Market Trends: Apple Watch

Posted by overmanwarrior 9 years, 1 month ago to Entertainment
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This article is an interesting one. It is sympathetic to Garmin and Fossil watches because of the new Apple Watch.

Personally, I love my Garmin, but, it's already like an ancient relic. Innovation is far more important. I'm looking forward to an Apple Watch!
SOURCE URL: http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/02/18/apple-is-disrupting-two-more-companies/


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  • Posted by sdesapio 9 years, 1 month ago
    I'll be first inline for the Apple Watch. I switched to all Apple a few years ago - laptops, phones, iPads - and I've never looked back. They got me.
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    • Posted by $ Susanne 9 years, 1 month ago
      You and me both - I was an Apple hater - until I got one. Now It's Mac, MB Pro (x2), ipad (again, x2), iphone, heck, even a iPod. The ONLY thing I use using Win OS is my 9 to 5 work computer - because it runs both our (proprietary) timekeeping & inventory system (buggy, but it's what we got) and Visio (because MS won't release a Mac version, the bastages!!))...

      Not too sure about the watch - I like my analogue Seiko too much - but from a confirmed IBM-aholic, who suffered under various perturbations of the WIN OS's (all the way back to 2.0), the virii attacks and the various generations of "BSoD"s, not to mention hardware that, regardless of manufacturer, was prone to failure, you could never get me, or (with the exception of Visio above) my shop, to go back. no way, no how, unh-unh!
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      • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 1 month ago
        If Visio is that important to you Susanne, look into Parallels desktop. Run win in a VM on you MB so you can use Visio. Bit of effort to setup but if its that important to you, look into the options.
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      • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 1 month ago
        I'm in the same situation. Used PCs for years and years, through every version of windows since win286. Beta tested every version from 3.1 through 7....don't hate me, they break it after beta when they add all the bells and whistles in....the beta works so much better.

        Finally I got tired of wrestling with the combination of recalcitrant hardware and code. I already had an iPhone and IPad, so got a MB. So much less frustrating to use.

        Both companies are arrogant and tend to ignore user issues, but Apple products are less painful to live with day to day.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
      Me too on the first in line. But.....I love both companies. I like the Microsoft version of an iPad. I love the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod and use them each every day. But for business, Microsoft is wonderful. Yes you can run Office on a Mac, but the info needs to go on a flash drive to really be usable without the use of a Cloud.
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    • Posted by $ prof611 9 years, 1 month ago
      I'll always be an Apple hater. They are just too arrogant!

      Example (1): Several years ago, I was the webmaster for a lady who had an Apple, and she asked me to do something about her site - a slide show I programmed for her didn't work on her computer. So I downloaded a version of Safari that was supposed to be PC-compatible. I brought up her website, and there was nothing wrong. I told the lady, and she said she still could not see the slideshow. I then spent days on forums asking why my version of Safari didn't work like it did on an Apple. All I got for answers were rude suggestions that I should buy an Apple. Eventually a representative of Apple told me point blank that they would not do anything about it, because they didn't care about people who owned PCs.

      Example (2): I am the webmaster for a boat captain, and have been out fishing with him several times. One time, he brought along his Apple camera, and recorded a video of me catching a huge kingfish. He emailed me a copy, but I could never get it to show as video on my PC. Again, I went to the forums, and again people were rude, and refused to help me at all.

      These are just two examples of the type of arrogance I cannot stomach. The Apple company refuses to consider making their products compatible with PCs. I cannot understand this attitude, since Apple still has a very small percentage of computer users. Why do they purposely alienate the majority of users???
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      • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 1 month ago
        I love/hate both of the big computer O/S companies. I love that they wrote the software because it would have taken me too many years to do it myself.
        I hate that Apple has utter disregard for people who can think like Spock and Commander Data, and that they have never provided any budget minded offering.
        I hate that MSFT has turned their backs on the needs of people who have supported them for 20+ years. When I say 'supported' I mean it. Most of the nitty gritty debugging of windows OS happens via time donated by customers. MSFT being willing to support a wide variety of hardware (allowing a wide range of budget to computerphile pricing) has been their greatest feature and headache.
        Until I am willing to do it myself, I will praise and complain ;^)
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 9 years, 1 month ago
    Interesting and not surprising that Ape has this amount of stroke.

    I used to be a huge apple advocate, back when PCs really were junk, and Macs really better. Back when that complete idiot John C Dvorak was arguing about "power users" using the command line. What an idiot! Not yet required to eat his words. Then came iphone and iPads. Breakthrough!

    Not sure when Apple will innovate again. They have lots of fertile ground, but they are paralyzed by aesthetics over usefulness. Jonny Ive is not Steve Jobs, and there are f e w Steve Jobs!
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 1 month ago
      As the technology becomes mature, maybe all the value is the industrial design (ID). I don't think we're at that point yet, but Apple is evidence that there's lots of value in ID.
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 9 years, 1 month ago
        Apple's ID is one element of their success. Personally I'm not sure it is the fundamental reason, or it overcomes part of their price barrier.

