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Gurman: Apple Planning Major 'Apple Watch X' Redesign to Introduce New Band System and More
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Weight training is probably the thing the AW is worst at. It's a great running watch for the *vast* majority of people.
Can’t you sidestep FDA approval with some kind of statement that its not a medical device, this feature is for entertainment purposes only?
If anyone’s marketing (legal ?) dept. has the chops to come up with the right weasel words, it.s Apple.
Then again, if I’m measuring blood pressure for fun, I really have got to get a life….
Hypertension is something that affects a massive number of people, so yeah - it might actually help you keep a life, if you don't already have one. As far as FDA approval goes, this is an enormously expensive research and development undertaking. It's really not worth offering it for "entertainment", so if it's offered, it'll actually likely be worth having and paying attention to. My Dad had atrial fibrillation at Xmas this year, confirmed by my Series 8 - and the PDF trace it output was confirmed by my wife (a doc) to be pretty damned good. He was in hospital for treatment the next morning and it likely prevented his having a stroke. This stuff matters.
when you’re not using a magnometer for the compass. It doesn’t. The iPhone will do the compass data for you.
Also there are many systems with magnometer in them that utilize carefully placed and magnets with calibration data that offset the effects of the magnets. There are so many ways to do this now.
If you're in fog with a dead phone, 20 feet from a cliff edge and don't have a functional compass, you've got to move for GPS to give you a bearing. Move in the wrong direction and you're going off that cliff. Trusting GPS for a bearing ain't it. We don't even use it when we can see land.
Even “only” 5 days and I will finally replace my AW4 …
Great point in general but this one stood out, totally agree.
The Watch Ultra is also touted for the extreme sports community, I can totally see that watch sinking away in one of those deep dives where the scuba diver had to do any sort of movement to check mask, hoses, who knows what else and it unclipped it.
It is. I’ll agree. Except to the non-techy person, they want simple. Charging daily is not simple. Hence why it keeps folks away. Folks weigh what it does to what they have to do (cost/maintenance). Apple Watch does more but it costs (maintaining battery daily) more.
I’ve got an ultra. It’s great. So I agree with you. But the average person probably does not see it as apples and oranges.
I will disagree a bit that garmin watches are for sports. I know multiple people with them. None of them… NONE of them use it for sports or metrics. They use it as a smart watch for notifications and simple steps type fitness. That’s it. I ask them why and they brag about how seldom they charge it.
While it’s marketed that way, I don’t believe that’s reality.
I was having a hard time envisioning a system for attaching bands that uses magnets but also has a mechanical attachment, as some people have been describing. Finally found an image that helped it click (no pun intended) for me. If they go this route I can imagine it freeing up internal space without sacrificing a secure attachment, and (of course) priming customers for lots and lots of new band purchases.
Attachments
The complexity of the existing band locking mechanism is ridiculous - new machines had to be built to allow it to be made. What you've shown here is more a dock than an attachment system, with a huge number of potential points of failure. I don't see that happening.
I hope you're right.... It would seem to be a bad idea... but it wouldn't be the first time. (No SD card for any iPad ever as one terrible example.).
I think that sort of depends on WHY you'd see it as an omission/terrible example. iPad excels at being a simple shape, a closed unit with as few apertures in the case as possible. When you add a slot, you also add a place for stuff to get jammed, an edge to get caught on things and snap a card or damage internals if the card snags on something, battery life drain for read/write (small though it would be), using up space taken up by the battery, etc. etc. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I can absolutely understand why there wasn't / isn't an SD slot.
I doubt Apple would change the band design for magnets.
While I can understand people's disappointment and anger(?) over the potential introduction of a new watch band connection mechanism and therefore the obsolescence of their current bands, all I can say is it was inevitable and not without precedence. There is going to be change every so often that requires or makes old tech obsolete. If Apple only designed new devices that were infinitely compatible with prior generations innovation would be impossibly limited.
I also understand some people might believe apple is only (potentially) introducing a new system to "force" people to have to buy new bands, which may be part of it, but I'm sure it's also because they think they've come up with something better. Plus it's their job to innovate and entice new customers to buy their products.
I guess the lesson is every ten years or so our phones' charging cables are going to change as well as our watch bands, and if it's not these items it will be something else.
I also understand some people might believe apple is only (potentially) introducing a new system to "force" people to have to buy new bands, which may be part of it, but I'm sure it's also because they think they've come up with something better. Plus it's their job to innovate and entice new customers to buy their products.
I guess the lesson is every ten years or so our phones' charging cables are going to change as well as our watch bands, and if it's not these items it will be something else.
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The amount of times we've had to buy new phone cases over the years, to fit our new phones... having to change our watch band to for a new watch design isn't all that different. Although I feel for the people who have built up a large collection of them
Who knows? It’s not a strap I’d personally wear, but I’d imagine a wide range of shades in the other options will appear, as well as some new bands for the Ultra. My card is ready and waiting!