From what I am hearing, it doesn’t sound like Apple has solved this problem. People are expecting that you will need to charge it every night. Battery life is the main reason I am still happy with my Pebble… for now.
I think I agree with this… Apple doesn’t need to innovate nearly as often – they’ve established their reputation. Everyone needs to remember, Apple does desire to make good looking, easy to use tech to improve your life. Apple desires to make money for its shareholders. The way it has chosen to do it in the past is to make good looking, easy to use tech to improve your life.
Now, they are still creating good looking, well built tech, but they are focusing on getting users fully into their ecosystem to - surprise - continue to take loads of your money… I am not saying this is wrong or right.
The Apple Watch and Android Wear are just examples of this … you cannot use an Apple Watch with an Android phone, just as you cannot use an Android Wear watch with an iPhone.
I would agree that this has been true in the past. That being said, I think Google is taking steps to try and alleviate this from happening going forward.
I was one of those people who first saw smartwatches like the Pebble and thought “What, you’re too lazy to pull your phone out of your pocket to see who is texting you now?” - but then I got a Pebble for my birthday, and I was surprisingly pleased at how useful it ended up being. It is ugly as sin, but it actually is useful.
Having said that - the Pebble is only like 100 bucks. $350 for a smart watch seems a bit excessive to me, and I’m not sure the feature set (at least what we’ve seen of it so far) has me sold. Also - you need an iPhone, which is kind of a drag too. That goes for the Android Wear watches too, of course.
As for the new iPhones? I dunno, I like them. If I was getting a new phone on contract some time in the next 6 months, I’d consider getting one. But I’m likely going to end up getting either the next Nexus phone (if/when Google ever gets around to announcing it) or a OnePlus One off contract, simply because they are so much cheaper off-contract.
As for Betteridge’s law, no. And the phones also come in two sizes! Pay attention. 
Edit: and the cheaper 5S/5C are still around, for the while, as a ‘small’ option.
Wasn’t the ginormous Galaxy Note said to be more popular with women in Asia because it’s too big for a pocket but not for a purse? I’d argue kindle-sized devices do look ridiculous pressed to anyone’s face (you know, as in phone), which is the sort of use cleverly absent from the ads.
I’m only thrilled about the Apple watch because it means by this time next year there will be half a dozen Android versions to choose from and I can take my pick.
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Well, there’s already at least 3 (or is it 4 now? I think LG has a round one coming out) Android versions to choose from right now. I’m partial to the Moto 360, despite the little bar on the bottom.
yeah, I am not sure if that was a poor attempt to claim Android manufacturers copy Apple or just that he (she?) didn’t really know there were Android Wear watches out already.
I read it as a dry “now that Samsung knows exactly what to copy it’s sure to flood the market with a cornucopia of similar, cheaper gadgets to choose from”. No?
Already have a cheap-ish watch with a sapphire crystal and a “rotating crown”, though for everyday use I’m more used to rotating the bezel to keep track of cooking times and internet geekout sessions. It even works at night. Though the display stops working after a couple hours, it recharges in “lamp” mode.
I like what a smart watch will be able to do, but there are a few things that need to happen to make the things small and light enough with circuitry integrated enough to both save power and leave room for a big enough battery: round, non-flat OLED displays with all circuitry for display and the watch layered onto the back of the (sure, sapphire) crystal. A rotating bezel as well as crown.
You know, I feel sorry for whoever has to set up these yearly Apple events.
They have to pretend that whatever’s come out the skunk works this year is the greatest coolest thing ever, or they will piss off the Apple fanboizen, but even if it is the greatest coolest thing ever, the Apple haters will spend ridiculous amounts of time finding fault with it.
The poor schlubs just can’t win…
PS: This is the watch I’ve carried for 19 years, except for formal occasions. The chain has been repeatedly repaired but the watch has survived 30’ falls onto stone, complete immersion in salt water, etc. The only thing it can do (other than serve as a makeshift hammer, bludgeon or pendulum) is accurately show the time. It has had three batteries, although one of them only lasted a few months. It seems to be an optimal timepiece for my purposes.
