[HN Gopher] TinyPod - Apple Watch case with scroll wheel
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TinyPod - Apple Watch case with scroll wheel
Author : herbertl
Score : 891 points
Date : 2024-07-17 16:08 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (thetinypod.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thetinypod.com)
| chant4747 wrote:
| Seizure warning.
|
| Edit for clarification:
|
| The scrolling implementation here flashes rapidly on Firefox for
| Mac OS.
| mrstone wrote:
| I'm on Firefox and it doesn't flash for me.
| RIMR wrote:
| Firefox for MacOS?
| leidenfrost wrote:
| I'm usinf Firefox for MacOS and it does indeed flash
| Zambyte wrote:
| I'm on Firefox Focus on Android and it is flashing for me.
| Clamchop wrote:
| Flashes on first scroll for me as well, Firefox on Android
| here.
| ioshaan wrote:
| Yes, the top half of the webpage acts as a power point
| presentation, with image flashes - instead of a smooth
| animation. - firefox on linux
| mmanfrin wrote:
| Should probably check that your site works in firefox before
| submitting to hn.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Seems like they did, considering it works well for me on the
| latest version of FF.
| LegitShady wrote:
| do you have javascript disabled via noscript or ublock origin?
| It works fine on firefox for me.
| wvenable wrote:
| Works fine for me on FF and I have copious plugins installed.
| robofanatic wrote:
| TinyPod -> TinyPhone -> TinyPad
| RIMR wrote:
| Wow, this pitch really hooks you, and then halfway through the
| glitch-heavy presentation you're made aware that this is just a
| cheap controller for your Apple Watch, and that literally every
| feature they are advertising is a feature of the Watch, not their
| product.
|
| I would never buy this because it sounds like drop-shipped
| garbage. The marketing should be more straightforward and tell
| you what this thing actually is upfront, instead of burying the
| lede and acting like they made a new kind of phone.
| snapcaster wrote:
| Were you actually confused? Did you not read the title of the
| article but still somehow clicked it? really baffling comment
| aketchum wrote:
| a lot of negative comments here but i think this is really neat!
| It is unclear what the case adds besides the form factor and
| buttons. Is that the main value or does the case provide charging
| or additional memory or anything like that?
|
| Thanks for sharing!
| chadhutchins10 wrote:
| How does the scroll wheel work? Is it mechanical or it has some
| connection/interface with the software?
| asadm wrote:
| I feel it must be mechanical since it interfaces with crown?
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| tried to find that as well. the "How it works" section is
| completely useless.
| JadoJodo wrote:
| > "What goes around, comes around! Rediscover the delight of
| tactile scrolling with tinyPod's physical scroll wheel. And
| yes, it actually scrolls. How? Through carefully mechanized
| components inside, tinyPod's wheel makes direct rotation
| contact with your Apple Watch crown, letting it naturally
| scroll anything across the OS."
| Etheryte wrote:
| The how it works section says the following when you expand it:
|
| > Through carefully mechanized components inside, tinyPod's
| wheel makes direct rotation contact with your Apple Watch
| crown, letting it naturally scroll anything across the OS.
| orenlindsey wrote:
| It has to be mechanical, there are no input ports on the
| (current) Apple Watches.
| flemhans wrote:
| Wonder if the diag port would allow for it.
|
| > It's basically Lightning minus the PWR and ID1 pins,
| because those are for satellite accessories.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| There's no diag port any more on anything Watch 7 or later.
| They switched to a 50 GHz non-contact protocol for
| diagnostics on the Apple Watch.
| saagarjha wrote:
| *60.5
| rcarmo wrote:
| I'm sort of expecting a rubber band around the crown going
| down to a gear tied to the wheel.
| ldayley wrote:
| this kinda serves of a proof of concept for just how minimal we
| can get with a smartphone while retaining most of the "smart". I
| might even try this for a bit...
| LegitShady wrote:
| I dont think the average consumer wants this. They want a big
| screen, and flashy features, and a camera that makes ugly
| people beautiful.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| Finally I am not the average consumer!
|
| I think the parent comment's point is good -- if Apple are
| watching (pun not intended): you could make a truly tiny
| phone out of watchOS, please do it.
| LegitShady wrote:
| isn't apple getting so far out of the tiny phone game
| they've cancelled all the minis and even cancelled the next
| iphone SE?
| orenlindsey wrote:
| Yeah, the lack of a camera is a big reason why the Apple
| Watch isn't a great phone replacement.
| roughly wrote:
| Thank god they've got every existing product on the market to
| choose from, then.
| darby_nine wrote:
| Hard to say without phones available that cater towards other
| needs. I'm waiting for one that brags about not having access
| to most functionality outside of phone, gps, sms, and camera.
| compscistd wrote:
| One thing the Apple Watch is missing is being able to call a Lyft
| or Uber. Not something I do super often but it really would let
| me leave the phone at home more often.
|
| Also would have liked to see a little hole in the corner to
| thread a loop to.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Maybe an iOS shortcut could do it? Could even add inputs for
| address or current location...
|
| Looks like Maps lets you "request ride", so possibly even the
| native maps method could work here.
| m0dest wrote:
| From what I can tell, the "Request Ride" intent for Uber is
| broken (throws error on any request) and has been like this
| for at least 2 years.
|
| The Ride Request API [1] seems closed off to developers now,
| too.
|
| [1] https://developer.uber.com/docs/riders/introduction
| rcarmo wrote:
| Shortcuts was massively downgraded within one or two Apple-
| first releases (the original app was amazing, let me do local
| automations on the watch that included texting and API calls)
| colingoodman wrote:
| Uber used to have a watch app that allowed you to do this. I
| assume they canned it due to lack of usage.
| jon-wood wrote:
| The one time I used the Uber Apple Watch app it requested a
| car but no destination. I assumed they'd just ask me where
| I'm going but the driver was adamant that I had to provide
| one, which was impossible because the reason I was using the
| watch app is that I'd left my phone at home.
| camillomiller wrote:
| I don't get it. The Watch locks itself everytime it's remove from
| the wrist and doesn't stay unlocked if you unlock the screen when
| you're not wearing it then let it go to standby. So... you would
| have to input a pin every single time you use this contraption?
| Seems quite annoying compared to, you know, wearing the watch.
| asadm wrote:
| cant that be disabled? I think it can be
| borski wrote:
| Yes.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| i guess it's the same as phones, before biometric
| authentication? but in general yeah, the watch was not designed
| to be used like this and anyone who's used a watch should be
| able to predict how bad the UX is gonna be...
| thoughtsimple wrote:
| You can turn off wrist detection so it stays unlocked.
| 0vermorrow wrote:
| It's funny how we went from using iPod Nano as a watch with a
| third party case, to using an Apple Watch as an iPod Nano with a
| third party case.
| chant4747 wrote:
| We did? I don't recall an accessory like that for the nano.
| Seems it would have been too tall (wide?) to function as a
| watch. Happy to be proven wrong though.
| jmah wrote:
| Just search for "iPod nano watch".
|
| https://www.macworld.com/article/667363/ipod-nano-6g-with-
| st...
| DHPersonal wrote:
| It's a web search away, but here's an example from an article
| posted at the premiere of the watch:
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/2015-apple-watch-vs-
| the-201...
| ujeezy wrote:
| It was called the TikTok: https://ujeezy-
| blog.tumblr.com/post/2869125971/unboxing-the-...
| euvin wrote:
| I thought you were making a joke about TikTok the social
| media app at first. I wonder how many other products were
| named TikTok.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| It was a ver common phrase. I think its been lost to
| history but right before "TikTok" the phrase "tic tock"
| was getting popular as a way to say, "the second-by-
| second run down", e.g. give me the tic tock.
| smelendez wrote:
| This was common in journalism:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-tock_(journalism)
|
| But I haven't heard it in a while.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I feel like the most popular pre-app wide popular usage
| would've been the Ke$ha song.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >I feel like the most popular pre-app wide popular usage
| would've been the Ke$ha song.
|
| Agreed, a lot of the alternative usages that people are
| mentioning seem fake and I don't recall any of them being
| a thing. The only usage I recall being widespread was
| people saying tick tock to tell you to hurry up implying
| that the hands of a clock are moving. That and the little
| known novel from the 80's about a sentient murderous
| robot.
| lopis wrote:
| I believe that by the end of the century half of the most
| common words of the English language will have been
| hostilely taken over and ruined by tech companies.
| simonklitj wrote:
| Yeah, my cousin did this years ago. Wore it religiously too.
| sen wrote:
| I still own multiple nanos with the watch bands and the kids
| love playing with them as a "more kid-safe Apple Watch". Even
| after all these years they're still immaculate and work great.
