Apple Watch: Wait a minute! This puny wrist-puter costs 17 GRAND?! Apple boss Tim Cook appeared at an art center in San Francisco on Monday to confirm when the much-hyped and super-expensive Apple Watch will go on sale. In short, you can order one from April 10, and it'll hit store shelves on April 24. Cook also revealed other bits and pieces, such as a new slim MacBook going on sale soon. …
You can get as angry as you want about content exclusives, but content distributors want it that way because it maximizes their market power. If House of Cards was available on Amazon and iTunes, there's less incentive to subscribe to Netflix.
An exclusive with Apple for three months benefits both Apple and HBO. HBO benefits from the publicity Apple gets around the Apple TV price cut and the event where it was announced, Apple TV gets increased stature compared to the competition for being the first to carry HBO's long awaited online offering.
My problem with it is the potential for a ballooned version of the console wars where I have to have many different devices just to get the content I want. The different services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, et al.) is a little annoying but palatable as long as I can access them all from one device.
Imagine if you had to buy a different tuner for every TV channel you wanted to watch. That's the road exclusives like this lead us down. This one will expire in 3 months. What about the next one?
Hopefully, the market will prevent this from happening in the extreme, but I think that depends on how willing we are to swallow our displeasure and just be sheep.
I can pretty much guarantee it is going that way. People think cord cutting and dropping cable/satellite subscriptions will save them money and they can still watch the shows they want. Content producers are not going to sit still and let their incomes be reduced.
House of Cards is the tip of the iceberg, Amazon is reportedly developing exclusive content and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple does something like that for iTunes someday, and Google as well. Maybe Sony will put some Sony exclusive content on the PS4. Having content limited to a particular device may not be a big deal - if you had to have a Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast and maybe one or two other things that adds up to a few hundred dollars at most and no monthly fees for the hardware. If there is content that requires a PS4 or a Samsung smart TV then it'll be too bad for a lot of people who won't get to see it, but if Sony or Samsung produced the content they would be able to do that if they wanted.
What's going to kill you is if in order to watch the programming you want, you need a subscription to HBO's online offering, Sling TV to get AMC and ESPN, Hulu Plus for network programming, Netflix for House of Cards and movies, Amazon for their exclusives and the movies they have to rights that to Netflix and HBO do not, iTunes to get Apple's exclusives. That's the "ala carte" offering everyone thought they wanted to free them from cable bundles, but they'll end up paying the same. If you want to save money you're going to have to give up some stuff, and not know what people are talking about when they discuss Game of Thrones or House of Cards or whatever.
"legally from Oz"
Will it be available outside the US then?
I kinda zoned out during that part of the keynote as i assumed it was going to be a US only thing.
If it is available worldwide then i'm definitely signing up - there's years and years worth of great tv watching on HBO (and that's just from watching The Wire over and over and over again)
The new laptops are a showstopper and answers the question about the 12" iPad, why have a iPad when you can get a laptop which is much better. Yes the iPad is great but most power users buy a keyboard for it and that will make thicker, I must admit I have never seen a good matching keyboard. Touch screen, na. However out goes the non-retina book, the only mac which you could upgrade. Welcome to the throw away laptops.
Can only speak from my experience with Wintel laptops in the ecosystems I work in, they do get upgraded, more RAM, larger HDDs or even retrofitted with SSDs.
It's not a 'small' ecosystem but is rather narrow so it may be untypical.
Weren't Apple the ones who soldered in an SSD?
"Weren't Apple the ones who soldered in an SSD?"
Yep. I had to buy a Mac about two weeks ago so I could continue developing iOS apps. Up until then I had a 2006 MacBook which I had upgraded the RAM and HD of to be able to run Mountain Lion (10.8). I couldn't get Mavericks to run on it, so I had to bite the bullet and purchase a new system.
I ended up with a MacMini, the mid range one, and I feel absolutely used. I have, willingly, bought a machine that I can upgrade the HD on. That's it. I can't upgrade the RAM, it's soldered on. I can't upgrade the CPU, it's soldered on. And, although I don't believe it, I am stuck with this configuration for the rest of time. I can't give it back to Apple and ask for more RAM. This is what the bloke in the shop told me, but again I doubt this.