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Well, Samsung (et al) may do that, but they already have pretty much identical, not cheaper gadgets available for Android Wear…
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I’m disapointed.
I thought experiences such as the following would actually mean something:
Since officials often claimed that tear gas was used only on vandals and violent protesters, I wanted to document these particularly egregious circumstances. Almost by reflex, I pulled out my phone, a Google Nexus 4, which I had been using on this trip as my main device, sometimes under quite challenging circumstances.
And as my lungs, eyes and nose burned with the pain of the lachrymatory agent released from multiple capsules that had fallen around me, I started cursing.
I cursed the gendered nature of tech design that has written out women from the group of legitimate users of phones as portable devices to be used on-the-go.
I cursed that what was taken for granted by the male designers and male users of modern phones was simply not available to me.
I cursed that I could not effectively document how large numbers of ordinary people had come to visit a park were being massively tear-gassed because I simply could not take a one-handed picture.
I especially cursed that I could not lift the camera above my head, hold it steadily and take a picture—something I had seen countless men with larger hands do all the time.
But I suppose it’s easier to use a heuristic (“the answer is no”) than it is to think about unfamiliar experiences.
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You make some very valid points. Apple’s OS has mostly remained consistent over the years and has had a strong influence on the brand loyalty they have accrued.
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It was a joke on the nature of headlines. Of course it will be too big for some hands. We’ve come full circle from giant brick phones to giant roof tile ones. I was not joking about the real-life usefulness of ‘small’ iPhones still being available.
t’s a thoroughly ridiculous trend, ‘bigger is better, ergonomics be damned’ and I find it useful to keep a sense of humor on hand at all times, as it were, to help put things in perspective.
The point is that sometimes it’s easier to look at your wrist. I prefer a watch to my phone to check the time - it’s easier. For some kinds of notifications, I could see the same thing. They built in some nice haptic feedback (it can essentially tap you on the wrist), I could see that being much more pleasant than the standard notification noises or vibration (which I sometimes miss when my phone is in my pocket).
And while it requires a phone today, it’s pretty clear that someday it won’t. It makes sense to figure out some of the essential UI to handle that situation now.
And yes, for some people it will be a status symbol or a fashion statement. That’s OK too - there’s nothing wrong with that, and their money spends just as well.
Ok then.
However, Zeynep Tufekci was complaining about the Nexus 4 (having had ideological differences with Apple over such things as censorship)
A Nexus 4 is 133.9 mm x 68.7 mm.
An iphone 5 is 123.8 mm x 58.6 mm
An iphone 6 is 138.1 mm x 68.0 mm
An iphone 6 plus is 158.1 mm x 77 mm.
Though some of the inconvenience manipulating widgets on a larger screen can be ameliorated by a better OS, the phone itself is still physically larger than what is ergonomically appropriate for a smaller hand.
If the Nexus 4 is too physically large to be usable, than the iphone 6 will also be too large, never mind the iphone 6 plus. The iphone 5 is smaller–true, but it’s not as advanced, and vulnerable to obsolescence, both planned and unplanned. Remember, Apple’s watch requires at least an iphone 5, and ApplePay seems to be an iphone 6 feature.
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My wife has been using an iWatch for years now. (usually just when flying)
She was just telling a story about a flight a couple years ago… Her seatmate kept on staring and glancing at her nano and finally asked if she worked for Apple – he thought that she had a prototype iWatch.
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Thank you for not saying “a woman’s hand”.
(I’m currently reading George Lakoff’s Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, which is a book about cognitive models of categorization and how they shape people and cultures.)
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a 50/50 chance. Aren’t coinflips grand?
Seriously, though, my hands are on the smaller size, so assumptions tend to work against me as well.
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