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Comment by personZ | Hacker News Reader

As much ink was spilled about competitors' failures, it's interesting that this won't be available some until vague window next year, and needs to be tethered to an iPhone.

The interface looks interesting. The ridiculous draw pictures to each other bit, though -- what a gimmick.

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That was one of my favorite features.

I've always wished there was some sort of one bit communication for "want to get a drink?" or "want to go for a bike ride?" or "want to watch the redskins game?"

How cool would it be to vibrate someone's wrist with a martini glass saying implying that I haven't seen you in a while and want to go get a drink. No need for email, calling, texting anything. Just so simple, ping someone and say that I want to see them.

I think it's a bigger deal than you realize.

Without context and metadata, I cannot fathom how finger-drawn pictures could convey data clearly, much less those done on a 1" screen. If someone got a picture of a fish, as demonstrated, for instance -- presuming they actually recognize it as a fish -- are they really going to think of sushi? That seems like a bit of a reach, a tonne of narrative adding context that the picture most certainly doesn't add.

I've done the drawn picture thing. It isn't new, and many messaging clients have supported it for literally years (ICQ supported it in the 90s). And when it was added everyone sent pictures around, and quickly (very quickly) it was completely forgotten.

It's a gimmick through and through.

> How cool would it be to vibrate someone's wrist with a martini glass saying implying that I haven't seen you in a while and want to go get a drink. No need for email, calling, texting anything.

At best, "cool" is all it is. It certainly isn't useful. If you haven't seen me in a while and I get a poorly drawn martini glass picture, I'm not going to think, "Cool. Drinks with AlwaysBeCoding." I'm going to think, "what the hell is this picture of an ice cream cone with a marble in it?"

In comparison, texting "Drinks tonight?" is faster to type, faster to understand, and has some vague hope of conveying the intended message. And both show up on the watch.

Pictures might be acceptable to your significant other. If one of my friends sent me one, I and the rest of the group would spend the next 10 minutes brainstorming unflattering nicknames to forever annoint him with.

>At best, "cool" is all it is. It certainly isn't useful. [...] Pictures might be acceptable to your significant other.

Isn't useful to you? Personally, I find this immensely useful. I don't know of any other device to communicate with the significant other in such an intimate way. This is precisely what I wanted. You might understand it better when you're in a relationship but spend a lot of time away from each other. Of course pictures and taps mean much more than texting. Of course it's fun to invent your own sign language. If you don't have a use case for this watch, it doesn't mean it's not “useful”.

Funny you should mention it, but I currently live about 10,000 kilometers from my girlfriend. And like I said, it's maybe an OK thing between partners. I think it's a stupid gimmick that would immediately get old even then, but that's it. You should not send a cutesy picture in lieu of an actual message to anyone else.

> I'm going to think, "what the hell is this picture of an ice cream cone with a marble in it?"

Only because this isn't currently a common type of communication. You'd instantly understand it if it were more standard.

> If one of my friends sent me one, I and the rest of the group would spend the next 10 minutes brainstorming unflattering nicknames to forever annoint him with.

Whether you're into smartwatches or not, this doesn't seem like a very friendly personality. You're really going to get this up in arms because a friend sent you a picture-based message?

You're reading me wrong. I wouldn't be up in arms about it -- I'd be giddy at the prospect of giving my friend shit over it. As presumably, my friends would be for me if I sent them sketches.

I apologize then for the judgment. I read your comment in a more antagonistic way. Cheers!

Yo.

Really? I thought that looked like one of the neatest things about it. I imagine that people will find all sorts of creative ways to use it for quick communication.

But nobody else will have it. Messaging that no one else has is dumb and useless.

I have plenty of circles (family, work) who exclusively use Apple devices. (Same with Android.) Hardly "dumb" and "stupid" — works great for iMessage.

That's probably my biggest gripe. If me and my gf both had one then sure, I'd send her a heart every now and then however cheesy it may be.

But the fact is, she has a Nexus 5, I have an iphone. Considering so many of the watch's features are dependent on the iphone, it makes a lot of sense to say that you're unlikely going to see anyone have an apple watch if they don't also have an apple phone. It's not a truly standalone product, it's very much an accessory working in sync with your phone. That means that the apple watch is a niche (smartwatches) within a niche (iphone owners, are relatively few) and so I doubt this will really take off. Like facetime. I've used it every now and then, but compared to skype, facebook calling, viber or indeed just text on whatsapp, it's a tiny tiny tiny part of my usage.

That's why I think this thing is gimmicky. Until every watch has it and it's just a third-party app that allows you to send messages between any platform, apple or android watches or anything else.

