Apple Watch to Feature Time-Only 'Power Reserve' Mode, Prototypes Disguised as Samsung Watches

[autrefois]

I'm hoping you can turn on the power save mode at anytime and it's not just for when the battery is at low.

Battery life has been my main concern about such a device. A watch should last at least a day at a time. Power Save sounds like a great feature if it gets you through the large portion of the day when you likely won't need all the advanced features of the watch.

If it's not like airplane mode and user controllable, could this be something the jailbreak community might work on for those who want it? Not sure I would do it, just curious.

(The idea of jailbreaking a watch would have never occurred to me a year or two ago. Welcome to 2015!)

 

[NorEaster]

Yes, but you fail to see the substantive difference.

Samsung mimicked Apple product for actual product because they didn't have an original idea of there own at the time.

Give it a break...because Apple never copied anyone else right? And before you respond, take a minute to realize you're posting in a thread about Apple's new "Power Reserve" mode...which is something that Android Wear already has. Should I come here and scream that Apple is copying Android?

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

The Apple Watch has a much smaller screen than the iPhone, therefore much less power. Not sure how much updating the screen at 60fps costs; that can go down to 1fps. And I think the motion sensor will be running and decide when to turn the screen on depending on how you hold the watch.

I'm not sure if it's refreshing the screen that drains power so much as just needing to have it on.

It's not an e-ink screen, so screen refreshes aren't a factor, I don't think.

 

[gnasher729]

I'm not sure if it's refreshing the screen that drains power so much as just needing to have it on.

It's not an e-ink screen, so screen refreshes aren't a factor, I don't think.

I was thinking about re-calculating everything that is displayed 60 times a second, and sending the new image to the display hardware. That will take energy.

 

[Gameboy70]

How do you let employees like that go? What was Google offering that Apple couldn't?

It's likely that they worked under Fadell for the iPod project and jumped at the chance to work with him again. And then, of course, there's almost certainly more money on the table—a higher salary and a signing bonus.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I would leave that to the customer to deceide .

Good thinking. Apple could just sell a box of parts and have everybody build their own.

 

[k995]

Good thinking. Apple could just sell a box of parts and have everybody build their own.

Oh apple could sell that, iDiy, "really gives you a magical connection with the devide" .

Still wont let you make up what is logical and is best for everyone .

 

[IJ Reilly]

Oh apple could sell that, iDiy, "really gives you a magical connection with the devide" .

Still wont let you make up what is logical and is best for everyone .

"There is one guaranteed formula for failure, and that is to try to please everyone." -- Will Rogers

 

[AppleScruff1]

Good thinking. Apple could just sell a box of parts and have everybody build their own.

Like Heathkit used to back in the day.

 

[Fredvs79]

Did anyone else every use the Nike+ iPod sensor? i had a few. They slipped into the soles of your Nike+ shoes. Very simple tech, just a pressure sensor and a bluetooth antenna to track motion. It only cost like $39 bucks, cheap as chips for an activity tracker. It could someone guess your stride length based on how often it signaled, and therefore interpret how far you ran over time, and therefore how many calories you burned. Amazingly it was pretty accurate! It had a coin-cell battery and lasted months before I needed to replace it or crack it open (DIY) to replace the battery.

Originally it only worked with the iPhone 3Gs and the iPod with an adapter- then the iPod didn't require an adapter. As of the iPhone 6, support for the Nike+ sensor has been dropped. Flat out, you can't even get the Nike+ app to connect to the sensor in iOS 8 on an iPhone 6. My iPhone 5 on iOS 8 can connect to it, but not my iPhone 6. Apple explained that with the iPhone 6's built in motion co-processor, GPS, accelerometer and gyroscope, you didn't need the Nike+ sensor, as it was redundant. BUT IT WASN'T. If you ever worked out on a treadmill or stationary bike, the thing was brilliant and giving you some feedback where a GPS-based approach didn't work.

Now Apple is selling a wildly expensive "watch", which is redundant as I already have a watch, as do most people. But then again, my iPhone tells me the time... and it doubles as an activity tracker, which supposedly the iPhone excels at anyway... Oh, and while my watch goes years between battery changes, and the Nike+ sensor went months between battery changes, the iPhone only survives a day between battery changes. And they think an iWatch that only survives a day on a battery charge, is an improvement?

