Tim Cook on Apple Watch: 'You're Going to Wind Up Charging It Daily'

[DMinTX]

unless you only sleep 1 hour a day....lol

The sweet spot is 23hr life and 1 hr charge, at least for me. My current fitness tracker fits that model easily. Sleep tracking is a very useful health metric, and a fitness tracker needs to be able to support it. If the Watch was positioned as "only" a smart watch (ie an extension of my iPhone) that's one thing. But adding the fitness tracking feature sets it up to be compared to other fitness trackers.

The issue with the Watch is not if it has a 1 hr charge cycle, but if it can make it the other 23 hrs before the charge. When they get there, you can have full day tracking with it being off while getting dressed and showered. My current tracker recommends 23 hr / day on body to maximize the data accuracy. More time on body means a better notion of basal metabolic rate, etc.

 

[Stella]

Unless you're away from home for an extended period of time why would you need to carry around a battery charger? Charge it overnight when you go to bed.

Because its a PITA? That my own opinion. Yours obviously does differ. Go out and enjoy your 1 day battery watch!

 

[pondhopper]

Accelerometer? gyro? I dunno... shake it and charge?

You would think by now, we could charge it with...well ya know...simple MOTION? Call me crazy, but that would be the kind of innovation I'm willing to pay big time bucks for.....

 

[derek4484]

If you have to charge it daily, will there be a replaceable battery? A Li-ion battery has around 400-600 charge cycles in it's normal life. That's less than two years. If someone is going to have to replace the battery that often, let it be user replaceable at least.

 

[downpour]

They can't make the battery TOO good otherwise there won't be enough incentive to buy Apple Watch 2

They won't make the battery better in version 2, it will just be thinner with "the same great battery life".

 

[HEDocks]

It shouldn't be too bad. It's the manual wind for the digital world. Just take it off and charge it on a HEDock by your bed every night.

 

[lowercaseperson]

Slightly disappointed - not at all surprised. I have been wearing a Pebble since it came out via Kickstarter. I have never got more than a full day out of the battery even though they claim "days."

Maybe the current production models have a different battery than my Kickstarter model, and I wouldn't even been surprised if that were the case...but the fact of the matter is I have unplugged my Pebble in the AM, gone to sleep that night and awoke to a dead watch the next AM SEVERAL times.

Still love my Pebble, still want an Apple Watch...taking it off and charging every night is just something you deal with at this point. Frankly I don't think it's that big of a deal - as a healthcare worker I've worn watches for years and years - personally I ALWAYS take them off to shower....so why not just take it off when you go to bed anyway?

 

[nviz22]

Charging something daily for the first go around isn't bad. It will take a generation or two to hamper any issues with stability, battery life, or limited functionality. At first, I wouldn't have purchased an iPad based on the iPad 1 model. As soon as Apple released the Mini, I got it since it was small enough while having the internals of the bigger iPad Air. I have the Moto 360 right now, but I could see myself upgrading to the 1080 or Moto 360 3. If I go to the iPhone 6S or 6S Plus, I could buy an iWatch.

 

[MacModMachine]

If you have to charge it daily, will there be a replaceable battery? A Li-ion battery has around 400-600 charge cycles in it's normal life. That's less than two years. If someone is going to have to replace the battery that often, let it be user replaceable at least.

400-600?...maybe 10 years ago.

most do 1000 + now.

 

[B2k1977]

And nobody asked him about the mess he made with the macmini

I'm sure that's all J. Ive and not so much Tim.

 

[Mike MA]

They can't make the battery TOO good otherwise there won't be enough incentive to buy Apple Watch 2

Unless the battery life won't be horrible, it will be somehow stable over the years I suppose.

I means just look at the latest iPad developments, battery life didn't increase drastically, we rather saw smaller and thinner units.

And from my point of view, there's a lot of potential to shrink down the current Apple Watch, which looks really nice but is built into some massive body.

 

[Rogifan]

not at all, they shut off NFC because it was the only way to block mobile wallet programs that aren't CurrentC and they are contractually obligated to not support anything but CurrentC for the first three years of their contract.

and this would be true if there were 10 million cards activated on Apple Pay or 10 cards

Fact is they didn't shut it off until AFTER Pay was available. If Pay wasn't getting any traction there would be no reason to shut it off. They didnt shut it off for Google Wallet which has been available for several years.

 

[gnasher729]

A watch that only lasts 12-14 hours.

That's pathetic.

They should have de-emphasized the watch and called it Wrist or Bracelet or Band. Marketing that would've been less of a headache.

Where did you read "12-14 hours"? I would expect "charging it daily" means I have a charger besides my bed, put the watch in the charger when I go to bed, put it back on my wrist when I get up.

 

[Rogifan]

Here's hoping!

Cook said he expects people will need to charge it every night because they'll be using it so much. That gives me some hope with more moderate use you'll get better battery life. Clearly Apple sees this product as more than a remote display to tell you the time and display notifications. Apple sees it as a 3rd platform along with iOS and OS X.

