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Tim Cook: Our Objective With Apple Watch Is to Change the Way People Live Their Lives

Tankmaze said:
Funny thing is, if you look at this thread almost 14 years ago

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/

It's almost the same with todays comment for the apple watch.
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Wow, a striking resemblance! Looking at old threads is so cool, feels like I opened a time capsule. Thanks for digging that up.

The original iPod WAS pretty overpriced, so I don't blame them too much. If the Apple watch is going to be popular, it has to get cheaper. That's what happened with the iPod and iPhone. They started out expensive and low in sales. I'd wait for the 3rd or 4th gen of Apple watches.
 
pdaholic said:
The race I ran a couple of days ago was like taking a two hour long shower. Apple watch wouldn't have survived
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Can I ask, how do you know that? Don't you think maybe Sport edition is waterproof? Of course, at this point we don't know yet.

peterdevries said:
It hasn't been released yet.

What an incredible amount of nonsense...

There are not enough rolling eyes smilies on the planet for these kinds of comments.
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Welcome to MacRumors place (even though you are member for years)
 
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doelcm82 said:
My sister has gestational diabetes, and monitors her blood sugar two hours after eating (most of the time). My brother, who is a physician, says that such monitoring not very useful unless the patient is consistently compliant, and most patients are not. So I agree with you that the Apple watch, combined with a small implant, could lead to better control of diabetes for people who suffer from it.
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Those kind of things already exist (dexcom, freestylelibre, medtronics cgm), they are not linked to a watch, but to some kind of pda (which lasts more than a day!).
 
Art0fLife said:
Change the way people live their lives at $349 STARTING price? That's a good top of the line price, but starting price, entry level? Not on your rich life sir.

Nah, it's not going to change anything for me. It's not that much effort to pull my phone out of my pocket if I need to do "smart" tasks. I mean, this is at the end of the day, an accessory to the iPhone. It can't stand alone even. Not only that, if it requires bluetooth connectivity or anything like that, it will be an accessory that just depletes the battery faster. And I'm not even about to try typing on my wrist, or reading extensive work emails on it.

Nice novelty for people who have the definition of disposable/unwanted income, but this isn't the "iPod" of today. At best this is the iPod Hi-Fi of today.

Edit: And "Can't live without"? That's a bit strong. I mean, I love my iPhone 6 Plus. Thoroughly enjoy it, as well as my iPad Mini 3 and my MacBook Pro, and all my past Apple devices. But I could certainly live without it. And it's far more useful than the watch will be. Hyping something too much can actually be damaging too. It builds excitement in ignorant folks who will be let down when they realize it's not only something they could live without, but also something that adds little if anything to the Apple experience they already had.
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Sounds like ...

500 dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine.
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richinio said:
Those kind of things already exist (dexcom, freestylelibre, medtronics cgm), they are not linked to a watch, but to some kind of pda (which lasts more than a day!).
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The point is not the continuous monitoring which indeed exists already.

The objective is a low-cost non-invasive continous monitoring system that some businesses are working on. That would change diabetes management in the same way as the switch from urin sticks to blood monitoring has.
 
I actually think it can change things I do with technology fundamentally. The sitting-down-too-much-thing is a great example of how this watch could have an impact on your health.

Also, I don't think the high prices of this first version are going to be a problem for people. They will drop significantly in value once it goes to the second-hand market, because it will undoubtedly have scuffs on it. That way everyone can at least try one out for compelling prices and maybe buy a new one when the next comes out.

What will be interesting is the upgrade-cycle of both Apple and the customers. A new watch every year or every two years doesn't seem likely.
 
Elvergun said:
Apple Watches are going back in technology.

Some smart watches last for days (the Pebble & Kairos wathch)...and the most power hungry last at least one day.
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Why don't you spend some time and think a bit here.

19 hours (according to your previous post) is a complete day and more. It would mean that you could wake up, go to work, spend a nice evening outside and charge it overnight.

A 29 hour watch would not be any better. Look at what would happen. You spend the same day, evening, don’t charge it overnight because it still has juice, and suddenly the watch is empty when you are ready to go to work. Bitching and moaning ensues.

So, for the situation to improve from a USAGE point of view a watch needs at least something like 40-48 hours to improve from a 19 hour watch (to make it ultra clear: so you only have to charge it once every two days). That's technically a challenge with the current functionality (which you still think is not enough, even though the watch is not even released yet :rolleyes:).
 
AlecZ said:
If the Apple watch is going to be popular, it has to get cheaper. That's what happened with the iPod and iPhone. They started out expensive and low in sales. I'd wait for the 3rd or 4th gen of Apple watches.
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That's what I'm going to do, too. But while I wait, I'll enjoy the first gen Apple Watch.

If I had it to do over, I'd still have bought the first gen iPhone. No regrets.
 
OllyW said:
But...

Apple reduced the price of the iPhone by $200 less than 3 months after it went on sale so it's not really the best example to use. :p

https://www.macrumors.com/2007/09/05/8gb-iphone-price-drop-4gb-iphone-discontinued/
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The point is, people still bought it regardless.

Even now, if you told someone pre-2007 that it has become common that people pay $600-$800 for a phone it would sound ridiculous. But pre-2007 we couldn't imagine the how the device would change our lives.