I can't help but feel this is like one step forward, two steps back. Yet somehow they will sell, marketed as "wonderful", "magical" and "beautiful" and other fluffy feel-good words to help describe how they want you to feel about this redundant, energy-inefficient tech junk.

God I miss Steve Jobs.

 

[rowspaxe]

I own a version of just about every Apple product made the past 10 years.

I fail to see a reason to own an Apple Watch. Hopefully they can convince me.

Hopefully? Why? Just accept the fact you are seeing the value of this product and are not just swept up in a frenzy of brand participation. Posters here are making up possible features to justify interest; the level of denial is
staggering.

 

[iSee]

Did anyone else every use the Nike+ iPod sensor? i had a few. They slipped into the soles of your Nike+ shoes. Very simple tech, just a pressure sensor and a bluetooth antenna to track motion. It only cost like $39 bucks, cheap as chips for an activity tracker. It could someone guess your stride length based on how often it signaled, and therefore interpret how far you ran over time, and therefore how many calories you burned. Amazingly it was pretty accurate! It had a coin-cell battery and lasted months before I needed to replace it or crack it open (DIY) to replace the battery.

Originally it only worked with the iPhone 3Gs and the iPod with an adapter- then the iPod didn't require an adapter. As of the iPhone 6, support for the Nike+ sensor has been dropped. Flat out, you can't even get the Nike+ app to connect to the sensor in iOS 8 on an iPhone 6. My iPhone 5 on iOS 8 can connect to it, but not my iPhone 6. Apple explained that with the iPhone 6's built in motion co-processor, GPS, accelerometer and gyroscope, you didn't need the Nike+ sensor, as it was redundant. BUT IT WASN'T. If you ever worked out on a treadmill or stationary bike, the thing was brilliant and giving you some feedback where a GPS-based approach didn't work.

Now Apple is selling a wildly expensive "watch", which is redundant as I already have a watch, as do most people. But then again, my iPhone tells me the time... and it doubles as an activity tracker, which supposedly the iPhone excels at anyway... Oh, and while my watch goes years between battery changes, and the Nike+ sensor went months between battery changes, the iPhone only survives a day between battery changes. And they think an iWatch that only survives a day on a battery charge, is an improvement?

I can't help but feel this is like one step forward, two steps back. Yet somehow they will sell, marketed as "wonderful", "magical" and "beautiful" and other fluffy feel-good words to help describe how they want you to feel about this redundant, energy-inefficient tech junk.

God I miss Steve Jobs.

I don't think you're understanding what the Watch does for fitness tracking.
It can track two points of motion with accelerometers in both your phone and on your wrist, and it has a heart rate monitor (in addition to the GPS in the phone). While you need to charge it every day, it's a simple plug-less system with magnet guided orientation. You just get the back of the watch near the charging head and it snaps into place. That's not in the same ball park with pulling a device out of your shoe and cracking it open to replace a coin battery. Once you include shopping for batteries, you might spend more time keeping your Nike+ powered than you do your Apple Watch.

(Also, an iPhone 6 can track steps just fine on a treadmill.)

So, yeah, it's a big improvement.

 

[Gameboy70]

I would leave that to the customer to deceide .

History has shown that Apple gets by just fine leaving very little for the customer to decide. They're not in the business of selling faster horses.

 

[Fredvs79]

I don't think you're understanding what the Watch does for fitness tracking.
It can track two points of motion with accelerometers in both your phone and on your wrist,

Wasn't the Nike+ iPod sensor & my iPhone also 2 points of motion acceleration? I fail to see a) how tracking more points of motion is better, and b) how this is an improvement.

and it has a heart rate monitor (in addition to the GPS in the phone).

There are huge number of "smart" wearable heart rate monitors on the market currently. Fitbit, Mio, etc. There are also several heart rate monitor watches on the market. None of them cost as much as the Apple watch, nor do any of them seem to require daily charging. Hence why I feel like I said - one step forward (integration of an existing product) two steps back (costlier and not as energy efficient).

That's not in the same ball park with pulling a device out of your shoe and cracking it open to replace a coin battery. Once you include shopping for batteries, you might spend more time keeping your Nike+ powered than you do your Apple Watch.

True, it isn't a 1-2-3 process, but Apple actually didn't even want you to change the battery. You were supposed to throw it away and buy a new one, hence the cheap price tag. I simply chose to forego disposable tech and replace the battery because I could. And while it might have taken me some time on one day, it wasn't the constant need of requiring taking off my device and putting on my device every day.

