iPhone and iPad Remain Popular With Teens, Interest in Apple Watch Tepid Ahead of Unveiling

[diegogaja]

I have a pebble. I think it's overrated. In order to do anything but tell time it needs a phone (kind of like the apple phone). I use it when I jog. Phone on a holster on my waist and pebble on my worst to watch my speed, distance, etc. that's pretty much all its good for. The notifications are annoying and persistent. Also, if I get a notification, literally EVERYONE in the room knows due to the loud vibration. This is one reason I'm looking forward to the apple watch and its "taptic notifications".

not to mention it gets 5-7 days of battery life versus the Watch 1-day.

 

[haruhiko]

When the Apple Watch becomes "cool" they'll buy it in droves.

And it will become cool, because the mighty Apple marketing machine will make it so.

Every celebrity of any importance to them will be wearing it. Count on it.

Samsung has a marketing budget few times bigger than Apple's. So every celebrity will wear a Galaxy Gear or whatever it's called instead.

 

[psylence2k]

I have a pebble. I think it's overrated. In order to do anything but tell time it needs a phone (kind of like the apple phone). I use it when I jog. Phone on a holster on my waist and pebble on my worst to watch my speed, distance, etc. that's pretty much all its good for. The notifications are annoying and persistent. Also, if I get a notification, literally EVERYONE in the room knows due to the loud vibration. This is one reason I'm looking forward to the apple watch and its "taptic notifications".

pretty much every smart watch is gonna require a phone to utilize its' full potential

Isn't that one of the main points of a smart watch though ? to communicate information from your phone ? So it's gonna need it near by to transmit that info.

I dont understand people who say this about the Apple Watch or any other smart watch, of course it needs the phone for alot of the stuff it does. That's the whole point. At least for the main purpose that I look for in a smart watch which is the practical communication of notifications from calls, text, e-mails, etc. That's the most beneficial and practical aspect of it to me at least.

I do understand that maybe some people want a few things like GPS or what not to be stand alone but I'd much rather save on the size, price, and battery life that could potentially sacrifice.

I dont know the range of the Apple Watch but I've heard people get 50 + ft from their pebble. I'm RARELY more than 50 ft away from my phone (maybe in my house at times) but places outside the house ? I can't even remember a time where that was a problem. In the gym I'm sure others like myself are already use to having their phone with them always for music and in case of a call. At the end of the day, I think most of these watches are able to at least tell time on their own so you get the basic function of a watch without the phone but like I said I'm RARELY outside of what would be a bluetooth range of my phone.

You have to explain exactly what's so annoying and persistent about the notifications. Once you press a button to dismiss it doesn't that particular one go away ? The Apple Watch will definitely have an advantage with the taptic notifications but it will still have weaker water resistance (if any) and almost unacceptable battery life compared to the pebble for at least the first generation of the watch.

I dont currently own a pebble but I've heard alot of good things from people who love and swear by them. I know like every product you'll have those who absolutely love and hate it. I've watched multiple reviews and it seems to do what it claims very well and in a very practical manner for a affordable price.

 

[tattooedyuppie]

There was such a poor job done at the keynote of explaining what the **** the watch actually DOES. Other than sending heartbeats and drawings of fish (REALLY guys??), yeah it's a fuelband type thing but oh... You have to work out with your large phone (which I love but am not running with)... And by the way you have to turn this tiny digital crown to zoom in on a map and view pictures on a postage stamp sized screen. We know you just bought a 4.7"/5.5" phone so you can look at things on a way bigger screen but you really wanna view your gps on your watch...

Am I the only one who doesn't see the point of the watch?

 

[ani4ani]

Well for me i will be getting the apple watch the sport model 42mm in space grey. i am a cyclist and when out on my 70mi rides, when calls notifications are coming in i of to stop or take out my phone wile riding. Which made it very uncomfortable even dangers to do. with the apple watch all i have do raise my hand to see who is calling etc. I have being waiting for something like this for a long time.

Waiting for specifically an Apple solution? What you describe you want has been able fie a while now from other manufacturers.

 

[tattooedyuppie]

Well for me i will be getting the apple watch the sport model 42mm in space grey. i am a cyclist and when out on my 70mi rides, when calls notifications are coming in i of to stop or take out my phone wile riding. Which made it very uncomfortable even dangers to do. with the apple watch all i have do raise my hand to see who is calling etc. I have being waiting for something like this for a long time.

This application makes sense. I completely get this need for the watch. Can't see much other reason for it though.

 

[zipa]

Garmin, you mean those things that last 4 hours max under charge.... Same market hey! Don't even try it.



If Apple makes ANYTHING that lasts less than 24h under very heavy use while being smaller than anyone else, people, especially Androidies, will moan and bitch about it ceasessly; that's a fact.

Very few people run for more than four hours at a time. And I do believe that most of those will last around 12 hours on one charge, and much longer when you aren't using the gps.

 

[tattooedyuppie]

16 Year olds wanting an iPad I can understand, but buying a iPhone 6 outright for a 16 Year old?

Maybe they might want to have that money go to their first car instead. I know my daughter's definitely are not walking around with new iPhones.

