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Apple Watch 2 Said to Feature FaceTime Camera, Expanded Wi-Fi Capabilities and New Models

bh85 said:
Its a money making tactic. You only give them enough. Never all. Make them come back.
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That doesn't make sense at all. Technology moves fast enough to incorporate the newest technologies in each refresh. There is no real reason why a company would intentionally cripple a product to drive sales of the next product. It actually costs money as it makes people wait AND due to the time value of money (100 dollars now is more worth than 100 dollars next year).

This is much more a case of balancing the risks and benefits of getting a product out quickly vs waiting for technology or development / testing to progress to incorporate more technology.
 
HenryDJP said:
Please do tell us how so? You're wearing a wireless earpiece and you get a call. You look at the watch, see who it is then answer it. You begin talking. How is that weird and silly and furthermore how is that any worse off from using your phone?
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I concede on the point about a wireless earpiece. I failed to remember that you can pair an earpiece to the watch, not just to the phone. So in your use case, i can see this being useful, but the facetime camera? You have got to give me that point.
 
Teber said:
I think this is a mistake. What about those people who spent $10K on the first generation Apple Watch? They get obsolete just like that? Apple Watch 2 should come out in 2018. People are still finding about its existence. At the end, it's just a watch, not a smartphone which we need to be buying every now and then.
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people who spent $10k on the gen 1 knew exactly what they were doing: getting what will be a very rare first gen of the famous apple watch. it will drop in value in the next few years, and then go up and up and up.. and in 15/20 years those watches will be worth 5 and 10 times their purchase price. people who can spend 10k on a watch usually understand the investment parameters.

me? i bought the sports model, knowing it'll be worth about 50 bucks as soon as the 2nd gen comes out. but, i thought it was worth the admission price to see what the the thing was about -- not an investment; just for curiosity. more my speed. and wallet. :D. i do have some pricey watches, but they are all-manual, completely mechanical devices whose value is the design and function, which will never change with a firmware update or next gen screen. but those are devices from the legacy of jeffreys and harrison watches and clocks whose tech was pioneered 250 years ago. safe to say the innovations are minute and incremental at this point.... (puns acknowledged.) the apple watch.. cutting edge. early models of a certain pedigree (gold cases, for example) will be valuable.
 
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FaceTime camera? Meh.
GPS on board is what's really missing.

I'm a little worried that they're making the wrong call on battery-- I usually have close to 50% at the end of the day. They've got a choice between using that in a day, or extending it to multiple days. I'd prefer the latter, I think...

If they are going to drain more power though, I'd like the display to be always on.
 
SkippyThorson said:
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I wrote a massive blog entry regarding Apple crippling or leaving core features out of a 1st generation product only to seemingly-better the 2nd generation when the refresh comes along. The 1st to 2nd generation of all recent Apple products has been a MAJOR jump; mostly applicable to iOS devices. (Toot toot.)
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Apple is not the only one who does this. In fact, as a software developer, this is also what I do. For the first generation of a product, I want to make sure the core functionality works. Adding too many bells and whistles the to first production unit makes it harder to figure out what is going wrong (and something nearly always does go wrong).

And consider this: many people say they won't buy the first generation of anything. Even if Apple had taken the time to get FaceTime cameras and GPS and greater independence from the iPhone, and every other feature that you think they're artificially holding back (even though you feel they could have included them for the same price and delivered in 2014 with no glitches and plenty of supply for a proper launch), those people would not have bought.
 
I thought that watchOS 2 allowed the watch to use Wifi without your phone now? Plus, that was one of the reasons behind cellular continuity so if you left your phone at home, your watch would still ring and get messages .
 
dtich said:
people who spent $10k on the gen 1 knew exactly what they were doing: getting what will be a very rare first gen of the famous apple watch. it will drop in value in the next few years, and then go up and up and up.. and in 15/20 years those watches will be worth 5 and 10 times their purchase price. people who can spend 10k on a watch usually understand the investment parameters.
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I think people who spent $10k on the first gen had $10k laying around and wanted to spend it on status. I really doubt it was an investment decision.
 
