you really find low power bluetooth to be that bad of a drain on your phone? I use it for my helmet headset all the time while I am riding and it doesn't seem to cause too much of a problem. I doubt this would either.

I will give you that daily charging sounds like a pain though I almost worry about the watch being slightly better than that but not a lot. I can get into the habit of charging it nightly but remembering every couple of days would be a pain in the ass.

Mostly though the point of this design is to be discreet... the whole reason you want to get notifications on your wrist instead of with a loud ringtone or vibrating phone is to be discrete, to be able to check the time without making everyone around you aware of the fact that you are bored and are waiting to leave, or to check to see who is calling to decide if it is important enough to answer or to navigate through a city without staring at your phone half the time (particularly useful for runners or bikers).

I get that this might not be a critical issue for you but it is a real attempt to change the way people intreract with technology so that it is less obtrusive and that has value to some. Now that said it is crazy expensive and the next version will be thinner with better battery life and probably cost less so early adopters are going to get screwed on this, just like they did with google glass (which will also likely be way cheaper in its next revision) or with just about any other first generation product. I will likely wait before I invest in something like the apple watch but I think to dismiss it right now would be a mistake.

You already had a player to compare it to, you had a device that had limitations that you wanted improved upon, it was easy to see why a better designed version would be an improvement.

It is harder with a new category of product. It was hard for me to see the appeal of the iPad, after all I already had a iPhone, why would I need a big one, but then I tried it and it was pretty bad ass, and once I owned one (which I needed for development purposes) it quickly became a huge part of my daily electronics usage and replaced my laptop for the vast majority of non development tasks.

I suspect this is similar, if you had a pebble and you were using it you would probably look a a device like this and instantly be able to see the ways it is better than the one you have, but since it is a type of device that nobody really has it is harder to understand the ways in which you would use it. This is not just a problem for apple but also for any other smart watch developer.

do you have any idea how small the display on google glass actually is? reading instructions (such as for car repair) on it would be incredibly annoying.

This isn't about a wrist computer and infact a wrist computer would likely not be very useful unless we get to the point where conversational voice command is a thing but honestly at that point it would be hard to justify putting it in a watch instead of in some other jewelry.

What this is, and what smart watches really need to be, at least at this point is an extension of your phone. The primary goal of the apple watch is clearly to provide you with the information your phone does but in a way that is subtle and discrete. The tapping on your wrist replaces a ring tone or a vibrating phone, you can see and even quickly respond to many types of notification. Siri is available but she doesn't speak back to you because that is loud and not very discrete. It provides you with turn by turn directions without taking out your phone and finally, it also tells you the time without digging your phone out as well. Discrete was clearly one of their primary design goals. Its not very fashionable to walk around a cocktail party staring at your phone but a nice looking watch that provides you with the data you need in a discrete way is perfect for almost any environment.

this was clearly their goal and it is probably the best possible use of a smart watch. Admittedly the price is pretty high for the value it gives and for some people the value is limited but for others it is quite valuable and I suspect the price will drop with future versions allowing for better adoption.

milanese loop already sounds like a sex act

They glossed over a ton in that, but they have 4 months to share details. I suspect from all the talk though that it is waterproof.

there was an indication for call under the contacts picture on the watch along with one for messaging. It also has a microphone and a speaker. They didn't lay out everything the watch could do but that might very well be part of it.

I started locking my phone when I got a phone with touchID. It works extremely well and the phone is usually unlocked before I even see the screen. Before that it was too much of a pain to unlock and it wasn't worth it to me

only if you suck at tying it

yeah, lots of places to use that NFC you have had in your shiny phone for the last 2 years.

This will make a huge impact on the payment market and it might actually get to the point where the NFC in android phones is actually useful at a large number of retailers. But of course you will all say that google made NFC payments happen because memory is funny that way.

honestly, if I have to take the watch off it does't matter how it charges. Still, it had to be something that didn't require an opening in the watch since it pretty much needs to be water resistant.

particularly when you enter the data by taking a picture of the card.

I am shocked the assigned you Heinlien at a public school. I would be they aren't doing that these days.

MRA stands for Men's Rights Advocates. Be warned that as reasonable as that might sound, often the actual examples of these people, particularly online, are not so reasonable.

A former coworker of mine hit the retread off of a semi once, it flipped up around his front wheel and got caught in the front fender. He was thrown from the bike and skidded quite a ways. Luckily for him he was wearing a full kevlar suit but it still split and left him with some road rash. Ultimately he was ok and is back out riding as far as I know.

Do watch out for that stuff and always choose to avoid if possible. I am glad for what I was taught about riding over obstacles as it has come up, but avoidance is always the best bet if you can manage it.