During this time I looked at the MacBook Air's, and he told me they were the same. No user serviceable parts, everything soldered.
F**k you Apple.
But they are cheap. Cheaper to produce that is. So profit margins are hiked twice over: once, given the high price and again, by saving production costs.
Soldering things straight to the board also increases reliability and makes them thinner and lighter, which apparently is what everybody wants.
I don't have to cart a laptop around anywhere so it's not much of a selling point for me, although having said that I would rather sit around with that thing on my lap than our old Dell!
I have often changed or upgraded the following on laptops -
Ram
HDD
CPU
Wi-Fi
DVD
Bluetooth
Screen
Keyboard
Battery
Not that difficult. If a customer brings in an older laptop for a clean up and I have a better part laying around that I can swap in two minutes I'll do it free of charge. It delights them and they pass my name on and come back as a return customer. A bit of old junk to me means a decent upgrade for them.
On my laptop I've upgraded:
WiFi
Optical Drive
Graphics Card
RAM
HDD (used partition Magic on desktop to copy existing content /OS)
Replaced keyboard, battery pack case fans due to age.
Original
1600 x 1200 ultra sharp totally matt finish zero reflection 15" screen (other screens were possible)
1.8 GHz P4 CPU (other CPUs can be fitted).
OK, perhaps it's a little large and heavy. The Mac Air is indeed an x86-64 tablet with built in keyboard. It's expensive though unless you want OS X.
I wonder how long before Apple drop OS X and only have iOS though.
It's a choice between expandability/upgradability and packing all those components in to the smallest form factor possible. They didn't solder in anything that looks like an SSD, they took the chips that would normally go in to a separate component and attached them to the motherboard. It needs no cabling, is less boxy, and so it fits in a smaller form factor. The fella who changed every component in his laptop*; let's face it, its not going to be svelte is it?
You pays your money, you takes your choice. Other laptop manufacturers are available.
* surely buddy, at some point it was cheaper to get a new laptop than a new keyboard, gpu, ram, odd, hdd...
Why would it need "a whole desk full of cables"? It's not the right MacBook for me, but my wife would love it, and without any cables she can connect to the internet, print, make backups automatically, sync with her iPhone and iPad, and display thing on the TV in the living room.
Until she needs to charge it and get data off a usb drive at the same time.... Oh, you can't actually plug in the USB drive anyway without an adaptor...
Seriously I could understand one or two ports and nothing else but ALWAYS a separate charger port...
Guess this also means that they will have a 19v 3a usb c cable ready to mistakenly be plugged into some poor device expecting to receive/supply 5v .5a
>Guess this also means that they will have a 19v 3a usb c cable ready to mistakenly be plugged into some poor device expecting to receive/supply 5v .5a
That's not how USB 3 works. Devices will negotiate with each other as to which supplies what power to which. The horse's mouth:
http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/
>Until she needs to charge it and get data off a usb drive at the same time.... Oh, you can't actually plug in the USB drive anyway without an adaptor...
Some people don't use USB drives very much these days, especially people used to tablets, wireless printers, Dropbox, and 'good enough' phone cameras that don't require an SD card. Those who do can buy the Macbook Air or Pro.
Yeah, the pros of omitting a second USB might seem very small (weight and volume savings) but many users would be fine with it.
"Some people don't use USB drives very much these days, especially people used to tablets, wireless printers, Dropbox, and 'good enough' phone cameras that don't require an SD card. Those who do can buy the Macbook Air or Pro."
Ah so it's just a $1200 iPad with a keyboard attached. How innovative.
"How innovative."
To be fair, it is innovative since nobody else has designed such a thin light laptop yet, and everyone else is reducing the price of their laptops. The expense of a device isn't always linked to spec, sometimes it's the fact that the device fulfils a requirement which people are willing to pay for. Anyone who carries a laptop around the city will be glad of thin and light, allowing a smaller bag. The fact that it lasts a full working day on one charge is nice too so you can leave the charger at the office or at home - I never take my rMBP charger to work with me and that has similar battery life. As for ports, they've been right most other times they ditched things. Floppy drive, CD drive, serial ports, the list goes on and they were usually the first to jump with very few users missing the old stuff. Even the processor is fine for most work done by most people. My 800MHz Duron with 512MB memory will still run Office just fine and display the Internet, photos and videos and that covers most non techies just fine.
