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Apple Watch iPhone Companion App Reveals New Details About Upcoming Wearable

inscrewtable said:
Jonny Ive made a big deal about researching and respecting the tradition of the watch so it's a bit rich to rip off the word 'complications' and apply it in such a trite way to something that is in reality just an image of a complication. 'Complication', always referred to the ridiculously complicated extra mechanisms that only the greatest of the master watchmakers could build. Often they were frivolous in practice but impossibly beautiful in execution.

Now it's just a few lines of code that gets the epithet.
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Clearly you've never reverse engineered machine code and made manual edits in hex. Clearly you've never learned the intricacies of assembly language.

While Apple's magic devices may just seem like a 'few lines of code' to the ignorant, you have to understand that even an original iPhone was infinitely more powerful than the computers that put a man on the moon.

If I wanted to write a computer program right now to place the phase, "You are stupid" on my computer screen, there are literally millions of permutations. Do you optimize your code for speed, compatibility, compactness? How is the data going to be added to the screen? As a vector? A bitmap? A sprite? How will the new information interact with the information already on the screen? How will you time it so as not to miss a vertical blank? How will these actions interplay with maskable and non-maskable interrupts?

Listen, I wear a nice Swiss watch on my wrist and my grandfather was a watch technician with his own business and lab. I totally respect the incredibly ingenuity that allows a spring and a few cogs to tell relatively accurate time. I'm wearing a nice Omega right now.

But don't ever presume to suggest that writing cutting edge software is just a 'few lines of code' that any trained monkey could do. Writing world class code is an art in and of itself.

I do accept that on some levels Apple may be slightly over using the complications metaphor, but I really do believe that this language is not an affectation. They have indeed spent over three years trying to 'get' the culture of the timepiece. There is a reason beyond vanity and ego that people are compelled to spend $10K on a Rolex, and why people might aspire to own a Piaget.

There is also a place for the smart watch.

When quartz came along many of the Swiss giants laughed. Who would want a watch with a battery and a non-sweeping hand? Well now Omega, the watch company trusted with the moon landing is now owned by Swatch.

The head of Tag Heuer et al made some snide comments initially, and later retracted them and talked of a project to make a smart watch.

The watch establishment has often been a little too far up their own rectums in the past. They cannot bury their heads in the sand on this.

I believe that Apple will sell out their watch, and when version 2.0 comes along they will still have buyers waiting. Ten years from now we will look back and see this event as significant as the arrival of quartz watches or digital for that matter. It's going to have an impact.

And the people that spent three years making this happen did more than just throw a 'few lines of code' together.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
I doubt it, for many reasons, but #1 is that if they had one that would be the sport watch, not the aluminum one. #2 they didn't show a plastic one at the preview -- even touted the quality of the cases -- so it would have been a huge c**k tease to show off metal ones for months and then drop a plastic one for $349.

They could have justified a $349 plastic one in Oct easily and then everyone would have their mind set they'd have to spend more for metal. But now everyone thinks they are getting aluminum for $349, so plastic at that price point would blow up in Tim Cook's face.
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(I guess I should have put the ;) there... I was mocking the Jony Ive iPhone 5C announcement, even though when I saw it, I thought, "hmmm... I hope it pays off, but I know I'm not buying one of those...")

I agree with you on your assessment. Sometimes my jokes don't do too well through the text in forums.

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ZCT said:
Clearly you've never reverse engineered machine code and made manual edits in hex. Clearly you've never learned the intricacies of assembly language.

While Apple's magic devices may just seem like a 'few lines of code' to the ignorant, you have to understand that even an original iPhone was infinitely more powerful than the computers that put a man on the moon.

If I wanted to write a computer program right now to place the phase, "You are stupid" on my computer screen, there are literally millions of permutations. Do you optimize your code for speed, compatibility, compactness? How is the data going to be added to the screen? As a vector? A bitmap? A sprite? How will the new information interact with the information already on the screen? How will you time it so as not to miss a vertical blank? How will these actions interplay with maskable and non-maskable interrupts?

Listen, I wear a nice Swiss watch on my wrist and my grandfather was a watch technician with his own business and lab. I totally respect the incredibly ingenuity that allows a spring and a few cogs to tell relatively accurate time. I'm wearing a nice Omega right now.

But don't ever presume to suggest that writing cutting edge software is just a 'few lines of code' that any trained monkey could do. Writing world class code is an art in and of itself.

I do accept that on some levels Apple may be slightly over using the complications metaphor, but I really do believe that this language is not an affectation. They have indeed spent over three years trying to 'get' the culture of the timepiece. There is a reason beyond vanity and ego that people are compelled to spend $10K on a Rolex, and why people might aspire to own a Piaget.