(Also, an iPhone 6 can track steps just fine on a treadmill.)

Not if you leave it on the treadmill since you are a) sweaty, b) don't want to hold it, c) don't have an arm-band to strap it you. The Nike+ sensor excelled at that.

So, yeah, it's a big improvement.

I fail to see it, but if you do, I'm happy for you. Go buy one and love it, until the next generation comes out with the ability to replace your bluetooth earpiece and let you take calls over the headphones jack.

In my opinion, the iWatch is a solution looking for a problem.

 

[heeloliver]

I still think Apple Watch is the worst product Apple has launched in recent years. There is nothing separating it from the Google Lineup of premium smart watches. In fact, the Google line up - 360 & now the Huawei - even looks lightyears better than the Apple Watch.

sure, if you live in a basement..

 

[iSee]

I wonder how much it can do in the power reserve mode.

Time only seems like such an arbitrary limit. Time only still involves running the screen, which, if I had to guess, is by far the biggest power consumer within the Apple Watch.

As I recall, 80% of power on the iPhone is powered by the screen. After that, GPS is the next biggest consumer at 16%. Then cellular at 3%. Everything else is a rounding error (but of those rounding errors, Wifi is highest.)

So after running the screen, the next most power intensive tasks are related to using radios, and the longer distance the signal has to travel, the more power it requires. Since the Apple Watch only uses NFC and Bluetooth for radios, I don't think either of those will be a major power draw. I feel like the Apple Watch will devote 95% of power to the screen, ~2% to each of those radios, and everything else will be a rounding error.

Which means a power reserve mode, while making some slight sense on a phone (stretch the battery by 25% by turning off radios), it makes little sense on the Apple Watch (stretch the battery by 6% by turning off radios.)

Maybe my memory of how much different components consume on the iPhone is wrong and someone can correct me. I seem to recall it being in the Stanford iOS Programming course, when talking about how to make your app consume as little power as possible (it boiled down to not having frivolous radio communication.)

All the iPhones use an LCD display with backlight . I think the Apple Watch is going to use an OLED screen.
Those are a lot more efficient than an LCD *if* a high percentage of pixels are set to full black. A power reserve mode could switch to a bright color on black watch face that has a small proportion of non-black pixels. It might have all the "glances" removed and otherwise prevent non-core apps from running.

(Because there's no backlight, OLED displays also achieve deeper blacks which will help Apple achieve their stated goal of keeping the display boundary hidden as much as possible.)

If the heart rate sensor is expensive in terms of power usage, then that will probably shut down as well.

I'm not sure if Apple will want to completely shut the radios off in power reserve mode, or maybe just use them less often and only for higher priority purposes.

 

[NewbieCanada]

Well this way, if an employee lost his/her pre-production model in a bar, it would just be thrown away because nobody wants a Samsung watch. Trying to prevent bar-gate/gizmodo-gate from happening again

And the risk of theft is nil.

----------

How do you let employees like that go? What was Google offering that Apple couldn't?

A reliable map to work?

 

[Exhale]

I was thinking about re-calculating everything that is displayed 60 times a second, and sending the new image to the display hardware. That will take energy.

Very very little actually, in embedded applications. What drains power is the display backlight. Think back to antique devices such as the GBA/GBC. The GBA SP had an estimated battery life of 18 hours without the backlight active. But dropped to just 10 hours with it on.

And that was while actively running games. While the watch is smaller, bear in mind its not going to be doing much processing wise.

Additionally, there is such a thing as display self refresh - which tends to be easier (and more important) to implement in embedded devices like this.

 

[rjlawrencejr]

Hey I thought I noticed a monochrome option when the screenshots for Apple Watch settings were shown a few weeks back. Does anyone else recall that?

 

[s1m]

Wasn't the Nike+ iPod sensor & my iPhone also 2 points of motion acceleration? I fail to see a) how tracking more points of motion is better, and b) how this is an improvement.


There are huge number of "smart" wearable heart rate monitors on the market currently. Fitbit, Mio, etc. There are also several heart rate monitor watches on the market. None of them cost as much as the Apple watch, nor do any of them seem to require daily charging. Hence why I feel like I said - one step forward (integration of an existing product) two steps back (costlier and not as energy efficient).


