if we look at the technology foundation each are built upon I see many years of development that others won't be able to easily copy. Sure, Samsung can copy the Digital Crown and LG can use both a capacitance and pressure sensitive display, but can they really take all that Mac engineering, NeXT engineering, iPod engineering, iPhone engineering, iPad engineering, and all the step-by-step learning that has gone into making ?Watch use what is likely a very power yet small, and relatively power efficient SIP that runs a more efficient OS using Swift (speculation) that will do everything ?Watch can, with at least the same level of accuracy, and a similar user experience (e.g.: look and feel of HW, speed of operation, etc.), while being firmly in the realm of being deemed jewelry?
They had years to do it and so far I've seen nothing that comes close.
The Apple one should end up being more polished. I'm still not sure on the jewellery angle, some styles are more flattering than others:
I've never looked at images of it and not thought of it as a digital watch. The gold one is nice but how many people are really going to pay over $1000 for one? I read the phrase 'mass-market luxury' to describe it and those terms just seem a bit mutually exclusive.
Given the choice between a low-end Apple Watch and a standard gold (plated) watch around the same price, I could see people opting for the standard watch if they want a piece of jewellery, relegating the lower-end models to the feature watch crowd.
I wonder how they do this? If the sapphire is thin enough I guess it could actually use pressure, but I also wonder if it may instead use an algorithm to interpret the pressure by reading the way your finger is pressing on the display.
I'd assume the glass itself wouldn't be very flexible, the Watch site says there are electrodes in the Retina display so I guess the whole display fixture can flex down a bit. It will be very small movements but given the different glass materials, they'd be best putting the pressure sensor in something consistent between the models.
No one else has that as far as I know. I like the subtle things. I look for the subtle features that make the UX just a little bit better. These add up.
The left-right vibration is just differing vibrations. A single for left and double for right or short then long would work. The little things done right do add up to a better experience overall though.
They don't offer internal upgrades for their $2k MBPs and I don't think the watches will cost that much.
A MacBook Pro isn't jewelry.
If the value is the same, people would buy used Watch models on eBay as they would an older MBP. So in year 1, a gold model might be $1199. Then a slimmer version 2 comes out and they sell it on eBay for $800 and spend $400 to get the new one. From Apple's point of view, they'd be selling 2x $1199 watches, you wouldn't need more straps though so maybe a little cheaper. If they sell upgrade kits, they sell the first for $1199 and then maybe $400 for the upgrade but they'd only make a certain margin on each so they'd make more from selling two whole watches than upgrade kits.
It would be a nightmare for inventory selling upgrades because you'd be looking at millions of spare CPU packages floating around the retail channels with different specs. I think it would be an unusual route for them to go and it would need store engineers to unpack the components from resin and reseal them in the store leaving bits of dried resin everywhere.
I wonder if they'll inflate the margins on the gold one enough to allow for variations in the price of gold. It's rare that they adjust prices but they might have to on the higher models to accommodate this:
This is where the wearable market was always going to be difficult for CE companies. We can look at certain sic-fi films to see a wide range of fanciful designs, but the true intersection of CE and jewelry is difficult. I speculated well before ?Watch was announced that for a company to make this market work they would have to start with a large number of SKUs whose only difference is how they look. This is highly atypical for Apple , and it hasn't been done by any of the other "smartwatch" makers that came before. For tthat reason alone I believe Apple is on the right track, even if the current look and functionality for this initial release is not compelling me to want to hand over my money just year.
Jony Ive was talking about the number of models in an interview and they said it had millions and millions of configurations like they usually do but then he described the variations and said there were 3 bodies, 2 sizes and 6 straps. Each strap has color variations, rubber has about 6, metal seems to have 3 and then there's the color dot that gets pressed into the crown. It's nowhere near millions of external configurations but they do seem to have more visual variations than others. That's where the Android Wear would come in though as it has different manufacturers with the same software.
vs
The Android ones are not going to have anywhere near a consistent user experience across them all but they have a bit more variety to the styles.
Considering the degree to which each of these men stamped (have stamped) their respective marks on Apple, it is fascinating to see them in the same shot.
Do these wearables really tell you much helpful about your sleep, though? I'm not convinced. I have an iPhone app for sleep, but I don't put much store by it, as it simply tracks movement, which is very simplistic.
I'm not sure about "these wearables," but I can see how a good analysis of the data could provide a lot of interesting to useful insight [meaning that it might be of variable interest and usefulness. ;-) ] Pulse, respiration, and body movement alone could be extremely useful beyond just for baseline vitals. As an example, I see super easy low hanging fruit (beyond simple training info) might around certain disorders. I think sleep apnea could be diagnosed/suspected very easily and much earlier than it presently is. Of course there might be false positives or over diagnosis, but many simple sleep issues are co-morbid with excess weight. It might be very motivating for people who are trying to lose weight to see feedback showing that their esoteric sleep issues are tapering off as they approach a healthier weight.