| More than can be said by lots of other more recent technology.
| interestingsoup wrote:
| I was literally thinking what you said and I scrolled to your
| comment. WILD!
| ziofill wrote:
| Oh man I loved my iPod nano! I had the square one, and used to
| fill it with music and podcasts through a cable. I wish I had
| known there were cases to turn it into a watch
| Xeyz0r wrote:
| A bit ironic how the evolution of technology and user
| preferences can come full circle
| gnicholas wrote:
| This claims multi-day battery life, since wrist detection can be
| turned off. I'm curious to know how much of a difference this one
| change makes. I haven't bought an AW because the battery life
| isn't good enough for a "watch" in my book, but if it can get
| multiple days of life, and it's more like a phone replacement,
| then I'd be more likely to give it a try.
| nicce wrote:
| My charged watch (series 6)on the table without any use runs
| out of battery in 24 hours...
|
| My main reason why I don't use my watch anymore is that it
| needs to be charged all the time.
| dangus wrote:
| Get your battery replaced?
| nicce wrote:
| It is still at 90% capacity. It never lasted much longer.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I have never understood why AWs consume so much battery at
| rest. I have a Garmin that lasts for several days, and I
| would be happy to have an AW what doesn't do all the stuff
| the AW does, but which is made by Apple. It could be a
| dumbed-down version that just vibrates and displays messages
| that I receive. I basically want a smartwatch so I can avoid
| phantom vibrations, and so I can quickly see what messages
| have come in so I don't have to get out my phone all the
| time.
|
| Is this an issue with WatchOS, the chipset being used, or the
| size of battery they have chosen? I know a lot of people out
| there who do not consider an AW or any other smartwatch
| because they don't want to have yet another device to charge
| daily. There are other companies that have achieved very good
| battery life (Amazfit, Garmin, Pebble), so it is clearly
| possible to have weeks-long battery life with a feature set
| that is more than enough for people like me.
|
| I feel like I'll never have an AW until they decide to make
| an AWU-sized device, but with more battery and fewer hardcore
| workout sensors. I don't need to dive with my watch, or have
| it utilize multiple satellites for GPS. What I do need for a
| watch is to have it last for more than a day or two, so I
| don't have to bring a charger whenever I go on a trip.
| mikestew wrote:
| _Is this an issue with WatchOS, the chipset being used, or
| the size of battery they have chosen?_
|
| It is the screen (and cell radio, as I'll note below). Note
| that when Garmin started putting OLED screens in their
| watches, the battery life dropped dramatically compared to
| a watch with similar innards, but a MIP display.
|
| However, Garmin will still beat an Apple Watch for battery
| life even with an OLED display, because as you point out,
| the AW is doing a lot more in the background. And firing up
| that cellular radio is not cheap on battery, either. I've
| got a Garmin 945LTE with an LTE radio, and let me tell you
| that when that thing can't find a cell tower, it'll crank
| that radio up and burn through a battery in no time. Not so
| much that I've run out, but enough that I definitely
| noticed a large difference. It makes me wonder if that
| isn't the reason the 945 LTE has been neglected and no
| other adult watches have been made with cell radios.
|
| But, yes, make a "not so much stuff in the background"
| mode. If I'm in the middle of a 50 mile race, I don't need
| email. I don't need a lot of background refreshing. The AW
| does have a mode like that, but without going into a long
| spiel, I think Apple could do better.
| drdaeman wrote:
| > he AW is doing a lot more in the background
|
| For Apple-blessed stuff only. They tightened third-party
| widget update budget so badly third-party widgets that
| should provide up-to-date information are essentially
| unusable. E.g. large Weathergraph widget still works
| because it shows a day-long forecast, so being an hour
| old is rarely noticeable, but Fantastical (can keep
| showing outdated event for a while and miss the actual
| schedule) or Battery Grapher (can be up to 30 percent
| points off from the actual battery status) are absolutely
| unusable.
| saagarjha wrote:
| If you know about the events in advance, you can hand
| them to watchOS and have it display them for you. So I'm
| surprised to see calendar apps struggling with this...
| drdaeman wrote:
| You are correct. Calendar apps are less affected than
| e.g. battery monitor, but still suffers from meeting
| reschedules or new events.
| macintux wrote:
| I've found the Ultra comfortably lasts for two days if I
| don't wear it overnight, but that might change if I used it
| more actively in this form factor.
| adregan wrote:
| I've always wanted to take an apple watch and use it like a flip
| phone! This is pretty fun! I've never wanted the distraction of
| an apple watch and I appreciate the ability to put this thing in
| a pocket.
| sithadmin wrote:
| Along similar lines of thought: there is an Apple Watch case from
| Japan that replicates the once-popular Infobar 'candybar' phone
| handset: https://www.multicore.blog/p/infobar-apple-watch-case-
| review...
|
| Unfortunately the buttons are purely for aesthetics.
| nirav72 wrote:
| That is neat. I wonder if the antenna is there for aesthetics ?
|
| Also, would've been better if it folded up like a clamshell
| phone from the early 2000s.
| peppertree wrote:
| Watch Ultra are very capable mobile devices. This came out of
| left field but I can see it working for some.
| neolefty wrote:
| Which Watch Ultra do you mean? Both Apple and Samsung products
| come up in web searches for "Watch Ultra" for me.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| This article is pretty clearly about an " _Apple Watch_ case
| with scroll wheel ". Pretty sure which one it is can be
| inferred from context.
| ykl wrote:
| I unapologetically love this thing. It's of course very silly,
| and I'm sure commenters here are going to talk about all the ways
| that it isn't practical or that it's a niche idea, but I love
| whimsical silly niche hardware ideas that make it into actual
| hardware. I love that they put in all of the effort to figure out
| a mechanical linkage between the clickwheel and the digital
| crown!
|
| I don't think all hardware needs to be take-over-the-world
| hundred-million-unit ideas; I think sometimes it's fine for
| hardware to be whimsical niche things like this Apple Watch case
| or Andrew McCalip's doomscroller doo-dad [1]!
|
| [1] https://doomscroller.xyz
| jsheard wrote:
| Funnily enough the inspiration may have come from Apple
| themselves, before the Watch was announced they covertly tested
| it in cases made to resemble an iPod knock-off.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmgFk5hT6d8
| Xeyz0r wrote:
| Adds a layer of authenticity and nostalgia to the product
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Does it at least do anything well? An iPod replacement would be
| fun, but the best thing about an iPod was the wired headphones.
|
| This would only work with my AirPods, which almost never work
| without fiddling with something either in the UI or by taking
| them in and out of their case.
| obmelvin wrote:
| The best thing about an iPod was most certainly not the wired
| headphones, it was how much music you could store compared to
| most preceding devices.
| xeromal wrote:
| The second best thing was the scroll wheel. Interfaces for
| music devices before it were so janky. I loved my iPod.
| al_borland wrote:
| Beyond storage some of the other "best things" were the
| easy to navigate UI with the click wheel, instead of the
| finicky buttons or multiple repeated swipes that other
| devices required. Also the iTunes integration. Having a
| solid music app on the desktop, that made it easy to create
| playlists, which could that automatically sync with the
| iPod so everything was there without a bunch of work, was a
| game changer when it launched. I bought my first Mac to get
| iTunes, because the software on Windows at the time sucked
| so bad.
| wil421 wrote:
| I got my first MP3 player in 1999 or the early 00s. The SAN
| disk card had 16MB and I had to cut a song in half so I could
| fit 3/4 songs.
| Suppafly wrote:
| They could theoretically add a headphone port to this and a
| bluetooth to headphone adapter. I don't think the chips for
| that take up much space at all.
| achrono wrote:
| > it's of course very silly
|
| Beg to differ -- this is quite valuable as a new kind of paging
| device that you want to keep around instead of your higher end
| iPhone's battery constantly draining, and more importantly, for
| people who'd like to keep radiation at a distance.
|
| (Yeah, no, I'm not saying _you_ should keep away from
| radiation, just that some people do prefer to and it 's
| therefore a market segment.)
