Next Amazing Thing: A Watch?

[Andrew H.]

I don't believe this for an instant. There's a very small market for people who are going to strap something to their wrist on the off chance they might get a text message at a time when it's inconvenient to pull your phone out of your pocket. Apple's headphones give you a simple way to control your music (pause, volume, skip, backskip, FF/RW; Siri works well for songs); if you need something more, you probably need the entire phone.

And the whole "premium, trendy, fashionista" stuff is just wrong. Trendy fashionistas don't wear geeky $200 watches. They wear watches that look like this and cost $4000:



(The whole Apple-is-a-luxury shtick is misguided in the same way. Buying a $75,000 Lexus instead of a $20,000 Honda is luxury. Buying a $450,000 house instead of a $200,000 house a luxury where I live (apply the appropriate multipliers for your location...)). Paying $200 more because you want a slightly nicer laptop is not nearly the same thing, any more than paying $1 more for coffee from Starbucks as opposed to McDonald's is really a "luxury.")

[Tacty]

we'll see..we were laughing our eyes out to ipad and we know how it ended up...i think it's the right move by apple...and every iphone owner who don't wearing a watch until now will start thinking of getting apple smart watch. of course, i don't think someone will trade its own rolex or whatever those watch afficionados wearing for some apple junk watch, but there are tons of people who are not into watches but like it as a gadget accessory...and hundreds of millions of the iphone owners are strong potential market...

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Tacty

maybe because it wont work with apple?

There's no reason it shouldn't work, there are standards.

[Tacty]

Originally Posted by afv011

There's no reason it shouldn't work, there are standards.

in this case, there are no standards. some smartwatch are working with android only and thats it, i don't know what kind of standards you are talking about? smartwatch is not standalone devices, they are working like phone accessory and depends on communications with said phones operating systems...

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by holymadness

I don't see how a watch would even be able to run apps.

If such a thing were real, I would bet that:

1. It would be an accessory, rather than a standalone device (i.e. would require a smartphone, tablet, or PC to set up, sync data, and use).

2. It would have an important "lifelogging" component, like the Nike Fuelband+, the FitBit, or the Jawbone Up.

3. It would run only in-house "apps," much like the iPod nano.

Regarding this:


Apple does not work with other companies on products. If you were looking for a red flag concerning the validity of this rumour, there it is.

Apple used Motorola chips in their systems and now uses intel, so no red flag here.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by afv011

I don't see this happening. We know how inflexible iOS is with resolutions; developers would have to rework all apps to run on yet another resolution.

That's a bit misleading. Firstly, iOS isn't as inflexible with resolutions as many people seem to think - it's perfectly straightforward to scale interfaces automatically using using springs and struts, and iOS 6 introduced a more sophisticated auto-layout feature. Many developers choose not to use these, however, as a scaled interface doesn't always produce something as satisfying as a pixel-perfect design for a particular resolution. Android fragmentation means that developers often don't really have much choice but to use resolution-independent designs, but the number of iOS platforms is sufficiently small that it's often entirely feasible to design the ideal interface for each device.

In the case of a watch it seems vanishingly unlikely that a scaled version of an existing interface is what you'd want, so to claim that the need for a custom interface design is due to some perceived iOS limitation is misleading.

/JB

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Regarding this:


Apple does not work with other companies on products.

That is absolute and completely not true. You have absolutely no idea how products are developed at Apple if you make this statement.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

0.99 or less

Sounds a bit steep to me .......

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Sounds a bit steep to me .......

US$ 0.99 is a little steep for an iOS watch, but for an iPad4 I would consider it to be a reasonable price.

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Generally true.
But... Intel makes CPUs and they do work with Apple to (occasionally) get them early access to new, upcoming CPUs and chipsets.
More, there have been previous reports that Apple is looking to Intel as an alternative silicon foundry to Samsung for making their custom chips for the iPxxx lines.
So, strictly speaking, they *could* be talking to Intel about the manufacture of a SoC component for the hypothetical iWatch. Perfectly reasonable.

Doesn't mean the rumor is or isn't accurate; just that Intel's involvement isn't proof of anything. They could just as easily be talking about the real-time clock function of the chipset for the next MacBook Air.

Apple's relationships with its suppliers are like those of restaurant chefs with their grocers. If "working with" is intended to imply a collaboration, then the rumour will be false. However, I agree that its meaning is ambiguous.

Originally Posted by David Munch

That is absolute and completely not true. You have absolutely no idea how products are developed at Apple if you make this statement.

Whatever you say, chief.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

US$ 0.99 is a little steep for an iOS watch, but for an iPad4 I would consider it to be a reasonable price.

We get it, you're cheap.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by holymadness

We get it, you're cheap.

I know, that is why I got the Surface RT.