To be fair, it is innovative since nobody else has designed such a thin light laptop yet
Since when dd 'innovation' mean do the same thing again?
People have for years created thinner laptops as the technology becomes available. Using the latest version of someone else's technology is not innovation. The innovation is at Intel, creating a processor efficient enough to avoid the need for active cooling - therefore thinner. No doubt the Surface 4 will use the Broadwell chipset and might be thinner and lighter still - that doesn't mean Microsoft are innovative!
Innovation for innovation's sake does not aid the user experience. Innovation is not a goal in itself, and really it's a bit of a strange criterion to judge something by. User experience and fitness for task are how stuff should be judged.
It would seem that Apple have made a Macbook that will suit some users very well, just as the Panasonic Toughbook (again, niche and pricey) suits a very different set of users.
Me? I wanted the monstrous ThinkPad W700ds with the two screens and Wacom digitiser (huge, powerful, expensive) but in truth 95% of the time I'd be better served by a more mobile laptop.
To be fair, it is innovative since nobody else has designed such a thin light laptop yet
This shows a shocking lack of knowledge of what the industry outside of Apple is doing.
Microsoft's like-priced Surface Pro3 is thinner, uses a more powerful CPU (Core M is optimised for low-power consumption), includes touch and is lighter if you attach a touch cover. Screen density is comparable, and personally I prefer the 1.5:1 ratio to 16:10 (Ideally, I'd prefer 4:3 for a work device, but nobody does that) If Apple are supposed to be the greatest hardware designers of our age, then why are they being outdone in "innovation" by what Microsoft did last year?
MS does stiff you for a keyboard accessory, but you do get a full-sized USB 3 port, and you can charge the thing, drive a display and use a peripheral at the same time without another easy-lose dongle. (If you think that's not important, you've never given a presentation - a major use-case for MacBook Airs, by what I see)
ASUS will do you a traditional laptop with a 1920x1080 screen display (not as sharp as the MacBook or Surface's 1440-line display), at the same thickness as the MacBook. ASUS mustn't have got the memo from Cupertino about what's possible on small metal enclosures either, because they also include multiple USB ports shave another millimetre off the thickness (12.3 vs 13.2 for Apple), and the whole thing comes in a US$699, or just a shade over half of the Apple product's price. [ Zenbook UX305 ]
I'm not telling you that you shouldn't be buying Apple - it is your money to spend, but do so knowing that what you're getting is not any better than anyone else's offering, just more expensive and less capable.
I currently use a MacBook Air for my laptop. I won't be considering this thing as a replacement for it. Had it offered three USB-C connectors, I could live with its other problems, but as shipped, this is nothing more than a $1200 Facebook receiver.
Using just a heart rate monitor and accelerometer? Sounds like crap to me.
Measure my gait using one set of sensors, that can be placed in different locations around the body, but, the device has no idea where it is in relation to my legs? Really? Today the phone is in my coat pocket, and I'm walking on a flat pavement, tomorrow my jeans pocket as I walk through the woods. Any meaningful comparison in those two sets of data?
Sounds more like some medical institutions are counting large, unrelated, donations to some research projects made by some anonymous Californian technology company. Allegedly.
Heart rate monitor with accelerometer has been around for a while. Garmin watches for starters - accelerometer is in the transmitter of the HR band so unless your heart moves then will tend to be in same place. Can tell me my running cadence, how high off the ground I'm running (efficiency) etc. not sure you could call it medical research but useful for runners at least
The array of sensors on the likes of the Microsoft Band would prove far more valuable to medical researchers, however said boffins tend to be a bit magpie like and love shiny things. I can also see the offer of a Fruity Watch to wear during the trial and keep after being used to entice participants into studies.
Nah, most really rich are very stingy unless they are getting serious value for money. This watch will have vey little value once the new, thinner, version arrives.
This watch is for the only just rich enough that want to show off, unless (as the article says) it gets a killer app.
Nah, most really rich are very stingy unless they are getting serious value for money. This watch will have vey little value once the new, thinner, version arrives.
