Apple's September 7, 2016 Event

[jamo]

I can only imagine the original gold Apple Watches are going to get insanely valuable in a few years now that they don't sell them anymore.

[Braivo]

On 9/9/2016 at 10:21 PM, iacas said:

Really? Infinitely more useful?

It's a pretty darn small screen, you realize… It's good for little things. Quick things. Notifications.

I love it for that… but that's about all it's good for.

I love and wear my Watch every day. But I still use my phone for the "bigger" tasks. Like any time I have to type anything… Or want to read something.

 

I want the ability to use it as a stand-alone phone in a variety of situations where leaving my regular phone at home would be convenient. When I'm at the gym, going for a run, at an amusement park, camping, at the beach, or when I am simply looking to unplug from the distraction of a smartphone without losing all connectivity to the outside world. 

[iacas]

Just now, Braivo said:

I want the ability to use it as a stand-alone phone in a variety of situations where leaving my regular phone at home would be convenient. When I'm at the gym, going for a run, at an amusement park, camping, at the beach, or when I am simply looking to unplug from the distraction of a smartphone without losing all connectivity to the outside world. 

And I'd like it to weigh nothing and just be able to project light miraculously wherever I wanted it at the time…

The point is that if you added a cell phone to a watch, at this point, the tradeoffs would lead to an overall worse product for most people. Shorter battery life, bigger phone, another SIM card and/or charge per month on your bill… etc. Plus who really wants to talk to their watch? You look like a douche after more than a 10-second conversation. If you don't need your phone, leave your phone at home.

[Braivo]

13 minutes ago, iacas said:

And I'd like it to weigh nothing and just be able to project light miraculously wherever I wanted it at the time…

The point is that if you added a cell phone to a watch, at this point, the tradeoffs would lead to an overall worse product for most people. Shorter battery life, bigger phone, another SIM card and/or charge per month on your bill… etc. Plus who really wants to talk to their watch? You look like a douche after more than a 10-second conversation. If you don't need your phone, leave your phone at home.

 

I get it, my wishes are sometimes quirky and don't mesh with the public at large. I see some android watches now come with sim cards, fwiw. I agree, it would likely make the apple watch a worse product. I still may get one, I was just hoping it could do a few more things without being tethered to the phone.

[imsys0042]

Since the watch has the ability to pair with bluetooth headphones it's the perfect thing to have when you want to leave your phone behind when you go for a run, or even golf.   What I like about it is that I can leave my phone in the bag but still get notifications on my wrist.

I'm not a big phone talker so I don't really care that it can't make calls.   However I frequently text by talking to Siri on my watch.  It usually works well and it's great for the course where I don't have to pull my phone out.

I have a 6 Plus iPhone, I love the screen, but I would never keep it in my pocket while I play because it is bulky to carry.  The best thing about fall is that jackets have pockets.

In fact for the core functions that I use the phone for, I can get the notifications that I need with my phone within bluetooth range.  Now considering that wifi HW keeps getting more compact, I could see untethering from the iPhone with a wifi Apple watch.  Since connecting wifi networks is generally one time and you can re-connect to networks, anytime you are around a known wifi it could connect and then instead of a phone network, you get everything thru standard wifi.

I don't know how much bigger the watch would have to be for wifi, but it's a neat idea.

[mchepp]

1 hour ago, imsys0042 said:

I don't know how much bigger the watch would have to be for wifi, but it's a neat idea.

Wifi is a module. Meaning it is a package with multiple chips inside. They have a 2 (maybe more) different chips that have different functionality. They are usually big. From the iPhone 6s the orange block is the wifi module. 

You can see they are pretty big. Probably not yet watch size. Easier target is GPS. Also a chipset but can be made smaller.

[imsys0042]

8 minutes ago, mchepp said:

Wifi is a module. Meaning it is a package with multiple chips inside. They have a 2 (maybe more) different chips that have different functionality. They are usually big. From the iPhone 6s the orange block is the wifi module. 

You can see they are pretty big. Probably not yet watch size. Easier target is GPS. Also a chipset but can be made smaller.

Hmm....  Gonna need a bigger wrist....

Thanks for the info.   That's quite interesting.

[newtogolf]

18 minutes ago, mchepp said:

Wifi is a module. Meaning it is a package with multiple chips inside. They have a 2 (maybe more) different chips that have different functionality. They are usually big. From the iPhone 6s the orange block is the wifi module. 

You can see they are pretty big. Probably not yet watch size. Easier target is GPS. Also a chipset but can be made smaller.

There's a new wifi chip out that uses only one antenna and is only 5mm x 5mm.  It's a bit more expensive than the chip Apple uses in their phones but it could work within a watch.