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Doesn't the watch also emit radiation?
| achrono wrote:
| Yes, but this way of ensconcing it reduces the radiation
| exposure since the device now likely won't be kept
| constantly in contact with the body.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You don't plan to carry this in a pocket?
| Naracion wrote:
| I think their point is pocket as opposed to against wrist
| the whole time.
| iszomer wrote:
| Or hanging around your neck with a lanyard.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Isn't the biggest danger to your reproductive organs
| anyway? That would make the pocket the _worst_ location.
| throwanem wrote:
| You would certainly notice if your genitals were
| absorbing enough energy via RF emissions to pose any kind
| of hazard. You would probably notice long before that
| threshold.
| fsmv wrote:
| That makes no sense. Phones and watches mostly use 4g and
| wifi band signals which both go through thin plastic
| shells and indeed your entire body without interference.
| achrono wrote:
| Distance decreases the intensity of exposure. I'm not
| trying to achieve complete avoidance, just a decrease of
| risk.
|
| To those who down-voted (actually or even as a
| psychological reaction) my original comment: consider for
| a moment that while this might be a fringe opinion, it is
| not without some evidence.
|
| https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/01/health-risks-of-
| cell-ph...
|
| If you think rats getting cancer from radiation is not
| relevant evidence, that's your personal opinion, not the
| most scientifically validated hypothesis.
| throwanem wrote:
| From the linked NIH page about the study (via the Wayback
| Machine):
|
| > "The exposures used in the studies cannot be compared
| directly to the exposure that humans experience when
| using a cell phone," said John Bucher, Ph.D., NTP senior
| scientist. "In our studies, rats and mice received radio
| frequency radiation across their whole bodies. By
| contrast, people are mostly exposed in specific local
| tissues close to where they hold the phone. In addition,
| the exposure levels and durations in our studies were
| greater than what people experience."
|
| 'Beware the man of one study.'
| achrono wrote:
| Sure, but is causing a _little_ damage to a _tiny_ part
| of the body acceptable? Exposure levels and durations --
| common sense would suggest those are going up with people
| using more devices for more time every day.
|
| I was not inclined to believe this whole radiation
| business for such reasons too -- "it's one study", "if it
| were so bad this would make front-page of the NYT",
| "entire labs of scientists and governments cannot be
| lying about this", "it's non-ionizing radiation, that's
| why it's safe you idiot!" etc.
|
| What made me look a little deeper was Huberman's AMA on
| EMF. It's become fashionable to dunk on him now but it
| gave me a pause in that I began to wonder if there might
| be some merit to this after all.
|
| Ultimately, this is like assessing the evidence for any
| other controversial topic -- unless you're working in R&D
| on radiation yourself, individual retail consumers of
| research like us can rely on the published evidence only
| to a certain extent. Beyond that, it's your priors, risk
| thresholds and heuristics for who to trust that will
| determine what you believe.
| throwanem wrote:
| Would that be Andrew Huberman? The podcaster and self-
| promoter whose former research specialism has nothing
| remotely to do with RF, or indeed radiation of any
| variety? You should consider the possibility it has
| become fashionable to dunk on him because he deserves to
| be dunked on.
|
| > Sure, but is causing a little damage to a tiny part of
| the body acceptable?
|
| I'll answer that question once you've shown credibly that
| it is meaningful in this context.
| specialist wrote:
| I've long wanted a lanyard for my watch. Maybe they can add an
| eyelet (loop?) to the bottom of these cases.
| highcountess wrote:
| So we are going full cycle? Pocket watches?
| lloeki wrote:
| > pocket watches
|
| Which, when you think of it, (smart or dumb) mobile phones
| kind of have been for a while already for people that don't
| wear (smart or dumb) watches.
|
| Tangentially I sort of lament the progressive disappearance
| of wall and street clocks, presumably caused by the
| constant availability of time in one's pocket (before that
| not everyone wore a watch but everyone soon had a mobile
| phone with time)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I remember from my kid/teenage years that there used to
| be a lot of clocks in the environment, both analog and
| digital, both public and private (e.g. digital clock
| scrolling between ads on a LED billboard over a store). I
| do also remember you couldn't exactly trust them - often
| enough, they would be broken, or they would show the
| wrong time for weeks after switching from/to DST. Analog
| clocks were the worst, because they rarely had a second
| hand, so you couldn't easily tell if they're working at
| all.
| NBJack wrote:
| Pish posh! How dare you even insuate it.
|
| Meanwhile, I am tired of my internal drives running out of
| space, and I don't trust the cloud. Flash drives and
| external drives are too expensive. I have a totally
| original idea of removable media that is inexpensive, flat
| for easy travel, uses magnetic high capacity storage, and
| even had a writable surface to remember what's on it with a
| simple marker! Brilliant, I know. And I have big plans to
| use BOTH sides for even more storage, as well as a special
| notch to distinguish when the contents are read only.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't think this is silly in the slightest. There are lots of
| folks like me who deliberately want to _break_ our phone
| addictions, which is why things like www.thelightphone.com
| exist.
|
| My problem with the Light Phone (owner of version II) is that
| it's _too_ limited. I don 't want to be distracted by
| notifications or social media or doom scrolling on the browser,
| but I do need things that are essentially task-oriented tools:
| Uber/Lyft, Weather apps, Maps, Authenticator Code apps (and,
| now, using my phone as a passkey), etc.
|
| I'm not an iOS user, but this makes be almost wish I were,
| because it's exactly what I'd want. It's too small to make me
| want to scroll YouTube randomly, but has all the tools that I
| don't want to forego. I think this is a fantastic product if it
| works as advertised.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| They recently announced a v3 of the light phone that might
| actually be useful - I also have a light phone II sitting in
| a drawer somewhere.
|
| It ditches e-ink in favor of an OLED + matte glass that looks
| amazing. Having 60hz refresh rate means we can get nice
| responsive apps while keeping the minimalist UI. Hopefully
| they will make it easier to develop and run custom apps on
| this one.
| jader201 wrote:
| > but I do need things that are essentially task-oriented
| tools: Uber/Lyft, Weather apps, Maps, Authenticator Code apps
|
| > because it's exactly what I'd want.
|
| I'm not sure it is.
|
| Most of the things you list aren't that functional on Watch,
| in my experience. It's ok-ish to pull up on Watch after
| you've set it up on your phone, but without a phone, Watch is
| much more limited, IME.
|
| You can definitely use Watch for a number of things without
| an iPhone -- Weather is one you list that is mostly
| functional, Timer, and Calculator.
|
| But beyond these basic by-design limited functionality apps,
| Watch doesn't do a great job as the main driver of most apps
| -- just more as a companion to the iPhone apps.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| But that is a function of apple doing their best to make
| the watch an extension of the phone rather than its own
| device.
|
| There is nothing inherent in the hardware limiting you from
| doing these things, but my understanding is that Apple
| makes it hard to do.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| For better or worse, that is the inherent assumption -
| that a smartwatch is a _companion device_ to a
| smartphone. The idea of ditching the phone entirely is,
| arguably, an unintended consequence of releasing
| smartwatch variants with built-in LTE connectivity.
| Giving the app developers the benefit of doubt, it 's
| understandable they don't want to make a standalone app
| for a fraction off the smartwatch models, where they can
| do with one simpler extension app for _all_ smartwatches.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| Yes, the watch GUI for apps is pretty limited. If you are
| okay using Siri you'll find a lot of functionality is
| actually available.
| ekanes wrote:
| Great point, and when AI integration makes Siri useful,
| this might be a game changer for watches.
| yunohn wrote:
| I've seen that a lot of Siri features defer from Watch to
| the iPhone. Even things like changing the lights.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Most of the things you list aren't that functional on
| Watch, in my experience. It's ok-ish to pull up on Watch
| after you've set it up on your phone, but without a phone,
| Watch is much more limited_
|
| It's okay to not pretend that Apple trademarked the word
| "watch".
|
| Calling it "Watch" looks/sounds incredibly awkward.
| geoelectric wrote:
| I've had the issue in the past where Apple's auto-
| correction would capitalize "Watch" every time I typed
| it.
|
| It doesn't seem to do it on my iPhone now unless it's
| directly preceded by "Apple." But I wonder if they're
| hitting that because I notice a lot of different people
| are capitalizing the word.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >It's ok-ish to pull up on Watch after you've set it up on
| your phone, but without a phone, Watch is much more
| limited, IME.
|
| Don't you normally still have a phone nearby and synced to
| the watch? I don't think I know anyone that uses a smart
| watch in lieu of a phone, just as an accessory that keeps
| them from having to pull out their phone.
| fgd135 wrote:
| But you can already do this with a smart watch without this
| case, right?
| andrepd wrote:
| There are other options in the Android space. Very very few,
| sadly, but they exist: check out the Qin phones like the F21
| Pro: it's Android on a 2007's Nokia form factor!
| dvdkon wrote:
| I feel like once you set third-party apps like Uber, bike
| rental or banking apps as requirements, the only possible
| solution is sadly a mostly standard cut-down Android phone.
| The third parties won't support any bespoke OS, so you're
| stuck with iOS or Android, and moreover they won't support
| exotic configurations like a tiny display.
|
| Thankfully on Android it's easy enough to remove/disable any
| distractions, and there are phones like the ones from
| Unihertz that are just different enough to be worth trying.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| The offline storage is a nice touch
| cbau wrote:
| It's art!
| lloeki wrote:
| > It's of course very silly, and I'm sure commenters here are
| going to talk about all the ways that it isn't practical or
| that it's a niche idea, but I love whimsical silly niche
| hardware ideas that make it into actual hardware
|
| It's crazy how I miss my 2nd gen iPod Nano, even though I
| wouldn't really have any use for it today. It was really a
| stupendously satisfying specialised device whose use is
| completely obviated today by general purpose smartphones.
|
| But then again I wear watches...
| Xeyz0r wrote:
| I think I love this too! An interesting concept for enhancing
| the functionality and aesthetic of the Apple Watch
| Suppafly wrote:
| >I unapologetically love this thing.
|
| I'm not really into the apple ecosystem, but I kinda like this
| as well. Smart watches don't really appeal to me, but something
| like this does.