Apple is betting the Watch will be the same for wearables.
 
leroypants said:
Funny how Cook mentions how people can't live without a MP3 player after he killed off the classic ipod and how and Apple are in the process of forcing streaming on everyone.
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if something evolves into something else is that really killing it off? And nobody is FORCING you to stream music. you have the choice of putting YOUR own music on your phone..plenty of other music streaming services if you want it that are free too.
 
Neepman said:
Old people spend thousands on watches. Young people spend nothing or maybe get a hundred buck Swatch fashion statement. That thousand dollar watch is still worth something in a few years. A few year old apple watch (unless its the Gold version that can at least be melted down...) will be worth exactly nothing. I see nothing but fail on this product.
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I wasn't really talking about value money wise, I was talking more about what it would potentially do for our lives, fitness and health is a big part of life, if the Apple Watch can help with that then it's worth every penny (in my opinion).
People spend thousands on Mac's (myself included) which help with our daily lives when working, studying and even playing, so to me investing in a Apple Watch is something I'm willing to do.
 
tkermit said:
People (myself among them) gladly paid $399 for an MP3 player in 2001. Why wouldn't they spend less than that for something that does a lot more today?
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This is how I tend to think about the iPhone (and smartphones in general, although I suppose the iPhone is as expensive as they get) - a lot of people would say they are overpriced. But as you say, back in 2001 people might easily have paid $300 + for a compact camera, $300 + for an MP3 player, $300+ for a handheld gaming console.... smartphones are all of those things plus a lot more, for less money.

And don't get me started on people complaining about the high price of a $5 app.

Somewhere along the way I think people's sense of value has gone to whack.

With the Apple Watch, it will be interesting to see how it does, what it can do etc. It really is a difficult thing to get right - large enough to be useful, but not so large that it doesn't look good on your wrist.

I don't think I'll be buying one though - the main use I'd get out of it would be fitness tracking, but I'm looking to get one of the new heart monitoring Fitbit bands. I'm just not quite convinced by having access to stuff on my wrist that I'll already have easy enough access to on my phone.

But I guess history is littered with things people never thought they could live without until they had them.
 
nksing said:
I love my 6+ but I find it too bulky to run with. I can see spending $350+ for the Apple watch if it could track my run without carrying the 6+ along too, but I'm not reading anything about addressing this issue.
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Plenty of devices that will track your run, sync with your Mac and other online services. They're designed for running and some for multisports (including swimming) and cost less than $349

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MellowFuzz said:
So, Tim Cook's vision of the future is to make humans even more useless and dumb than we already are, making us dependent on machines to guide our lives.

Didn't I see this in the latter half of Wall-E?
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You've never used an alarm clock or set a reminder on your phone?
 
You changed my life allright!

Well Mr. Cook, you certainly managed to change my life! What exactly did you (Apple) have in mind when you put the 'early 2011' MacBook Pro 15" on the market? My digital life has come to an end all of a sudden. When are you finally going to take responsibility in this!?
 
Elvergun said:
Apple Watches are going back in technology.

Some smart watches last for days (the Pebble & Kairos wathch)...and the most power hungry last at least one day. I can't think of another smart watch that has a worse battery time than the Apple Watch.
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So you've used Watch? I'm not sure how else you'd know what it's battery life is like. And yeah, something that has a low res black and white display will probably have longer battery life than a retina color display. Somehow I doubt if Watch had a low res B&W screen people here would be cheering. And where can I buy this Kairos smart watch? I wasn't aware it was available for sale.
 
iSee said:
GPS is out of the question for the foreseeable future due to its power consumption.
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There are plenty of running watches that do have integrated GPS. These do not have sexy looking animated displays like Apple, but battery life is enough for ultra marathons etc.

More likely solution: someone creates a small GPS unit that you put in your pocket that is controlled by the watch and feeds it data via bluetooth. Of course, by that time you migh as well buy a different watch that does include GPS.
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Polar has such "gps pods" for some legacy running watches. Pretty outdated now.

Christian
 
Is it safe to assume that the smaller sized watch will be the one at $349 and not both small and large Sports edition watches will be at the starting price point?

I think it's a safe bet that the aluminum and glass version will be cheaper than steel and sapphire version.
 
tkermit said:
People (myself among them) gladly paid $399 for an MP3 player in 2001. Why wouldn't they spend less than that for something that does a lot more today?
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Because that's not how time or technology works... Based on your argument, a computer twice as powerful as the ENIAC today, would be worth buying if it cost $5.5M instead of the $6M (in today's currency) that it cost back then, right? Not really. The tech in the MP3 player was cutting-edge for the time, but today, nobody would pay $399 for the device that came out it 2001. You really can't compare technologies across large stretches of time like that.
 
Gameboy70 said:
Are there any GPS-enabled watches with color hi-res displays? All the ones I've seen have simple alphanumeric LCD displays.
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The Garmin Forerunner 920XT does have a graphic color screen, GPS and BT-smart. Just 205 x 148 pixels, but it can do GPS tracking for 24hrs and it will last 4 months in watch only mode. The display is visible all the time. You only have to activate the light when you are in the dark.

Christian
 
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