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Apple's Jony Ive Talks Apple Watch at SFMOMA Lifetime Achievement Award Ceremony

I agree with comments that functionality is severely crippled without the iPhone nearby. Big mistake in my opinion. For me the lack of GPS kills it as a fitness tracker. Another big mistake in my opinion is the personalisation thing. Besides being a logistic nightmare I think that it underestimates the value of current Apple products that makes you 'part' of a successful brand, something people like to be seen and identified by (don't underestimate the logic of the masses). iWatch completely ignores this aspect and might therefor backfire at Apple.
 
MacRumors said:
"Ive is our generation's most innovative and influential figure in the field of industrial design--no other design mind has done more to transform the way we visualize and share information,"
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but Industrial Design and User Interface Design are two different things, yet this guy jumps from one to another as though they were the same?
Now I'm not dispelling the fact that Jony had his hands in the iOS7 redesign, but the statement seems a little...uneven?
 
It's not a coincidence that the first generation Apple Watch came at the same time as the larger screens. The Apple Watch replaces all of the one handed uses and all the activities that you do dozens of times a day.

It's meant to be carried with the iPhone because the watch is still an accessory to the phone. Most of us wouldn't want to leave the iPhone at home anyway. If you're going for a run or working out or another place where carrying the iPhone would be inconvenient, the Apple Watch will still work, it'll still collect data and transfer it back when you get back to your iPhone.

I can see myself using my iPhone more like an iPad that I keep in my pocket most of the time. Whenever I have a question that I would normally google, I can just ask Siri through the watch. If I get a message, I can see it and reply from my wrist. All those fast activities are better done on the watch. If I need to do more prolonged research or chat sessions, the iPhone will come out.
 
I expect the design and focus of this watch to change drastically over the next few years, because software wise Apple seriously has no idea what they're doing. They're dumping so much gimmicky crap into it that I'm surprised anyone is taking it seriously. As for the hardware, that will evolve as technology progresses, but the dedicated button for favourites is a simply waste of engineering unless it's going to be the primary focus of the device. As it was, they only really glossed over it at the end of their introduction presentation.

Apple will get a blunt lesson from monitoring the usage of gen 1 customers and they in turn will feel burned by Apple in 2 years time.
 
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Patriot24 said:
I wouldn't say he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Yes, you can wear the watch without the phone near, but it significantly neuters the experience. Without a standalone cellular radio, most of the functions become moot. I for one do not see a problem with this approach in a first generation device, but I think the argument has some validity.

Everyone has different use cases. It doesn't make them wrong.
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Time to grow up. People aren't going to shell out cash for a watch data plan. The iPad has had cellular since the start and very very few people pay for that. If the tethering works well and it has decent offline functionality there will be almost no demand to give the carriers more money. Since neither you nor the other guy have actually used and Apple Watch, it is entirely true that you have no idea what you are talking about.

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aleksoctop said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Industrial Design and User Interface Design are two different things, yet this guy jumps from one to another as though they were the same?
Now I'm not dispelling the fact that Jony had his hands in the iOS7 redesign, but the statement seems a little...uneven?
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If done properly, as they have been post Forstall, they are two sides of the same coin. Design is how it works.
 
never buy first gen apple products. they are almost always too imperfect.

first ipad was too thick, too slow and didnt have a camera

first iphone didnt have 3g, didnt have apps and didnt even have mms!

ipad 2 was a home run, iphone 3g was a home run

apple watch 2 will be amazing. thats what apple does.
 
Life of a head designer:

"Make it thinner and round the edges and make the screen 5.5 inches".

And it was done.

And it was a bit nicer as it could not be otherwise unless the effort was sabotaged.

It was introduced as amazing and magical.

The head designer took a moment to log into his bank account balance. It was actually thicker, but still quite amazing and magical itself.
 
winston1236 said:
Not really, I think its bulky and kind of ugly. Being force tethered to a phone is the final deal killer for me.
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Yes, it does appear a bit thick from certain angles, but if you consider all that is crammed into that tiny enclosure,
I for one am actually amazed.

As a stand-alone device (with even more tech built into it), as well as yielding longer battery life (another oft-desired thing), would make it even bulkier no doubt.

I think for now, the premise of this device is near-perfect: a fashionable and customizable, wrist-worn companion device to a smartphone (which virtually everyone has these days), for almost hands-free operation of many ordinary and repetitive functions, while keeping the larger, and more drop and theft-prone device, safely tucked away most of the time.

Once a multitude of specifically tailored Apps start making an appearance, the AppleWatch will become an even more amazing device, that soon we'll be hard pressed to do without. If there's any doubt about that, all we have to do is think back to the days of 'dumb phones', and how the iPhone completely changed the way we use technology and communicate.

To come back to those size objections many people seem to have, it's a no-brainer that with the unstoppable pace of miniaturization, and hopefully revolutionary battery technology, all necessary technology will eventually be contained in the wrist-worn AppleWatch, making it a stand-alone device.

We're just not there yet.
 
On the day the Apple Watch has full functionality without needing to be tethered to the iPhone in my pocket, is the day I will buy an Apple watch.

Jon deserves this award.
 
