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What Went Wrong: Apple Watch Series 7 Rumors Edition
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Why? Just because new? The renders of a flat edge watch looked terrible. This updated wrap around design is much nicer and fits with the new display better.
This is the problem. For whatever reason, and we can speculate about what the reasons are until the end of time, the bottomline is these guys are not that reliable now. They were not that reliable for WWDC 2021 either.
I'm old and in my sixties now, and so I’ve been around the block a lot more times than most of the people who post in these MR forums. I've learned to be like a scientist and question everything. Way back in the 1980s when I was in graduate school at Texas A&M I taught a freshmen level underclass course on writing research papers. The most difficult part of teaching that class was helping the students learn the difference between good data and bad data. That is difficult to teach. This of course was long before the internet, although some of us had limited access to the arbor net via the university. Research by students in those days was done by using the library, using the library card system to locate scholarly articles and other research material. There was no internet to search yet. There were no terms like "fake news" yet, although there was plenty of fake news to be found. One had to understand that you needed to verify your sources and verify their qualifications. There is a huge difference between quoting a reputable researcher from an article s/he wrote in a reputable scholarly journal article and in quoting Joe Blow from a Newsweek magazine article. It takes time to learn how to cull out the bad sources from the good ones, a lot of skill, a bit of gut feeling sometimes, and still you can get it wrong on occasion.
Having said that, let us look at the facts. The facts are that for the past year or so we have gotten more misleading and inaccurate predictions from these leakers and others than we have gotten accurate predictions. Maybe Apple is planting false information. Maybe these leakers are not really leakers but were lucky enough to get by on using common sense and understanding of Apple's history with updates to make "educated" guesses. Maybe Apple has dried up their leaks and these guys no longer get any credible information and now just guess wrong. It doesn't matter why they are wrong, at this point it only matters that they have become unreliable sources. So perhaps it is time to stop this nonsense of reporting leaks which cannot be verified, or at the very least, stop calling them leaks. Clearly they are not leaks. Clearly they are incorrect predictions and guesses. So MR, please label them for what they are, mere guesses. I know every website like MR wants to be the first to publish the leaks, but MR you have gotten a lot of egg all over your face in the past year. I suggest you learn how to cull out the BS from the truth, and learn how to label things as mere predictions instead of as leaked information which implies truth.
The idea that Apple would release the 7 with a significantly larger screen and slightly larger case, then release the 8 with a totally new design is just ridiculous. The 7 is the design for Watch for the next 2-3 years, at least.
I’ve been through quite a few forums on the new iPhones and Apple Watches and I haven’t yet seen any mention of COVID-19 impact on design/manufacturing. Surely that has had some impact on what Apple has been able to deliver this year?
I wonder how much of this is Apple restricting information to try and stop leaks. I have no doubt that the flat edge design exists at Apple in some fashion. Why wouldn’t it? They prototype EVERYTHING. It may have come down to 2 designs with the flat edge being one of them. Someone out of the loop but with access thought the flat edge would be the next one and leaked to the leakers. But they leaked the wrong design. Apple wants to stop leakers in the worst way so I also wouldn’t put it past them to false information.
'People' are not the same people
It wouldn’t surprise me if Apple hatched the idea of extending its recent “flat device” look from iPads/iPhones to the Apple Watch, prototyped the design, and ultimately decided (months ago) not to go down that route. I can think of a similar example with the iMac many years ago where the prototype had become quite refined before Steve Jobs decided it shouldn’t be the release model.
Here, Apple’s designers may have decided over time that having something that looks like a refined watch was more important than having something consistent with Apple’s other mobile products. Personal accessories are simply different. It could be that select people within Apple were wearing the flat-edged prototype and didn’t like it as much as what had come before. To me, the leaked design was problematic in part because it simply seemed boring and unrefined — much more like a “gadget” than a stylish personal accessory. Maybe Apple expected to like a flat-edged design and ultimately decided it didn’t.
Regardless, *something* happened at the last minute (relatively speaking) because Apple didn’t have watch faces ready for the new screen size. Yes, we saw a preview of what some of them would look like, but they did not appear to be fully functional faces at keynote time, and they didn’t appear to reflect the amount of focused thought as, for example, the new faces Apple released with the S4 (its last screen-size increase).
