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jsmith1

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 6, 2010
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If no round option another year no Apple Watch....might even break down and go Tag smart...Now that’s a good looking piece of art
 
I'm holding out for the triangle iPad, which makes about as much sense.

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If no round option another year no Apple Watch....might even break down and go Tag smart...Now that’s a good looking piece of art

I mean, it looks nice, but I’m not spending $2300 on a smart watch, that’s absurd. And it runs Android. No thanks. I would rather have the Apple Watch experience.
 
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If no round option another year no Apple Watch....might even break down and go Tag smart...Now that’s a good looking piece of art

You might as well go with the tag. If you seriously want a round smart watch, it doesn’t seem like Apple will be offering one any time soon. I think most people are satisfied with the square one and it seems unlikely that with their apparent effort to maximize usable screen space, that they will ever go that route. Smart watches are fantastic, I wouldn’t wait, holding out hope for something that likely isn’t coming.
 
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I mean, it looks nice, but I’m not spending $2300 on a smart watch, that’s absurd. And it runs Android. No thanks. I would rather have the Apple Watch experience.

No comment either way on Android vs Apple but the tag modular connected 41 is around 1300. Same as the edition and Hermes. And it truly is a GORGEOUS watch. I’m tempted myself.
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No desire for a round Apple Watch here. Round watches are so Common.
I’d love a skinny round Apple Watch in ceramic but that’s just me. Sure data driven info and apps will take a hit but it’d be great as a watch. Throw a lovely tourbillon face on it. No way will you get a ceramic high end watch at that price point. The smart features then become bonus.

I mainly use my series 2 as a watch, notifications manager, email triage, weather, music and calendar. I don’t see any of those functions taking a huge hit on a round dial. I’m simply not reading large blocks of text on my wrist and I have the larger version. Still too small.
 
You want a watchface that is an image of gears and flywheels when there's not a single gear inside that watch? Forgive me, but...

asterix-obelix-dogmatix-gesturing-toc.png
*shrugs* looks nice. I find the movements relaxing. Tells the time and has many other complications. Just another digital way of displaying info.

You play any video games? Not “real” either are they? It’s a watch at the end of the day. The beauty of a digital smartwatch (like a digital picture frame) is I can have any face on it. Vintage Rolex , tag, tourbillon etc without shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars. What’s wrong with that?
 
The tag is purty, but doesn't it lack GPS and HRM? I mean...those are two pretty big omissions IMO.

Also, unlike the Hermes, where you also get a fairly nice, premium/expensive strap to keep if you ever upgrade to another, when the Tag's watch module needs replacing, you're basically replacing 100% of the cost of the watch i.e. you don't get to keep anything of value as the strap it includes is meh.
 
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The tag is purty, but doesn't it lack GPS and HRM? I mean...those are two pretty big omissions IMO.

Also, unlike the Hermes, where you also get a fairly nice, premium/expensive strap to keep if you ever upgrade to another, when the Tag's watch module needs replacing, you're basically replacing 100% of the cost of the watch i.e. you don't get to keep anything of value as the strap it includes is meh.
Oh it lacks a hell of a lot of things compared to the Apple Watch. If you’re looking for a proper usable smart watch there’s nothing else out there. Looks wise. Drool. The tag. It’s pretty close to a “real watch”. My usage case is different too as I pointed out above. I think I could make it work with the tag.

You’re right with the Hermes you have a band. But what’s that worth? Perhaps 300 bucks used eventually? The tag let’s you upgrade to a mechanical module (which by itself costs around 3k. Get the modular for 1400 and later the upgrade is 1500. Same ballpark)

Look at the end of the day these are both disposal gadgets. Want something timeless get a mechanical Rado or Rolex to pass on to your kid. There’s no real “need” to buy a premium smarteatch a basic aluminum works exactly the same way. It comes down to disposable income, interests, priorities etc. ulTimately if I were to be honest anything above a basic cheap Apple
Watch is a waste of money and only to indulge my desires, style or vanity. Which I guess I’m ok with. :)

Let’s see if we ever get a nice ceramic stylish round Apple Watch. If not I may not get a premium edition or Hermes and go with a basic last gen aluminum for Apple Watch duties and use the money saved toward the tag modular 41. I just love that thing.
 
You play any video games? Not “real” either are they?
No they're not real, and they don't pretend to be real either. The graphics of a tourbillon mechanism on a smartwatch watchface on the other hand is just an empty facade, even if it animates - which would be fairly complicated to do well from a computer graphics standpoint btw, especially with the limited resources available in a smartwatch. Like, tiny details in tiny gears and such are difficult to render with precision on computer displays due to aliasing issues and so on, which is probably why we have these simplistic watch hands on current watchfaces Apple offers.

Also, good luck convincing Apple to do skeumorphic stuff like that in this day and age. You could simulate it with a picture gallery watchface, but then it wouldn't animate, it'd just be super fake. And would burn-in your OLED display as well btw. :p
 
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Oh it lacks a hell of a lot of things compared to the Apple Watch. If you’re looking for a proper usable smart watch there’s nothing else out there. Looks wise. Drool. The tag. It’s pretty close to a “real watch”. My usage case is different too as I pointed out above. I think I could make it work with the tag.

You’re right with the Hermes you have a band. But what’s that worth? Perhaps 300 bucks used eventually? The tag let’s you upgrade to a mechanical module (which by itself costs around 3k. Get the modular for 1400 and later the upgrade is 1500. Same ballpark)

Look at the end of the day these are both disposal gadgets. Want something timeless get a mechanical Rado or Rolex to pass on to your kid. There’s no real “need” to buy a premium smarteatch a basic aluminum works exactly the same way. It comes down to disposable income, interests, priorities etc. ulTimately if I were to be honest anything above a basic cheap Apple
Watch is a waste of money and only to indulge my desires, style or vanity. Which I guess I’m ok with. :)

Let’s see if we ever get a nice ceramic stylish round Apple Watch. If not I may not get a premium edition or Hermes and go with a basic last gen aluminum for Apple Watch duties and use the money saved toward the tag modular 41. I just love that thing.