Do you think finger sketch messages will show up in iMessage on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (and maybe OS X via laptop touchpads)?

Suddenly, hundreds of millions of people have it.

(If they don't do this, how is it going to deal with sending a message to someone who doesn't have an Apple Watch? Just show "(!) Message not delivered"?)

I can jut think about Bebo whiteboard and all te dick drawings

The complete and utter lack of battery life mention was odd when inductive charging (still missing from the iphone) was mentioned multiple times.

I think that's what they're going to be working on for the next three-to-six months. Probably it's not great at the moment and they're desperately trying to get it up to something respectable like a day, but don't want to announce anything in case it proves impossible.

I remember at some point Cook alluding to a days worth of battery life.

I have to be honest. The draw pictures to each other was actually something I want. My wife and I usually devolve our texting sessions into a series of emoticons. The ones on Kakaotalk are pretty hilarious and we frequently use them.

> The ridiculous draw pictures to each other bit, though -- what a gimmick.

I could see this as being popular with teens though, especially with the haptic feedback aspect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29

It's time to bring it back.

Yes! Then I won't feel like I wasted all that time learning how to write it!

I sold my Palm 3 the other month. Not sure why anyone wanted that thing, but it was a sad day nonetheless.

Teens? I'm predicting that my wife and I will use it about seventy billion times per day.

The relationships are going to want to use the heart beats like crazy.

It will be the most used feature by young lovers everywhere...

> It will be the most used feature by _rich_ young lovers everywhere...

FIFY. At $349 a pop, I doubt you want to cruise in college with this on the wrist.

A $350 watch is a too expensive, but $325 beats headphones are chill? When I walk through the seedier parts of town where most of the rent is paid in food stamps and wishes, I still see beats headphones.

Beats headphones are really heavily counterfeited at a tenth the price or less. I expect a lot of the ones you saw were fake.

Do they also counterfeit the ridiculous bass response in them? Or do they put decent drivers in them, like Beyerdynamic DT 770s with Beats logos on them? That'd be funny.

Watches are a fashion accessory and have a very wide price range. I consider watches under $150 to be low end, under $400 to be middle end and above that to be high end.

Headphones are different because (until Beats) they were mostly about function and not form. You can get very good sounding headphones for under $100, which is why people whine about Beats being so expensive. Beats's innovation wasn't making good headphones, it was making headphones into a fashion (so they could charge a lot).

Seriously?

MP3 Players are different because (until Apple iPod) they were mostly about function and not form.

Phones are different because (until Apple iPhone) they were mostly about function and not form.

Tablets are different because (until Apple iPad) they were mostly about function and not form.

Smart watches are different because (until Apple Watch) they were mostly about function and not form.

It's not hyperbolic to say that the company redefines categories.

Yes, seriously. Beats headphones didn't add anything new to headphones except looking cool (and mostly because of the brand name and not because they look particularly good). None of the Apple products you mentioned were like that—they all added significant innovative features in addition to having a beautiful form. The hipness of the brand followed that instead of leading it.

Most people's phones are more expensive, and IIRC back when people still wore wristwatches they were just as, if not more expensive than that.

Perhaps, but it is a five minute app. For Apple to spend minutes on the concept of communicating via finger drawings on a tiny screen borders on bizarre. I will say that if Samsung or LG demoed something like this, they would be widely and rightfully mocked. I'm not saying that in a polarizing "camps" perspective, but that people are often surprisingly uncritical of Apple.

I wonder if it was the way it was presented? That one weird Samsung S3 (?) release presentation was odd and strange, and weird. I said weird twice.

With Apple, they appear to present things differently. Perhaps it is because you can't hear Jony Ive smiling when he talks? He sounds like a robot, so it must be a logical thing to do?

In the first two weeks of their relation.

Please, make it so.

Maybe they will start using Watches instead of doing this:

https://www.google.es/search?q=bridge+padlocks&newwindow=1&h...

Seriously, I can see it being used, but it's still very gimmicky.

As gimmicks go, the "you can tap morse code to someone" thing seems even stranger for me.

The definition of gimmick is the customizing of a the emojicon.

That did seem like a feature dreamt up for the youtube commenter generation, sadly.

> and needs to be tethered to an iPhone.

How do you know? I couldn't find that on Apple's iWatch page. (Not doubting it, everyone is saying it, but I'm just wondering where it is or if it's just an assumption.)

They're missing Christmas, which is huge for the Jewelry market.

TBH I think the gimmicks are just tech demos - they've got the API's ready for it (apparently), and I can really see this device take off with app developers.

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