Jony Ive: Apple Watch and New iPhones Apple's 'Best Work Yet'

[nascimento]

Battery life

The quartz watch was popular because of the battery life, people were just fed up with having to wind or fiddle with mechanical watches.

No iWatch will ever be a success unless they can, at least, give it a few days life without having to recharge it.

(this goes for all of them not only the apple watch)

Oh and by the way that crown is nicely protruding from the watch and ready for a knock!!!!!!!

 

[Yanwoo]

So you're saying that people should just overlook the design of the watch and go for the ugly one, since it has better internals?
Then why dont you say the same with the new iPhone 6, since the new, lets say Xperia Z3, has better screen, better battery, more ram etc...?

Watch is first and foremost a style accessory so the design factor overhere plays quite a big role in my oppinion.

Before smartphones, a phone was just a phone. If smart watches take off functionality would inherently have become more important (and if you look at sports watches, that's already true)

I respect that it's a fashion accessory for you, it wouldn't be for as much for me. Not that I don't appreciate aesthetics - I'll choose form and function if it's available.

 

[Klyster]

What's with the uncontrollable hand gestures?

Secretly listening to Joe Cocker?

 

[the8thark]

The key is going to be how the watch performs when not with a smartphone and then how seamlessly it syncs up.

Without a smartphone the watch looks like being the iPhone in airplane mode. A nice digital time piece and not much else.

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I believe could take off in the 2nd or maybe 3rd generation.

I think gen 2 or 3 of the watch could be really good. I might be holding on for this I think. To see what the future brings.

 

[jeremy h]

This looks like a peripheral for an iPhone. I was expecting something that could be used as a stand alone item. For example being able to use it down the gym or running etc as a heart rate monitor without the palaver of a strap etc would have been great. As it is it looks like you'll have to take your phone anyway. Bah!

 

[H2SO4]

Not necessarily, particularly when announced 6 months before launch. I'll be amazed if they haven't kept back a few surprises for the launch. Plus given what we now know about the state of the original iPhone when Steve presented it (i.e. lots of work left to do and a fragile prototype) it's a reasonable guess that there's still a chunk to be decided. Also, they may be scouring the responses to yesterday and make changes - particularly on the o/s side. We've seen that before with iOS.

Although, saying that, my guess would be the battery will be a solid day and not the week that would be fantastic.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. When a car manufacturer releases a car there are certain things that he will always mention if it’s one of the real important features.
I’ll liken this to fuel economy. If they design a new type of engine that’s vibration free and produces almost no heat but he leaves out fuel economy figures that sets the alarm bells ringing. If it does 200mpg they’ll shout about it for sure.

 

[Deepshade]

This is a $1500 'designer' watch:

Image

Design is subjective. I showed the Apple watch to my girlfriend (who is not a geek) and she thought it was stunning.

Also: Companies like Apple influence fashion.

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Those are cheap jibes at the moto 360. Of course the processor is going to be more limited than on the latest smartphones. The battery thing is a bit odd.

We need to compare these devices on real world experience and use, not on technical specs.

That has a design ethic of its own. Cost - irrelevant.

Yes, design is subjective.

The iWatch looks forced and clunky.
We all have a view. As a designer, that's mine.

 

[macgabe]

For all you haters out there, I think there is only question. Does it pass the Christmas present test?

If out of ten presents under the tree on Christmas morning, you opened one and found this watch, would your heart beat a little faster, would you suddenly become a little excited, would a smile work its way across your grizzled face, would you think wow can't wait to try this out, this is what I call a real Christmas present?!

Or would you smile weakly at the giver and force an "oh thanks" through your teeth, thinking well I guess I can always sell it on Ebay?

For me, the former, and I have an inkling that there may be millions of others out there who would also like one for Christmas 2015

Plus I think the whole heartbeat/haptic/taptic thing is brilliant. It will appeal to all those people (mums?) who feel that technology is distancing us from the people around us. So it'll be a great present for women to give to boyfriends, husbands, children; and women control 75% of the budget in the US.

I think there are going to be hundreds of third party straps made for this, sold on the Apple Store. Nice if Apple can take 30% on a solid gold bracelet.