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| This looks amazing. I do wonder though, how long it'll last
| before Apple C&Ds it.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| They might be able to C&D the name, but I doubt they'd do
| anything (or get anywhere if they tried) about the case.
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| The website is trade dress to the max. The average user would
| probably scroll through the page and assume this is an
| official product from Apple. Their logo is deceptively
| similar to Apple's, the name of the product is similar, the
| click wheel design is possibly infringing on some patent
| Apple owns.
| segasaturn wrote:
| This is great, it's the streaming iPod I always wanted!
| Preordered.
| miniatureape wrote:
| I think my perfect phone would be if Apple chopped an inch or an
| inch and a half off the bottom of the iPhone 12 mini and ran a
| slightly improved watchOS on it.
| makmanalp wrote:
| OK, in this vein, why oh why did Lyft and Uber remove their apple
| watch apps? I just need an app that's a single "take me home now"
| button so I don't have to worry about my phone battery dying when
| I'm out and about. Pretty please?
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Yes! This is one of the critical things I need from an on the
| go device
| free_energy_min wrote:
| if your watch can call
|
| https://www.uber.com/au/en/ride/call-to-ride/
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/watch/make-phone-calls-apdc3...
| hrrsn wrote:
| Amazing, they've reinvented a taxi.
| throwaway55110 wrote:
| A taxi with pre-calculated price, driver and vehicle
| rating, that actually arrives on time and the driver can't
| take you around the city with a boosted taxameter to
| overcharge you. Amazing indeed.
| misiek08 wrote:
| On time? Here in europe (Germany, Poland, CZ) you get ETA
| 7 minutes, but real time is 10-12 minutes every time.
| It's going down and only the cost agreement is now better
| than taxi. Money, as always, is the only matter working
| here.
| xeromal wrote:
| I don't know anything about germany but here in the US
| except for a few select cities, taxi service was garbage
| and user hostile. Uber improved it in every way. Uber
| gives me confidence that almost everywhere in the US I
| can get a predictable ride.
| mikestew wrote:
| You're complaining about a five minute difference between
| estimated and actual time of arrival? U. S. taxis would
| have you standing in the rain for an hour past promised
| pickup, and maybe they just don't show at all. There are
| good reasons that Uber, et al., were practically
| overnight successes.
| yoz-y wrote:
| Same in France. The initial ETA is always a lie.
|
| What's even worse is the ETA they give you before booking
| the ride. Still better than taxi in general , but that's
| a low bar.
| btown wrote:
| Completely speculating, but when an App Store review process
| can drive business decisions (we have to push the launch of X
| back because we're having trouble lobbying Apple to approve our
| changes), it's reasonable to see a second app as _doubling_ the
| likelihood that you end up in that situation. And even if it
| weren 't for the review processes, would every launch be at the
| mercy of reporters saying "this isn't supported on my watch,
| so..."?
|
| It's also possible that each company simply lost all the people
| who knew the watchOS APIs, and the incremental revenue
| generated wasn't worth hiring for that role again, or trying to
| convince someone else at the company to add it to their scope.
|
| Perhaps, as well, there was an expectation that Apple would be
| the one encouraging Uber to maintain and build the app, and
| give them favorable treatment on the App Store review processes
| as a way to sweeten that deal... and then when the larger
| relationships started to become more acrimonious, any ideas
| here fell by the wayside.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Almost certainly usage that doesn't justify the investment
| praisewhitey wrote:
| Would be cool if it also had a headphone jack
| rtkwe wrote:
| It's a fully mechanical shell with no electronics so you're
| asking for a jack in the watch itself which would be pretty
| comical. For this to add a jack you'd need Apple to have put in
| a port for 3rd party accessories and provide an API for using
| it.
| praisewhitey wrote:
| There are Bluetooth adapters for wired headphones on Amazon
| that work with the Apple Watch.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| I'd love to replace my phone with something like this. If only I
| could get Slack and Telegram to run natively without requiring a
| linked phone
| thih9 wrote:
| > What if sometimes you could just... leave your phone at home?
| With all the essentials to stay connected, tinyPod makes that
| actually possible.
|
| But that's a feature of an Apple Watch, this case doesn't impact
| this in any way - I already leave my phone at home like this and
| I don't own this case.
| colingoodman wrote:
| I also thought it was funny that they are listing features like
| apple pay and magnetic charging as if these features have
| anything to do with the case.
| lawlessone wrote:
| It also tells the time.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Plus I'd look goofy with my tan arms with my snow white watch
| tan mark.
|
| I also seldom, if ever, leave my house with my iPhone.
| pbronez wrote:
| One real feature: improved battery life. This might let me
| leave my phone in my bag and stop worrying about the watch
| battery.
| lokimedes wrote:
| I bought an Apple Watch to get away from the "screen" but of all
| evils, Apple don't let their watches pair to my car, not even for
| hands free coms. If only they would allow for regular stereo
| bluetooth and handsfree I would ditch my iPhone. Perhaps that is
| what they fear?
| nehal3m wrote:
| I just wear one AirPod, good enough for podcasts and phone
| calls.
| askvictor wrote:
| I'd jump at this (or even just a straight Apple watch) to
| replace my phone if it didn't require an iPhone in order to use
| it (I currently use Android; seems a bit silly to buy an iPhone
| purely to enable a watch). Hoping they consider this use case
| eventually, and it's worth remembering that early ipods
| required a mac to use, and early iphones required a computer to
| set them up.
| dmattia wrote:
| In my case, my wife has an iPhone, so I was able to setup an
| Apple Watch as my primary phone, while I do not have any
| phone other than my watch. So if you're on a family plan,
| maybe that's an option
| worthless-trash wrote:
| I'm not getting a family just to get an apple watch, cmon
| ;)
| graypegg wrote:
| Damn... I know it won't happen, but imagine Apple building out a
| device in a form factor similar to this case, using the extra
| internal space (compared to an apple watch) for a really nice DAC
| + headphone jack... I'd buy it. A streaming iPod! WatchOS would
| need some tweaks, but really most of the software is there.
| popcalc wrote:
| >really nice DAC
|
| Is there a Tidal app for WatchOS?
| bastien2 wrote:
| Oh look, carcinisation for Apple products.
|
| ipodisation: the tendency for non-iPod Apple products to evolve
| iPod-like features over time.
| jojobas wrote:
| Implying apple products are not cancer on their own right.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Cancers are serious conditions that are the cause of 25%-30%
| of all deaths. 1 in 2 people will have a form of cancer in
| their lifetimes. Cancers can have devastating long-term
| consequences beyond the illness itself, even if you survive.
| Treatment, recovery and sometimes remission is physically and
| mentally damaging.
|
| But perhaps I'm the one who is wrong. Please, explain what
| you meant exactly so I can understand your perspective.
| ragazzina wrote:
| I am not the OP, but "cancer" is used as, and I quote,
| "(figuratively) Something damaging that spreads throughout
| something else". In that sense, the commenter could be
| implying, for example, that Apple products damage the
| electronic gadgets industry with their closed and
| anticompetitive policies, spreading silently (because users
| buy more of them to use the whole ecosystem).
| jojobas wrote:
| That, and cause some hard to repair changes to people's
| understanding and evaluation of hardware and software.
| evilduck wrote:
| Carcinisation is a term unrelated to cancer.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| It is, however, a term related to Cancer.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_(constellation)
| evilduck wrote:
| Lol, I was thinking in terms of the disease or the
| Internet slang, but you're right of course.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Can you give some other examples?
| sqeaky wrote:
| What a fun and cool idea on such a horrid web page. I am curious
| what it can do, but whatever is going on is illegible and busted
| for me. I literally couldn't read any text on the left half of
| the page.