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Another 17k on chinese watch down the pipe, they should announce it in september. Just wait for the v3
 
To whoever bought the Apple Watch Edition: How does it feel to spend $10K on a watch that's one-upped, to say the least, a year after? At least maybe it's the "rare" first version that they got. It'll be even worse for whoever buys it in gen 2 just before gen 3 comes out.
 
Analog Kid said:
I think people who spent $10k on the first gen had $10k laying around and wanted to spend it on status. I really doubt it was an investment decision.
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i would bet that is a minority of purchasers. but i have no evidence, true. my opinion.
 
Amplelink said:
Yeah, my first reaction as well. A watch is even less of a yearly upgrade device as compared to an iPad. People can't be happy about this.
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Apple will want to respond to fashion trends, as well as expand the user base. I don't think they expect people to upgrade their watches ever year. Remember, they have probably sold a few million of these so far. There is plenty of room to expand the market.
 
I'm not really interested in FaceTime on an Apple Watch. I would find built in GPS much more useful.

That being said, the main thing keeping me on the fence about buying one is the lag. For a wrist device designed for quick glances, any lag in pulling up the information you want makes it frustrating at best and worthless at worst.

When I tried one on in the store I noticed significant lag in switching applications and one time even had to shut it down and restart it when it got stuck on something. Does anyone know if the performance has improved with subsequent software updates?
 
hokiemas said:
Right, but what I'm saying is that holding your wrist so that the watch is pointed at your face (even at chest level) is not nearly as comfortable as holding a phone, not because of weight or anything like that. It has to do with the position of your hand, at least for me. I just don't see the facetime feature as very practical for a watch. Some people may love it, but it's not a must have feature for me.

I'm also a teacher, and I can imagine kids taking pictures of exams using their watches. Very subtle. One more thing for me to look out for. :)
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Well yes, that's true it could be uncomfortable doing FT calls for long periods of time holding your wrist upwards. Won't argue that. I can still see as wearable tech evolves that people will enjoy making a quick FT call. Someone might say, "Hey, I wanna show you what I'm buying today" and prefer to show it live rather than send a picture.

As for the kids taking pictures of the exams. Yeah, they most certainly could try that. Kids are very resourceful. It's doubtful that Apple will care about that and decide not to add a camera. I think it's time schools figure out ways to outsmart these advances in technology. I had to take a highly regulated state exam and the room had cameras and it was done on computers and the questions were not only mixed up but not every student got the same questions. :)
 
In my view the watch is a very flawed product. They should focus on fixing the flaws rather than adding more useless gimmicks like a facetime (or rather nosetime ;)) camera. Things like being waterproof, having an always-on display (at least a reduced time display), and having several days of battery life.
 
Teber said:
I think this is a mistake. What about those people who spent $10K on the first generation Apple Watch? They get obsolete just like that? Apple Watch 2 should come out in 2018. People are still finding about its existence. At the end, it's just a watch, not a smartphone which we need to be buying every now and then.
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If you spent 10k on a watch, with the $2 plastic white band, well....o_O
 
HenryDJP said:
And how do you think people make FT calls on their iPhones? They don't hold them up their face. They generally hold the phone no higher than chest height and talk. They can do the same with the Watch.
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Yes, but holding your hand with the top of the wrist turned towards your face is significantly more tiring than holding it such that you look at your palm.
 
Rigby said:
In my view the watch is a very flawed product. They should focus on fixing the flaws rather than adding more useless gimmicks like a facetime (or rather nosetime ;)) camera. Things like being waterproof, having an always-on display (at least a reduced time display), and having several days of battery life.
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Agree with always on display. That would be really nice.
 
Armen said:
To whom exactly? Why would anyone want to Facetime on a 1" screen when you have a iphone, iPad or Macbook near by?
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I didn't mean it in terms of how convenient or uncomfortable it would be. I meant it in terms of what Apple has done in the past. Pretty much all of their products have cameras, so it's only natural that the Apple Watch be given one. Maybe not for FaceTime for some people, but for other uses that they might come up with.
 
Just had to get my two cents in here. FaceTime? On a watch? Seriously?

I can't even think of a comfortable, convenient way to use a camera on a watch unless it's mounted in the digital crown so you can point at the person whose picture you're taking.
 
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