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By the way, I just spoke to someone at an Apple Store and he said the new bands should be available in store tomorrow.
Awesome, I planned on checking my local store this weekend for the Gold/Royal Blue Nylon band. Hoping they have some in stock.
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The Apple Watch should be bought through a build-your-own style process. Pick a collection, pick a size, pick a band. Show reccommended bands for that model.
After deciphering all of these collections for this article, I came to the exact same conclusion. So much needless confusion to new owners interested in buying.
 
The odd thing to me is that the bands which match the Gold aluminium Sport watch appear to only come with gold buckles if purchased with the gold watch. For instance, if I try to buy the Royal Blue woven nylon band on their site, all images show a silver buckle rather than gold. Yet in the images with the gold watch, the band has a gold buckle.

So can the gold-buckled bands which match the gold watch only be purchased with a new watch? If so, that's unfortunate. I'd like the Royal blue band, but not if the buckle doesn't match the finish of my watch.
Yeah, it's a shame.

I can understand how they don't have the different coloured options for in store, but surely they should give you the option to configure online.
 
Some of these bands are nice. They have "Angela" written all over them.
I rather have my own name on it....

Speaking of Angela....wonder where her 'pod' will be at the new spaceship.....
Sure seems like they have really put her way under the radar.
 
Yeah, it's a shame.

I can understand how they don't have the different coloured options for in store, but surely they should give you the option to configure online.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite ends up becoming true. While they DON'T have any online with gold buckles, those will be available in retail stores and possibly de-coupled from the gold watch. When can we start buying refurb bands? :p
 
To kill time during the event because they didn't have much else to show. That's also why they went on for almost 30 minutes about the enviromment and health kit.

^^^This.

One-third of the presentation felt like a shameless infomercial. And the bursts of applause had all the spontaneity found on old live TV shows. I was looking for an "APPLAUSE" sign blinking on stage.
 
The Apple Watch should be bought through a build-your-own style process. Pick a collection, pick a size, pick a band. Show reccommended bands for that model.

This a hundred times. It would be perfect if you were able to personalize your watch the way you want it the moment you buy it (à la Motorola's Moto Maker). You could get the exact combination you want, without having to buy a separate band on top of the watch itself.
 
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I bought the Milanese loop knock off for my wife. looked great, but 30 days in it was tarnishing. She threw it away and we got her an Apple band (a different one). We agreed not to do knock offs again. The prices are high, but there does seem to be some justification - quality, fit, material, feel.

I've learned the same lesson. As expensive as Apple is, I normally get what I pay for and I normally only have to buy it once.
 
To kill time during the event because they didn't have much else to show. That's also why they went on for almost 30 minutes about the enviromment and health kit.
I'm thinking they, you know, talked about the things they wanted to talk about. This wasn't billed as "BEST EVENT EVAR DON'T MISS IT!!!1!", it was intended to be fairly low-key event. It was intentionally held in pretty much the smallest place they can do an event. The big blow-out events are almost always WWDC and September. This was, "we're releasing a smaller iPad Pro and a smaller current-model iPhone, and while we're at it we'll give some love to the watches too, and talk about how Apple is doing as a good corporate citizen" (which they _always_ do). There wasn't filler - it's not like they have a time slot to fill.

Now, if they do two hours on watchbands and nothing on new Macs AT WWDC, then I'll worry. ;)
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Imagine if all these bands are incompatible with the Apple Watch 2
I think there's pretty much zero chance of that. They have designers who are very familiar with and like to wear high-end watches, and they designed a connector from the ground up to be just exactly what they wanted in a watch strap connector, and I'm sure they expect to make more than one iteration of the watch. I expect they intend to keep the strap mechanism around a long time. They kept the 30-pin connector for ten years (though it was increasingly difficult for them do do so), and designed the Lightning connector to be pretty much future-proof, because it's programmable.
 
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I do like how Apple has entered the watch market but it really needs to work on the Apple Watch software. Fancy new bands well they could be priced a bit lower than they are to be honest. But when people show me how they use the Apple Watch they are confused at how they operate their own watches. Simplification is required with the Apple Watch get rid of the crown.
 
I think the price drop shows that Apple Watch didn't sell as well as they hoped, with price being a significant factor. I thought the rapid expansion of the watch to non-Apple retailers was an indication of this as well.

They said it was the number 1 smart watch in the world. I do believe them, but it's a very small market.

I think they should have started cheaper, and if it was a big seller, they could have put the price up when new iterations came out. In the UK it is now £259 for the 38mm and £299 for the 42mm. In my opinion they should have gone even lower. £199 for the 38mm would be a better price. It could still feel like a premium product, and people would be tempted to buy the next iteration straight away, rather than view it with wary scepticism, as I am likely to do now.