|
| I managed to scroll _down_ to a price and for what appears to be
| a tech toy $80 isn 't the worst price, people burn more on a 3d
| only to make 1 toy boat that doesn't float then stuff it in a
| closet.
|
| EDIT - Why the rollercoaster of upvotes and downvotes?
|
| Their page is busted, the toy seems neat. If you are downvoting
| can you explain why? Do you disagree about the toy? Did the
| webpage work for you?
| cocacola1 wrote:
| I absolutely loved the page. Had a lot of fun scrolling up and
| down and thought it was cleverly designed. Similar, but better,
| than what Apple does on their own pages.
| chant4747 wrote:
| Then you're not experiencing the bugs that some others are
| experiencing.
| popcalc wrote:
| Wait until you get RSI.
| sqeaky wrote:
| I suppose there is some novelty to this sort of thing. I have
| already had all that drained away years ago when this single
| all in one scrolling thing was a big fad.
|
| I never really liked this all-in-one scroll capturing pages,
| they violate so many user expectations. But I don't complain
| unless they are actually broken, others reported weird
| flashing, I am reporting bad Z-order and bad responsiveness.
| mesh wrote:
| Yeah, page is busted for me also, super janky, images flashing
| in and out.
|
| Firefox on macOS
| tills13 wrote:
| clearly built on a macbook with smooth scrolling. My mouse has
| a discrete scroll-wheel -- it snaps to the next position -- it
| makes this site a stuttering, jittery mess.
| serial_dev wrote:
| There are lots of things wrong with that page, but I didn't
| expect getting dizzy, motion sickness was going to be one of
| them.
|
| I guess it's my fault for putting up with such a garbage
| website because I was curious enough about the product...
| DistractionRect wrote:
| Firefox for Android here, it's a strobing mess. I have to
| purposely and very slowly scroll and wait for frames/images(?)
| to load in order to get any kind of cohesive
| experience/information out of the site. I think the product is
| really neat and I love the idea, but the site is insufferable.
| ninininino wrote:
| I want to know it's water resistance.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| There's 0 electronics in it. It should be fully water
| resistant, unless somehow there's an opportunity for the
| mechanical function on the scroll wheel portion to rust or
| something.
| rtkwe wrote:
| It's just a mechanical shell that connects the click wheel to
| the watch crown so in theory it should be about as good as the
| Apple Watch itself electronically. It might get a little gummy
| in the mechanism though.
| anon115 wrote:
| the website is adorable
| sktrdie wrote:
| Cool but doesn't the Apple Watch have all kinds of sensors to
| make it work against your wrist? Putting in this case will kind
| of remove the point of all those nifty hardware gadgets.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Yep, How to make your smartwatch not have half of its
| interesting features.
| mikestew wrote:
| If I'm reading your comment correctly, most if not all of that
| can be turned off. Turn off the passcode, and it no longer
| cares if you're wearing it or not ("wrist detection " is just
| to save you entering the passcode). Apple Pay and some other
| stuff won't work, but if just want an iPod/tiny iPhone, it
| should be functional enough.
| alentred wrote:
| I love the concept! I think TinyPod is an outcry over the sizes
| of the smartphones today. The smallest most recent iPhone you
| could buy was iPhone 13 mini and it was discontinued. Don't know
| about other brands, but from what I am seeing nothing fits the
| pocket anymore. There must but a niche for those who don't read
| or watch movies on their hand-held devices, and if the apps are
| well designed a smaller screen is just fine.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Not even the pocket, all modern flagship phones are so large
| that I can't use them well with one hand. I'll stick with the
| mini till the day it does and just hope there's a better
| something out there by that time.
| hanley wrote:
| I'm hoping that Apple releases a new mini on a 3 year
| cadence. Maybe there wasn't enough demand to continue the
| line every year, but they'll bring it back occasionally?
| BSTRhino wrote:
| Agreed. The moment the iPhone mini comes back, I am buying
| one straight away
| maxboyd wrote:
| They'll pry my mini from my cold dead (regular sized)
| hands
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| same, but they'll ruin it by putting a stove in the
| back.. iPhone 5 still is the perfect form factor for a
| phone, at least for me
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| My issue is I want a mini with the pro features. I'd
| happily pay the same price as the pro. But I doubt I'm a
| common type of customer.
| al_borland wrote:
| I just posted the same thing. I think there are more of
| us than Apple thinks, at least I like to believe that. I
| think Steve Jobs was in that camp as well.
|
| When the 12 mini was released I bought it and Apple sent
| me a survey. It seemed like have the questions were
| asking if I bought the mini because it was cheaper. It
| seemed like that was the assumption they were going with.
| I answered over and over again that I didn't care about
| price, and if there were comments I wrote that I was
| price insensitive and cared about the size, not the
| price.
|
| I get steep discounts on phone hardware through work, but
| if they released an iPhone 16 mini Pro tomorrow, I'd pay
| full price out of pocket, no questions asked.
| chadash wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. Want a small phone with premium
| features. My hope is that the next generation of iphone
| SE is at least on par with the 13 mini that I currently
| have. Otherwise, not sure what I'll do when my mini dies
| since the current SE is a pretty big step down from the
| 13 mini.
| al_borland wrote:
| I would enjoy this as well, but they need to be transparent
| about the plans, so people who want small phones can get
| them. On several occasions I bought something new (that I
| hated), because I thought the line I liked was dead. Then a
| year later they release something new to fill the gap.
|
| I bought an iPhone 13 mini the day the iPhone 15 was
| released and the 13 mini was discounted, with plans to keep
| it until it was pried from my cold dead hands. Now, less
| than a year later, I'm not sure how that's going to go.
| While I love the size, and have hated every other iPhone
| since the 5/5S/SE, the lack of RAM on this thing is a real
| problem. The browser can't handle some pages, things
| constantly reload causing me to lose stuff. It's not great.
| Some developers have also seemed to stop caring about
| making sure things work well on the smaller screen. I sent
| 1Password a bug report, they tested and confirmed it was an
| issue and said they do still support the Mini, yet the
| issue remains a year later, last I noticed.
|
| I've also wanted the Pro camera setup for years, but it's
| only on larger phones, so I didn't get it. There is this
| misguided idea that people want small phones because
| they're cheaper. I'd pay a premium for a small Pro phone.
| If they need to make it thicker to fit everything in and
| give it the same size battery, I'm good with that... it
| would eliminate the camera bump, which would be great.
|
| I buy my phones through work, so my next upgrade
| opportunity isn't for another 14 months. When the time
| comes, I'm not sure if I'll be as excited to hold onto the
| mini. I want to make my point, but also want a usable
| phone. Not to mention probably wanting some of those Apple
| Intelligence features. I'm troubled by the whole situation.
| RulerOf wrote:
| > if the apps are well designed a smaller screen is just fine.
|
| This was the problem I ran into. They're not.
|
| I held onto the iPhone SE for quite a while. Everything became
| progressively more cramped as the years went by. Some app UI
| controls were cut off. All sorts of web stuff was laid out
| funny.
|
| While everything did _work_, I get too annoyed at knowing that
| I'm having a sub-par UX every time I see it.
| shinycode wrote:
| I have a pro max and even with this size some websites are
| cramped and badly designed. I can't imagine with a mini
| version... such a shame because it's really nice to have a
| small phone at all time
| meroes wrote:
| Pockets? So 20th Century. I'm seeing people wear their massive
| phones on lanyards around their neck all day.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Really? What city or part of the world do you observe this?
| That is a wild fashion statement.
| panopticon wrote:
| My hope was that the mini would be a success and they'd
| eventually had a Pro Mini line, but sadly the mini form-factor
| hasn't sold well. I would buy a Pro Mini in a heartbeat.
| heyrikin wrote:
| I'm a fan!
| serial_dev wrote:
| There is a reason "boring" websites are popular... It's cause
| they work...
| crazygringo wrote:
| Wow, I just assumed this was going to be another "design concept"
| page.
|
| But it actually has a price at the bottom and says "Shipping this
| Summer".
|
| As a design concept, I think this is funny and clever.
|
| But as a "business", I'm a bit confused. It's hard to imagine
| that more than a few hundred people might ever actually buy this,
| if even that. So then how does the hardware manufacturing work?
| This seems way too mechanically complex to just be 3D printed,
| but this seems far too niche to be manufactured at scale.
|
| I mean it's very cool if this is a kind of hobby project made out
| of love. I just don't understand how a hobby project can sell
| this at $80, and 3 size variants no less. Is it some kind of 3D
| printing of all the individual plastic parts, and then each one
| is hand-assembled by the creator on demand? But it looks way too
| smooth with exact tolerances for 3D printing.
