back to article Apple's SNEAKY plan: COPY ANDROID. Hello iPhone 6, Watch

Apple's monster event has now been and gone – revealing two new iPhone 6 models and an Apple iWatch Watch, just as everyone expected. First, there was the introduction of new iPhones. As rumored, Cupertino delivered a pair of larger models: the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the phablet-like iPhone 6 Plus, which sports a 5.5-inch …

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  1. cambsukguy

    That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

    ...the edge of a Lumia 925, the knurling near the corners especially brought it to mind.

    Still, lawsuits on design elements only allowed one way I suppose - the corners are more curved after all.

    I honestly thought the watch would be a stylish bracelet affair, flexible, unbreakable, waterproof thing.

    This one looks much less attractive than the new curved Samsung - the previous one was awful to be sure.

    Not that any of them are on, or will be on, my shopping list.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

      I thought the thing looks remarkably like a Galaxy.

      1. Chet Mannly

        Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

        Especially the gold one - styling-wise it's a dead ringer for the white version of new galaxy tab s - at least from the side...

        Lawsuits ahoy! LOL

      2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

        "I thought the thing looks remarkably like a Galaxy."

        Nah, most galaxies are more elliptical or sport nice spiral arms, you rarely see any remotely rectangular ones (although the Small Magellanic Cloud is a bit rectangular).

        I'll get me coat. The one with "Turn Left at Orion" in the pocket please

        1. Vic
          Joke

          Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

          most galaxies are more elliptical or sport nice spiral arms,

          Are they fashionable?

          Vic.

          1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

            Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

            Nah. Common as muck.

    2. bri

      Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like... (@ cambsukguy)

      ...you mean Nokia N9, surely?

    3. Van

      Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

      That's because you obviously consider a wrist watch to be an item of jewellery for showing off with.

      Wrist watches were clocks invented for the Navy, depth gauges and Altimeters followed suit by conveniently being wearable on the wrist.

      At some point in the future, when all of our tech can be miniaturised to the size of, errrr, a wrist watch lets say, there's going to be a clash of interests. Although I imagine a complete nobber somewhere will wear a Rolex on one arm and computer/communicator on the other though. Either that or stay in the dark ages carrying a slab around in the pocket.

      1. Drat

        Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

        That's because you obviously consider a wrist watch to be an item of jewellery for showing off with.

        Sounds like a definition of an Apple product to me.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That side-on picture of the phone looks just like...

      Or HTC One M8. Even has the same gunmetal colour.

  2. thechanklybore

    Square watches

    Square watches are aesthetically unacceptable when produced by Samsung & LG. Is the inevitable outpouring of appreciation for this particular square tantamount to racism?

    I suppose the whatever-the-fuck-it's-called on the side will make the square design suddenly brilliant?

    1. LarsG

      Re: Square watches

      Still not acceptable, round watch please Mr Ive, that doesn't need charging for a month.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Square watches

        LarsG, which similar gadget are your expectations based on? IIRC the original ipod was 10 hours.

        1. Andy Hards

          Re: Square watches

          Um ,I don't think he did say there was one that lasts for a month, he simply said it would be a nice thing to have, rather than a silly little screen that does the same as the other similar devices on the market. People were expecting to be wowed and filed with awe with a game changing bit of kit from the mighty Apple, not a crappy bit of iCatch-Up with a big knob on the side, and I don't mean Mr Ive boom tish!

        2. Neill Mitchell

          Re: Square watches

          "LarsG, which similar gadget are your expectations based on? IIRC the original ipod was 10 hours.IIRC the original ipod was 10 hours."

          The original ipod was not a watch you relied on to tell you the time. The last thing I want is a watch that is dead when I look at it at 12pm to see if I've got time to make the last tube train.

          A watch is not a watch if you have to charge it overnight.

    2. Paul

      Re: Square watches

      I see the big iKnob and wonder WTF were Apple thinking???

      Couldn't they have put a touch sensor on the side, like the HTC Vision (T Mobile g2) or a trackball like the original HTC Desire?