Super tight, but the key thing with this demographic is that they value cost. Don't know what to get Wifey #4? Solid gold iWatch, shopping is done. She knows its fucking expensive, I know it's fucking expensive, everyone is suitably reassured as to their own value that they have given/received it as a gift.
Same with Swiss watches, they're anniversary or 18th birthday presents (now you're a Man, here's a £20k Patek to hang on your wrist. No, I don't get it either.)
Well I know some super rich people and they're the exact opposite of what you said. If they really want something price is not a problem. People have to get over themselves. 10,000 for a watch is not your demographic. You or they are not the people who will be buying it.
I know guys that watches are their thing and they're not rich, but they've forked over almost 5000 for a high-end watch. There obviously is a market for these things, or there wouldn't be so many super expensive cars, clothing, merchandise being made.
There are enough people in the world to consume countless Bentleys, Astons, Ferraris, Lambos, Porsches, Range Rovers, etc who own yachts and travel in private jets. These people can splash £10k on a watch and leave it in a draw for 99% of its life because they have many other expensive watches. Apple will sell enough of these and make a shed load more cash. What you and I think about that doesn't matter in the least. We are not the target market and common sense notions about obsolescence are totally irrelevant.
My understanding is that you get access to the entire HBO content library. So just wait till S5 is done broadcasting, which is why I put this in June rather than April. Not quite same as a Netflix bulk dump from day 1, but close enough. Otherwise you could bug their faithful subscribers with your spoilers :)
Oh, and reality has since bit me on the butt too - not available in Canada, only US. I knew it sounded too good to be true. One hopes we'll eventually follow suit (but not holding my breath yet).
Apple are always leading the pack, i'm sure there will be an announcement soon enough with how they are speeding up earth's rotation ready for the watch launch.
In other news, all other apple products now have an extended battery life, last 1/4 more days.
They're going to have to do some serious engineering - at the moment we have to stick leap seconds in every now and then.
Still, the easiest way is probably just to move the moon nearer. Conservation of momentum will do the rest. The eclipses will be impressive.
(And since '10 hours' is all day, does that mean the watch lasts nearly two days?)
Well, my Moto360 (when I remember to take it off my wrist and charge it) acts like a bedside clock when in the charging dock which is nice. I've no idea if Apple Watch has a similar function or not.
However, my Moto360 lasts 36 hours on a full charge so if I leave the dock at work (which I've done on occasion because I'm a moron) on Monday, for instance, it'll last me until Tuesday lunchtime. If it only lasted 18 hours then quite often I'd find it completely flat and useless. For essentially twice what I paid for the 360 I'd expect better from Apple. 18 hours really is a big miss in my opinion.
Just never travel, you must return home every night to charge your iPhone, iPad and iWatch.. so either three chargers or a single charger and a bunch of cables and rotate, still knowing at least one of your devices will not be at 100% in the morning
"...one charge lasts up to 18 hours..."Translation of "up to" follows.
"...one charge lasts about 10 hours..."
Garbage. …. JeffyPoooh
It appears that senior executive office management know that it is garbage in very probable, normal every day, real world use, JeffyPoooh. ……. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-10/apple-watch-may-be-doa-cook-admits-battery-life-low-3-hours
Does that reality amount to a blatant fraud being perpetrated by Apple upon fanbois and the markets? Is that tantamount to mis-selling and a cause for exemplary punitive compensation claims?
No, they lost the plot around 2003 or 2004, about two years after Nokia went mad internally.
Windows 10, : Will disappoint, At best no worst than win7
Azure: Pointless to most people
Office 2016, :rent a cloud Office. Stick to Office 2003 or use Libre Office
open sourcing .Net, : Born of desperation!
MS and Apple are now mature companies thrashing around wondering how to to maintain momentum.
"MS and Apple are now mature companies thrashing around wondering how to to maintain momentum."
And yet with 90% ownership of the desktop market the MSFT stock price just keeps on going up, and Apple is the largest publicly traded company by market capitalisation on earth, so I suspect their opinion of what works holds a tad more weight than yours.
Is the rubber band so you can wind it up?
Seriously though, these things are SO expensive. I don't mean the bling versions - that actually makes sense since there are some very rich people looking to differentiate themselves - but several hundred dollars when you have to have an iPhone as well?!
