All Things Mac/ Apple
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Totally. My fiancee has a Samsung galaxy, which is comparable in size to the 6, and that thing barely fits in my hip pocket. I refuse to sit on a 400 dollar device, and I don't want it out every time I sit down. I refuse to let my cell phone force me to carry a purse. And I'm sure most men identify with that, hahaha.
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Even though they boosted the base resolution and screen size, I'd go plus, the added battery life alone makes it worthwhile IMO.
Agreed
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I did have a thought about the Watch this morning.
They spent a lot of time patting themselves on the back for taking a cue from classic horology in using a crown as a major UI element. They completely fucked up there IMO. A crown is used on a watch at most once per day, on a winder. On an automatic, you only use it during daylight savings, travel, inactivity, or other adjustments. On a battery operated watch, add to that a battery change. It isn't central to the operation of a timepiece, and as such, doesn't have to be easy to use–and so it isn't. It's tiny because it isn't used frequently. And Apple has decided this niche UI element is central to their wearable platform. Big mistake.
What was staring them right in the face if they were truly looking at classic horology is two things: round faces and rotating bezels. This means a much easier control to use (even for deep sea divers wearing gloves, per classic diving watches), you still get no obstruction of the face of the device when the control is in use (they were quite proud of how their crown-centeredness didn't obstruct the face... for right-handers at least; you would be able to use a single finger on a bezel, like a slider--or a click wheel), and right- versus left-handedness is officially inconsequential with this kind of a UI.
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The crown is kind of weird, agree now you mention it, but think it'll work.
A bezel probably would do something with the touch sensitive surface meaning it'll need to be outside of that as apposed to on top with normal watches. The current watch is screen all the way to the edge. Meaning either a smaller screen real estate or a bigger watch. Great idea tho, and seems FAR more natural than the crown.
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I thought of it being piezoelectric at first, but sweat and water would then prove problematic–a physical control is needed one way or the other.
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Sooo we end up back at the crown, dammit. I bet you they have a bezel edition somewhere in R&D. Another version with a nib/joystick on the band/integrated strap.
All the different straps/faces seems to tie really nicely with Beats move. I think the process to come up with all the straps/faces would have started well before the M&A of Beats, but nicely ties into a common vision of personalization (everyone repeat after me, we are all unique! :))
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I thought at least SOME sort of Beats announcement was a conspicuous absence from the event, but it is nice that the watches are customizable. The branding is maddening though. They should have called it iWatch. "Watch" has no caché. iWatch immediately calls to mind an Apple wearable. And don't get me started on Apple Watch "Edition," that's some of the worst branding Apple has EVER perpetrated.
Everything Apple announced was catch-up. This has happened in the past, but typically they would put an angle on it that made it unique and compelling; I don't see that this time. The model has been to wait so that they could perfect a given technology; in this case I don't think they perfected anything. The one thing that may be a game-changer is Pay, since Google hasn't been able to get that done with Wallet.
They are just not the same company and are no longer terribly interesting to me, which saddens me because they did so much for technology when they were driven by vision. I won't even waste time watching the keynote. The plus side is that nothing will be compelling me to make an expensive shift back into the Apple ecosystem (other than replacing my aging MacBook Air).
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MCL, I think they've changed their focus. I'm sure the watches will have mega appeal with those in school/uni/college, and that appears to be their aim IMO. Smart Watches are trying to fill a void that noone really wants/needs. I still see it as a fad. Fitness tracking for most is a fad as well. I have Withings Pulse and Scales, I do keep track of what I get upto and it subtly changes my lifestyle, but it's not a competition. Most people really couldn't give a shit long term about their steps, it's meaningless after the first few weeks. Then the watch goes away, unless you're sending secret messages in classes or something from your wrist. I see the target audience of the watch being in the mid-teens to mid-20's.
You'd of seen the link in DF about TC's interview stating the 6+ was to try pull some people back from andriod who wanted the larger res, it's designed as a response to market demand for the size, not to innovate there.
Pay I still think if they can get it rolling will be The Thing. If they can even get it rolled out world wide. You would have no idea how annoying payments are down here now. PayPass/PayWave (aka NFC) is taking off, but a lot of terminals don't support it. Added then 50% of places don't take AMEX. Goes like, hand over AMEX, they try NFC, it fails, then they realize AMEX, then hand back, then hand over Visa, NFC fails again, then Chip&Pin insert, then enter pin, then hand terminal back to person. Really really broken process. Even places I go regularly NFC will stop working on their terminal, or on my card or something. That's outside of the security fuzzies of Apple's solution.
I'll be picking up 1 of the 13" MBP's once Yosemite is out. My MBA is now into it's 4th year of daily commuting as my work beater. It generally has over 100 days of usage/uptime, has travelled around the world multiple times, has been in 5 bike accidents where I've hit the road with it in my back, whilst in hibernate, and the thing has not missed a single beat. Even yesterday going to work I had a feeling I wasn't carrying it with me, so light that I'm still not used to it. They make the best hardware in the world, bar none. The OS is solid @ it's core, fuck the shiny feature on top.
Christ I'd kill for a real world F2F conversation with you guys sometime!
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One day we hopefully will meet F2F!
I was thinking about it, and the very idea of a watch is probably premature. There needs to be technology to sustain at least 44-48 hours between charges IMO.
What if they had made a sensor band, super small and light, hopefully with decent battery life due to a lack of display (or perhaps an LED clock as the sole display), that had NFC and BT LTE. Keep all the fitness tracking / computation on the phone, and just use the band as a sensor / fitness / sleep tracker / NFC device.
The plus side for consumers would be that you could have NFC for your legacy, NFC-less phone via the BT connection to your phone. Of course, Apple would never be a fan of something like that that inhibits purchase of the New Thing.
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snowy, i find that the pin payment is already a step up from signature payments. in singapore, there's still not option for a pin payment via visa, master or amex. it's all signature based though they're using a chip that they reckon is much more secure than the magnetic strip. having you nfc payments too like paywave and paypass has its downside too that if someone steals your cards, they can make multiple payments up to $100 multiple times with out any verification of fraud.
though that's where the point of NFC via phones come in. if in any case you lose your phone, you'll still need access to a device that you'll need to use to disable those payments. until it really takes off, i reckon you'll still find the problems with current paywave paypass problems where some places may not have that system to accept those payments.
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…which is why I thought optical bar codes was a smarter approach. Those are already everywhere.
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I've had an IPhone 5 for two years now. Pretty much always have a mophie case on it.
Here's it compared to a cut out of a 6+. It doesn't seems that crazy to me.
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…which is why I thought optical bar codes was a smarter approach. Those are already everywhere.
Probably easier to spoof a barcode than an NFC Token Request.
Good details on how it works over @ http://bankinnovation.net/2014/09/heres-how-the-security-behind-apple-pay-will-really-work/?utm_content=buffer40115&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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A 16-digit number? That's pretty trivial to represent optically. I think NFC is a solution in search of a problem. Starbucks and others have demonstrated optical bar codes working fine for mobile payments. $0.02
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Yeah, I'm sorry for not being more clear, it would be an ad-hoc token generated for each purchase.
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so correct me if i'm wrong but these tokens or barcodes we're talking about here is like a one time pin when you purchase something online?? like when you purchase something online and your cc issuer sends you a one time pin to confirm the purchase.
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Yep. You'd have a secure channel to your bank and the token would be combined with a unique device identifier and a timestamp and sent to the bank. It's a simple technology that is already in use. No new hardware would be required and even device based POS systems like square could use the camera on the iPad or whatever to process the payment.
