Re: A Very, Very Comprehensive cNet Review of the Apple Watch
Hello, thanks for this article. I can tell you that I certainly am not interested right now in the apple watch as great as it is, just not practical for me right now. He is no fool who gives away what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose. On Apr 8, 2015, at 4:51 PM, M. Taylor mk...@ucla.edu wrote: Hello Everyone, The following is a very, and I do mean very long and comprehensive cNet review of the Apple watch written by Scott Stein. I encourage you to read this piece in its entirety as it paints a very realistic picture of what Apple Watch currently is and is not. The link to the original article is located at the end of the text. Oh, one more thing. I did my best to clean out the image place holders and advertisement for ease of reading but my eyes got very tired so some garbled stuff may have slipped through. Enjoy, Mark The Apple Watch: A beautiful, bold watch, with complications By Scott Stein The Good The Apple Watch is a beautifully constructed, compact smartwatch. It's feature-packed, with solid fitness software, hundreds of apps, and the ability to send and receive calls via an iPhone. The Bad Battery barely lasts a day and recharge time is slow; most models and configurations cost more than they should; requires an iPhone 5 or later to work; interface can be confusing; sometimes slow to communicate with a paired iPhone. The Bottom Line The Apple Watch is the most ambitious, well-constructed smartwatch ever seen, but first-gen shortfalls make it feel more like a fashionable toy than a necessary tool. Four years ago, I wore an iPod Nano on my wrist and I loved it. I liked the novelty of it, the way it played music on my wrist, and could go with me anywhere. At the time, I wished the strapped-on music player, with its watch faces and little assortment of apps, could do more. And I dreamed of a day it might connect to my phone. Well, here we are. The Apple Watch is a brand-new Apple product, the first from-the-ground-up product line since the iPad and since Tim Cook took the helm. This watch is, in a way, a new type of wrist-worn super-iPod. It's also a symbiotic iPhone companion. And, it's a fitness device. It also embarks onto a churning sea of smartwatch launches -- many manufacturers have set sail with ambitious wearables; very few are bona fide successes. Most people aren't even sure they need one. Can the Apple Watch succeed where others have foundered? The Apple Watch comes in three different models, two different sizes, and six different finishes, with a range of swappable bands and prices ranging from $349, £299 or AU$499 all the way up to $17,000, £13,500 or AU$24,000. It's designed to be Apple's most personal product: fashion as much as it is tech. Apple's products have been fashionable for years, but now Apple wants these watches to transcend into jewelry. Smartwatches may one day be the future of phones, or a seamless extension of both them and your home, or any number of connected devices. Right now, they function as phone accessories. And that's where the Apple Watch lands. Apple designed the watch to help us look at our phones less. I'd call it more of a smaller screen in Apple's spectrum of differently sized screens. I used it instead of my phone, sometimes. Then, I'd go back to my phone. Has it changed my behavior? It's too early to tell yet, but it might. I've been using the Apple Watch for a week. I've worn it on my wrist every day, doing everything possible that I could think of. I've tracked walks and measured my heart rate, paid for lunch, listened to albums while exploring parks without my phone, chatted with family, kept up on email, looked for Uber cars, kept up on news, navigated on long car trips for Passover, controlled my Apple TV with it and followed baseball games while I was supposed to be watching my 2-year-old. The watch is beautiful and promising -- the most ambitious wearable that exists. But in an attempt to do everything in the first generation, the Apple Watch still leaves plenty to be desired. Short battery life compared with other watches and higher prices are the biggest flags for now. But Apple is just setting sail, and it has a long journey ahead. What it does, what it is Much like most other smartwatches, the Apple Watch isn't a standalone device -- it's a phone accessory. Android Wear, Samsung Gear, Pebble and others work the same way. But here, you must own an iPhone 5 or later to use the Watch. A few Apple Watch functions work away from the phone, but the watch primarily works alongside the phone as an extension, a second screen and basically another part of your iOS experience. It's a symbiote. Communication, fitness, information, time: these are the core Apple Watch functions, but the Watch is incredibly ambitious, packed with many, many features and apps. In scope, it reminds me of Samsung's ambitious Gear smartwatches
A Very, Very Comprehensive cNet Review of the Apple Watch