I cannot work this out. IPX7 says one metre is OK. Would have expected more. My £20 Casio is good for 50M and it's been swimming with me >20 times. Yes I know Casio != iWatch but if a £20 watch can be usefully waterproof IMO then why can't a $300 smart watch? Would have been a good selling point I think.
"it's a better selling point for version 2, to push people to upgrade"
This is what I don't get about the $17k version. It's not like it's a timeless classic that you'll want to pass on to your kids, like a Patek Philippe or Jaeger-LeCoultre, it's a mark 1, underpowered toy computer for your wrist, that is guaranteed to be comprehensively superseded at the next upgrade cycle.
Less than one day's battery life anyone?
> For $17k they should have had free upgrades for life.
>
> Take your gold watch in, get the new model back.
They could even use the Rolex model and charge for that kind of service. In this case "service" would mean getting the old innards upgraded to the new ones and having all of your data (if any) migrated.
It might only be a 'a mark 1, underpowered toy computer for your wrist, that is guaranteed to be comprehensively superseded at the next upgrade cycle.'.
The Sinclair Black Watch (which was a watch and not some kind of Scottish regiment) retailed new for £24.95, you can get one on ebay (new in box) for around a grand which is an appreciation of > 5 times inflation (nice hedge if you can get it).
A 1st gen iWatch (new in box) costing $500 today could be worth $20000 in 40 years.
>>"All the 'stuff' in a regular £20 watch takes up space equivalent to a pea (or less). An iWatch is probably chock-full of stuff, does that make it harder to find space for better water-proofing perhaps?"
I could be wrong, but I think the waterproofing goes on the outside.
It is a surface area / volume thing. Also, the iWatch has a speaker and microphone, which have to be waterproofed in a different way if they are still to function well.
I've used a few cheap 50M Water Resistant Casio whist swimming without any trouble. I even operated the buttons under water, which the manual said wasn't a good idea.
I think the last non-waterproof watch I had was a Casio Calculator watch - I was nine years old. I then got the Casio Thermometer watch, and I really wanted the Casio IR Remote Control watch - apparently just the thing for upsetting teachers when they showed videos in class.
"Casio IR Remote Control watch - apparently just the thing for upsetting teachers when they showed videos in class."
...the proper use of that being of course driving the poor chap at the bar into further and darker depths of insanity while he's unsuccessfully trying to figure out why the pub's CD player under the counter (but facing the mirror-clad back wall) keeps getting stuck repeating your favourite song...
Apple's obsession with minimalism on their laptops is getting stupid now.
Anyone that's plugged a thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter into a Mac laptop will tell you that, they look ugly and it seems like a bodge.
You have to either carry all these ugly short wire adapters around or a thunderbolt dock (with a wall wart).
Just think of this new Macbook as a sort of iPad. If someone has got on well with an iPad without ever plugging it into ethernet, then this will serve them fine.
Also, it is a narrowly targeted product, almost a tech demonstration or proof of concept. It could be that Apple can't get enough of these 'Retina' 12" screens, so have fitted them to a niche product that they don't expect to sell in as large volumes as the MB Airs or Pros.
The original Macbook Air only had one USB port... all MB Airs since have had twoUSB ports, so it is possible that Apple might either backtrack again for MKII, or else be vindicated in their assumption that some people use USB less often these days.
anybody seen the BBC thread about this?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31798484
The amount of "This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain." is quite incredible. The beeb has had a huge slating for its perceived Apple bias and has now started to censor the posts, then they started to censor the "why has my post been censored posts!" Total shit storm.
You're right - I just had a look over there and about a third of the comments seem to be moderated out! I just put in my own comment just to see whether it would be censored or not. Even amongst the surviving posts though, this seems to be getting a largely negative reaction.
This is fascinating. Oddly enough, I pretty much NEVER criticize modern tech. I argue a fair bit on these forums but (and people can check if they don't believe me), it is almost always in defence of something rather than actively criticizing someone's hard work (which most technology is). About the only exception that comes to mind is systemd.
And yet this iWatch is a rare exception. Technologically, I guess it has its impressive aspects, but honestly, I find I just don't like it. I think it's badly misconceived and flawed.