True, it isn't a 1-2-3 process, but Apple actually didn't even want you to change the battery. You were supposed to throw it away and buy a new one, hence the cheap price tag. I simply chose to forego disposable tech and replace the battery because I could. And while it might have taken me some time on one day, it wasn't the constant need of requiring taking off my device and putting on my device every day.


Not if you leave it on the treadmill since you are a) sweaty, b) don't want to hold it, c) don't have an arm-band to strap it you. The Nike+ sensor excelled at that.


I fail to see it, but if you do, I'm happy for you. Go buy one and love it, until the next generation comes out with the ability to replace your bluetooth earpiece and let you take calls over the headphones jack.

In my opinion, the iWatch is a solution looking for a problem.

Does the Nike+ give you notifications, sms etc? I am struggling to understand why simply because some of the Apple Watch's functionality replaces other functionality of other devices the Apple Watch is a step backwards.

Sure the Nike+ can measure steps and you can buy another wearable heart rate monitor - so now you need two devices to deliver some of the funcitonality of the Apple Watch.

I see people wearing the ftbit and think it is like wearning an ugly plain bracelet - it just looks like an anchor on their wrist. It just does one thing - I don't expect devices to just do one thing any more.

Fairly soon (if I can pursuade my wife that it is a good idea and if app makers come to the party) I will be able to open the door to my house with the apple watch (plus give access to contractors/cleaners at very specific times), turn on the lights, fire up the apple TV, control the volume and set the air conditioning temperature. One device right next to me all the time. At night it will go on a charging stand and wake me with an alarm and I can then flick the lights on before risking stepping on piece of lego in the dark and see if I have any urgent overnight emails.

 

[Fredvs79]

Does the Nike+ give you notifications, sms etc? I am struggling to understand why simply because some of the Apple Watch's functionality replaces other functionality of other devices the Apple Watch is a step backwards.



Sure the Nike+ can measure steps and you can buy another wearable heart rate monitor - so now you need two devices to deliver some of the funcitonality of the Apple Watch.



I see people wearing the ftbit and think it is like wearning an ugly plain bracelet - it just looks like an anchor on their wrist. It just does one thing - I don't expect devices to just do one thing any more.



Fairly soon (if I can pursuade my wife that it is a good idea and if app makers come to the party) I will be able to open the door to my house with the apple watch (plus give access to contractors/cleaners at very specific times), turn on the lights, fire up the apple TV, control the volume and set the air conditioning temperature. One device right next to me all the time. At night it will go on a charging stand and wake me with an alarm and I can then flick the lights on before risking stepping on piece of lego in the dark and see if I have any urgent overnight emails.

Yes, your life is going to be so much better with this product! Don't forget, your watch will tell you how lazy you are being sitting at your desk, sitting in your car, and sitting on your couch while you watch tv and your heart rate barely elevates. And who reads email on their watch? Never mind, hurry, buy more!

 

[DaveN]

I own a version of just about every Apple product made the past 10 years.

I fail to see a reason to own an Apple Watch. Hopefully they can convince me.

Here is a bit of irony. I own few iterations of Apple products and only bought an iPhone about a year ago. I really the Apple Pay implementation but as I only have the iPhone 5s, my options are to upgrade to a 6 or 6 plus or to buy an iWatch. I was pretty much set on doing the upgrade until I stopped in an Apple story today and checked the 6 and 6 plus. My 50+ year old eyes like the 6s but it is just a little too big. The 6 really isn't a big enough change over the 5s to get me to change. That got me thinking about the iWatch. I guess I'll wait to see how it pans out. I may still get the 6 plus and pass my 5s to my sister or I may do nothing for years to come.

 

[rowspaxe]

For me, it is having satnav where I don't have to have my phone on view, especially in a city I don't know. You can always see tourists walking around using their phones to navigate and they're just asking to have it nabbed, or be robbed because they're tourists. Having the watch guide you by taptic feedback whether you're walking, or even if you're riding a bike like I do regularly will be very helpful even in my own town because I walk and ride a lot but I also travel frequently so this one feature is high on my reasons to want the watch.

lol

 

[wikiverse]

How do you let employees like that go? What was Google offering that Apple couldn't?

Better work environment and more supportive colleagues? Who knows.

 

[MasterRyu2011]

If it only tells you the time, you'll use it (and the screen) less. That's where the power is saved.

Them apples are brilliant. Psychology FTW!