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Games on a phone? I'm not sure of their rationale. Do they really expect people to play games on their phone and kill it's less-than-a-day-long battery life when we have game consoles that are far more powerful and don't have battery issues?
- Gamers in 2007

The watch is extremely gimped without being paired with a phone buddy, so your analogy makes hardly any sense.
 
Translucency on a watch screen looks too confusing, too ugly, too old. I can't believe the bad decisions that Jony has made to UI design en general.
 
Translucency on a watch screen looks too confusing, too ugly, too old. I can't believe the bad decisions that Jony has made to UI design en general.

It's not required. Most of the Watch mock up apps I've seen don't use it. In fact if you go to Apple's website hardly any of their watch screen shots are showing translucency.
 
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Well, it’s 14:20 in the UK and I’ve just put my iPhone 6 on charge at 23%!

If you honestly believe you will be playing games on your phone and expect to have a battery at 11pm you are seriously deluded - production-level unit or not.
Actually I don't only believe, but I _know_ that I have battery at 11pm after playing (and surfing, eMailing, photo-/film-shooting, music streaming) on my iPhone. With my current 6+ it's usually >50%, but the 5 and 4S normally also had around 15-20% left.

The question is what you do and to what intensity. Hours of ambitious gaming in high details/resolution will kill any battery on common mobile devices in no time. The casual game inbetween will not.
 
Actually I don't only believe, but I _know_ that I have battery at 11pm after playing (and surfing, eMailing, photo-/film-shooting, music streaming) on my iPhone. With my current 6+ it's usually >50%, but the 5 and 4S normally also had around 15-20% left.

The question is what you do and to what intensity. Hours of ambitious gaming in high details/resolution will kill any battery on common mobile devices in no time. The casual game inbetween will not.

Good for you. It's not like that on my iPhone 6 or my old 5s, 5, 4s, 4 or any of my mates.

With the same use I can go to bed with 25% or like today I can have 20% by mid afternoon. There seems no logical reason for the disparity.

I'm not prepared to get into yet another battery spat but I can almost guarantee when the watch comes out battery life will be the biggest gripe. A weeks battery life on a watch is laughable let alone something you have to charge every evening. What happens if you're on a night shift - do you leave your watch charging during the day an put it on at 6pm?
 
This is where Smart Watches jump the shark

Smart watches are great for specific operations, location based services, health and fitness, music and phone companion connectivity, but the biggest mistake that companies will make is trying to treat it as a platform that will have "millions and millions" of apps sold on it. Apple is jumping the shark in this area.

The screen is too small and limited to support a wide variety of apps. Sure there might be the odd game that might work well on a small 1.5" screen, but ultimately I can't see someone playing or using the watch for an extended period of time without growing weary of the lack of screen space and control functionality. Also playing something on your wrist is not as convenient as you might think. Imagine starring and poking at your wrist for 5+ minutes, how long do you think you can last before getting tired of that.

I am sure there will be a burst of novel but poor quality apps, much like there were a burst of flashlight apps on the first iPhone, as people think they can break into this market with something nobody thought of for a smart watch, but ultimately I can't see this platform resolving into one full of thousands of high-quality and wide variety of apps that people use every day. Eventually the release of apps will taper off to a slew of copy-cat and redundant variations of the same fitness, health, location and phone companion apps that Apple has already taken care of out of the box.

Lastly, Apple doesn't understand context, its why Siri sucks compared to Google Now, and the idea of having to poke a screen repeatedly to run a specific app to suit a situation you are in is going to get tired quickly as well. Google's Android Wear is all about trying to understand the context of what you are doing and showing the app or service that might be most important to you without having to finger your watch repeatedly in order to get the information.

I think by version 2 or 3 Apple might understand the smart watch market, but right now Apple and a slew of iOS developers are treating the iWatch like an iPad or iPhone and I don't think that is prudent in the long run. Focus on a limited but high quality set of features first before plaguing the iWatch with a bunch of ***** apps.
 