The story over at the Beeb is turning more to be about the censorship rather than the watch, its a story in itself. This isn't the first time either, there was quite a backlash a month or so ago when the beeb failed to lunch a windows phone version of its news reader. The you have the general fawning over anything Apple especially by Rory Cellan-Jones or iRory as he's being called (in many of the censored posts). The BBC is meant to be independent but it does seem to be increasingly an advertising avenue for Apple.
and still the removing of post goes on, getting quite silly. The moderators are going to be busy as normally they reply to the poster explaining what the issue with the post is!
wonder how long this one will last
I've now counted 4 BBC articles about this launch (the one above, this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31805655, this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31805649 and this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31794823)...what is going on?
Apple are an important tech company (despite (or thanks to) their tax-'avoiding'), but there are many, many others out there too!
Apple is the biggest company in the world and accounts for 80%+ of the smartphone market (by value) so anything they launch IS news, by definition.
Is there a site where people are saying what their comments are, that were censored, so we can see if it's bias rather than lots of childish Apple-haters posting "Apple are ****"?
if you're quick you can see the posts before they're pulled. There have been very few childish ones
some examples
384.55notout
27 Minutes ago
Apple have just brought out their competitor in the smart watch market.
It is acceptable for the BBC to carry out a critical analysis of this product, comparing it with others on the market, but RCJ's article reads more like a press release designed to stimulate interest and raise demand.
It raises serious issues about the BBC's editorial standards and it's impartiality.
12 Minutes ago
@385 123BillyB
"the blog host" is the BBC, surely. RCJ is just the writer, and is subject to BBC editorial processes and reviews in much the same way as HYS posters like you and I are subject to moderation.
Given the sustained criticism here it would be reassuring to read a response from RCJ and the BBC that addresses the concerns raised. Removing our comments only makes it worse.
"anybody seen the BBC thread about this?"
Ha! My favourite comment so far about the Apple Watch is one I've just read on that thread:
"I think that the Apple Watch is not as useful and practical as a Pebble. It is also much more expensive, I got mine from the beach..... FREE." - Testaclese the tautologist
...seriously, can someone do the math and work out the $/oz value of the gold used in the "sell a kidney" expensive Watch? Also, purely from a materials point of view, the value of the aluminium in the iPhone 6 compared to the Watch Sport. They are the same price(ish dependant on iPhone variant etc etc), however the watch cannot do anything past tell the time without an iPhone, the Sport variant can't be worn whilst swimming, it has no internal storage (could be wrong but a quick peruse of the Watch sub-site didn't reveal any detail) and judging by the difference in the prices, some straps account for $400 for the 38mm steel link compared to the elastomer. Hell, even the bog standard leather strap with classic buckle (which has been in use since the Romans so yes, Classic is probably quite descriptive) is $100 more the elastomer band! We are approaching Rolex levels here!
You'd be surprised!
From the main sources we have: 1.65" X 1.5" for the thicker of the two. So let's assume a surface of 2 square inches to plate (being generous as we have non-flat components to plate).
Also, let's be extremely generous and assume a tough wearing 10 micron thickness of plating (anything beyond 7 micron is suitable for hard wearing, oft-used jewellery that should last decades).
Finally, looking up the latest price let's generously assume $1200 per troy ounce.
Considering each micron costs around a dollar, the 10 micron thickness costs around a tenner.
Now, the proper jewellery type steels used (316L, 904L) can be had at up to $5k per tonne.
From the above you can assume that the thing is priced highly but costs nowhere near that.
And to close the pedantry full circle; at $10k that would be just over 8oz (250gr) in gold so unless the Apple thingy weighs more than that; then it's worth/sold at more than it's weight in gold.
Plating? The whole point about the Edition version is it's machined from solid 18K Gold alloy (an alloy that Apple have toughened up compared to standard 18K Gold). If they sell it in the UK I'm assuming it will have to be hallmarked. We're talking 1,000s in raw materials before they start the machining process.
I stand corrected.
Assuming then 18k SOLID gold throughout; 18k is 75% gold, 15% silver, and 10% copper then we're looking at maybe around an ounce; all-told.
