Sure, but $269 is far less than $1,000 too. If you want to complain that it's more expensive, that's fine. What I'm objecting to is the outright misrepresentation of the facts.
You can buy a new, unsubsidised iPhone for $399, and everybody in the target market for Apple Watches already owns one anyway.
Why are people here so intent on misrepresenting the cost of Apple gear? You don't need to spend a grand on an iPhone to get an Apple Watch to work and you don't need to spend a grand on an Apple Watch either.
You need an iPhone to activate and sync data to an Apple Watch, but the watch retains many capabilities when disconnected from the phone. It will pair with headphones, join wifi to fetch emails, and play music.
I use an Apple Watch Series 2 for running and cycling. The S2 has GPS, so Strava works without the iPhone. I love it, but I have two gripes:
1. Only one playlist (up to 2GB) can be synced to the watch at any time. This is an annoying artificial limitation.
2. The heart rate monitor can be spotty. Around 10% of the time, it picks up my cadence instead of my pulse. I've tried every possible combination of orientation and band tightness.
For exercise, I much prefer the watch to a phone + armband. It's less weight. It's far easier to glance at. And it's waterproof, so I don't have to worry about damage from rain or sweat.
If you're interested, you might want to wait before buying one. It's been almost a year since the last update. Apple will likely release new hardware before the holidays.
Zero firsthand experience, but it sounds like you can store 1gb of music on the watch itself (and you can up that to 2gb) and play via Bluetooth headphones.
I'm currently using 2nd gen watch and airpods hoping that my workout experience would be more hands free.
There are couple of things that I find off-putting about the experience and tend to simply stick with airpods + iphone.
1) You only get a few options in terms of what music you put on your phone. You cannot simply select the albums you want, you can choose these options:
* Classical Music
* My Top Rated
* Recently Played
* Top 25 Most Played
* 90's Music
* Playlists
I would much rather upload specific albums instead and find it really annoying that I have to jump through hoops to accomplish that goal.
2) Airpods really struggle to switch between iphone to iwatch. Half of the time they cannot pair correctly. My macbook pro and iphone have no troubles at all pairing but the iwatch seems to struggle a lot.
If those two things do not bother you then go for it. When you have the music you want on the iwatch and the airpods pair correctly, it's a really nice experience especially with exercising.
I'm in the android ecosystem, and have had 2 watches that do this: Moto 360 Sport, and now have Polar M600 that can store music (from Google Play), and which allows running without a phone.