|
| I just don't get how the financial aspect here works at all --
| not even to make money, but just not to _lose_ money. Can anyone
| enlighten me?
| its_ethan wrote:
| The main body could pretty easily be injection molded plastic,
| which can be very cheap and still quite precise. You could even
| overmold the plastic onto other components (at more cost, and
| depending on what the deisgn "inside" actually entails).
|
| A teardown of this thing would be pretty cool to see what's
| taking the scrollwheel motion and translating it into movement
| on the watches crown. That could be a (relatively) simple set
| of gears set onto some stamped aluminum sheet, which can also
| be fairly cheap.
|
| Also never underestimate a Chinese OEM when it comes to making
| something (at any scale) fast and cheap. They could maybe be in
| on a % of sales too or something? The company selling them may
| also be gambling and put an order in for 10s of thousands to
| get the price they want/need and may have to sit on their
| inventory for quite a while and are risking losing money on the
| whole. Who knows.
| herpdyderp wrote:
| All I need is for Prism player to make an Apple Watch app and
| then I'll be all over this.
| paxys wrote:
| Have to resist the urge to spend $80 on a cool gadget that I will
| use exactly once and throw away in a drawer somewhere..
| popcalc wrote:
| It's a piece of molded silicone.
| its_ethan wrote:
| Cool gadgets can't be made of molded silicone?
|
| There's definitely more to it inside that's taking the
| scrollwheel motion and translating that to motion at the
| watches crown.. I'm personally curious what the _gadget_ that
| does that looks like.
| popcalc wrote:
| https://files.catbox.moe/nwvrf5.png
|
| Based on this screenshot of the render gif you could argue
| at this point it's vaporware. The tolerances and geometry
| for the scrollwheel housing just don't make intuitive
| sense. Maybe we should get some actual footage of a
| prototype working?
| its_ethan wrote:
| What about the screenshot supports the claim it's
| vaporware?
|
| And in what way do the tolerances not make sense? Just
| from your vibe check? We don't know anything about what
| tolerances are being used/held on any of the parts
| involved with the product, so this doesn't even make
| sense as a thing to talk about?
|
| Here's the video you're asking for:
| https://x.com/thetinypod/status/1813589903722311784
| popcalc wrote:
| >Just from your vibe check?
|
| Yes.
|
| Thanks.
| jimkoen wrote:
| I wonder if there is a market for a spiritual iPod successor.
| its_ethan wrote:
| I've thought for a while Apple itself could probably have some
| pretty decent success bringing back a new generation of the
| iPod. There's a (somewhat) popular community of people who mod
| old iPods to give them ssd's, better batteries, bluetooth,
| better screens, etc.
|
| Apple could make a really cool product again, and pitch it as
| like the "anti-phone" or "anti-social media" vibe that seems to
| be gaining some popularity.
|
| I'm imagining like a weeks long battery life, large screen (but
| not like an iPod touch), bluetooth for wireless headphoens,
| ability to have more apps (basically just allowing watch apps),
| WiFi+GPS, maybe speakers if they're feeling bold... idk it
| could be cool but maybe it'd be too niche still
| spaceisballer wrote:
| I took my old iPod video and swapped out the hard drive for an
| adapter that just uses micro sd cards. I suppose you can't use
| wireless headphones but it's now ultra light and the battery
| life is great.
| jordemort wrote:
| There is at least some market for it, judging by the amount of
| money raised by Tangara: https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-
| zone/tangara
| callalex wrote:
| I'm unable to scroll this website on a stock iPhone running the
| latest software. It just says "Say Hello to tinyPod". Why do
| people think it's ok to hijack scrolling? You're never going to
| get it right and now I have no idea what your product is even
| though I'm the exact target audience.
| petsfed wrote:
| If its any consolation, their scroll hijacking is also hot
| garbage on desktop firefox.
|
| Granted, its a hardware company, so I'm not _that_ upset that
| their web design is atrocious, but the fact that a minimal
| level of review would 've told them this was a problem suggests
| to me that the product itself won't be as polished as the
| videos suggest.
| popcalc wrote:
| >a hardware company
|
| They are pseudonymous individual(s) promising a piece of
| molded plastic. This is marketing, not technology. As such,
| you'd expect them to know how to put together a website that
| sells.
|
| Northrop Grumman is a hardware company.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| The device is really neat. The web site is shit. Good grief, I
| can't even put into words how much I hate having UI/UX like this.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Agreed the pages that override scrolling are horrible.
| amelius wrote:
| That's because you don't have the tiny scroll wheel ;)
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| I despise the flickering, it's intensely distracting.
| localfirst wrote:
| was just gonna mention this it feels annoying having to scroll
| multiple times to see a fancy animation
| devin wrote:
| When did this scrolly website thing come back into fashion?
|
| I feel like it was hot about 10 years ago, and recently that
| daylight computer website and now this one use it. It's an
| incredibly bad experience that I thought we'd grown out of.
| MrJagil wrote:
| I really like this product, but I have been on this journey, and
| will repost a comment i made to a recent thread about replacing
| your phone with an apple watch. --
|
| on: One year of using an Apple Watch Ultra as a phone ...
|
| I have done this as well, but with series 4. Some notes:
|
| - Apple Watch receives calls forwarded from your phone which
| creates a bunch of weird problems: 1) Imagine you're at a bar and
| get a phone call. You need to either answer on your watch
| immediately on speakerphone which means its hard to hear the
| caller and hard for them to hear you, and your conversation is
| not private. Or, dismiss the call, go outside, put your airpods
| in, hope they connect, call back, hope they answer, and hope the
| traffic isnt too bad around you because airpods do not have best
| mics. 2) connecting airpods really suck, especially at home. You
| have to have your phone in the charger for it to forward calls to
| your watch, so when you put on your airpods, they will likely
| connect to your phone, so you run to your phone, then your
| airpods "magically" connect to your watch all the while your
| caller is shouting "hello" into the void. Not ideal for work
| calls.
|
| - I really hated not having a notes.app
|
| - messages are kinda bad, especially if you're non-english. And
| again, if you're out at a bar and meeting someone, you cant
| really wait to get home to message back, you have to noodle
| around on the small screen.
|
| - Your friends will tease you. I didnt mind, but its good to be
| prepared.
|
| - its a teeny bit annoying wearing a tech-watch. Can get a bit
| hot etc.
|
| - You need an iphone to update the watch. This really suck
| because you never really feel you actually let go of your phone,
| its a hassle updating over bluetooth, installing apps etc. I
| would LOVE an ipad/mac watch.app.
|
| - You need Siri for many things, like maps.app, searching for
| certain things etc. It really sucks, like, completely unusable.
|
| - doesnt work well switching from wifi to celluar. So many of the
| watches problems stems from connectitivty issues between wifi,
| bluetooth and celluar. That said, i agree with every upside the
| OP mentioned. I will go back to watch+airpods again when it can
| work without an iPhone for calling and software updates. I think
| one new way to get around it is to setup watch with Family Setup.
| That way it can get calls without iPhone.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39982713#39988624
| giobox wrote:
| I think the biggest issue for many is using it in a car? As far
| as I know, the watch will not pair like a phone does for calls
| using the typical bluetooth standards that work just fine
| across all conventional cellphones.
|
| Not being able to field calls in the car would make this an
| instant deal breaker before I even tried. If I have to bring a
| phone along to ensure car support, I'm stuck bringing a full-
| size cellphone with me most days anyway.
|
| Losing Apple CarPlay (potentially no navigation app at all in
| your car) will also be massive detractor for a lot of folks. If
| you don't own a car, it's probably a ton more feasible with how
| the watch functions today though.
| thingsilearned wrote:
| I've tried this several times too and still do phone less days
| quite often thanks to the watch, but my big obstacle has been
| the lack of Uber/Lyft which I use instead of having a car. They
| used to have those apps on the watch but unfortunately they
| don't.
|
| If I could use Uber/Lyft on the watch I would mostly leave my
| phone on the charger.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| I haven't used my watch as a replacement phone, but my
| experience is quite different of the tech to yours.
|
| Connecting AirPods is pretty straight forward. I don't
| recognise the pain. I also don't think it's always necessary,
| yes, not every call can be on speakerphone, but you can pick
| up, explain you're switching to headphones if necessary, it's
| fine.
|
| I have AirPod Pros. The mic quality is great, even when on a
| busy street. Noise cancelling and adaptive audio is great.
|
| I do not need my phone to be in the charger for call
| forwarding. I have the cellular version, and my watch buzzes on
| every call, no matter what state my phone is in. This might be
| a setting, I've never changed anything, but I absolutely do not
| have the experience you have.