I wonder what these parents are buying their kids when they reach 18, a new house?

A phone on contract can cost $100 in the states, and free if it's last years model. That doesn't sound too crazy. But buying a car for $100 does.

----------

Apple's making too big of a deal about the Watch's health implications. Teenagers don't give a crap about tracking their steps, stairs, resting etc.

Disagree. This is not a product for teens and health/fitness is a multi billion dollar industry.

 

[Keirasplace]

Very few people run for more than four hours at a time. And I do believe that most of those will last around 12 hours on one charge, and much longer when you aren't using the gps.

Well, find one that actually lasts more than 4h with the GPS on all the time, that's not as big as a brick house. Please lists me these. Because the people I know that use those watches are not seeing 12h AT ALL (not even close). And, it is all right, because as you say they're used only for exercising and nothing else.

Is that you want from the Apple watch?

Without the GPS, of course they'll last a long time, they've got basically no other main function that uses much battery.

Pretty sure that if you only use the Apple Watch to tell time it will last 3-4 full days, no question about it... So what?

Or you could turn on / off the cell phone chip, so it is used only when you need it. Not very usefull for receiving call.... But another big battery saver. Probably could last 1-2 days doing this.

Putting Wifi on demand could possibly be usefull (that's the only one I think maybe Apple could add) if your in a wifi hotspot, but at home Low power Blue tooth is better and I suspect we will get a lot more Internet gateways that have it in the near future (maybe coupled with Wifi routers).

 

[Tough Guy]

They should have named the watch the "iFlop" because I've yet to meet anyone who would ever possibly want that thing.

Nobody wants "smart watches". It's a product category nobody asked for and nobody is interested in.

That thing is gonna flop bad.

----------

There was such a poor job done at the keynote of explaining what the **** the watch actually DOES. Other than sending heartbeats and drawings of fish (REALLY guys??), yeah it's a fuelband type thing but oh... You have to work out with your large phone (which I love but am not running with)... And by the way you have to turn this tiny digital crown to zoom in on a map and view pictures on a postage stamp sized screen. We know you just bought a 4.7"/5.5" phone so you can look at things on a way bigger screen but you really wanna view your gps on your watch...

Am I the only one who doesn't see the point of the watch?

There is no point.

It's a product category with no demand. Nobody asked for it. Nobody wants it. And it serves no useful purpose. It just gives tech-heads a reason to waste money on a gadget that doesn't do much of anything.

 

[anomie]

Looks like it's INCREASING in popularity to me.

RIP MacRumors. Liked you better before you were purchased by Samsung.

----------



You don't HAVE to!!!

And yes it's going to go well. You can't realistically expect to put a wifi, LTE, GPS, battery, etc. in a watch size can you? And when it happens, you can bet that American Apple will do it before Korean Samsung.

Yeah, us-American Apple will do I with Korean Samsung's chips.
There is no us-American quality product. Every relevant part in electronics has to come from foreign countries.
Just look at us-cars with their ridiculous built quality. Outside the U.S., nobody really wants them.

 

[nia820]

It's the "thing " to have. In the next 10 years they'll be begging their parents for another expensive gadget. Maybe a hologram phone by then.

 

[Jimrod]

Let's be honest, if I were a young kid watching an Apple keynote.

There's that old grey haired guy, sheesh he must be ancient who's running the place, and the designer from England. You know, the old fat guy.



When I was young young sheesh 30 seemed like getting old
Apple's not exactly teeming with fresh dynamic blood on stage showing off the cool products. Just a load of old guys mostly.

(If I was looking at from my viewpoint a few! years ago)

That's strange, when I watched the keynote I figured it was all about some test card and something in Chinese, I have no idea what was going on besides that...

With that clusterf*** and rather disappointing new iPhones with nothing particularly new or exciting aside from larger screens (thin that no-one wanted except Jony), a messy, buggy iOS rollout and most of the new features still missing, a watch only tech nerds and fanboys seem interested in (hell, even with the hard sell to the fashion press it's still a pretty ugly watch and seems more 2007 than 2015) it just seems to me that this is the Apple bubble starting to deflate...

I know sales are amazing and all that but the rep is still there for now, more and more people are looking to Android (myself included having been an iPhone 3G, 4, 5 and now 6 owner) a lot more closely.

I don't even know what's going on with photos on my phone any more with all the unnecessary sub-categories ("Moments", "Collections", "Activity", "Recently Added"??) and can't even delete a picture without having to delete it twice now - then there's the whole cloud thing, I've got no idea - I'm not a Mac owner so have no clue about all the tie-in and timing with Yosemite or whatever that is (like the vast majority of iPhone/iPad users in-fact). Hell the iCloud that I open on my PC randomly contains pictures I deleted from the phone (and all sub folders) some time ago, not all, just odd ones here and there - slick.

All the things that made Apple special - amazing design, build, "just works" etc are looking less and less convincing of late. They seem to lack focus (it's not all about the watch Jony) and the buggy software (or rather firmware) is looking ever more Microsoft than Apple.