I agree with most everything you're saying (though used Hermes bands can trade for more than MSRP as many colors/styles are essentially limited edition).

I *do* think there's a viable market, though small, for a premium round smart watch. Especially with some kind of reasonable upgrade program. In fact, I'd buy the Tag today if it were full featured as a smart watch.
 
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No they're not real, and they don't pretend to be real either. The graphics of a tourbillon mechanism on a smartwatch watchface on the other hand is just an empty facade, even if it animates - which would be fairly complicated to do well from a computer graphics standpoint btw, especially with the limited resources available in a smartwatch. Like, tiny details in tiny gears and such are difficult to render with precision on computer displays due to aliasing issues and so on, which is probably why we have these simplistic watch hands on current watchfaces Apple offers.

Also, good luck convincing Apple to do skeumorphic stuff like that in this day and age. You could simulate it with a picture gallery watchface, but then it wouldn't animate, it'd just be super fake. And would burn-in your OLED display as well btw. :p

I tried the simulation. Hahaha. Used the federer 750k Watch. Looked like *****!

Fine maybe a tourbillon face was a dumb idea but I’d stil like a fancy stylish ceramic round watch. Put mickie mouse on it. Try THAT with a Patek Philippe.
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I agree with most everything you're saying (though used Hermes bands can trade for more than MSRP as many colors/styles are essentially limited edition).

I *do* think there's a viable market, though small, for a premium round smart watch. Especially with some kind of reasonable upgrade program. In fact, I'd buy the Tag today if it were full featured as a smart watch.
I’ll have to research it a bit more but I don’t think it’s missing much. GPS? My phone is almost always with me. It can mirror google maps. Lte? Not sure I need a watch phone. The iOS interface of android wear is obviously limited and I’m willing to accept that. As a watch. Notifications manager. Music player. Calendar etc it’ll work just fine.

Maybe keep a low end Apple Watch for daytime and the tag for night. Might make more sense than dropping hefty cash on a ceramic or Hermes version.
 
I’d stil like a fancy stylish ceramic round watch. Put mickie mouse on it. Try THAT with a Patek Philippe.
Haha! :D A mickey mouse Patek Phillipe would go down like a lead balloon with swiss watchophiles I'm pretty sure. :p

Personally I'm unsure why people want round smartwatches, because as stated many times, round wristwatch displays are only really good at displaying round analog watchfaces, and smartwatches are about so much more, and the current watches are quite good at showing round watchfaces - plus you can fit widgets around the outside of the watchface with a rectangular display, which enhances the "smart" bit of having a smartwatch...

Still, Apple could make a round Apple Watch, I wouldn't mind as long as they keep the current rectangular model also. I don't think they would though, or at least not unless they came up with a smart way to incorporate current watch wristbands to a round watchcase, because they surely wouldn't want to keep two separate series of watchbands in stock. After all, they quit offering so many models/wristband combinations of watches after the original "series 0", no doubt because it complicates their supply chain a lot.
 
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The tag is purty, but doesn't it lack GPS and HRM? I mean...those are two pretty big omissions IMO.

Also, unlike the Hermes, where you also get a fairly nice, premium/expensive strap to keep if you ever upgrade to another, when the Tag's watch module needs replacing, you're basically replacing 100% of the cost of the watch i.e. you don't get to keep anything of value as the strap it includes is meh.

I’m sure the quality is high with the Tag, but I want to know about the _performance_ side of things with Android, Which to me, is way more important over aesthetics. The Apple Watch is a seamless experience with WatchOS and communication with iPhone.
 
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Round watches for smart watches just don’t make sense for content consumption. They only make sense for the watch face itself but trying to read text and other parts of the UI it just gets cut off.
 
If no round option another year no Apple Watch....might even break down and go Tag smart...Now that’s a good looking piece of art

Save your self the effort and go Tag or whatever. I really doubt apple ever puts out a round option because it is a terrible form factor for such things. You lose massive screen real estate for zero gain.
 
Gotta chime in here, I've had two "round" smart watches before the AW. I had a Moto 360, and a Huawei, and while they were nice, they did indeed lack continuity in most of the information. Most was either too small to get it to fit in the square area of the watch face, or cut off at the "corners". Things may have improved since then, but even with the Garmin Fenix 5x I had, notifications were only in the square within the circle. I like the shape of the AW, it doesn't waste space as the others do. Just my 2c worth.
 
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Pretty sure based on the leaks it’s the same with bigger screen. I do find the title of next weeks event “gather round” interesting.
 
Pretty sure based on the leaks it’s the same with bigger screen. I do find the title of next weeks event “gather round” interesting.

I think the gather round invite is indicating the Apple campus, while the gold might represent a new iPhone color and Apple Watch color in a gold variant.
 
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You play any video games? Not “real” either are they?
I know I'm a bit late on this one, but this isn't a good analogy. For video games, and lots of other forms of entertainment, we go into them expecting to suspend disbelief. That's not the case for a watch face. One of the aspects that makes a good mechanical watch face, at least for me, is a sense of depth. When the numerals and tick marks aren't just painted on, but are actual three dimensional items applied to the dial, with the hands sweeping above them, that's what makes it interesting. What makes tourbillon faces so fascinating is the sense they give you that the layers of the onion have been peeled back to reveal the true inner workings of the watch. A tourbillon face on a digital display is boring for the very reason that we know it's not real, it's only a simulation and is not a true representation of the operation of the device.
 
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