How swelled does this man's head have to be? Enough with this adoration. For Pete's sake, he's been Knighted! Can we please move on now and choose some other designer for plaudits?
 
macs4nw said:
Yes, it does appear a bit thick from certain angles, but if you consider all that is crammed into that tiny enclosure,
I for one am actually amazed.

As a stand-alone device (with even more tech built into it), as well as yielding longer battery life (another oft-desired thing), would make it even bulkier no doubt.

I think for now, the premise of this device is near-perfect: a fashionable and customizable, wrist-worn companion device to a smartphone (which virtually everyone has these days), for almost hands-free operation of many ordinary and repetitive functions, while keeping the larger, and more drop and theft-prone device, safely tucked away most of the time.

Once a multitude of specifically tailored Apps start making an appearance, the AppleWatch will become an even more amazing device, that soon we'll be hard pressed to do without. If there's any doubt about that, all we have to do is think back to the days of 'dumb phones', and how the iPhone completely changed the way we use technology and communicate.

To come back to those size objections many people seem to have, it's a no-brainer that with the unstoppable pace of miniaturization, and hopefully revolutionary battery technology, all necessary technology will eventually be contained in the wrist-worn AppleWatch, making it a stand-alone device.

We're just not there yet.
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That last line sums it up. People talk as if Apple totally failed by making it too bulky and not including cellular data and gps technology, as if it would even be possible to get those things into this device with what is technologically available right now.

I want it to be thinner and have cellular/gps as well. And I'm sure it will at some point.
 
"Ive is our generation's most innovative and influential figure in the field of industrial design…"


SAYS WHO?
 
Roessnakhan said:
Without the phone pretty much all you got is a ($350 at least) iPod nano with fitness tracking.
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Another comment dripping with ignorance. Neither you nor any reviewers has ever gotten to try using the Apple Watch, so you have no idea what the offline capabilities actually are.

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winston1236 said:
I know exactly what I'm talking about, thanks.

A product that can't operate fully by itself means that yes it is force tethered. Tell me why that when I go for a run I would want to bring both a phone and a watch?

I want a standalone watch (which I'm sure is a few years ahead in the pipeline) but unfortunately this one isn't it.
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The Apple Watch can most certainly function as a watch without being tethered. And assuming the offline functionality is good and the tethering seamless, there will not be any demand for giving the carriers more $.
 
Without the watch being waterproof, I might pass on this version. I don't like trying to remember to protect my watch everytime im near some water. At least they did make it water resistant so that MIGHT be good enough. With all the sports capabilities though and the way they designed it, I really thought it was going to be water proof, doesn't seem like it would have taken much to accomplish that aspect.
 
oliversl said:
aWatch is fine, Fashion? Not so much. Should Apple be a Fashion company?
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Apple IS and always WAS a fashion company; you do know that design and fashion are linked... They appeal to the same part of the brain, the same cultural and social impetus drives both. Fashion makes a statement about us, just like buying Apple product does. Its not just about the tech is it?

And design has been a big part of Apple since the start.
 
He's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'.
 
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winston1236 said:
Not really, I think its bulky and kind of ugly. Being force tethered to a phone is the final deal killer for me.
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This is an interesting comment, but will probably be solved in a few generations time.

Don't forget, until iOS 5 you needed your iPad to be tethered to a Mac or PC. Can you imagine buying a tablet now which NEEDED to be synced to a computer?

It was the second generation iPod which added support for Windows PCs.

Then again, perhaps you (and others) wouldn't mind tethering if you could tether them to Android phones.

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macs4nw said:
Yes, it does appear a bit thick from certain angles, but if you consider all that is crammed into that tiny enclosure,
I for one am actually amazed.
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Let's not forget how small the watch is. The photos are incredibly close up, making it appear thicker.

When I unboxed my iPhone 5C, I remember being surprised at how thin it was. It didn't look particularly thin in any of the photos.
 
The Apple Watch without an iPhone is just a watch, unsurprisingly. OK, I was a little disappointed by two things: the extent to which the watch is reliant on the iPhone and the small number of sensors built in to the device.

Together, this does take away some of the "wow factor".

However, just as with concerns about the extensibility of the original iPhone and the limited use cases for the iPad, these will quickly become purely historical concerns that future iterations will resolve.

We must remember that we are witnessing a first-generation device and that Apple will be continuing to work hard on fitting in more sensors and more battery life and I have no doubt that it will be an interesting journey over the next few years.

People seem to be expecting Apple to fit, essentially, an entire iPhone, and all its telecommunications components, into a small, wrist-bound device that doesn't need charging for a few days, which seems highly unlikely for years to come. We're at the edge of physics with that stuff.

The Apple Watch is a companion piece that fits into the existing Apple ecosystem and should be seen as a solution to the problem of removing the iPhone from your pocket to check the time, new messages, that important email you've been waiting for, that reminder, that direction etc etc. You need your iPhone, yes, but you can keep it in your pocket. That, as much as it is a first-world problem of the highest order, is the point of the Apple Watch.

Just think about how many times you remove the iPhone from your bag or pocket just to check stuff that hasn't happened yet.
 
an award for designing a rectangle, wow.

First I put round edges on it. then flat. then round...

then..

I'm awesome designer they'll be flat. and thinner.
 
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