 

[Kares]

With this watch design Jony Ive went full retard.

Someone please take away his compass already before he designs the next MacPro in the shape of a ball. Looks like an inflatable mattress, like a FisherPrice or MyFirstSony product and that's sadly true of the shape of the iPhone 6 too. How about some edges?... The iPhone 5S is a much more beautiful design in my eyes.

The technology, the materials and the precision are all awesome, it's just the shape of the whole thing that is ugly and boring. It was pretty bad already with the iPhone 5c (especially with those horrible cases).

If Ive really wants to go down this road he should design Ben Wa balls, that must be his dream project.

 

[Deepshade]

For all you haters out there, I think there is only question. Does it pass the Christmas present test?

If out of ten presents under the tree on Christmas morning, you opened one and found this watch, would your heart beat a little faster, would you suddenly become a little excited, would a smile work its way across your grizzled face, would you think wow can't wait to try this out, this is what I call a real Christmas present?!

Or would you smile weakly at the giver and force an "oh thanks" through your teeth, thinking well I guess I can always sell it on Ebay?

If someone 'gives' you a bit of useful tech - why complain.

Its not about 'hating' it. Its about disappointment. So much potential for a beautifully crafted item of wearable tech and we get a shrinkydink iPad with a strap.

 

[Jiz]

Apple just hired Marc Newson so some very nifty watch designs will be in the pipeline soon.

 

[497902]

I'm wondering how the Apple Watch and the iPod Nano 6th gen with a watchband compare?

 

[Jimrod]

Apple just hired Marc Newson so some very nifty watch designs will be in the pipeline soon.

I doubt it, the Apple Watch may as well have been designed by him in the first place (who knows, maybe it was!).

 

[Yanwoo]

We’ll have to agree to disagree. When a car manufacturer releases a car there are certain things that he will always mention if it’s one of the real important features.
I’ll liken this to fuel economy. If they design a new type of engine that’s vibration free and produces almost no heat but he leaves out fuel economy figures that sets the alarm bells ringing. If it does 200mpg they’ll shout about it for sure.

I hear you.

Apple is known for being quite precise with their battery estimates, I just think it's most likely they aren't confident enough at this point to make a claim that they'll be held to. O/S optimisation can make quite a difference.

But I think you're right that it won't end up being a wow feature and perhaps if they were optimising between 4 or 5 days they would have come out and said that. I'll be impressed with anything more than a solid day's usage.

 

[CJM]

People here really hating on someone who traditionally does not like speaking to press. Give the man a break.

As for the watch... We'll see. V1 Apple products usually have great ideas but leave something to be desired. Further refinement will make it awesome.

 

[Yanwoo]

People here really hating on someone who traditionally does not like speaking to press. Give the man a break.

As for the watch... We'll see. V1 Apple products usually have great ideas but leave something to be desired. Further refinement will make it awesome.

Exactly! Apple likes to prioritise and get what they think is the most critical things right first before evolving and adding stuff. We can be pretty sure Apple is committed to this long term. This a new space and we're going to learn a lot as (or if) they become more mainstream.

For me, it's the start of something exciting rather than the v1 product itself being exciting.

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That has a design ethic of its own. Cost - irrelevant.

Yes, design is subjective.

The iWatch looks forced and clunky.
We all have a view. As a designer, that's mine.

And I thank you for sharing it

 

[Belly-laughs]

I would really like to know if that Watch is so ugly and not looking as good as other Apple products because they had limited space for stuff inside or they just want to allow limited customers to try it first and make real product in next iterations.

Personally I love that heptic messages and I'm sure that trying this type of communication will make me addicted really fast. But man, this thing IS UGLY. Really, that's the best Apple can do?

For the iPhone on the other hand I have mixed feelings. iP4 and iP5 launch always made me think 'I need to have that stuff, it's grat!'. With this iteration, that feeling is gone. First thing - how will 6+ model feel in hand? Can I have it on me (pocket), or do I need to get a backpack to put it in

So many questions, no rush for me to get it. Something has changed. Is it me, or is it Apple, I'm not sure at the moment.

funny, i'm the opposite. i haven't had the urge to buy any iteration of the iphone since the original. now, however, it's there, both for the phone and the watch. must be the profile.