|
| Messages are fine if you realise the keyboard works as a swipe
| keyboard with auto-correct. You can also voice dictate, and the
| accuracy is decent, but then I'm British, so maybe it's trained
| on a data set that is more like my voice than many.
|
| If your watch is getting hot, there might be a fault. I've had
| an Apple Watch since the Series 2, and I've never had it get
| hot unless it's in direct sunlight, and then it's like any
| other metal case watch.
|
| Apple Watch requiring an iPhone is a major limitation, but I
| also don't mind it too much, as I'm always going to have an
| iPhone for those apps that I wouldn't want on my watch, but
| around me from time to time - banking, games, video players,
| and so on. I don't see my watch as a full replacement for my
| phone, but as a means to leave my phone home when it's too
| cumbersome - going out for a run, for example - or as a backup
| if my phone battery dies. Having it as Apple Pay and being able
| to use the transit card thing on TfL barriers in London makes
| it a slam dunk easy thing to use.
|
| In short: it's still an extension of your phone, not a
| replacement. If you want it as a replacement, you might be
| waiting a while, and if you don't want to use speakerphone or
| figure out AirPods with it, that could be a frustrating
| experience.
| MrJagil wrote:
| Real happy to hear this. As i said, it was series 4 and the
| first airpods pro and here in europe (where we sometimes lag
| a bit behind in features), so maybe things are different now.
|
| Re forwarded calls: maybe i misremember, maybe it was my
| local carrier or maybe apple has changed things but i'm glad
| things have changed. Can you recieve sms too? I couldn't and
| this reply corroborates my experience
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40994017
|
| Also, if you take your watch for a run with music playing on
| your aipods, does your watch stop the playback once you're
| back in phone range? Mine does and i hate it.
|
| I think music and podcasts are synced through iphone too,
| right? If you leave your phone turned off, will watch sync
| everything correctly?
|
| In other words, constant sync and connection issues was what
| made me ditch my watch as any sort of replacement phone.
| dools wrote:
| You can set up your watch using a phone, and then turn the
| phone off and the watch still works. What doesn't work is SMS
| messages from non-apple users, because they are forwarded from
| the phone.
|
| I set up my daughter's Apple Watch SE which we got her because
| phones are depression machines for teen girls (according to the
| Biden controlled MSM anyway) and I just set it up using my
| backup phone. I then backed up her setup, restored my setup,
| and when I need to update her watch or do something else
| administrative I just restore her backup to the phone, do what
| I need, then restore my backup to the phone, ready to fill in
| at a moment's notice if my phone needs to be repaired or gets
| lost or whatever.
|
| I also take calls on my airpods connected to my watch pretty
| frequently because I exercise without my phone. I've never
| really had a problem with it.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| brings back good memories of the iPod Nano 2nd Gen; still the
| best music player ever
| ethagknight wrote:
| I love this! I doubt I would buy it because I'm perpetually
| frustrated with WatchOS's reasonless limitations (someone texts
| you a photo and you want to zoom in on your tiny screen? sorry
| nope! plus a thousand other little things). Reminds of the 'naked
| robotic core' discussions from Accidental Tech Podcast, could
| create some really interesting possibilities and a way to sell a
| whole lot more 'watch cores'.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| Pocket watch!
|
| All it needs is a little loop for a chain. Neat concept.
| higgins wrote:
| i love that the content is organized as:
|
| What > How > Why > Buy
|
| i don't mind the shiny scroll effects and didn't know it was such
| a hot topic!
| anonygler wrote:
| This is hilariously brilliant. I love it.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| I love this thing! Phones are so huge nowadays. This nails hand
| feel and covers all the essentials (provided you pair it to an
| iPhone, ugh). Though at this size, it has me thinking... if it
| were just a little smaller, maybe if they moved the wheel to the
| side, you could probably wear this on your wrist, and then you
| wouldn't even need a pocket or bag for it! Imagine that, a little
| portable computer on your wrist. Pretty futuristic.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| If only the Apple Watch worked without an iPhone, I would buy
| this today.
| sssilver wrote:
| You're in luck because it does and that's exactly how my
| daughter uses it at school.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Is that a workaround for the increasing number of "no phone"
| policies?
| sssilver wrote:
| More of an attempt to give a kid a communication device
| that doesn't make it too easy and pleasant to be distracted
| from real life.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| How? I mean without owning an iPhone at all, not without
| yours nearby. I'm aware they have 4G. I mean for
| Android/dumbphone users.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| Good grief, just make me a smaller phone. Like, the size of pack
| of playing cards would be perfect. Just big enough to be useful,
| not big enough to be distracting.
| ymir_e wrote:
| This website is impressive. It's almost more apple than apple.
|
| Are pages like this typically "storyboarded", then designed in
| framer (or another tool) and from there the code is generated, or
| how does it work?
|
| People do amazing things with pure CSS, but this seems beyond
| what is sensible without some sort of tool to make the job a bit
| easier.
| dylan604 wrote:
| strong disagree. as i scrolled, the animation blinked as it
| loaded the image sequence and felt very staccato and not smooth
| at all. at least what apple does works
| al_borland wrote:
| What browser? It was smooth for me in Safari.
| jperoutek wrote:
| It blinked in and out for me in Firefox 128 (Windows)
| Crestwave wrote:
| To be fair, making a website that is half-baked and
| broken on non-Safari browsers is probably the epitome of
| being more Apple than Apple. :P
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I had a lot of blinking in safari on iPhone. I think it's
| something to do with downloading images.
| jojobas wrote:
| Any abuse of the scroll is outright hostile and leads to
| immediate closure of the tab.
| Gazoche wrote:
| My phone just chokes trying to render this page. That's on
| Chrome, Android, on a model that's a few years old (but not
| ancient).
| closewith wrote:
| As GP said, more Apple than Apple.
| _ph_ wrote:
| I strongly disagree. It doesn't render correctly on FireFox on
| my Mac. And while those animated pages might look cool, they
| are very bad on giving you information. The product looks
| really cool, but as a Apple Watch owner I would really like to
| know what exactly it does and how.
| asp_hornet wrote:
| It does exactly what your watch does now. It merely provides
| a way to interact with the watch in a similar way to the
| original iPod. Many people have their own personal reasons
| why they might enjoy this.
| rakoo wrote:
| I was going to rant how unusable this page is (it is) when I
| realized that it's just another form of content.
|
| The web was created for providing documents, like research
| papers. Then it evolved into applications, like Google Maps.
| This kind of website is different from others: it's a movie.
|
| Just like a movie it is expected you start at the middle and go
| through every single part in order until the end. You are not
| expected to start at the middle. You are not expected to search
| inside of it. You are supposed to consume it entirely from
| beginning to end.
|
| I like movies because they entertain me; this website is trying
| to go the entertainment way and I highly dislike it. I want to
| understand what the thing does, how it can be used: I'm looking
| for information, not a pleasant time.
| racl101 wrote:
| This is cool!
| racl101 wrote:
| One way they could take the watch analogy full circle is to give
| the case a hook and sell a little chain with it. Then it's a
| pocket watch.
| xeonmc wrote:
| Pocket watch -> wristwatch -> phones -> smartwatch - smart
| pocket watch
| mountain_peak wrote:
| Now that I've finally mastered replacing Apple Watch batteries
| (and replacing one incredibly small battery connector I managed
| to lift off the board), I asked my son just this morning what we
| do with the three outdated models we have lying around (we
| "abandoned" the watches when the batteries wouldn't last even 1/2
| a day).
|
| This looks like a great solution to repurposing our old watches.
| f_allwein wrote:
| I have 0 old watches/ phones lying around - always sell them on
| or give them to recycling...
| rcarmo wrote:
| Do you have any guides for that? I'd like to try my hand at it.
| mountain_peak wrote:
| I should have a guide, but haven't created one yet - don't
| want to derail the thread, but here are a few pointers:
|
| - The iFixit Apple Watch teardown is surprisingly effective -
| way more heat (and patience) is required then they indicate
|
| - Using an X-Acto blade between the frame and glass really
| works well without damaging a single component (please be
| careful and alternate heat and prying)
|
| - You may also need to replace the deep-press bezel -
| consider ordering one prior to your repair
|
| - The battery glue is very, very persistent - lots of
| unnerving heat and prying
|
| - Use a needle to separate the upper and lower battery
| connection on one side of the connector
|
| - Three different replacement bezel glue rings all released
| over time - Permatex black gasket maker is the only thing
| that worked to reattach the display
|
| Good luck, and I hope this helps save a few watches from
| being recycled prematurely
| rcarmo wrote:
| You should post that someplace (of course I'm keeping a
| copy).
| kalyantm wrote:
| I used to have the 5th generation iPod nano that had the scroll
| wheel and looked like this and I would buy it just for the
| nostalgia!
| mistyvales wrote:
| This thing kinda looks like a Playstation PocketStation..
