Hardware

Hardware

John Gruber on the Apple Watch

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When the prices of the steel and (especially) gold Apple Watches are announced, I expect the tech press to have the biggest collective shit-fit in the history of Apple-versus-the-standard-tech-industry shit-fits. The utilitarian mindset that asks “Why would anyone waste money on a gold watch?” isn’t going to be able to come to grips with what Apple is doing here. They’re going to say that Jony Ive and Tim Cook have lost their minds. They’re going to wear out their keyboards typing “This never would have happened if Steve Jobs were alive.” They’re going to predict utter and humiliating failure…

And then people will line up around the block at Apple Stores around the world to buy them. I think Apple Watch prices are going to be shockingly high — gasp-inducingly, get-me-to-the-fainting-couch high — from the perspective of the tech industry. But at the same time, there is room for them to be disruptively low from the perspective of the traditional watch and jewelry world. There’s a massive pricing umbrella in the luxury watch world, and Apple is aiming to take advantage of it.

Apple Watch: Initial Thoughts and Observations – John Gruber, Daring Fireball (16 September 2014)

I read a comment the other day that the technology press is an oddly conservative group. I think so. It feels as if every time something new comes out it either gets slammed or exalted and then later positions quietly reverse. I’m thinking of when the iPhone came out and Apple was mocked; you don’t see so many technology sites mentioning their initial reports now. I’m also thinking of the fairly countless times a Microsoft or Samsung or Dell or generic Android device has been lauded and now you can’t even remember their name. And you didn’t buy them.

Gruber has a long piece examining the Apple Watch and in a small part about how it will be seen by this tech press. I think he’s actually quite down on the watch; for all his praise, he’s clear that he expects it to do more than Apple has announced so far or “Apple is in deep trouble”.

I like the watch more than he does. I like it a lot, I’m impressed, I’m buying.

But Apple’s always claimed to be at the intersection between technology and the arts, a spot and a phrase I rather like, where Gruber makes a case that it’s somewhere else. Somewhere more. The intersection of technology, arts, fashion and watches. With technology more in the background. I don’t know that I’m persuaded, I don’t know that it matters, but I think he’s right that it will be most visible in the pricing of the Apple Watch when it finally comes out.

Just in time for Strictly Come Dancing…

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I don’t seem to be really ready for Strictly this year. Maybe it’s just that I don’t recognise the new celebrities, maybe it’s that I refuse to accept we’re in September already. But to get me back in the mood, I’m thinking about getting some advice from the Dutch National Ballet – and my iPhone.

The iPhone app costs £2.49 UK or $3.99 US and is here.

And here’s a little documentary about the app: part one, part two.

Video chatting phones – in 1970

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Bell Labs was right about so many aspects of video chatting.

They were right that it would a little bit awkward. That it’d provide “an enhanced feeling of proximity and intimacy.” That people would use it as a way to get out of tiresome business trip. That, someday, really, we’d all use it.

They were just wrong about how much anyone would be willing to pay for it.

In 2014, video chatting is one of the clearest “hey-it-really-is-the-future” features of day-to-day life. But it was first commercially available 44 years ago, when Bell Labs debuted the private “picturephone” in Pittsburgh in 1970.

The First ‘Picturephone’ for Video Chatting Was a Colossal Failure – Sarah Laskow, The Atlantic (12 September 2014)

No more callers, we have a winner: Apple Watch

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That’s it, I’m done. I’m buying an Apple Watch.

Previously, I’ve ignored the whole smart watch fad, I’ve been tempted by the announcement of Motorola’s Moto 360, I’ve got bored and lost all interest, I’ve been re-tempted by the eventual launch of that same Moto 360.

It got to the stage where yesterday I would recommend the Moto 360 being worth your having a look. And I had decided yeah, maybe, that is good and someday that will be a really great thing. But I didn’t know whether I would actually want one.

That’s over now. No chance I will ever buy or even bother to look at the Moto 360.

But I will have an Apple Watch on my wrist next year. Yes, it looks good but what sold me is the depth of thinking they’ve done on this: the myriad tiny details that make this watch something genuinely useful that you will genuinely use.

Go take a look at the mass of detail now available on the Apple site.

Elders react to Oculus Rift

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It makes a change from all those stories about teenagers reacting sarcastically to old technology: this is a video about older people reacting confusedly to new technology.

Notice that I said older, not old. And ‘elder’ is in the title of the video.

This has nothing to do with how I happen to be old enough that I have only just about got the faintest notion what Oculus Rift is and not quite as much interest:

Watch this

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I did leave computers because they are ditchwater dull but just occasionally you get little moments of human interest. My absolute favourite was in the run up to the release of the iPad. There came a moment when for some reason everyone thought Apple would call this new device a slate. It’s a good name, it’s typically Apple in that it’s somehow better than the then usual term of tablet and sounds like they’d thought about it.

Maybe they did, I don’t know. But instantaneously, every computer company making anything even resembling a table began calling them slates. You’ve forgotten this because it stopped at about noon on April 3, 2010 when the iPad was unveiled. But for those brief weeks, it was funny watching companies like Microsoft dropping the word slate into any conversation they could.

Right now, things have ramped up a bit. Rather than dropping the word ‘watch’ into any chat they can, firms are releasing actual watches. Smart watches. Watches with smart bits in. But it’s still the same issue: Apple is now expected to unveil a watch very soon and rivals are trying to get there first. At this point, if it doesn’t reek of desperation it does at least pong a bit.

I’ve no idea if Apple will ever bring out a watch and I’ve no idea whether the latest rumour that it will be announced on 9 September is any more accurate than the myriad previous rumours.

But two days ago, LG released a teaser video saying that new watch was coming. Now the 9 September date is being whispered about more loudly, LG’s just scrapped the wait and gone straight to unveiling it.

LG-G-Watch-R-2

Shrug. Whether you like Apple or don’t, you know one fact already: while Apple would tell you the price and do its best to be able to say “Available today”, other computer firms don’t. The LG G Watch R – seriously, that’s its name – will be out in some places in the last quarter of the year and that’s when you’ll know the price too. There’s also not a bean about the other big question over smart watches: the battery life. Not true. There is a bean. The battery in the LG G Watch R will be a 410mAh one. I don’t know how to translate that to how long does it bloody last?

It’s a smartphone running Android Wear, which means you’ll need an Android phone to get any value out of it. And if I sound down on the whole thing, that would be because I am. The first mockups of what a round-faced smart watch would look like were just gorgeous and I wanted one on sight. Now I’m shrugging at the LG G Watch R – I just enjoy trying to type that name from memory and seeing how many corrections I have to make – and that makes me shrug a bit at the whole smart watch idea.

If Apple does bring one out, I will look at it. Apple gear has been very good for me and I will look at it. I don’t know if I want to buy one, but.

One to watch: using AA batteries to recharge iPhone

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I know barely a pixel more than this: an iPhone recharger that uses AA batteries is coming soon. I don’t think I need to know much more than that, though the price and whether it’ll be available in the UK would be handy.

Here’s the pixel more I know; there will be a launch in nine days time at Oivo.

Go take a look now because the minimal details available so far include a photo of what it’ll look like.

I should say, by the way, that I think there is bugger-all chance that this will also recharge an iPad. In case you were wondering.