet, not the total revenue. They measure sales at
| each individual location for location revenues/sq foot and
| all locations for overall. Revenue from partner sales,
| internet orders, etc. are not counted in that (although
| they might include deliver to store website orders, I don't
| know). It doesn't hurt that they're selling products with a
| high price-volume ratio.
| amelius wrote:
| > Apple's weakness is now their precarious position in bed
| with China, which will take decades to undo.
|
| But this holds for the entire world economy.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Kind of, but among the largest tech companies, Apple
| uniquely runs most of its revenue through the hardware
| category, and gets a lot of revenue from China.
|
| Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook all use
| hardware from China, but most of their revenue comes
| through software interactions. Google does not officially
| even operate in China. Amazon has a limited corporate
| footprint in China.
|
| I think it's reasonable to say that Apple has higher risk
| related to China than many of its competitors.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Both Google and Facebook have _substantial_ proportions
| of their revenue from CN based advertisers.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| Apple has a significant lead in manufacturing, at the very
| least. I haven't been in the CE industry in several years, but
| when I was, they frequently bought out entire lines of new
| tooling equipment with exclusive multi-year contracts. They
| literally have some of the most advanced, bleeding-edge tooling
| in existence. It's very, very difficult to compete with their
| fabrication abilities.
|
| Combined with their market position, huge margins, decent but
| good looking software and UX, it's incredibly hard to catch up
| to them.
|
| Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables because there is no
| competition at their luxury price point in a luxury device
| ecosystem like the iPhone. To catch up, first you'd have to
| defeat the iPhone, meanwhile develop and then unleash a
| wearable all of your customers also want, and somehow make
| money doing so. It's a tall task.
| pvm3 wrote:
| Apple has a decade-long lead in wearables for the Apple
| ecosystem.
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