There is also a place for the smart watch.

When quartz came along many of the Swiss giants laughed. Who would want a watch with a battery and a non-sweeping hand? Well now Omega, the watch company trusted with the moon landing is now owned by Swatch.

The head of Tag Heuer et al made some snide comments initially, and later retracted them and talked of a project to make a smart watch.

The watch establishment has often been a little too far up their own rectums in the past. They cannot bury their heads in the sand on this.

I believe that Apple will sell out their watch, and when version 2.0 comes along they will still have buyers waiting. Ten years from now we will look back and see this event as significant as the arrival of quartz watches or digital for that matter. It's going to have an impact.

And the people that spent three years making this happen did more than just throw a 'few lines of code' together.
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I agree with your assessment, but my response would be:

The fact that you can add the complications with "a few lines of code" is a compliment to the simplification of the complexity of displaying the complication that you wish to display on a device that was impractical to create, with its ecosystem, coding language, and physical presence 10 years ago.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
It really couldn't be any of them. A gold watch for $349. No. A stainless steel watch with sapphire glass prices less than an aluminum one with a plastic band. The logic of the process of elimination makes the sport watch the only one that could be $349 unless Apple has an all plastic version they haven't shown yet -- and which would be very deceptive given they gave us a $349 price while previewing the the 3 metal varieties.
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I have arrived at the same conclusion.

Aluminum and ion x something with only rubber bands are not going to be $500 or so. Those are going to be the cheap ones; $349.

Stainless with two finishes and anything from rubber (sure I know it is fancy rubber) right up to fancy metal and leather bracelets are simply not going to be the entry level product.

And I think it goes without saying that the gold products are not going to be entry level.

I do agree though, I think Apple has been deliberately sneaky here. They have let us believe that the stainless steel watches could be the cheaper ones; people have even posted that hope on these very forums. But I believe the purpose was to have people mentally select those in their minds, so that they will be more likely to justify the upgrade in their minds later.

Sneaky :apple:

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Chupa Chupa said:
Right but 99.9% of people are not horologists or delve into that hobby... well unless there is a adolescent joke in there. Normal people do not know watch jargon. It's not 1947. They understand the common dictionary version of the word.
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Are you really making the case that Apple consumers are so utterly stupid they will become so confused by this term they will en masse refuse to buy it?

I applaud Apple's use of this jargon to make people think and not be ignorant.

It is also true that many of Apple's typical consumer have long since turned their back on the notion of wearing any watch. Yet there are millions of Gen Y and Gen X consumers who already own watches that cost over $1,000 who would not only understand that language, but consider a switch.

I am among them. As much as I love the Swiss watch on my wrist, it doesn't tell time as accurately as the Apple Watch will (despite COSC), and when I travel to different timezones every month, it requires me to manually reset it.

I see some genuine utility in this concept, and I know what a complication is, and have for years. All without being a horologist nerd.
 
Rogifan said:
So you'd rather have Apple force settings on users and then have people complain that they can't customize their watch the way they want? Most likely these are things you set when you first get the watch and rarely have to touch again.
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Yes. I think Apple knows what settings are best for everyone and there is no need for customization. It just works. :D:D:D
 
ZCT said:
...snip...
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Nevertheless writing code is a relatively common skill that can be learned by a big percentage of the population if they so desire, whereas the skills needed to say make a watch that chimes the hours and minutes, with springs of secret alloy metals and little hammers that sound sweet, is more like an artisan craft that is passed on through the generations like the formula for the glue used in a Chippendale chair, or the skill required to select the sternpost for the mightiest of the 18the century Oak ships.

But my point was only that Jonny Ive made a *big deal* about showing respect for the tradition and I think he's showing disrespect. It's not so much that they want to call an image of a 'complication' a 'complication' that's fine, but let's not big ourselves up as well Jonny.
 
manu chao said:
With only a very few exceptions, mechanical watch complications are displayed together (or inside) the watch face. Thus, one can argue that only stuff shown on screens that include a watch face would be a 'digital' complication.
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It never ceases that you arrive in the middle of my discourse and assume I mean something totally differently. Timing huh? I do understand the meaning of a horological complication. I was pointing out the logical fallacy of telso's statement by using his hyperbolic "logic" against him. Context man, context.

One could argue what you state but they would be wrong. Showing other stuff on the face of the :apple: watch doesn't suddenly make it not a watch. One would also be wrong about the exceptions. Complications of different categories are, with very few exceptions, displayed separately. Time complications are displayed separately from striking complications which are displayed separately from astrological complications. Not every watch as all three and there are subsets in each category.

