Apple Watch! I think they may have hit a home run!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

The really big news is, in fact, ApplePay. It can generate many billions for the fruity machine company.

[bayswater]

These new iPhones look stellar. I'm really weary of getting something THAT big, I already laugh at the ginormous Galaxy phone users.

I had hoped the 5 would be a little smaller and thinner than the 4. It was bigger. Now there's the 6 and it's even bigger. I stopped wearing watches a very long time ago when cell phone first showed the time, so I guess I'll be using my iPhone 4S for a long time yet.

[FMiguelez]

I haven't even seen it or heard anything about it and I already want one.

Me too. I want it...

But what is it? What are you guys talking about?

It's a new guitar tuner app built into a watch.

Well, at least I would find that convenient.

Thanks!

I get it now. Well, it looks like I won't need it after all (I'm a pianist)

As for the watch, because it has the ability to read your pulse, etc. it looks like they may have something with a lot of potential for the health/exercise market.

Now, THAT would be interesting. Like you say, an app to watch your pulse, even sugar levels via some kind of skin contact or sweat (hopefully we won't have to lick the device ).
If something like this is not out yet, it's just a matter of time.

I'd still prefer this in my iPhone instead of a watch, though.

[FMiguelez]

Ok. I'm watching the relevant keynotes now...

[stubbsonic]

My rMBP has become a centerpiece of my work and my communication. I like my iPad, but I still mainly use it as a toy, as a diversion. It isn't integrated in my life. I have a cell phone, but I barely use it.

I fear that with each coming new thing, both my economic status and my resistance to surrendering ever more of my privacy and personal life to glowing LEDs will separate me from a hunk of my fellow humans.

This watch just looks like a ridiculously stupid waste of money to me.

Still love my RMBP though.

[Shooshie]

These events are feeling very strange to me. I like and appreciate the tech, and good things have come from it, but there's just something creepy (to me) with how they talk about and present all this stuff now.

It felt better to me when Steve did it. Maybe it's just Steve's Reality Distortion Field, but it always seemed like he was reporting on work they'd done. The products were the reward for the work, and they spoke for themselves, really.

I like tools. Tools are extensions of me, and they help me do things I either can't do without them, or would find much harder to do. So I really enjoy seeing something that is the result of great work, delivering me great tools.

I have to say that THIS keynote did give me that queasy feeling that these guys are a little too into the "stuff" side of things. There was just too much emphasis on endless sequences of pretty people coasting their bikes down curvy mountain roads (the Mt. Tamalpais area around San Francisco, especially); pumping chrome; splashing water onto their sweaty, trim bodies; and the solid gold  Watch rotating in the bright lights, sending glints of reflections scattering across the camera's field... and... well, you get the point.

I had already learned all about the  Watch before I started to watch the keynote (later in the day), so I was already sold on its features, but the keynote made me question whether I WANTED to be sold on it.

Yes, I do get what you're saying. Welcome to Post-Steve Apple. This is the first big advancement since Steve died, so they were trying to make a big splash. If you compare it to similar announcements when Jobs was talking, the "this is amazing" tone is similar, but the keynote back then felt like a tech event, not the latest release of the Frontgate Catalog. I hope blatant materialism isn't Apple's undoing.

Shooshie

[billf]

These events are feeling very strange to me. I like and appreciate the tech, and good things have come from it, but there's just something creepy (to me) with how they talk about and present all this stuff now.

It felt better to me when Steve did it. Maybe it's just Steve's Reality Distortion Field, but it always seemed like he was reporting on work they'd done. The products were the reward for the work, and they spoke for themselves, really.

I like tools. Tools are extensions of me, and they help me do things I either can't do without them, or would find much harder to do. So I really enjoy seeing something that is the result of great work, delivering me great tools.

I have to say that THIS keynote did give me that queasy feeling that these guys are a little too into the "stuff" side of things. There was just too much emphasis on endless sequences of pretty people coasting their bikes down curvy mountain roads (the Mt. Tamalpais area around San Francisco, especially); pumping chrome; splashing water onto their sweaty, trim bodies; and the solid gold  Watch rotating in the bright lights, sending glints of reflections scattering across the camera's field... and... well, you get the point.