A relatively reliable BP sensor would have some real possibilities too. I say relatively reliable because even if it wasn't exact all the time, software tricks could be used (especially with the other, previously mentioned, reliable sensor data) to toss spurious BP data and get some good basic BP data free of "white coat" bias. Again seeing your overall BP readings fall with weight loss could be great positive reinforcement.
I think it's ultimately a good thing for 2 reasons. Before anything technical, marketing too many features on the initial product launch, including some that seem niche etc, would take away from consumers feeling like they understand the product being offered to them. Also, if all of the features had worked out, Apple would be left with little to add on to future generation apple watches, as the body has a factually finite amount of monitorable aspects that anyone would bother to keep track of, whereas a phone has limitless options that change as society becomes more and more dependant on mobile technology in daily life. I am interested to see if the watch catches on, and while I am confident it will moderately (by Apple's standards), only time will tell if consumers really want to be wearing a near-phone on their wrist all day, or if the wearable trend is just that.
The AI article itself, in the first sentence. Did you miss that part? It said:
Quote:
In designing its first wearable device in the Apple Watch, Apple looked to incorporate a variety of highly advanced health functions with an eye on creating a holistic monitoring device, but ultimately scrapped those plans due to technological and regulatory hurdles.
Comments
The Apple one should end up being more polished. I'm still not sure on the jewellery angle, some styles are more flattering than others:
I've never looked at images of it and not thought of it as a digital watch. The gold one is nice but how many people are really going to pay over $1000 for one? I read the phrase 'mass-market luxury' to describe it and those terms just seem a bit mutually exclusive.
Given the choice between a low-end Apple Watch and a standard gold (plated) watch around the same price, I could see people opting for the standard watch if they want a piece of jewellery, relegating the lower-end models to the feature watch crowd.
I'd assume the glass itself wouldn't be very flexible, the Watch site says there are electrodes in the Retina display so I guess the whole display fixture can flex down a bit. It will be very small movements but given the different glass materials, they'd be best putting the pressure sensor in something consistent between the models.
The left-right vibration is just differing vibrations. A single for left and double for right or short then long would work. The little things done right do add up to a better experience overall though.
If the value is the same, people would buy used Watch models on eBay as they would an older MBP. So in year 1, a gold model might be $1199. Then a slimmer version 2 comes out and they sell it on eBay for $800 and spend $400 to get the new one. From Apple's point of view, they'd be selling 2x $1199 watches, you wouldn't need more straps though so maybe a little cheaper. If they sell upgrade kits, they sell the first for $1199 and then maybe $400 for the upgrade but they'd only make a certain margin on each so they'd make more from selling two whole watches than upgrade kits.
It would be a nightmare for inventory selling upgrades because you'd be looking at millions of spare CPU packages floating around the retail channels with different specs. I think it would be an unusual route for them to go and it would need store engineers to unpack the components from resin and reseal them in the store leaving bits of dried resin everywhere.
I wonder if they'll inflate the margins on the gold one enough to allow for variations in the price of gold. It's rare that they adjust prices but they might have to on the higher models to accommodate this:
http://www.macrotrends.net/1333/gold-and-silver-prices-100-year-historical-chart
Jony Ive was talking about the number of models in an interview and they said it had millions and millions of configurations like they usually do but then he described the variations and said there were 3 bodies, 2 sizes and 6 straps. Each strap has color variations, rubber has about 6, metal seems to have 3 and then there's the color dot that gets pressed into the crown. It's nowhere near millions of external configurations but they do seem to have more visual variations than others. That's where the Android Wear would come in though as it has different manufacturers with the same software.
vs
The Android ones are not going to have anywhere near a consistent user experience across them all but they have a bit more variety to the styles.
Considering the degree to which each of these men stamped (have stamped) their respective marks on Apple, it is fascinating to see them in the same shot.
Do these wearables really tell you much helpful about your sleep, though? I'm not convinced. I have an iPhone app for sleep, but I don't put much store by it, as it simply tracks movement, which is very simplistic.
I'm not sure about "these wearables," but I can see how a good analysis of the data could provide a lot of interesting to useful insight [meaning that it might be of variable interest and usefulness. ;-) ] Pulse, respiration, and body movement alone could be extremely useful beyond just for baseline vitals. As an example, I see super easy low hanging fruit (beyond simple training info) might around certain disorders. I think sleep apnea could be diagnosed/suspected very easily and much earlier than it presently is. Of course there might be false positives or over diagnosis, but many simple sleep issues are co-morbid with excess weight. It might be very motivating for people who are trying to lose weight to see feedback showing that their esoteric sleep issues are tapering off as they approach a healthier weight.
A relatively reliable BP sensor would have some real possibilities too. I say relatively reliable because even if it wasn't exact all the time, software tricks could be used (especially with the other, previously mentioned, reliable sensor data) to toss spurious BP data and get some good basic BP data free of "white coat" bias. Again seeing your overall BP readings fall with weight loss could be great positive reinforcement.
Who says they were shelved?
The AI article itself, in the first sentence. Did you miss that part? It said: