Apple announcements restricted to Apple owners?
It's a company-wide disease. I thought they had learned after iTunes.
OK. I'll pass.
After an eternity of hype, Apple has finally confirmed at a bash in Cupertino, California, two new iPhones, a smartwatch and a mobile payment system. The 4.7in iPhone 6 with an A8 processor. $199 for 16GB, $299 for 64GB, and $399 for 128GB, with a two-year contract. The 5.5in iPhone 6 Plus. Costs $100 more. Both mobes out on …
I can hear Steve Jobs screaming "That #$%ing Watch is too thick. The interface needs work. It's too damned complex and who the hell picked those bands."
I suppose it's OK if it's a fashion item rather than an electronic device. As the missus would say, "These shoes are really uncomfortable, but they look cute."
Owners who don't care about prices?
Neat trick to omit giving actual prices in keynote, only mentioning promotion deals as part of very expensive carrier contracts. Poor journalism to quote this verbatim without commenting on the $2000+ contracts involved or actual retail prices.
Which range from 16Gb entry level £539 to 128Gb with larger screen £789. Including VAT. According to apple.co.uk.
New bigger phone ....check
New even bigger phone .....check
NFC......how 2010
Watch.......still trying to solve a problem that is not there.
GOLD.......wow I did wonder why these things cost so much.
Case........grab a piece of that market £££££
Well time to all go mad and buy the things.........
Wake me up when September comes.......hang on I might be on to something there.......
NFC......how 2010
Yeah and a lot of people are still waiting for it to take off. I've got it on my Galaxy S4 don't have an app that can use it, so can't make a payment with it. All the implementations of it in the UK and on phones at the minute are so half baked it is unbelievable. At least this will be a kick up the arse to other companies and will be a good thing in the long run as more places will now be willing to install payment scanners
"Watch.......still trying to solve a problem that is not there."
Bullshit. Are you a Jeweller? Tech is getting smaller, the wrist is the obvious place to store it for those who don't want a slab of glass in the pocket to reach for. Just like what happened with pocket watches, altimeters and depth gauge funnily enough.
The watch needs to be allowed to evolve just like the mobile phone was.
Not just ANY gold.
A NEW type of gold, invented by Apple!
From Apple's Watch website:
"The Edition collection features six uniquely elegant expressions of Apple Watch.
Each has a watch case crafted from 18-karat gold that our metallurgists have
developed to be up to twice as hard as standard gold."
Wooooweeee!!!
Although I think the watch is a gimmick I kind of like it for one reason. Unlike the failed Samsung attempts it does not look like someone has just strapped a small phone to your wrist. In the streaming video it actually looks thin and um.... watch-like.
So purely in terms of hardware Apple are ahead of the game. Won't know much about software until it is in active use by the populous for a while.
- SA
...see? Despite looking like 2010 product it's still better looking than Samsung...
Just teasing. This is definitely a "meh" moment. Still, the strength of Apple lies in integration and marketing, not necessarily in the device spec, so at least it may stir the wearables market, which has been comatose lately.
In order to make it more lively you need volume and this is something anyone else failed miserably in. Apple may, but just may, be able to kickstart it. Technical parameters are largely irrelevant to the mass market, marketing is king there.
> Does anyone else take their watch off when they exercise because it's uncomfortable
Yes it can get uncomfortable very quickly. Come to think of it I can't think of having seen anyone at my gym wearing a wristwatch while they're working out. Or playing soccer for that matter.
Hmmm there's a thought. Playing soccer with an Apple Watch on. Things will get messy very quickly.
Without even trying to pretend otherwise, this so far feels horribly laclustre.
Let's see - new features : NFC, Barometer, bigger screen, higher resolution, wearable.
All these are Android features available for sometime now.
What scares me, as an Android user, is that there's nothing here that'll force the Android vendors to innovate further since now the iPhone is basically playing catchup. I really wanted (honestly, I did) to see Apple's new wearable be something that would blow anything away in the Android camp. As it is, it's 'just another wearable'.
And don't get me started on the price - starting at $299 for a phone with less memory than the LG G3.
Good God!
That all said, there's going to be Apple folk who'll happily pay the price simply because it's a new flashy shiny Apple. Good luck to them and well done Apple for creating a business model that is seemingly designed to part fools from their money.
It does seem a bit of an afterthought. Sort of an "oh shit" moment when they realized the touch screen was a tad small. To me it seems the elegant solution totally passed them by because, as Carl W mentioned above, they made the silly thing square. My dive watch has a rotating bezel which they could easily have implemented with a touch sensor around a circular face. It would have been instantly familiar to anyone who has used the click wheel on an iPod and been unobtrusive unlike the largish knob they currently have. What, they couldn't do two sizes with a round dial?
Since we're on the design topic, how the hell does this watch band work? It looks a bear to put on.