IJReilly said I would be metaphorically banging my head on this subject and he's right. I'll just give up and concede that a digital representation of a shaded circle with a 72 in it is a complication. I'm tired and my dog has to pee.
 
MrXiro said:
I would say "once upon a time" to that in this day and age Apple products resale value has plummeted lower than ever. I probably could only sell my used iPhone 6 64gb for about 350-400 at this point and it's only around 4 months old.

I agree with Poppy that 1st Gen Apple products have a much shorter life than the 2nd gen follow up, in the iPhone's case 3rd gen as the 3GS was around for a much longer time than the OG and the 3G. It's almost a miracle that the 2nd Gen iPad is still supported in 2015.
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I don't know where you're pulling your iPhone 6 numbers from but on eBay/Amazon/Swappa they're selling for way more than 350. It's closer to $600-650 for a used 64GB right now. I'd be happy to buy it from you for 350 and resell it for $600

Make no mistake, Apple products (especially iPhones) hold their value very well. No other 4 month old phone sells close to retail on the used market like the iPhone 6/6+.
 
poppy10 said:
How long did people keep their iPhone 1 or iPad 1? They were quickly superseded and obsoleted by far superior products. You could rock a 3GS for years and people are still using iPad 2s in the millions.

Best to wait till the next gen, it's a fool's game to buy this version.
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I got the first iPhone and first iPad and they were both great devices. I used the first iPhone for two years and the iPad for ~3.5 years (I would have kept it longer but that Target deal was too good to pass up).

They both were followed by far more powerful devices, but that's been the story in tech for decades and decades. I don't regret buying either one in the least.
 
IJ Reilly said:
The aluminum Sport model is also much lighter, a trait that many would call a feature. We also have no idea what Apple means by "Ion glass" nor can we establish any logic for specifying a less durable crystal for the activewear version of the watch.

Nice analogy, though.

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Are you kidding? MR never jumps the gun. They sure didn't on the, um, iWatch.
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Gorilla glass is ion strengthened glass, they discuss that in a video corning has on the material. Therefore it is safe to say that ion reinforced glass is gorilla glass
 
if anyone actually buys this watch, are they going to be stupid enough to go running with it? As soon as a few people get bopped from behind in Central Park and their 700 buck watch jacked, that will be the end of that tune.

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iSee said:
I got the first iPhone and first iPad and they were both great devices. I used the first iPhone for two years and the iPad for ~3.5 years (I would have kept it longer but that Target deal was too good to pass up).

They both were followed by far more powerful devices, but that's been the story in tech for decades and decades. I don't regret buying either one in the least.
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News flash. Many still use their iPad 1G. I use mine everyday for mail and reading. It sits right next to the crapper.
 
ChrisCW11 said:
I will buy iWatch Air 2 7 years from now once they work out all the kinks.
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will it be thinner, with half the memory and twice the lag :p

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The Economist said:
"In horology, the study of clocks and watches."
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I would of never guessed that 'horology' meant: the art and science of time measurement. If somebody told me they where a horologist, i would honestly recommend they get the herpes vaccination stat :p

Ah, thats maybe another reason why they hired Dr Dre?
Is he not a (w)hor(e)ologist? as he constantly pertains to sampling b!tch£s and hos in his 'music' ??
Wonder if this was the milieu for his PhD dissertation, as he does use the title 'Dr'.
 
iChrist said:
.
Too bad that screen is so heavily pixelated. I guess we'll have to wait for the retina version (that will hopefully be thinner too).
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It is retina technically.

scJZTA6.jpg
 
I will get one solely because I collect watches but it's beens said over and over. This watch will NEVER truly replace our timepieces until at minimum it works for 3-4 days in between charges is waterproof, & can function without an iPhone. I travel to Asia all the time from the east coast of the USA, the reality is from home to hotel your watch will be dead, that's unacceptable.
 
troop231 said:
To an intended target audience who is likely to not understand the heritage.
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I respectfully disagree.

I'm a member of the intended audience. I have a computer science degree, have worked in the tech industry my entire life, and have a small (but carefully selected) watch collection. Apple's use of that term reinforced for me that they are serious about watch making. I was actually quite surprised when they used it during the keynote. To me, that meant they were really serious about this.

No, the buyer of the low-end (and lower margin) sport models might not know what that means. But, they also won't care. If they expect to attract the high-end Edition model buyers? They'd better have the terminology down.

Seriously, it is all part of the game. And Apple plays that game better than any other company I know.
 
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