        The original MacIntosh, particularly after the Mac II, were infinitely superior to DOS and the lame Windows-on-DOS of the day. The segmented memory, x86 was junk compared to the lovely 680x0, with support for paged memory management. The Mac was faster (business and floating point), far more user friendly and simply far more productive. Yet, like Ayn Rand, the media bashed Mac's.
        Are you attributing the user interface (UI) to the category of ID?

        Also iTunes is a business model, probably as integral to iPod/iPhone success as the ID. Sony has tried with a more proprietary approach a couple of times and failed.

        You do have a good point regarding mature technology/markets. Don't think we are there yet either. I think the UI has another couple of generations until computers' value is really reaped by people (voice, gestures, etc). The bottleneck in value is the pathetic data rate from human-to-computer.
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  • Posted by Non_mooching_artist 9 years, 1 month ago
    I am unable to wear watches of any kind. Watches with new batteries go dead in about two days, or the time goes off to a great degree. The same can be said of a regular wind up watch. Dead in a week. Sooo, I have a pretty accurate sense of time. Or I look at my phone.
    Interesting, for those technophiles who like a good watch, though. I prefer a well crafted analogue watch to the digital, rubber banded watches as well.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 1 month ago
    For me a watch is a watch. Until a watch can produce a good sized human friendly interface, it will be a watch. Smart phones have several uses for me, but again they will not approach my laptop without a good interface/display. Tablet? Can't approach a laptop in uses because they are crippled (especially ipads) by design. Fine for websurfing and email but why carry an appliance that can't do everything else I need and get from a laptop?
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  • Posted by $ Susanne 9 years, 1 month ago
    I got my TomTom - her nickname is Bitchita (after the voice - she grates on me) - and I still love her, but... she isn't Siri.

    I can't tell Bitchita "Get me home, right now" and have her jump. Siri - has yet to send me on a wild goose chase. Over some "interesting" routes, for certain - but she works. The downside of Siri is she's net-connectivity dependent... which is why "B" has an irreplaceable place in my heart. It takes a minute or 2 to type in the location, but I don't need 3 bars on my iphone to get it to work.
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    • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 1 month ago
      I used an old version of TT (on WM6 phone) with a Sean Connery-like voice. Even with 4 year old maps Sean was a reliable guide through 3.7 years in Oz and NZ. Now use Android Navigon - more recent maps, lame voice, but adequate results.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 1 month ago
    Buying something only because of its name can be a pretty silly enterprise. If you are at all a careful buyer, you set up your criteria and purchase within them. In my case, all I want in a watch is a reliable, lightweight, easy to read accurate instrument at a reasonable price. Easy. If you want all kinds of stuff more on your watch, you have more to research. If you buy just because it's the latest gadget, you're in it for fun and nothing serious.
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  • Posted by richrobinson 9 years, 1 month ago
    This is typical it seems of tech companies. It is hard to stay ahead of the curve. I like my Garmin and my iPad. Curious to see what happens next...
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    • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
      I will likely give my Garmin to my 3 year old grandson for his big wheel. I'll take the Apple Watch. I'm looking forward to the day I use the Apple Watch as a dog coller because something so much better is coming out.
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  • Posted by BobFreeman 9 years, 1 month ago
    I quit wearing a watch when my wife & I first began carrying cell phones & it’s unlikely that I’ll be returning to carrying anything strapped to my wrist again.

    We’ve used PC’s since mid-80’s ‘cause our software was built on that system.

    We switched from Otis to iPod when Audible.com quit supporting Otis for their audio books and have been VERY impressed with the quality of those Apple products (we now have three iPods).

    I read Jobs’ biography a few years ago & consider him & Woz to be geniuses. Yes, he appeared to be arrogant … probably was … & with good reason. He was a quality-oriented perfectionist, down to the most minute detail and I think he insisted on NOT making his stuff compatible with MS, etc. because he believed that he could control the quality and reliability of his products better if his software would only operate on his hardware & v.v..

    When our clam-shell phones finally gave out at the time the iPhone 5 was introduced, we switched to those & yes, we’re amazed with the performance of Siri to guide us to destinations & answer silly questions. & on rare occasions when does screw up, like bringing up Joe’s Pool Hall when we asked for directions to the closest Marriott & we scream obscenities at her, she’ll reply with something like “Oh, my, I bet you wouldn’t talk like that to your mother!”.

    Our only Garmin products are GPS units that we use for hiking, kayaking & geocaching. They’re more rugged than our iPhones and don’t depend on Internet connection.
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  • Posted by XenokRoy 9 years, 1 month ago
    At first I thought this looks like a gimmick item with no real use; like the google watch, the Garmin.... which is what I thought of those.

    On closer inspection of the Apple watch their is something to it. It looks good and is perhaps not a proof of concept being sold as a product (google watch comes to mind) but a product that is refined and ready for use.

    I wont be first in line, but I am an optimistic skeptic that I will end up with one once I see it and play with it a bit.
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