Don't take my (mistaken) word for it: http://leancrew.com/all-this/2015/03/apple-gold/
To anyone who does not like the new watch* or laptop** - you don't have to buy either. Watches and Laptops are available from other manufacturers which may suit you better.
I am sure you can also tell Apple what you think as I don't think they read Reg comments or take any notice of them.
*Personally could not care less, I'll be interested to see if smart watches really take off.
**I like it, I think it's a great machine for many laptop users - I doubt you'll find a similarly spec'd, svelte and elegant laptop much cheaper - that's counting all the features (resolution, weight, backlit keyboard, battery time, trackpad/pressure pad, thick/thinness, fanlessness etc)
$17,000? This is Apple's tacit admission that their products are just overpriced status symbols. There is a section of the world's ultra-rich who will pay anything just to show off, and Apple have decided to start milking them properly. At this point, Apple are little more than a brand, hawking their Veblen goods on the back of their "tech" credentials, more akin to Gucci or Prada than a proper technology company.
A pox on them, and on the glitter boys who buy their wares.
This Rolex sold for $1.16M. Was that overpriced?
I can't see myself buying an Apple Watch any more than I can see myself buying a Rolex. But the market decides what is overpriced and what isn't, not commentards here.
The technology in a Rolex is stable, it works and does what it is designed to do well. It also has the joy of not becoming outdated in 6 months time.
In 25 years time, with a bit of a refresh, like a new battery or a wind, the Rolex will carry on working as it was designed to do on day 1. You won't need to dig out an old iPhone and find the correct OS version to just boot it up. That is of course if you still have a compatible charging cable.
There are people who will sit in a restaurant and order a £10,000 bottle of wine. I doubt very much that it has anything to do with the taste or 'nose' of the wine. It's like Harry Enfield waving a wad and saying 'Loadsamoney'. The bottle of wine won't last very long either!
Apple... King of veblen goods, masters of market psychology, purveyors of pretty pop trinkets. You do have to hand it to them for their ablity to whip the lemmings into such a fervor they empty their wallets on command.
"It is unethical to let a sucker keep his money" -Canada bill jones, card cheat
What about your lack of understanding? Does your post reflect directly on you?
One company let everyone know they were making a watch 5 months ago and a whole industry grew by leaps yet still everyone is far behind in look, quality, expandibility, function, etc. 5 months on its still the best smart watch and it hasn't been released. It says more about everyone else that they hope releasing low quality product is competition. I think your hate for this company is pretty evident regardless of what they release.
Keep calm and troll on, dude.
A pity that there is no time for you to do any research in between defending Apple, and burying your head in the sand. As you correctly assert, it is not yet released, but thousands of Apple's useful idiots sing praise.
Meanwhile Motorola have been setting the pace with the Moto 360, announced March 2014, released September 2014.
https://moto360.motorola.com/
Actually, I own a MBP and an iphone, albeit they were both company gifts. I like my MBP, I would even consider buying one myself if only for the fact that is has lasted me longer (I tend to be tough on laptops, not Toughbook levels of tough but nonetheless) than most other laptops. The phone however is a different story. I also enjoy the free OS version upgrades.
What you are saying (with my limited understanding... Thanks for the personal attack, stay classy.) is because it has been hyped for 5 months as the "best smart watch" without being released of course, because who cares about empirical evidence when you have marketing? Has good "looks" which is totally subjective and after all it is another thin rectangle with rounded corners. Quality: a battery that at best guess real-world use lasts 18 hours and at worst as little as 3 hours although the glass quality seems decent. Last but far from least: Functionality... What does it do that a phone doesn't besides add a sensor package? $349 to save an insignificant amount of arm movement to pull the phone out of my pocket and use apps that have less functionality than their phone counterparts, check my pulse and how many steps I've taken... That isn't the intrinsic value I would be looking for and I would guess most of those features will go unused by owners once the wow factor wears off. Hats off to the engineers for board design but it is more a gadget than a tool then again most smart watches are.
Also nice job inferring that all of Apple's competitors (the ones who have actually released smart watch products to market) are low quality poseurs, That is certainly the way to convince people of product superiority and remind them of that humility Apple and it's userbase is known for. Odd that Apple users don't quite like it when someone uses their tactics to criticize them.
Adios.
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