I'm excited

I'm excited because I love watches. I have 9 traditional watches and 1 Pebble Steel. The Apple Watch to me is a great looking "watch". If its casing was around a traditional watch interface and not electronics, I would still want it. The attention to detail, the choices of bands and their detail, the effort it took to create the watch is easily visible when looking at it.

Just because the watch may or may not have the ability to play games doesn't make it less of a watch to those who want to use it as one. I doubt I will play any games on it, but I don't play many games on my iPhone either. But as someone stated before, it's about having options. These types of products are based off of preferences. That's why my dad used a flip phone up until 2 years ago, because he preferred that and had no need for a smart phone.

I plan to use the Apple Watch to tell time, as a fitness tracker and to check notifications without pulling out my phone. I know reaching into your pocket isn't a tough task, but certain times it's more convenient to just check your wrist (I do this all the time with my Pebble).

Some argue it is too large. By measurements, I would say that more than half my watches are larger than this one; or about the same size. That's a trend with watches. They are becoming a little larger and more noticeable.

I don't mean this in a negative way, but those who perceive the Apple Watch to be a flop before it even comes out, I would question their perceived use for it; which is different from person to person. If I'm not going to buy this watch I am going to buy another. So for me, I want it as a watch first and an iPhone companion/health tracker second. But I feel like the negativity towards the watch could be, generally, coming from those who have very little interest in watches.

The CEO of Tag Heuer, who criticized it at first, is now stating it is a threat and he will probably wear one. This, along with many other positive remarks from the fashion/accessory/watch world, is enough to validate its purpose as a "watch". Beyond its functionality as a watch, its hard at this point to determine its use and benefits. This will take time. But it's is too early to call it dead, especially when you look at it as a watch, not simply a smaller screen to play puzzles on.
 
Not picking on you, but can we all imagine how many times that particular "benefit" is going to be spun in the coming months as part of rationalizing why we all need to line up and buy the watch? The great burden of pulling out the iPhone will be solved by buying the :apple:Watch.

Since that burden is a problem for so many of us every single day, how long until we can get to this...

Image

That way, we won't even have to lift our arms or move our heads. Ahhh, nirvana*!!!

*though that probably works against the whole health-kit thrust

So long as we're not forced to become Wall-E fat, lazy, slobs I have no problem with anything like that. Soon we'll be able to just "jack in" without the need to leave our homes. Does that mean we stop progress because some people might just become shut-ins or addicted or lost in a virtual world?

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing a text without having to pull out my phone. Half of all my texts do not require a response but do require a read so I know what's happening. That alone justifies an Apple Watch purchase for me.
 
or i can take out my phone for a bigger screen to play on.
i don't think i should be in any particular app for longer than a minute on the apple watch.

In related historical news from 2007... there's no need for an app store for the iPhone because that's not what phones are for!

{In five years, there will be thousands of watch-specific games that no one has even dreamed of yet. People are amazingly close-minded when it comes to the evolution of software on new platforms.}
 
two very differrent products, if you can't understand why people are pooping the apple watch, just buy it as soon as it comes out and ignore there threads.

No kidding it's a different product. The complaints are always different depending on the product. The success is always the same.

People complained the iPod was too expensive, didn't have wireless features, could only run on a Mac...

They complained that the iPhone had no physical keyboard, no Flash, no MMS, no 3G...

...that the iPad was a big iPod Touch, for consumption and not creation, can't do anything an iPhone or computer can't...

Now that the Apple Watch doesn't do anything an iPhone doesn't, only has a day of battery life, and doesn't work without an iPhone.

Now I can't WAIT for this device and I know many feel the same. It's going to be a total blow-out in sales and techies once again will be scratching their heads until they try it out. Then out will come the credit card.
 
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I'm in two minds. Was convinced at the launch it wasn't for me. After all I get notifications on my fenix.
Time passes on and I realise how useful getting those notifications is. I now want the next step to be able to clear those off from the notification centre without having to pull my phone out of my bag. As it stands I think the apple watch will be the only way for me to do this.

