[TheOtherHobbes]

I certainly don't agree with it. Wearables have a lot of potential, but wearable watches are fundamentally not a great idea - for practical reasons (screen too small, limited battery life) and for marketing reasons (can't compete at the low end, certainly can't compete at the lifestyle/status display high end).

Watch isn't even primarily a watch - it's an iPhone remote. And that's getting into rarefied meta-product territory.

So unlike the iPhone and the home computer, both of which have obvious use cases, Watch is still trying to define a compelling reason for existing.

But this just highlights the current Apple problem. Cook designs products using a very simple heuristic - smaller, bigger, thinner, more colours: basically good enough.

Jobs used to use a different heuristic - magical, original, creative, obviously useful, with world-beating production values.

It's a completely different approach. And you can see that in Watch.

Watch has no magic. It's good enough - barely, more or less. But that's all it is.

And if you're aiming for good enough instead of magical, it's too easy to fall short and end up with not quite good enough - which is where many Apple buyers are feeling the current product lines are heading.

[coldtea]

>I certainly don't agree with it. Wearables have a lot of potential, but wearable watches are fundamentally not a great idea - for practical reasons (screen too small, limited battery life)

I'm not sure I follow. A wearable watch will have the biggest screen and better battery life combo than any other kind of practical wearable device I can think of (e.g. when not strapping a 3" screen and a battery pack the size of a Zippo on you and calling it a wearable).

>So unlike the iPhone and the home computer, both of which have obvious use cases, Watch is still trying to define a compelling reason for existing.

If not other things, Fitness/health/medical services would be a killer reason for existing.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Wearables don't necessarily need a screen, and if they do have a screen, a more elegant version of Google Glass is going to be more persuasive - when someone finally gets it right, which they will in the next few years. (Could be Apple. But I'd put money on someone like Huawei.)

The watch format is a dead end.

The user benefit of the iPhone was obvious. The user benefit of a wearable watch is not obvious at all. As soon as you call the product a "watch" you're constraining the possible design and the user expectations, and also competing with hundreds of years of history.

As for health - for now, FitBit does it better.

A permanent on-wrist health lab with medical record sharing would be amazing, but the technology for that is a long way away.

Meanwhile Pokemon Go has done a lot more for health than any wearable has.

[codefolder]

2/3 of Americans are considered to be overweight/obese. And before you say, 'that's even more of reason to own one,' no matter how sleek the advertising campaign to peddle a broadly useless piece of technojunk, you're never going to convince the populous that exercising is fun. Unless it detects cancer, it's just a toy.

https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...

[coldtea]

>you're never going to convince the populous that exercising is fun

You don't have to convince the "populous", just enough tens of millions, and it would be a huge profit center.

And you don't have to convince them about exercise being fun or anything similar either -- just that not dying from heart attack and knowing your glucose levels and such is fun...

(There are 30 million people with diabetes in the US alone for example).

[codefolder]

Such delusion. The personal computer was important; a well designed mp3 player was desired by many; the tablet, a new way to interface; the smart phone, a communication necessity. The watch is just a toy without a core reason for existence. Not just apple's, all smart watches. It's ironic that a company who made its business selling fashionable tech will peak and fall from relevancy selling a purely fashionable device. You can monitor your glucose level with a sub-$20 device from a pharmacy, not several hundred dollars and a iphone requirement.

It's okay. You're not an innovator. You're not a visionary. You can't see the horizon. You're probably fascinated by shiny objects; trapped in the superficial glaze, unable to comprehend the substrate.

[coldtea]

>The watch is just a toy without a core reason for existence. Not just apple's, all smart watches.

The basic idea, that you don't seem to comprehend, is that it's not about the watch functionality at all. It's about having a 24/7 gizmo on you, with appropriate sensors to read medical data, movement etc, with enough screen and size to do a ton of things, from home automation to payments, etc, and eventually, and with

Here are things a smartwatch already does better or will eventually (as battery capacities get up to it) do better, with less bulk and faster access than a smartphone.

24/7 health monitoring Home automation controls Remote control (for tv, hifi, etc) Wireless Payments Panic button (health issue, crime, rape, whatever alert) Total phone operation (through voice recognition + wireless headphones) Navigation Music player (again, wireless headphones + voice/screen control) Show urgent notifications etc etc... ...tell the time.

It's a form factor common from the past notion of the watch, and simultaneously perfect for being always on you, always monitoring, small and non intrusive, and still having a large enough space for screen and battery.

>It's okay. You're not an innovator. You're not a visionary. You can't see the horizon. You're probably fascinated by shiny objects; trapped in the superficial glaze, unable to comprehend the substrate.

It's ok. You're not sophisticated. You're rude. You think in slogans. You can't see anything beyond an object being shiny or being made by Apple. You're probably fascinated by your own superficial analysis, and think your use cases are the measure of everything.