Since Christmas my father and my son have been telling me how great their new Apple Watches are and I have to agree it's a great piece of kit.

A couple of days ago we were talking about recharge and run times. At which point I removed my speedy from my wrist wound it for 20 seconds and said 'there you go, good for 48hrs' it did bring a slight smile to their faces as I walked away.

 

Start asking them the time everytime you see them with it off for charging.

 

And of course a Mk4 speedmaster, being automatic, does not even need the 20s of winding!

 

That's great, several friends keep telling me my watches are not practical and I should get an Apple Watch so they can send me messages on my wrist.

 

Maybe i am wrong but i think smartwatches wont be "the next big thing" as the tech companies think they will.
After 5 years we will look back and say... what we were thinking?
Its not functional. whats the purpose of knowing i have a call, mail or a massage and have to pull up my phone to answer to it?
Is picking up the phone from your pocket a so much time wasting procedure?
I consider myself a tech guy, but i am not interested in smartwatches (at least in the form that we know them today)

 

+783

a solution in search of its problem ...

 

Given your avatar, I supposed this is how you did it?

 

Now how do you like them apples?

 

I could not do that ... I'd feel the apple watch takes a place that could perfectly be used for a real watch ...

and yes, I seem to have too many that seem to complete for "the slot" every morning ;-)

 

Wear the Apple watch on your non-watch wrist.

 

Haha....silly Apple Watch.....

 

I respectfully have to agree with what Andreas said. I owned a Pebble briefly and then got into mechanical watches after not wearing one for many many years. I couldn't stand the pebble after a 2 weeks of ownership I felt like it was more of an annoyance than an advantage. I would constantly have to filter through just emails. Constantly vibrating for everything became a hassle. Additionally charging it up just added extra for me to have to do to be able to wear the watch.

After I got rid of my Pebble and got into mechanical watches, falling headfirst. I fell in love instantly with everything about them. The beauty, the engineering and craftsmanship that goes into making them, everything about it was perfect. After the Apple Watch was announced I completely wrote it off after my experience with the Pebble. However I recently decided to give it a try at the end of last year. I wore it for 2 weeks and then returned it. It suffered from a lot of what bothered me about the Pebble. It would constantly be notifying me about everything whether I wanted to know or not, it was useless as a fitness tracker, and I had to charge it everyday, adding a step to ownership and wearability that my mechanical watches didn't. Additionally I found that I only really used it for checking the time, when a notification would come in, I would immediately pull out my phone.

I would feel that smartwatches have their place in the world, and for people who like them and use them for their intended purposes good for you. I don't believe they will catch on with the general public however. Smartwatches are interesting and could very have purposes down the line in future products, but in their current iteration they are too flawed and require too much extra effort.

 

This is more of a reflection of how you use your phone and respond to it, than it is the functionality of the watch. My phone stays in my pocket until I decide to look at it. If you are the type that has to know what every ping and beep is, then certainly the watch would help you, but for me it would be more of an "in your face " annoyance than the phone is now, because I can easily ignore my phone...

 

Have to agree with this.

I wore an android wear watch for a good six months before getting rid of it. This was long before the apple watch was released.

Smart watches as they exist now serve only as an extension of a phone.

People who say they save the of time because they don't have to keep pulling their phone out are making a one sided justification. The other side is that you waste almost an equal amount of time by looking at your watch and then having to pull out your phone to respond. Instead of just pulling out your phone in the first place, there is an extra barrier. You don't know of it's something that can be ignored.

The only novelty of current smart watches is the claim that they save the 5 seconds it would take to take your phone out of your pocket and look at it.

It's not a massive amount of time at all. For that small amount of time, I would never use another soulless gadget that needs to be recharged every night.

 

and paying for my espresso doppio macchiatto at Starbucks too w/o pulling out my wallet!

 

Again, that's something your phone does as well.

I use mine for that. Yeah, it's neat to just use your watch, but I'm spending maybe 5 seconds to just pull out my phone and do the same.

Smart watches will definitely get better. Almost all products are mediocre in their infancy.

Apple is also notoriously bad at first gen devices. The new version will be so much better and all the old ones will be trash.

 

even my non-smart L-wallet does that... cant even recall the last time i had to pluck it in to charge ) its from the mid 1990ies -that piece of kit was way ahead of its time

 

Apple Watch is the best thing to happen to watch collecting. People who rely on their phone for time get used to looking at their wrist. Some will want to stand out by more than a bracelet or strap by going to a luxury watch. Some will get used to checking the time but get sick of the distraction and choose a conventional watch.

I think the smart watches are great. I had quit wearing a wristwatch years ago. My wife fishing for gift ideas suggested the Apple Watch and I studied the heck out of it went to the Apple Store and my conclusion was what I liked best was how it mimicked a real watch and concluded I'd rather have a conventional watch.

I bought a cheap Quartz on Amazon day and my interest was piqued and eventually stumbled here and now own two budget priced vintage watches in addition to my cheap Quartz which still gets a lot of wrist time.