Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
It might, I suppose. The iPod touch (and iPhone? I didn’t have one until the 5) initially required a PC or Mac with iTunes to set it up. Later, it was set free.
The obvious problem with the Watch is that it is tiny and therefore has extremely limited battery capacity. It offloads a lot of energy-sucking operations to the iPhone (GPS, cellular radio, perhaps CPU-heavy activities in thin-client style).
I can envisage ARM CPUs getting better and better and eventually drawing so little power that the Watch could do anything it needs to under its own power.
But GPS receivers have been around for several decades and they still suck a lot of power. Any progress here will be slower. I have a Garmin Edge 800 for my bicycle that does nothing but run a GPS and a map, and it’s huge but only lasts something like 10 hours (with the backlight off).
And cellular radios have much greater limitations. The emitted signal isn’t wasted power that can be reduced – it’s needed for the tower to pick it up. There will be progress, but it will require new standards, industry-wide adoption, etc., i.e. it will take many years.
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Agreed, but that is the likely roadmap. A watch that ends up as a standalone product with celluar connection, airplay capabilities, etc. It'll take a while, but I see a day where the only two products most people need to do 90% of their communication will be an iPhone and an Apple Watch. The computer will be for "war and peace" activities like Jobs said a few years back. The Apple Watch will reduce the screen overuse and inconvenience of the iPhone, in my estimation. People have to reach into their pockets, bring the device up to their faces, press a button, perform a gesture, and type out a reply in the hope of not dropping the phone onto sidewalk. With Apple Watch, the threat of the dropped phone is gone, phone stays in pocket most of the time and checking can take 3 to 5 seconds vs 10-20. It's enough of a difference, I think. The auto-formed replies and simple "yes" "no" prompts will help get the interface out of the way, so people can get on with life.