Although I love my Apple watch, it doesn't have the instant 'wow' factor that the ipad and iphone had when they launched. The fitness tracking still leaves a lot to be desired. It is disappointing as a 'runners' watch, even for a fun runner like me. I have posted repeatedly about discrepancies between my Apple watch's guesstimate of distance and my iPhone's measurement of distance in other threads. Given that the Apple watch cycling workout app can use the iphone's GPS to get it right every time, this failure is frustrating.

As for the new bands, I don't understand why the space black Milanese loop is £50 more expensive than the aluminium. Nor do I understand why there are so few bands for the 'aluminium gold' sports watch, or why they are so difficult to buy separately as others have posted. In particular I don't understand why they haven't released an 'aluminium gold' Milanese loop to match the 'aluminium gold' sports watch.

Like others, I do think 73b has this right.

The Apple Watch should be bought through a build-your-own style process. Pick a collection, pick a size, pick a band. Show recommended bands for that model.
 
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As for the new bands, I don't understand why the space black Milanese loop is £50 more expensive than the aluminium. Nor do I understand why there are so few bands for the 'aluminium gold' sports watch, or why they are so difficult to buy separately as others have posted. In particular I don't understand why they haven't released an 'aluminium gold' Milanese loop to match the 'aluminium gold' sports watch.
First of all the Milanese loop is made of stainless steel and not aluminium. The black loop is DLC coated, which is a lot more expensive than the anodised coatings on the aluminium watch cases. The black DLC coated link bracelet is also £70 more expensive than the brushed stainless version.

There are some inconsistencies though, the Space Black watch with bracelet is £90 more expensive while the Space Black with Sport band costs no extra.

As to your second question, Apple don't recommend using the stainless steel Milanese loop with the aluminium watch and it would also be difficult to match the coating finishes on the two different base metals.
 
As to your second question, Apple don't recommend using the stainless steel Milanese loop with the aluminium watch and it would also be difficult to match the coating finishes on the two different base metals.
By "Apple don't recommend", do you have a source where Apple actually says, "we don't recommend putting the Milanese loop band on the sport watches"? Or are you inferring a lack of recommendation because Apple has not gone out of their way to say, "those two go great together", or...? They don't sell such a pairing, but I've never seen them say, "doing this would be bad".

I'm more annoyed that they offer so few properly matched band choices for owners of the Space Black and Space Gray watches. The sport bands and leather loops have their main colored material color at the point where the watch attaches, but the classic leather bands, for instance, all have shiny silver/chrome hardware where they attach to the watch. Bad look to have silver sittings jutting out of a black watch, to connect a black or brown band. When the watches were first released, it wasn't clear that they were going to treat their black watches as second class citizens. I suspect that numerous other day one purchasers share my frustration with this. I might have gone with a silver colored Apple Watch if I'd known it was going to get such preferred treatment compared to the black watches.
 
By "Apple don't recommend", do you have a source where Apple actually says, "we don't recommend putting the Milanese loop band on the sport watches"? Or are you inferring a lack of recommendation because Apple has not gone out of their way to say, "those two go great together", or...? They don't sell such a pairing, but I've never seen them say, "doing this would be bad".
I thought I'd read it somewhere in the build up to the launch last year but I've looked and I can't find it now so please feel free to disregard that statement. :oops:

I'm more annoyed that they offer so few properly matched band choices for owners of the Space Black and Space Gray watches. The sport bands and leather loops have their main colored material color at the point where the watch attaches, but the classic leather bands, for instance, all have shiny silver/chrome hardware where they attach to the watch. Bad look to have silver sittings jutting out of a black watch, to connect a black or brown band. When the watches were first released, it wasn't clear that they were going to treat their black watches as second class citizens. I suspect that numerous other day one purchasers share my frustration with this. I might have gone with a silver colored Apple Watch if I'd known it was going to get such preferred treatment compared to the black watches.
I'm surprised there is no build to order option on the Apple Store where you can mix and match the bands, buckles and attachments to compliment your watch. Apple are famous for their attention to detail and it must drive Jonny Ive mad knowing that there are thousands of his meticulously designed products out there adorned with mismatched accessories.
 
It seems they are going for a two plus year release on watches. Which why I finally broke down and bought one.

And what do you think? Everyone tells me they are too slow to use. So rather than fork out the money now I thought I would wait, but there are some features on the watch that I could really use now. It's just such a big purchase. I need to sweat it out I think.
 
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