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PocketStation
|
| It would be kinda cool, but I just don't need more devices in my
| life right now. Wish it could be standalone with a headphone jack
| though!
| Pufferbo wrote:
| How do they keep the watch from locking up while using it? My
| Apple Watch will always auto lock after a few seconds if not on
| my wrist and I'm not constantly tapping the screen.
| _rs wrote:
| I think that's done as part of disabling wrist-detection
| abaymado wrote:
| I actually really like this concept. Recently, I added OneSec
| (https://one-sec.app/) to most of the apps I use to create some
| type of friction. It works great on the apps I added it to, but
| the addiction is so real that I find myself doom-scrolling on
| apps I rarely use, such as LinkedIn
| dostick wrote:
| Aren't images mixed up where you choose the product ? One that's
| "with crown" has no crown and one without has the crown.
| Aeroi wrote:
| Wow, who did the branding and the web design!?
| jonwest wrote:
| I absolutely love this, but I hate websites like this so much,
| especially on mobile. I'm haphazardly scrolling hitting
| breakpoints trying to get to content that either lags well behind
| my gestures to animate a device spinning around, or zips past
| everything I wanted to actually read. If you want to show a
| video, please just show a video.
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| I guess it looks nice when cached, but i am just scrolling
| empty page and when I stop, after a second I get random
| picture. An epitome of atrocious design
| OvbiousError wrote:
| Agreed, at this point a lot of websites have become laggy
| human-powered movies.
| bschwindHN wrote:
| It's funny, you can basically play back the first animation in
| dev tools by just scrolling through all the media requests.
| Each frame of the animation is a separate PNG.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| this pains me :-(
| lopis wrote:
| Rest assured the website is as smooth as gravel on desktop too.
| agmater wrote:
| Almost gave myself a seizure trying to scroll down.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| I agree, but I also enjoy the way that they've emulated the
| apple website experience for product pages.
| caseyohara wrote:
| Except Apple's product pages are smooth and performant.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Wouldn't be hacker news without a comment shedding the bike to
| talk about the design of the page and make no mention of the
| actual product.
|
| The scrolling worked fine for me for what it's worth, and is
| obviously a knockoff of apple product pages. Satirical even I'd
| say.
| wmeredith wrote:
| Bike shedding is bike shedding because the color we paint the
| bike shed at the nuclear power plant _doesn 't matter_. If
| people can't use your scroll-jacked website to even learn
| about your product, that matters.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Wouldn't be hacker news without a comment explaining why
| their bike shedding is actually good and necessary.
| bert2002 wrote:
| Love it. Always wanted to have something like this for the Google
| Watch. Easy to stay update and receive alerts, but dont need to
| setup a second phone/device.
| dpunjabi24 wrote:
| This is dope.
| nsonha wrote:
| what is in the lite version? Just a hollow case?
| bux93 wrote:
| I love this as an expression of peak consumerism. Let those
| warehouses full of cheap mp3 players rot, don't bother trying to
| upgrade an old ipod with a new battery and storage (which it
| wasn't designed to be upgraded with anyway), buy the most
| expensive gadget you can and then add another gadget to it! In
| the grand scheme of things it's not as bad as my overseas holiday
| or anything, but conceptually it's quite impressive.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Must be a sad living being miserable all the time.
|
| > Let those warehouses full of cheap mp3 players rot, don't
| bother trying to upgrade an old ipod with a new battery and
| storage (which it wasn't designed to be upgraded with anyway),
|
| Any of those can integrate into modern Apple ecosystem?
| ragazzina wrote:
| > Any of those can integrate into modern Apple ecosystem?
|
| They can't because Apple does not want them to.
| wiseowise wrote:
| What an awesome thing in the spirit of the early internet, love
| it.
| steakscience wrote:
| This is a better "lite" phone than all the current lite phones
| out there
|
| It does very little, but also does all the essentials: maps,
| payment, music streaming, etc.
| canapeking wrote:
| https://canapeking.co.uk/
| trumbitta2 wrote:
| Awesome, but then no health data apart from steps if held like
| this
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| a smart beeper, that's the evolution i needed!
| rcarmo wrote:
| I just went out on Printables and found the perfect anti pattern:
|
| https://www.printables.com/model/866937-tamagotchi-case-for-...
| tasoeur wrote:
| Fun fact: back when the original Apple Watch was being developed,
| Apple internally produced something similar for people secretly
| working on it to pretend it wasn't a new product category. It was
| more or less a silicon sleeve that would show a fake keyboard. I
| may or may not still have one 0:-)
| kome wrote:
| ok that's crazy :) and super interesting! also it makes me
| think there must be so much secrecy, paranoia and politics
| within apple
|
| any other juicy stories??
| Suppafly wrote:
| > for people secretly working on it to pretend it wasn't a new
| product category
|
| Ah, someone earlier posted a link to a youtube of it, but for
| the life of me I couldn't figure out why they had used it, I
| had assumed maybe the interface needed work still or something.
| I didn't realize it was just to keep people from realizing it
| was a watch, that's kind of brilliant.
| personjerry wrote:
| This has made me want the Apple Watch more than any ad
| varispeed wrote:
| How long until Apple releases firmware update that will brick
| this?
| sammyteee wrote:
| How could they?
| DaveTheSane wrote:
| A Kids Version of this would be great. Robust, drop and
| splash/dust resistent. My son would love this to listen to his
| audiobooks on Spotify.
| pea wrote:
| Have you tried the Yoto player? Our daughter loves hers and
| they are pretty cheap. You can load them with your own mp3s
| too, which we download from BBC Sounds.
| msephton wrote:
| Cool, but I'd have to wait to see how annoying it is in use.
| dools wrote:
| Hold on... if you turn off wrist detection then doesn't that
| leave the watch unlocked all the time unless you manually lock it
| which is quite a hassle? For me that's the only fly in an
| otherwise pretty delightful jar of ointment.
| ibdf wrote:
| That's awesome. Can someone please make a wristband for it?
| tuetnsuppe wrote:
| Not sure if this a bug or an Easter egg but when I go to the buy
| form and choose the Ultra version the price always jumps by $10
| when I pick it ($89.99 vs $79.99, $39.99 vs $29.99) ;-. Is this
| tiny surge pricing?
|
| Edit: I only get this behavior on my phone.
| bentt wrote:
| This got me to charge my watch.
| WesleyJohnson wrote:
| I'm curious how, in this configuration, the Apple Watch handles
| things that require the various sensors? Obviously the ECG won't
| work, since it's not on your wrist. I'm assuming the "Stand"
| notifications won't work either, among other things. If you're
| buying this, I'm sure you're willing to make those tradeoffs. It
| just has me thinking what features of the watch you're losing
| that you might not realize at first.
|
| I guess the nice thing is, you just take it out of the case, snap
| on the band and put it back on if you need to.
|
| Pretty nice concept.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| The website does say that it turns wrist detection off to save
| battery, so I wonder if that or some other combination of
| settings to turn off the ECG and stand notifications takes care
| of those potential issues.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I really really wish I could use the Apple Watch as a stand-alone
| phone without having an iPhone to manage it
| plandis wrote:
| I love this. The website branding seems so close to Apple I think
| they will send a cease and desist.
| spandrew wrote:
| Part of me wants something like this to break my addiction to the
| back catalog of apps I doom scroll. Part of me knows that it's my
| own doing.
|
| The UI and industrial design of this is cute and approachable.
| Love it.
| dwighttk wrote:
| I think Apple Pay is going to require you to tap in a pin every
| time since you won't have it against your wrist
| pcdoodle wrote:
| This is amazing. Well done.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Take something that stays comfortably on your wrist and turn it
| in something else to keep in your pocket and that needs to be
| held with an hand to be used, genius!
| cogman10 wrote:
| Don't forget to block every one of the sensors you paid extra
| for.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Yes, awesome!
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| This is such an interesting concept I'd love to try it but since
| I have a Wi-Fi only Watch I'd have to tag my iPhone along anyways
| :/
| luxuryballs wrote:
| unless you find WiFi right? and that's only for connection
| required apps, it can certainly do more than an iPod, GPS
| should even work without data connection I think? you just have
| to store the maps/media
| RedNifre wrote:
| Epilepsy warning: This page flickers like crazy when scrolling.
| (On Mac Firefox)
| SeenNotHeard wrote:
| Resembles what The Onion predicted 15 years ago:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA
| kart23 wrote:
| can you call an uber/lyft?
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