I don't doubt you, I just never inspected or read about their buildings enough to know this. Steel is a pretty prevalent building material and I made an assumption. I'm not surprised, given Jobs's attention to detail, though.

No, but if you've ever been inside a Microsoft Store you'll understand the original poster's point. They *do* feel very creepily similar to the Apple stores in layout, look and feel. No other store (other than those two) I've been in has the same feel. BestBuys feel different. So do Fry's. So do AT&T store. Pretty much any other store one might go into and buy a device that has a battery or plugs into a wall.

I'm sorry. What?! What OS do you think MacBooks run? It's not Windows!

Ah! Thank you. That's cute but silly.

If that is the case, then I stand corrected. The OP was referring to Apple's glass-and-aluminum stores.

The first sentences of your comment were painful to read, but after several passes I understood you. The last sentence--quoted above--has stumped me even after several attempts to parse it. I gather you feel we are suckers and you do not do office work, but Windows stands or well? Could you please rephrase?

You have some large machines with your five-foot touch-only device and twenty-seven-foot desktop with Metro. Also, didn't Microsoft rename Metro as Modern-Style User Interface?

It wasn't, but I'm pretty sure that point is irrelevant as the OP meant the glass-and-steel Apple stores.

In many social situations (perhaps you don't often find yourself in these sorts of situations) it is more acceptable to glance at your wrist than to pull out a phone and start fiddling with it. For example, a business meeting, a dinner party or the symphony.

In many sporting situations (perhaps you don't often find yourself in these sorts of situations) it is more convenient to glance at your wrist than to break rhythm to pull out a phone and start fiddling with it. For example, while running, playing tennis or rowing.

I see a few issues here for smart watch makers.

First, people who understand the above situations already have at least one watch. Getting those people to give up something they already know and have probably grown fond of over many years--perhaps decades--for something new, unproven and requiring a battery will be difficult. With the personalization that Apple is targeting they seem to understand and are attempting to address at least one major hurdle: style. How well, we will see.

Second, current watches are either purely mechanical or sip from a tiny battery that lasts years. We can ballpark from physical size and capabilities that an Apple Watch will require frequent charging. If Apple has made a breakthrough of some sort, they were conspicuously mum about it yesterday. People enjoying watches today will have to adjust their long-learned expectations, even if they do get more features from their new energy-hungry watches. How well, we will see.

That leaves us with the current watch-less people such as yourself. Today, they don't find any of my above situations relevant--or they would be wearing a watch. For them, digging out a phone from a pocket might be more compelling than buying a new device they're not accustomed to. Perhaps the new features such as biometrics will sway them to buy a new device. How well, we will see.

An SD slot solves the storage issue but not the battery issue or the optics issue. Most people that need to record video at length have the planning to find a better device. While an SD slot has a lot of advantages, even a slight one on video shooting, it will not turn a phone into an excellent video recorder until we solve the optics problems in a small form factor.

They were not behind in 2007, therefore they have not *always* been behind.

I see. So, no Google Now support, no Gmail support, and no Google search support without modifications?

There are various purposes for various tools. A phone (Apple or otherwise) is not going to replace a proper camera for recording in situations in which you know you need massive storage, massive battery life or professional optics. You likely will also need good lighting and sound, but that's going beyond a camera now. What a phone does do well in, are situations where you had not planned on taking video. A camera you can carry everywhere that's good enough for many applications is the major use case and why dedicated photography and videography equipment is relegated more and more to situations that warrant it.

When my toddler is going to take his or her first steps, I might not be ready with a full recording setup, but I will have a phone at hand, for example.

If I am planning on recording my teenagers graduation, I will bring dedicated equipment that can record for hours at better resolution, for example.

Clearly the iPhone will not replace a camcorder, but it will serve as a suitable replacement for a camcorder in many situations. The market trends seem to support this view.

My impression, it being an Android device, is that if you give your money to Amazon you still become part of the GOOG ecosystem with all that entails. Am I wrong?

Or a small number of IT-types, some hardware and some software.