@ceciliahaig I really wanted it to be rounded. The little dial to the side seems hard to turn when it's on my hand. The circular UI seems troublesome. And I really just wanted it to be round. The Apple Watch (wish it was iWatch) just looks like a smartwatch rather than a watch.
Can't wait to start building apps for this. There are going to be completely new types of user behaviour and interactions to understand, and a whole new design language and constraints to go with it. Going to be fun.
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@davidkmckinney Agree. I am definitely finding my Apple Watch more useful on a daily basis.
Nothing about the Apple Watch screams "You need this!" Instant access to notifications, health tracking, and easier mobile payments are nice, but none of them make me desperate to buy it. Tech-savvy dumbwatch-wearers might dig it, but the third-party app it launches with in 2015 will have to really wow me to make me excited to pay $349 for it.
@joshconstine I think you will and so will eye. Its feels like a totally new and pretty amazing device. Do you exercise / run regularly? Garment devices are north of $400 and they are not even close in cool factor.
I keep thinking about how the ipod and iphone needed to be tethered to a PC to bootstrap the experience. I think this is just the beginning of a device thought-through to be wrist-first. Maybe or maybe not for everyone, but certainly just the start.
@andrewfarah Remembering what we saw isn't done..
This watch had a series of affordances (mechanisms, gestures, metaphors) that have not been used before and all are focused on the wrist form-factor. I was a little surprised to see just how many of these there were (contrast with just swipe/pinch zoom, or click/drag). Nevertheless, these are now and interesting and clearly thought about for the form factor. This hasn't been done as holistically on the wrist before -- I suspect we will see a lot of changes in the app/platform before we all get to wear the watch. At the same time, it is clear this is purpose built for the form factor in ways that others have not.
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Too thick for a watch. But its just the beginning.
@NeerajT4 It's almost like they purposefully limit themselves on v1's. I like knowing this is the beginning of many iterations. To me, seems like a sound first step into wearables.
I need to play around with that dial...I'm not convinced by that interface decision at all!
I would have preferred a circular touch-activated bezel around the screen, which would allow touch gestures analogous to the iPod wheel dial. Swipe your finger clockwise or counterclockwise along the bezel to zoom in/out or make selections.
Furthermore this would have allowed the watch to be worn on either the left or right arm, without locking out left handed users.
With both interface elements (dial, button) on the right side only, it seems too unnatural to be worn on one's right arm. Controlling the dial with the thumb of your left hand or reaching over/around the display to control it with the other fingers is very uncomfortable.
The use of that dial undoubtedly wants to pick up on the language of the watch dials of classic wrist watches. But I think this was the wrong element to be chosen.
In the last decades you didn't have to wind up or reset your clock on a daily basis. Maybe you used the dial once per year? Or on occasion when traveling to a distinctively different timezone.
To me it would have made much more sense to have picked up on the symbolic character of the "tachymeter", the turnable scale around the rim of analog chronometers, which we all used to play around with constantly anyways.
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@boettges "Maybe you used the dial once per year?" I wear a dumbwatch. I use the dial about once a month. Most common use case is to change the time (travel, day light savings) or change the date (skipping the 31 on months with only 30 days). So a bit more frequent then you suggested, but still not daily or weekly by any means.
I will say I use the tachymeter even less, as in not at all. Useful if you're a diver, but not much to use it for otherwise.
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@eric3000 Oh right, I forgot about the bi-monthly day skip. That was my reason to switch to a watch without a calendar a couple of years ago.
Not saying that the tachymeter is actually used more often, it is rather a question of the message about it's accessibility that this element conveys.
Just having this rotary element on top of the watch seems more natural than on the side.
The crown was specifically placed on the side (sometimes even hidden under a ring) to make accessing it hard to avoid accidental misadjustment.
I'm super excited to see how product creators use Watch. As @nireyal has written about before, interface changes can lead to new opportunities and huge shifts in consumer behavior (eg facebook gaming to mobile gaming).
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@rrhoover also seems like a huge opportunity to guide behavior change....when you don't even have to take the device out of your pocket, it's going to be very hard to ignore the buzzing updates the Watch delivers.
@zackshapiro In a novel, but relatively useless way, yes.
Its not a sexy, defining feature. It is the epitome of personal though. Haptic communication (touching) conveys physical intimacy. Think about sharing your heartbeat, one-to-one, with someone you love from far away. The technology adds nonverbal communication, where only words, pictures/videos, and emojis existed before.
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@thomasmeagher@zackshapiro - I think it gets more interesting when you're sharing your heart beat (or alerts about problems with your heartbeat) with your doctor.
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With taptic (private) communication via taps, I think Morse Code is gonna make a comeback.
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