I had already learned all about the  Watch before I started to watch the keynote (later in the day), so I was already sold on its features, but the keynote made me question whether I WANTED to be sold on it.

Yes, I do get what you're saying. Welcome to Post-Steve Apple. This is the first big advancement since Steve died, so they were trying to make a big splash. If you compare it to similar announcements when Jobs was talking, the "this is amazing" tone is similar, but the keynote back then felt like a tech event, not the latest release of the Frontgate Catalog. I hope blatant materialism isn't Apple's undoing.

Shooshie

To be fair though all the big tech companies are all going down a similar path in how they present their new offerings. The presentations that primarily consisted of specs, speeds, and geek-speak are starting to become a thing of the past. Now it's transforming into marketing, with the next phase of tech being "wearables" and the "internet of things." So the blatant materialism is something that's going to be pushed on us by Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Amazon, and brethren.

[Shooshie]

So the blatant materialism is something that's going to be pushed on us by Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Amazon, and brethren.

Then why resist? I'll have two  Watches. No! THREE!

Actually, I really am having 2nd thoughts about even one. I'm bonded to my iPad and iPhone, but do I really need an iPhone accessory?

Shooshie

[kgdrum]

These events are feeling very strange to me. I like and appreciate the tech, and good things have come from it, but there's just something creepy (to me) with how they talk about and present all this stuff now.

+1 agree, the presentation and general direction leaves me queasy, maybe these guys are drinking too much Apple kool-aid,it's all about gadgets ,convenience and mass $$ appeal.
When Steve Jobs did these presentations you sensed someone who truly loved the technology, now it feels like a used car salesman doing an infomercial,lol
I hate watches, I don't want a bigger iphone(smaller and more powerful,please).
It seems to me that creative technological innovations are not a priority anymore.
For me the most interesting part of all of this as my sump buddy mentioned is Apple taking aim at Paypal.
Stephen Colbert had a great skit about this.
http://digg.com/video/stephen-colbert-i ... pple-watch

[frankf]

I gave up my watch when I got my first iphone. My wife still wears one. If we are walking down the street, more times than I care to admit, I ask "what time is it please, dear" too damn lazy to even reach in my pocket!

Seriously though, I've seen a couple of photos of the iWatch on the wrists of models- their arms, wrists and hands only. The watches looked elegant. There's a market for expensive elegant watches and there $350 is nothing. If apple can dip into elegance, the iWatch may make a splash


Frank Ferrucci

[James Steele]

These events are feeling very strange to me. I like and appreciate the tech, and good things have come from it, but there's just something creepy (to me) with how they talk about and present all this stuff now.

It felt better to me when Steve did it. Maybe it's just Steve's Reality Distortion Field, but it always seemed like he was reporting on work they'd done. The products were the reward for the work, and they spoke for themselves, really.

I like tools. Tools are extensions of me, and they help me do things I either can't do without them, or would find much harder to do. So I really enjoy seeing something that is the result of great work, delivering me great tools.

I have to say that THIS keynote did give me that queasy feeling that these guys are a little too into the "stuff" side of things. There was just too much emphasis on endless sequences of pretty people coasting their bikes down curvy mountain roads (the Mt. Tamalpais area around San Francisco, especially); pumping chrome; splashing water onto their sweaty, trim bodies; and the solid gold  Watch rotating in the bright lights, sending glints of reflections scattering across the camera's field... and... well, you get the point.

I had already learned all about the  Watch before I started to watch the keynote (later in the day), so I was already sold on its features, but the keynote made me question whether I WANTED to be sold on it.

Yes, I do get what you're saying. Welcome to Post-Steve Apple. This is the first big advancement since Steve died, so they were trying to make a big splash. If you compare it to similar announcements when Jobs was talking, the "this is amazing" tone is similar, but the keynote back then felt like a tech event, not the latest release of the Frontgate Catalog. I hope blatant materialism isn't Apple's undoing.

Shooshie

There's sort of a "cultural bubble" around the bay area and Silicon Valley. Politics is verboten, but there's that. In many ways it's unlike the rest of California. I'm still hopeful that there's something about the watch that's going to take off. I was underwhelmed when the iPad first hit, but it proved its usefulness. But if Apple leans too far toward style over substance, and glitzy design over practicality, then the bloom may come off the rose.