The iDevices are also starting to look rather dated - the form factor with large, rounded bezels that worked so well at smaller screen sizes and fit so well in the hand is now starting to look cumbersome and awkward with large screens - making them thinner seemed to be the only thing Mr Ive could come up with but in practice it actually makes them a little awkward in the hand compared to more ergonomically thought out designs. It's the little details like shifting the power button to the side - works well in principle but not so much when you have volume buttons the other side, right where your other fingers naturally fall when they counter the force of the press on the power buttton...

Apple aren't going down the pan any time soon but they've definitely started to stumble into mediocrity which doesn't really justify the high cost of getting aboard so easily any more.



Sorry, what started off as a sentence became a huge rant. But I feel better now and my first cup of tea has brewed nicely.

 

[psylence2k]

Disagree. This is not a product for teens and health/fitness is a multi billion dollar industry.

It's a multi billion dollar industry because of the vanity based marketing which includes alot of scams. It's a bunch of companies trying to present "simple and easy" options for people who want to look good rather than actually be healthy but let's be honest most people in this country and alot of other countries dont really care about health. If they did we wouldn't have such an obesity problem. It's a bunch of people spending alot of money on "cute" gym clothes, trying out their 28th diet program, and under utilized gym membership.

People can't even do simple things like watch what they eat and move around a little. If people can't do something simple like portion control and walk for 30 minutes a day I dont know why they would want a watch that would require them to log and pay attention to a multitude of health statistics that they would have to decipher.

I could definitely see the small portion of the people who actually do care about their health and the few whose life literally depends on them keeping a close eye on certain vitals buying this for that purpose that's of course if they could actually justify the price to themselves which I feel most wont but as far as the mass general audience goes ? I dont see it being some driving factor but just an additional extra feature that will be under utilized.

You know what people would rather utilize in an Apple Watch over logging their health statistics ? finding out who in town has the greatest greasiest cheeseburgers. The vast majority of people would rather use it to read menus than their health vitals.

 

[chochazel]

"Ahead of unveiling'

Did all the people criticising the keynote miss this bit:

>Munster's survey was, however, conducted before the Apple Watch was announced, so interest numbers may shift in the next Spring survey.

and indeed the title of the post

> Interest in Apple Watch Tepid Ahead of Unveiling

This is how many teens were interested in a watch they hadn't seen simply on the basis that it would be made by Apple.

 

[Macist]

I was just out of my teens when I first got a cellphone. Soon stopped wearing watches soon after.

 

[Jimrod]

Did all the people criticising the keynote miss this bit:

>Munster's survey was, however, conducted before the Apple Watch was announced, so interest numbers may shift in the next Spring survey.

and indeed the title of the post

> Interest in Apple Watch Tepid Ahead of Unveiling

This is how many teens were interested in a watch they hadn't seen simply on the basis that it would be made by Apple.

I think people criticizing the keynote are doing so because it was extremely poor, or at least I think it was - like millions of others who tried to watch it, all I saw was some test card on my live stream... "Bush League" as the Americans like to say.

 

[Freeks]

This survey is not true. iPhones have been un-cool among teens for a while now. iPhone is seen, like Facebook, something that parents use.

It is very, very rare to see teen with iPhone. They mostly use Android phones.

iPad is still THE tablet for teens, but tablet is not something that they carry around all the time.

 

[thekeyring]

Apple Watch seems like the best smart watch by far, but that doesn't alter that most don't need a smart watch at all. I wonder if this is like the iPod in 2001, though, and in a few years everyone will have one.

 

[FieldingMellish]

The iWatch is in concert with a 6 plus. Those that stow a 6 plus deep in a bag or backpack will appreciate a wrist mounted Bluetooth tether to the phone. I imagine in time it will be the same among the watch and an iPad one day.

 

[Wirbowsky]

67% of teens own an Iphone in the US ! Wow, I am amazed by those numbers.

I would be curious to know the numbers in my country. I suppose they are much lower as not so many people buy phone on contracts.

Again I am amazed by the marketing power of Apple. Think different

 

[Keirasplace]

This survey is not true. iPhones have been un-cool among teens for a while now. iPhone is seen, like Facebook, something that parents use.

It is very, very rare to see teen with iPhone. They mostly use Android phones.

iPad is still THE tablet for teens, but tablet is not something that they carry around all the time.

Actual sales stats and polls kinda says just the opposite. But, continue living in your tiny little bubble.

 

[Tech198]

...its not just teens go for them

 

[CEmajr]

13" MacBook Pro + iPhone = default high school or college tech setup

Right on the money. Walking around my campus one would get the feeling that the Mac actually had higher marketshare than the PC. It's like almost everyone has some version of the iPhone and a 13" MBP.

 

[paulsdenton]

Samsung has a marketing budget few times bigger than Apple's. So every celebrity will wear a Galaxy Gear or whatever it's called instead.

True, but I bet a lot of Samsung's goes to selling refrigerators, and other stuff

Apple has an aura of cool that Samsung would have to spend four times as much to try to emulate anyway.

Also, Apple marketing works. It appears that Samsung's does not.