      The rest of the watch is OK - even kind of like the Asus Zenwatch which I like for its somewhat elegant simplicity

    3. ChrisB 2

      Re: Square watches

      Square/rectangular designs for watches have been around for a tad longer than any smart watch:-

      Cartier Tank

      Bell & Ross

      Baume & Mercier

      Richard Mille

      Round vs. square is simply personal preference and sod all to do with tech fanboyism of any flavour.

    4. lurker

      Re: Square watches

      That actually surprised me, I'm not an apple fan but didn't expect them to come out with something so.. pedestrian. The moto watch looks loads better, costs less, and I still wouldn't want one.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Square watches

      A round watch is round for one reason, it uses hands. If you watch doesn't have an analog face then it doesn't need to be round.

      1. lurker

        Re: Square watches

        "A round watch is round for one reason, it uses hands. If you watch doesn't have an analog face then it doesn't need to be round."

        All quite accurate from the perspective of pure logic. But anyone who thinks that the value of a watch is determined by function alone clearly knows nothing about watches.

        Round watches look nicer. And you would expect Apple of all companies to know this, after all, they practically exist in their modern form as a result of having rounding the corners off computers and gadgets!

  3. Adrian Harvey
    Unhappy

    Bah humbug

    I'm annoyed that both the new phone models are bigger. I don't want a bigger phone. I understand some do, and the plus-size model will be a good addition to the range, but why oh why did they have to make the base model larger too!

    And no sapphire screen either. So apart from NFC there's not much to reccomend it over the 5s :-(

    1. Lost in Cyberspace

      Re: Bah humbug

      The 5s is still a pretty good phone, but given the choice I'd go with the 6 for the extra performance and features despite the size increase.

      Hopefully the 7 will come in 3 sizes, without the smallest model being crippled with only 8-16GB.

      1. Dominion

        Re: Bah humbug

        Yay!!! Exactly why I bought a 5s last month! Small form phones rule!!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Bah humbug

          Yep, I am too a member of the please-don't-make-it-even-bigger crowd, with an extra sigh reserved for making it yet again thinner instead of leaving it at 5s levels and thus give it more space for a battery. Honestly, don't these people actually USE their phones?

          As for features: meh. I'm OK with what iOS 8 and Yosemite will bring (was that even mentioned today? I didn't watch as I cannot stand people using words that are alien to them like "fantastic" and "exciting"), and as predicted, the iWatch is really not for me.

        2. Paul

          Re: Bah humbug

          worst time to buy!

          you should have waited till the new model and price would have come down further

        3. chris 17 Silver badge
          WTF?

          Re: Bah humbug

          if you waited a month you could have got a nice discount on that 5s

          1. Paw Bokenfohr

            Re: Bah humbug

            "wrong time to buy" / "if you'd waited a month"

            No, he bought at the right time, assuming he wanted to buy new, and he wanted the 64GB version.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bah humbug

      People are getting bigger so phones are getting bigger.

      It's a fat thing.

      I also don't want bigger, I want cleverer. Stuff this into a 5S shell and I be very happy.

    3. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Bah humbug

      And just last week 4 inches and 326 pixels/inch was perfect.

    4. Blank Reg

      Re: Bah humbug

      Well they had to leave something "revolutionary" and "magical" to put in the iPhone 7.

      1. MrXavia

        Re: Bah humbug

        I have an sgs4, its a large phone, but to me its the perfect size phone for my hands, i use it one handed easily...

        but I can see the market needs multiple size phones, and they should not skimp on spec for the smaller ones...

        oddly enough, i find women carrying the larger phablets more than men....

  4. Breen Whitman

    IPhone 6 looks suspiciously like a Samsung.

    Well, as the the old saying goes - stealing designs to leverage off the success of Samsung is the greatest form of flattery.

    1. Gezza

      what - like Samsung, HTC, etc, etc didnt have an iPhone to start from in the beginning?

      1. MrXavia

        The others are much more like the LG Prada than the iPhone really... and the iphone is not the first smart phone out there, the only good thing Apple did was stick the capacitive touch sensing into the screen... and to do that they brought out a company that made amazing keyboards....

        other than the screen, the iPhone was naff.....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Yeah - compare it side-by-side with an S5 - hard to tell them apart, other than the shape of the home button at the bottom.