[mikehalloran]

I hate wearing watches and large devices. It doesn't matter what it does, neither is for me. I'll keep my iPhone 5S.

Anyone who tried something like the app I use in my day job (I run it over an iMac using the 5S as a hot spot) over the imitation 4G of the 4S knows that the 5S was a major improvement - far greater than the difference between the 5S and 6 unless you want the bigger phone (which I don't). The 5S has a pretty good camera, too and TouchID was a welcome feature.

So the 5S camera and video was super good. The 6 is what–super duper extra special good?

OK, sign me up... in a couple years when my 5S wears out or breaks or something...

I'm good, frankly, until I direct my next major Hollywood feature and then I guess I'll get big 6+.

Could happen.

[Shooshie]

There's sort of a "cultural bubble" around the bay area and Silicon Valley. Politics is verboten, but there's that. In many ways it's unlike the rest of California. I'm still hopeful that there's something about the watch that's going to take off. I was underwhelmed when the iPad first hit, but it proved its usefulness. But if Apple leans too far toward style over substance, and glitzy design over practicality, then the bloom may come off the rose.

Oh man, I know! One of my oldest friends lives not just in the Bay Area, but in Fairfax, the last holdout of the 1960s-cum-Landed Luxury crowd. I mean, they have signs on every patch of grass berating you for thinking about walking there, and announcing what snail you'll be crushing to extinction if you step into that inviting few square feet of nature. And now my son lives just a few miles from him near the ferry landing, which he rides to work daily in San Francisco. I'm getting a pretty good picture of what's in that bubble these days!

I'm not decided about the  Watch. Of course I want it to be a success, for Apple's sake, and I get that they are competing against others who are definitely advertising to that culture bubble, so they have to do it, too. And it's clear that the  Watch is truly a work of art, both in design and programming. I want it for that reason, and for the things it can do for me and help me do, such as the fitness stuff. That's a major deal! (and there are many more)

Maybe just keeping it all in perspective will defuse the queasiness.

But if Apple leans too far toward style over substance, and glitzy design over practicality, then the bloom may come off the rose.

This may be a case of the bloom crushing the rose under its massive, dripping weight!

[James Steele]

OK, sign me up... in a couple years when my 5S wears out or breaks or something...

I'm still back on an iPhone 4. And sucky part is that to save some $$ I had it flashed to work on the Cricket network. It was originally on Verizon. Well, let's just say Cricket's data service is slooooow. I used to be able to stream podcasts on long drives NO PROBLEM on Verizon. I had to give up when I went to Cricket. I have to download podcasts on my home WiFi in anticipation of a long drive so I can listen.

Unfortunately, the place that flashed my phone to work on Cricket tells me that can't guarantee it if they try to flash it back to a Verizon phone. I could end up with a brick. So I'm now going to try and score a used 5s from the early 6 adopters so I don't have to go on a plan. I can jump on my uncle's Verizon friends & family plan for $45/mo.

[James Steele]

I'm not decided about the  Watch. Of course I want it to be a success, for Apple's sake, and I get that they are competing against others who are definitely advertising to that culture bubble, so they have to do it, too. And it's clear that the  Watch is truly a work of art, both in design and programming. I want it for that reason, and for the things it can do for me and help me do, such as the fitness stuff. That's a major deal! (and there are many more)

Was talking with some people today about the watch and the price point came up: starting at $350. And I'd assume that means the plastic-looking "sport" models... not the more elegant dressy designs. Given the flat economy, I don't think the proletariat is going to pony up that much. Firstly, you have to have AT LEAST a iPhone 5. Someone like me, whose been getting by with a 4 (and I know plenty of people with 4 and 4S phones) have to jump to a new phone before spending $350 *minimum* on the watch.

Believe me... it looks cool as all get out, but I remember when I saw the iPad, my thought was "will I really use this?" I ended up using it, but I can say that it is not a necessity. I like to read emails in bed or peruse news sites with it, but I could live without it. The watch seems even more like that. But the pulse monitor and possibilities for fitness monitoring and the like do seem to have potential.