Here, Apple’s designers may have decided over time that having something that looks like a refined watch was more important than having something consistent with Apple’s other mobile products. Personal accessories are simply different. It could be that select people within Apple were wearing the flat-edged prototype and didn’t like it as much as what had come before. To me, the leaked design was problematic in part because it simply seemed boring and unrefined — much more like a “gadget” than a stylish personal accessory. Maybe Apple expected to like a flat-edged design and ultimately decided it didn’t.
Regardless, *something* happened at the last minute (relatively speaking) because Apple didn’t have watch faces ready for the new screen size. Yes, we saw a preview of what some of them would look like, but they did not appear to be fully functional faces at keynote time, and they didn’t appear to reflect the amount of focused thought as, for example, the new faces Apple released with the S4 (its last screen-size increase).
No surprises here, there "leakers", "analysts" and "Blumbergers" are just ********ters. And we love it! Go on, be honest, rename "MacRumors" to "MacBullshitters". By the way, have you heard that the next generation Apple Watch is going to provide complete control over bowel motions?
The case is exactly the same and is compatible with all the same bands. What are you talking about?
not worth upgrading from a S6 with no new added sensors. The S8 will be the one to jump to with an obvious health upgrade. S7 is such a money grab right now.
I'm in the "change for the sake of change" camp, as I just really want a watch that looks significantly different than the Series 2, 4, and 6 I've been wearing every day for five years. But I can see how Apple's design team would decide that "flat" is in for laptops, desktops, phones, tablets, and "rounded" is better for wearables. AirPods need to be so rounded because of the shape of the human ear. It seems likely that the VR/AR headsets will have some rounded elements to fit with a human face and eyes. I've actually thought about how cool a curved watch would be, just because of the way a wrist is shaped. (My PhotoShop is bad, but you get this idea.)
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Lol exactly. These “leakers” are just speculating.
If they make a common sense claim and it comes true it’s “haha I’m always right!”
And if it’s wrong like this it’s “oh it was *insert bs excuse here*”
Realize their is an audience for leaks, but would prefer MacRumors to avoid publishing leaks based on speculation unless a device is in-hand.
I always assume rumors are educated guesses at best and making stuff up at worst lol
Unless there’s an actual marketing material leak or an icon accidentally left in an iOS beta I don’t believe anything any of these analysts say
Unless there’s an actual marketing material leak or an icon accidentally left in an iOS beta I don’t believe anything any of these analysts say
1. An Apple product isn't improvissed from one month to the other. These are thought strategically and their plan spans over the course of years.
2. If we had learnt a minimum about the way Apple thinks, its easy: an Apple Watch isn't an iPhone nor an iPad. The fact that a lineup of products gets a flat-edged design doesn't mean that every other Apple product will get it. We are looking at very different worlds here. That flat-edged design might have been a test but Ive already said it about series 4 "I think we have done something very special here". And they did and this NEW design inherits that concept, bringing it further. I am personally thankful, that small iPhone lookalike Apple Watch with flat edges... it felt cheap, its not Apple.
3. We are talking about people who have already proved to deserve zero attention. Let's enjoy products as they come out and be surprised by what thousands of people at Apple have been working at during years. Others can stay home and shave off their bodies.
2. If we had learnt a minimum about the way Apple thinks, its easy: an Apple Watch isn't an iPhone nor an iPad. The fact that a lineup of products gets a flat-edged design doesn't mean that every other Apple product will get it. We are looking at very different worlds here. That flat-edged design might have been a test but Ive already said it about series 4 "I think we have done something very special here". And they did and this NEW design inherits that concept, bringing it further. I am personally thankful, that small iPhone lookalike Apple Watch with flat edges... it felt cheap, its not Apple.
3. We are talking about people who have already proved to deserve zero attention. Let's enjoy products as they come out and be surprised by what thousands of people at Apple have been working at during years. Others can stay home and shave off their bodies.
The case is *not* exactly the same. It has different dimensions externally, and a different cross section internally.
the Apple Watch is very thick and that is why it has curve edges to hide that, flat edges would make it appear as though it got thicker when it didn’t. apple probably experimented with the design and ditched it. Or prosser just predicted based on iPhones becoming flat edged last year.