Hello Everyone, The following is a very, and I do mean very long and comprehensive cNet review of the Apple watch written by Scott Stein. I encourage you to read this piece in its entirety as it paints a very realistic picture of what Apple Watch currently is and is not. The link to the original article is located at the end of the text. Oh, one more thing. I did my best to clean out the image place holders and advertisement for ease of reading but my eyes got very tired so some garbled stuff may have slipped through. Enjoy, Mark The Apple Watch: A beautiful, bold watch, with complications By Scott Stein The Good The Apple Watch is a beautifully constructed, compact smartwatch. It's feature-packed, with solid fitness software, hundreds of apps, and the ability to send and receive calls via an iPhone. The Bad Battery barely lasts a day and recharge time is slow; most models and configurations cost more than they should; requires an iPhone 5 or later to work; interface can be confusing; sometimes slow to communicate with a paired iPhone. The Bottom Line The Apple Watch is the most ambitious, well-constructed smartwatch ever seen, but first-gen shortfalls make it feel more like a fashionable toy than a necessary tool. Four years ago, I wore an iPod Nano on my wrist and I loved it. I liked the novelty of it, the way it played music on my wrist, and could go with me anywhere. At the time, I wished the strapped-on music player, with its watch faces and little assortment of apps, could do more. And I dreamed of a day it might connect to my phone. Well, here we are. The Apple Watch is a brand-new Apple product, the first from-the-ground-up product line since the iPad and since Tim Cook took the helm. This watch is, in a way, a new type of wrist-worn super-iPod. It's also a symbiotic iPhone companion. And, it's a fitness device. It also embarks onto a churning sea of smartwatch launches -- many manufacturers have set sail with ambitious wearables; very few are bona fide successes. Most people aren't even sure they need one. Can the Apple Watch succeed where others have foundered? The Apple Watch comes in three different models, two different sizes, and six different finishes, with a range of swappable bands and prices ranging from $349, £299 or AU$499 all the way up to $17,000, £13,500 or AU$24,000. It's designed to be Apple's most personal product: fashion as much as it is tech. Apple's products have been fashionable for years, but now Apple wants these watches to transcend into jewelry. Smartwatches may one day be the future of phones, or a seamless extension of both them and your home, or any number of connected devices. Right now, they function as phone accessories. And that's where the Apple Watch lands. Apple designed the watch to help us look at our phones less. I'd call it more of a smaller screen in Apple's spectrum of differently sized screens. I used it instead of my phone, sometimes. Then, I'd go back to my phone. Has it changed my behavior? It's too early to tell yet, but it might. I've been using the Apple Watch for a week. I've worn it on my wrist every day, doing everything possible that I could think of. I've tracked walks and measured my heart rate, paid for lunch, listened to albums while exploring parks without my phone, chatted with family, kept up on email, looked for Uber cars, kept up on news, navigated on long car trips for Passover, controlled my Apple TV with it and followed baseball games while I was supposed to be watching my 2-year-old. The watch is beautiful and promising -- the most ambitious wearable that exists. But in an attempt to do everything in the first generation, the Apple Watch still leaves plenty to be desired. Short battery life compared with other watches and higher prices are the biggest flags for now. But Apple is just setting sail, and it has a long journey ahead. What it does, what it is Much like most other smartwatches, the Apple Watch isn't a standalone device -- it's a phone accessory. Android Wear, Samsung Gear, Pebble and others work the same way. But here, you must own an iPhone 5 or later to use the Watch. A few Apple Watch functions work away from the phone, but the watch primarily works alongside the phone as an extension, a second screen and basically another part of your iOS experience. It's a symbiote. Communication, fitness, information, time: these are the core Apple Watch functions, but the Watch is incredibly ambitious, packed with many, many features and apps. In scope, it reminds me of Samsung's ambitious Gear smartwatches, but more fully realized. Apple Watch receives messages from friends, send texts and lets you dictate messages, make speakerphone calls, ping people with animated emoji, give love taps long-distance or send your heartbeat as a sort of long-distance hug. It tracks your steps, logs runs and monitors your heart rate. And yes, you can use Apple Watch to listen to music via wireless Bluetooth headphones. You can