 

[iPadCary]

"Since the Apple Watch requires daily charge cycles, users are given a more intimate experience of sitting down with their Apple Watch and waiting for it. iPhone users familiar with this feature would be pleased to know that charging their Apple Watch will work seamlessly through their daily routines. Consciously checking on the remaining battery life often allows users to gain a personal connection with their Apple Watch."

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For the love of God: KEEP. THESE. COMING.

And on topic: this is such a non thing. EVERYBODY juices thier iDevices every day already.

 

[gnasher729]

If my watch can't last a full 24 hours then its pointless. I shouldn't be telling people I can't give you the time because my watch battery died.

I don't mind charging it at night when its not being worn, but anything more is just stupid and people shouldn't buy into it.

24 hours is pointless. You get up today at 8am with a freshly charged watch. You use it for 24 hours and get up tomorrow at 8am when it just runs out of battery.

You want at least 16 and possibly 23 hours. Beyond that, the next useful amount is 40 or possibly 47 hours so you can charge every second day. 24 or 30 hours is pointless.

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No micro-Solar charging panel on the watch? No built-in motion-induced charging mechanism like other "self-winding" watches?

That works for a watch that does nothing than moving one very light digit around in a circle. It doesn't work if you have an LED display that needs to emit light.

 

[samcraig]

Clearly Apple sees this product as more than a remote display to tell you the time and display notifications. Apple sees it as a 3rd platform along with iOS and OS X.

I guess for those that want that on their wrist it's a good thing.

Not sure everyone does though.

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The more I think about it - the less I might be concerned about how much usage I get off of a charge if they enabled fast-charging on the device.

If some of the newer phones coming out can get up to 80 percent charge in what - 15 minutes? Certainly they can do this for a smaller watch/battery.

I might have missed this in the reviews - but how long does a full charge take on the Apple watch. That should be part of the equation if you're going to gripe.

 

[69650]

High-end versions of the Apple Watch even ship in a luxury box that doubles as a charging stand.

I hope they adopt that with the next iPhone.

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24 hours is pointless. You get up today at 8am with a freshly charged watch. You use it for 24 hours and get up tomorrow at 8am when it just runs out of battery.

You want at least 16 and possibly 23 hours. Beyond that, the next useful amount is 40 or possibly 47 hours so you can charge every second day. 24 or 30 hours is pointless.

What it really needs is a power save option so you can keep the basics on (even in greyscale) for longer if for whatever reason you're unable to charge it for a few days.

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And on topic: this is such a non thing. EVERYBODY juices thier iDevices every day already.

True but it's still a pain having to do that. My iPhone rarely lasts until bedtime without needing a charge half way through the day. Pathetic really when you think about it.

 

[Bobo03]

Samsung Unveils $299 Galaxy Gear Smart Watch With One-Day Battery Life



funny comments

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=17830909#post17830909

Love it.

 

[SusanK]

I'm sure that's all J. Ive and not so much Tim.

de facto CEO?

 

[samcraig]

[/COLOR]

What it really needs is a power save option so you can keep the basics on (even in greyscale) for longer if for whatever reason you're unable to charge it for a few days.

Yes - that feature on the new Samsung devices has gone over REALLY well on this forum lol

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Let's not forget before this thing was announced and the rumors were pointing to a FuelBand style fitness band there were plenty here whining about how nobody wants a fitness tracker, look at all the fat people in the US obviously nobody cares about health and fitness blah blah blah. I guess if Apple designed a me-too fitness tracker or a Pebble clone they could have achieved battery life that lasted days. But I think Apple sees the watch as another platform not just an iOS accessory. I won't be surprised if over time it becomes independent from the iPhone.

I'm sorry/not sorry - but since someone posted the link later in this thread, I went and re-read some comment. Yours struck me as funny now..

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17830973/

"Seriously, this is why we don't have a smart watch/wearables device from Apple yet. They would never release one that got a day (or less) battery life."

 

[StyxMaker]

I'll be buying one after my current watch battery runs out.



So, 2019 it is.

Since all my watches, excepting my 100+ year old pocket watch, are Citizen Eco Drives, I'd have to wait a long time if I used that criteria.

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That wouldn't be good enough for me.



Even though it can do loads more, it is still a watch and it needs to be able to tell the time for longer than half a day if it's going to be any use to me.

When did, "People will use it so much they'll wind up charging it every day," become 'it will tell time for only half a day'?

 

[Roessnakhan]

Slightly disappointed - not at all surprised. I have been wearing a Pebble since it came out via Kickstarter. I have never got more than a full day out of the battery even though they claim "days."

Sounds like you got a bad battery or device. Mine goes 5-days no problem (but its a non-Kickstarter edition).

 

[dec.]

Typical. Now one day battery life is great, just like phablets were scorned until the iPhone 6+.

Do you mind providing a quote of someone here saying "one day battery life is great"?

 

[Tech198]

I still would have an issue with charging it daily.

Maybe they got it backwards... It should be "Winding ME up daily"