 

[Soulweaponry]

Read the comments and thought "hey. Lay off ive. I like that guy and his fancy accent". Then watched the video. Oh god...that was hard to listen to.

I don't know him personally so I can't really tell, but he is either a disingenuous salesman trying to spin everything to manipulate whoever he's talking to...or he was just nervous. Maybe even has anxiety issues. I only say that because I have those issues and I know sometimes when I talk to people I probably come off really fake and like I'm acting. Much like he is acting here

 

[kwijbo]

Why the cynicism?

I think his response tells us how he thinks about it: not as separated hardware and software, but an integrated experience. I really like that - for me it's a more mature way of looking at technology and our experiences of it.

Perhaps a bit designer speak for public consumption but I experience Jony as authentic and honest.

IMO its disingenuous at the very least and could even be seen as condescending. Since the introduction of GUIs devices have had the ability to reorganize/customize UI appearance. Why was this never a "marriage" of HW and SW on the Mac? iPhone? iPad?

Its almost a hint of insecurity to me - a "made up" feature to cover for other absences. Battery life has been mentioned and as a consequence of that, what about sleep tracking? That's a fairly important piece of the equation for me and if it has to charge every night its not possible.

 

[cmichaelb]

That watch looks really bad on him, imo.

Its the white band with the shiny metal case, plus it's too loose on his arm- its a bad color combo and he needs to tighten it.

What happened to Skinny Jony ??? Either he is buffing up for mr universe or has found the Apple Muffin stash.

Also I can see why he does not speak at the keynotes.....

Yes, they tried that before and he is not a good public speaker. That is why he is always appearing in a heavily edited video rather than speaking live.

2. Apple has not stated any battery life yet, and the only rumor of battery life is 2-3 days. You must be thinking of the Android Wear watches.

Tim stated that the watch will get you through a day. I think we can easily infer that currently, they are averaging about a 1 day battery life and are stil heavily working on optimizing power consumption. 2-3 is optimistic to say the least.

It's easy to mockup magical designs without consideration for any real world constraints. It's the interaction design that's super critical - all the little details that make for a strong experience, especially on a smaller screen that's geared towards frequent and quick usage. For me, that's where Apple excels....... If history is a guide, I suspect Apple has kept back a few surprises for the actual launch.

Well said. You can't compare the actual product to an unrealistic concept. I love some of the concepts people came up with but you can easily see they would never work in real life with today's technology.

I assure you if the battery had been anything to speak of they would have spoken about it being tremendous but 12 hours after you put it on it’ll probably be ‘timeless’.

LOL Exactly! If they were getting anything like 3-4 days we would have heard about it. Tim said it will get you through a day - so max 24 hours currently.

If you have something to market you market it. They weren’t done optimising Siri but they still put it out.
I repeat. That battery is not, as the last keynote claimed for some features, tremendous, cool, incredible, fantastic, etc. etc.

Great point, we won't know exactly what their battery life expectation is until closer to the launch. At best, based on Tim's comment, they are getting 24 hours or so.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I'm with ya.

 

[H2SO4]

People here really hating on someone who traditionally does not like speaking to press. Give the man a break.

As for the watch... We'll see. V1 Apple products usually have great ideas but leave something to be desired. Further refinement will make it awesome.

Well I’d buy that if it weren't for;
Even his presentations are contrived bollocks. Perhaps the fact that he’s talking such crap and he knows that we know that he knows it is what’s making him so uncomfortable?

 

[Burger Thing]

Looking and listening to Jony during this interview, wearing this ridiculously clunky clown watch, babbling like he is on crack, I feel amost sorry for him.

 

[surjavarman]

I used to have huge respect for Jony but thats quickly going away in the last 1-2 years.

Now he just sounds like a sleazy salesman from the 90ies that is trying to scam you into buying useless stuff

 

[mazz0]

Anyone else question Jonny Ive's maths? "Millions and millions"? Hundreds, you mean.