Some of the items on the watch are superfluous for me; I won't be sending heartbeats and doodles to people.

The battery life is still a concern though. 9 to 5 mac's latest report on anticipated life being something like 3 hours heavy use does worry me.
 
In related historical news from 2007... there's no need for an app store for the iPhone because that's not what phones are for!

{In five years, there will be thousands of watch-specific games that no one has even dreamed of yet. People are amazingly close-minded when it comes to the evolution of software on new platforms.}

if you're staring at the watch for longer than a minute, take out your phone and do it. the phone does everything better than a watch.

and who said there's no need for an app store? i asked for something like that the minute the iphone was introduced.
 
if you're staring at the watch for longer than a minute, take out your phone and do it. the phone does everything better than a watch.

So you don't believe there will ever be a hit game designed specifically for the Apple Watch?
 
So you don't believe there will ever be a hit game designed specifically for the Apple Watch?

i could imagine many great games for the Apple Watch. I have a list of ideas that I'm going to be making myself actually.

just not one where you're going to play with it for 10 minutes straight.
 
i could imagine many great games for the Apple Watch. I have a list of ideas that I'm going to be making myself actually.

just not one where you're going to play with it for 10 minutes straight.

We'll just have to disagree then - - I can imagine many, many games will enrapture Apple Watch users for much more than 10 minutes.
 
We'll just have to disagree then - - I can imagine many, many games will enrapture Apple Watch users for much more than 10 minutes.

what can you do on your watch, interface wise, that you can't do on your phone besides force (contextual) touch?
 
Odd, I never considered games on such a tiny display. I guess its possible, depending on the game but I don't think there will be a huge market for games on the watch.
 
I wouldn't be surprised to find that many future Apple Watch games will take advantage of it's taptic feedback function.

taptic.gif


To me, this is it's most underestimated feature and I'm still amazed that it has barely been talked about on this board.

There's Only One Reason to Buy an Apple Watch

There is indeed one feature that sets the Apple Watch apart from the recent smartwatch deluge: it buzzes eloquently via haptic feedback.

If there is any promise in the smartwatch category, it lies in the fact that it is in contact with your skin at all times. Haptic UIs have some history in mobile tech—however clumsy it may be: your smartphone, for example, probably buzzes with all the eloquence of an Olive Garden notification puck. The iPhone takes it a bit further and allows for customizable vibration notifications—i.e, if your dad is calling, you get a rapid burst of buzzes; if it's your roommate, you can set up a few loooong vibrations. But this merely scratches the surface of what can be transmitted through feel.

Vibrations, for example, can be localized within a device. This means that different vibrating areas can signify different things. This localization could (and has) be used to direct human movements; buzzes on the left indicate you should go left and vice versa, while a rapid burst means you've arrived. This is the perfect interface for walking directions or other location-based apps like Foursquare/Swarm (not to mention something like Grindr).

But feel-based UIs have the promise of being so much more expansive. The technology already exists to recreate tactile experiences using a solid surface, like Fujitsu's tactile touch screen that can recreate textures and sensations such as rough, smooth, or slippery.

Just imagine the possibilities: your device could transmit the feeling of running water if a rain storm is approaching, or a friend could "send" you a sandy sensation to let you know they arrived at the beach. This opens up a whole new dimension of interaction. And a device that literally wraps around your arm would be an ideal conduit.

That's why I am happy to see Apple taking the lead with haptic feedback. Specifically, the Apple Watch boasts a new "taptic" technology, which provides sensations directly to the wrist. Apple says that the device can provide very slight notifications on your wrist that only the user will feel and hear. Additionally, the Watch allows users to virtually "tap" each other remotely, and the device's vibrator is specific enough to provide directional turn-by-turn guidance. As developers explore the Apple Watch's API, we can expect a lot of other cool applications.
 
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