Rocwurst

As Ars Technica says, "A deal with a fashion brand isn't going to fix a dead hardware ecosystem."

Android Wear is pretty much irrelevant in the SmartWatch market dominated by Apple (41% marketshare) and Fitbit (21%) watches.  Fossil, who is number 3 in the smartwatch rankings only managed a measly 4% marketshare with Android Wear as a whole basically Missing in Action.  Even Samsung uses their own Tizen platform rather than Android Wear.

Android smartwatches have been an utter failure resulting in Qualcomm releasing exactly the same SoC (System on a Chip) to power AndroidWear watches for the last 3 years with nothing but a name-change each year.  As result, AndroidWear devices have dreadful performance and features and are massive dinner plates on a user's wrist completely outclassed by Apple's Series 4 Watch with its 64bit class-leading in-house SoC.

As a result, this Google Fossil deal is not expected to mean much in the real world.

ihatescreennames said:

I still want to see a video that times opening, in sequence, all the “same” apps on each phone (twice) like we used to get every year. Like, start the same game on each and when it’s ready to play move on to rendering out the same video on each device, and then on to the next app, etc. 

Sorry but opening 16 apps and immediately closing them again twice is not a "real life speed test".  Although with 4GB of RAM - the same as the Pixel 3, even in these tests the iPhone XS is faster than the Pixel 3.

In contrast, exporting 4K video, opening a PDF, browsing a web page, comparing games frame rates are all actual real-world tests and the iPhone utterly dominates Android devices in all of them.

No, the iPhone X delivering 64 fps in a 3D rendered game vs 45 fps for the S9 is actual real-world usage. So is opening a PDF file 8.6x faster, so is exporting a video to share 4.4x faster, so is rendering a complex web page 3.5x faster.

In all the REAL-WORLD tests, the iPhone utterly dominates Android flagships.

It is quite amusing how spec-obsessed Android fans are now so desperate to discount all the industry-standard benchmarks that are specifically designed to find out which devices have the best performance. Merely because their favourite devices are so convincingly beaten by Apple's custom, optimised silicon.

Here in Australia, Apple Pay works everywhere - even vending machines because contactless PayPass cards are ubiquitous. Also ubiquitous is that the limit per transaction using Apple Pay is around $1,000 thanks to the biometric authentication with TouchID, FaceID and Apple Watch. In fact, i never carry my wallet anymore as I pay for everything with my Apple Watch something which now hardly ever elicits comment from retailers.

I think you're missing the fact that there is a huge number of iPad owners around the world with iPads much older than 2016. We have 2 version 1 iPads from 2010 and a 2011 iPad 2 in the house and it was only with the release of last year's 10.5" iPad Pro that we finally upgraded to one modern iPad. This cheaper iPad now might be enough of a reason to get a second new tablet in the house as well.

Got my silver 256GB delivery 2-3 weeks pre-ordered.

Had 2 computers refreshing the web page and an iPad and an iPhone both sitting running the store app.

One of the Macs started working first at about 8 mins past the hour and I ordered the beastie.

In contrast, the Apple Store Apps are still sitting there waiting. Even after quitting and restarting they're still not updated.

So much for the advice to use the app.