Hmmm, would this affect app updates as well? As in, once an app is updated, would it have to comply with the new guidelines?
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All Apple Watch Apps Must Be Native Apps Starting on June 1
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Hmmm, would this affect app updates as well? As in, once an app is updated, would it have to comply with the new guidelines?
The answer to your question is in the post you quoted: Updates aren't included
It's true. The new Apple plans metiocracy from the start.
[doublepost=1461450406][/doublepost]It's a native binary but still not a "native" app. Until you can download a watch app from the iTS on its own it won't be fully native in my view.
Apple has to do something to keep up with the speed, ease of use, thousands of free watch faces & apps, and free SDK, of Pebble. Not to mention the superior outdoors visibility, days of battery life, far cheaper price, much better waterproofing, and android + iPhone compatibility. As a matter of fact, the only things the Apple Watch does better than Pebble are allowing you to take a phone call on your watch (with crappy sound from a too small speaker), heart rate monitoring (for some people but not others), and draw pictures on the watch face. In contrast, the range of creativity of Pebble apps is amazing.
Too bad Apple's crushing them.
To bad Pebble's customer support is absolutely atrocious. There return policy on hardware looks like a 5th grader wrote the terms and conditions . You can't even talk to a live customer support specialist. Sorry, but When I purchase a $600.00 Apple Watch, I expect the company to stand behind their product and provide support. Read about their support on the web, a lot of disgruntled customers.
Oh, they also will not pay for your shipping and handling either way, and if the hardware is not in the NEW condition you received it in upon purchase, you will not be refunded. It's on their return policy.
I don't feel bad for Pebble. It was a matter of time before they crumbled.
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I agree it has not reached its full usefulness as of yet. However, it's not useless. This a Gen 1 Watch. Apple has plans for more implementation to utilize the Digital Crown. It does serve its purpose, but I would like to see more diversity and shortcuts.
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They can still make it thinner without trimming the port where the bands slide in. How much thinner is the question. Macrumors reported a few weeks back, possibly 30-40% thinner according to analyst Brian White. Take it for what it's worth.
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Umm, the Apple Waych was never expected to be 'Fast', more so a fitness device and convenience factor. The S1 Chip is a great start. Software improvements have alleviated some of the issues and more so will down the road. It does what most expect, not over the top "Why isn't the Watch as fast as my iPhone approach?"
And yet, every time I've contacted them,even to return a watch which was out of warrantee, they have always been nice, responsive, and very generous. It's hard to beat what you get for the price. But then, I also really enjoy writing my own custom watch faces and apps for free! Different strokes for different fokes. Pebble is a hackers watch, it's true.
This all sounds to me that after the the first experiences of devs with the watch, not too many of them are interested in continuing support and hence did not even think about porting it to a native app. And now with six weeks notice, I don't think, many will adopt if they have not already. Talk about shoveling the responsibility to the devs. No thanks. Remember how this all worked out with iCloud support in third-party apps?
Before what?
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I tried the S1 and wasn't impressed but I will have a look at the S2. Is it any good?
I guess it depends on what you expect out of it. I use mine for messages and the times I forget my phone/can't get to my phone to answer it (no games). Where i'm at now I work ten hour days with 3 hours travel time. I leave my S2 at home and wear my Times Ironman at work. I do wear the S2 all day on weekends though. When I get home i'm ready to sit and rest. I'm periodically telling the S2 to shut up when it thinks i've been sitting too long.
Right, why don't you try and develop, engineer and test an entire operating system that runs inside a watch you wear on your wrist and see if you can do better. Bet you can't even come close!
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The horror!
You have to wait a whole few seconds to have access to messages, documents, photos and information from the entire collective knowledge of the history of the world. The entire computing power of the 1960's NASA space program that sent men to the moon was a tiny fraction of what is on your wrist, and back then computers took entire floors of buildings and dozens of trained technicians to operate using paper punch cards as the storage medium and results took hours and even days to generate what takes seconds today.
Ten years ago a device like this was barely plausible in science fiction, let alone reality.
It is an absolute miracle of human engineering and technology that something so powerful can be made, and its wasted on idiots who cry and moan that it occasionally takes a few seconds to work.
Is anything really that important that you just can't wait a single moment for it to show up on your wrist?!
Seriously? I never claimed to be the personification of a giant company made up of hundreds of people, once headed by a guy who was so obsessed with quality that he'd have thrown a huge fit if the Watch didn't perform amazingly on day 1.
This means that the Apple Watch app Extension will run on the watch and not on the iPhone as it does under watchOS 1. This doesn't mean that the Apple Watch app cannot get data from the iPhone. The Watch Connectivity Framework can be used to transfer data under watchOS 2. I converted my Apple Watch app from watchOS 1 to watchOS 2 a number of months ago and it's much more responsive.
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What use are thousands of free watch faces, when most look similar and pretty fugly due to the low-res and low-contrast screen?
What use are thousands of free apps, when I only can have 8 apps concurrently on the device and constantly have to shuffle?
And I can't see the ease of use if I have to do everything with just 4 buttons instead of a touch screen _plus_ 2 buttons.
From practical use I can't confirm that statement. So far the bright AW screen is as visible as the low-contrast Pebble screen for me. Granted, I only know the original Pebble. But the AW screen is fine.
Same for the AW. Depending on usage, I can get 2-3 days easily from it. The difference to 5-7 days with the Pebble is negligible in my eyes.
True. On the other hand this also means a far inferior user interface on the Pebble. Having to handle everything with 4 buttons instead of a touch screen is pretty cumbersome.
Apple may not officially claim water proofness of the Apple watch, but there a lots of reports of people who shower and swim with the AW without problems. And Apple itself recommends a cleaning under running water from time to time.
So it's probably more a question of liability issues and reputation just in case something goes wrong with a seal. Can happen to every product, only with Apple it would generate a huge - unjustified - hype. With Pebble people would shrug and move on.
The iPhone compatibility of the classic Pebble was flakey at best. Mine would often lose connection after leaving the BT range or just random. Pretty annoying, especially as reconnecting often did not work properly.
Taking phone calls on the AW is very convenient and the speaker is not as crappy as you write. Just the opposite - for such a small speaker the sound quality is surprisingly good. Heart rate monitoring is a good thing for everyone, even if not everyone sees the benefit.
Other advantages of the AW vs the Pebble (which you either don't know about or intentionally ignored) are the deep integration into iOS, the HiRes color touch screen, the WLan connectivity (when outside BT range, but within my home WLan), the better product finish, more internal storage for apps, the problem-free loading solution (with the Pebble, the cable was so fragile when plugged in you would not even dare looking at it) and probably more that I don't think about now.
I admit that newer models may have improved on some of the problems I experienced with the classic Pebble, but from what I read the new models are just small improvements in bulky housings. Perhaps nice as a platform for programmers and modders with less money but more time, but aiming at a different target group than the AW.
- I used OSX 10.0.4 and 10.1 - they were far from "performing amazingly on day 1" (and that was on a 450MHz G4 - one of the fastest Macs available back then).
- The original iPhone lacked the then-common 3G and was limited to 2G speeds (as an officially marketed "Internet communication device" !), had only 128MB Ram and 4 GB storage as entry.
- The original MacBook Air was painfully slow - the very expensive SSD option sometimes even slower than the spinning disk variants (iirc) - and likely to overheat easily, thus throttling and impairing user experience.
- The iPhone 4 had reception problems due to the antenna construction.
Then why not delay the release date? This was a completely new product, they had plenty of time to get it right from the start.