That's what I thought as well. If Craig had announced these features it would have seemed a lot more significant.
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WatchOS 2 Impressions/Discussions
- Thread starter mr.anthonyramos
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I believe that what we saw announced today is exactly that... watchOS 2 is what Apple wanted to release up front, but due to technical issues they couldn't resolve in the time they allowed for themselves, they released the watch as we have them right now with what is currently watchOS 1. Now that they have had more time, they are releasing watchOS 2. Further, they are holding off to release it in the Fall alongside OS X 11 and iOS 9 so that all three operating systems are aligned. I fully expect from that point forward, we will see major releases to all three operating systems each year in the fall.
Now the question is: when will new watch hardware show up?
Any one running Android Wear. You can install tens of thousands of watch faces or easily create your own.
I'm excited about the increased opening of the platform, but the lack of 3rd party faces is still a major disappointment. As somebody who prefers digital faces, there is only one option with complications, and only a few colors available. Not exactly "Most customizable EVAR".
+1 for the 3rd party watch faces. Maybe Apple will finally open things up a bit more in another year?
Glad to see FaceTime audio added. I wonder why the "walkie-talkie" app was canned and never revived (would be similar in function, using the VoIP stack, but could have had a cool "trekkie" feel to it, if they would have designed it right)
Flip of the wrist, communicator sound, say the person's name and Siri tries to connect you - maybe a tone if they're busy)
Glad to see FaceTime audio added. I wonder why the "walkie-talkie" app was canned and never revived (would be similar in function, using the VoIP stack, but could have had a cool "trekkie" feel to it, if they would have designed it right)
Flip of the wrist, communicator sound, say the person's name and Siri tries to connect you - maybe a tone if they're busy)
Quantity is not > Quality.
I'd rather have 10 high quality Apple made watch faces over 1000 mediocre 3rd party watch faces.
I agree with this. But having owned a Moto 360 and now the Apple Watch, I have to say the Apple Watch just works so much better, such a smoother experience. Love my 150+ watch faces on my Moto 360, but that and the fact that it's round, are the ONLY things I like better about the Moto 360
I'm curious to see how Wallet works on the Apple watch. Will the double tap of the side button bring up everything (credit/debit cards, store cards, boarding passes, loyalty cards that still require barcode scan (like Starbucks), etc.? It'll get awfully crowded in there with lots of scrolling, LOL.
Just a matter of time until businesses get their act together and start doing GPS tags for all of their locations (today, you can make your favourite Starbucks location your favourite, so it's on the lock screen when you go to that location) - if they had all Apple Pay vendors populating the GPS coordinates, we could have the loyalty card for all of them automagically there when you go to pay. Give it time.
+1 for the 3rd party watch faces. Maybe Apple will finally open things up a bit more in another year?
Glad to see FaceTime audio added. I wonder why the "walkie-talkie" app was canned and never revived (would be similar in function, using the VoIP stack, but could have had a cool "trekkie" feel to it, if they would have designed it right)
Flip of the wrist, communicator sound, say the person's name and Siri tries to connect you - maybe a tone if they're busy)
I'm wondering if the walkie talkie Tim mentioned moths ago was perhaps just sending voice recordings back and forth through iMessage
Let's hope it works better on my watch than the current implementation, which works only when I'm NOT going to Starbucks, LOL.
TBF, when I do go to Starbucks, it does show up AFTER I've placed my order and already used passbook to pay. But other than that, it shows up when I'm in the grocery store parking lot across the street and behind a gas station from the local Starbucks. When I'm in line inside Starbucks waiting to pay? Nothing.
I suspect the walkie-talkie app was going to work with the side button and the favorite friends. It would have made a lot more sense than it does now with just shortcuts to make phone calls and texts.
Did they mention Activation Lock for the Watch during the presentation? I didn't catch it but just noticed it on the website.
Starbucks should take advantage of their wifi to increase the GPS accuracy.
That would help.
How heavily detailed can the animated GIFS be??
Anything like the smoothness of say... the jellyfish watch face, or the time lapse photography shown today?
I don't know if I missed or it maybe it's a feature that wasn't mentions but... can devs now use the HRM in their apps?
"Developers have access to the Taptic Engine, to build haptic notifications into third-party applications, and they're also getting access to sensors like the accelerometer and the heart rate sensor."
The above quote is from our hosts write up of the events today. A late update to the write up says that registered devs have access starting today.
As far as those who say that what Apple announced today for watch OS2 should have been on the OS at launch; I come from a Pebble Kickstarter background and they did the same thing that Apple is doing now. The SDK for dev was not available at launch and it was I believe 2 or more months before the devs got anything to really work with.
I think that once this is released in the fall that those who sent their watches back because they didn't do all that they expected are going to be very disappointed when they see what they can do.
One thing I'm looking forward to is the night mode. I have felt that this would be a neat thing to have, that the watch can now be used as a clock while charging. If they allow it to have an alarm feature through the speaker then its just the cats meow.
The ability to use photos or photo albums as watch faces is also going to be something very cool indeed.
I'm now as excited about fall to come as I was for the watch to launch.
The above quote is from our hosts write up of the events today. A late update to the write up says that registered devs have access starting today.
As far as those who say that what Apple announced today for watch OS2 should have been on the OS at launch; I come from a Pebble Kickstarter background and they did the same thing that Apple is doing now. The SDK for dev was not available at launch and it was I believe 2 or more months before the devs got anything to really work with.
I think that once this is released in the fall that those who sent their watches back because they didn't do all that they expected are going to be very disappointed when they see what they can do.
One thing I'm looking forward to is the night mode. I have felt that this would be a neat thing to have, that the watch can now be used as a clock while charging. If they allow it to have an alarm feature through the speaker then its just the cats meow.
The ability to use photos or photo albums as watch faces is also going to be something very cool indeed.
I'm now as excited about fall to come as I was for the watch to launch.