      1. Vector

        "hard to tell them apart, other than the shape of the home button at the bottom"

        I always find this rather humorous. When the touchscreen is the dominant feature and the primary interface point, you're going to end up with a rectangle, possibly with a few hardware buttons sprinkled around the remainder. The only other real question is how thin can you make it.

        Of course they all look about the same. Until someone comes out with a foldable screen, they're going to continue to look about the same. Once those foldable screens come out, they'll probably all look like mini portfolios.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Holmes

          iPhone didn't used to look like Galaxy. iPhone 5 doesn't look like Galaxy.

          Just sayin...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Pssst! Andy! Your fandroid is showing...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      No. Nothing like a Samsung. Exactly like a LG or even cheaper handset though!

    4. Dana W
      Meh

      But When Samsung was copying wholesale it was merely coincidence.

  5. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Perfectly put.

    "It's an iPod-minus-minus-minus on your wrist!....." You would really need to be a fanboi to not realise that is almost exactly what it is, only eight times as expensive. On a purely design side, the fact it does not have a raised bezel means the screen is going to get scratched very quickly and easily, and the weight on your wrist is going to get tiring real soon!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Perfectly put.

      "the screen is going to get scratched very quickly and easily, "

      That will be a feat, since presumbly it's saphire glass. If not then that might be an issue

      1. Darryl

        Re: Perfectly put.

        Many watches have had sapphire crystals since the 1960s and they still get scratched.

        1. Steve Todd
          Stop

          Re: Perfectly put.

          But not quickly or easily, which is why they make the faces out of sapphire.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Perfectly put.

          No, they don't, actually.

  6. GregC

    So the watch then..

    El Reg says:

    It's certainly a nice-looking bit of kit, as we've come to expect from Apple

    Really? The design of the watch face on the display is OK, but the hardware itself is decidedly meh, at best. Compared to the round Motorola and LG offerings it looks very dated. Even if you like the rectangular form factor, the newest Samsung looks nicer to me.

    1. Paw Bokenfohr

      Re: So the watch then..

      Kind of depends, doesn't it.

      Perhaps (and we won't know for at least 4 months or so) this is absolutely the pinnacle of style *for its abilities*.

      Perhaps it has more, and better sensors than others. Perhaps the screen is better than others. Perhaps the battery life is better than the rest. Perhaps a lot of things, but at present, we all know that form has to be traded against function with the smallest gadgets, because we can only miniaturise so far right now, especially thinking of batteries, so when it's actually released we can all judge whether this watch strikes the right balance for us or not.

      But it's pretty much all down to the ecosystem anyway. If you have an iPhone, you're hardly likely to buy a Moto 360, and if you have a Nexus 5, you're hardly likely to buy an Apple Watch.

      Really, when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter whether the Apple Watch is better than the Moto 360 or the Galaxy Gear or the LG G Watch or any other Android Wear based device. For an iPhone owner, it's the right choice. For n Android owner, well, that's where the others compete for business.

  7. Frank N. Stein

    No Sapphire screen, wireless charging or nano-coating to resist water? BLAH. YAWN!!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple Watch. Oh well.

    If only they'd put the watch in a round case. So many of the UI elements are frickin circles after all.

    The oblong Apple case looks rather odd actually. A round case would've been aesthetically much better and would have complemented what I've seen of the UI far more. Surprised Mr. Ive missed that.

    And the whole look, 'Digital Crown' and all, has already been tried and dropped by Braun - http://forums.watchuseek.com/f8/braun-bn-10-made-germany-617206.html

    The Moto 360 looks so much nicer, but Motorola screwed the pooch by giving it a lousy lo-res screen, crappy software and an ancient battery-hungry SOC. At least Apple have got that right.

    Still, we'll soon be sent both models on skinny wrists serving the finest single estate coffees up and down the land. And I'll still be wearing my Rolex.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple Watch. Oh well.

      "If only they'd put the watch in a round case."

      Sure, but then again that wouldn't be ground breaking like a rectangle with rounded corners.

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