Posted on 08/14/2015 7:16:12 PM PDT by Swordmaker
No, I am not a renowned tech journalist, nor a 50,000+ followers Twitter guru or an extreme sports fitness expert. I am just a regular sales guy, happily married and blessed with two daughters of 7 weeks and 3 years old. And just so you can put this article into perspective: besides being a father of two young children, I am a business man so I constantly receive some form of communications during the day which I usually answer from either my desk or my car (handsfree of course). I am not into sports (does golf or brisk walking count?) so my fitness goals are not very ambitious. At home I use the entire Apple ecosystem, and … I happen to be a Swiss watch collector.
Starting with the latter: I am the proud owner of a duo of beautiful Swiss handmade mechanical watches. I have the renowned workhorse Rolex 16600 Sea Dweller (40 mm 2008 model, made of high grade 904L stainless steel), that can take you anywhere to 4000 feet below sealevel. And on the other side of the ‘Swiss Made’ spectrum: a beautiful and complex dress watch: my Christiaan van der Klaauw 40mm Ariadne watch with several astronomical complications including a day- and month date, a Moon Phase and a mechanical chronograph function: beautifully handcrafted by the first watchmaker ever to incorporate a full Planetarium into a 40mm size watch. (On a side note: this is strictly speaking not a Swiss Made watch because it is not fully assembled in Switzerland. It does, however, contain a Swiss Made ETA Valjoux 7751 movement so I count this as a Swiss watch.) Both of them are high end automatic watches, meaning that they will provide their own power by simply wearing the watch. They will run for 40 hours after lying still, so not wearing it will require a watchwinder or hand winding.
The ‘wrist time’ is devided between them: Rolex gets the lion’s share of about 6 days a week, used for anything from giving my 3-year old girl a bath (“daddy, can I clean your watch?”) to heavy gardening and home improvement. It collects dust yes, so rinse frequently. Christiaan van der Klaauw: about 2 times a month for Very Special Occasions (it is bi-coloured with a 18 carat gold lunette and stainless steel casing). Including the ones where you strictly are not allowed to wear a watch because of the etiquette (black tie requires a tuxedo which leads into a timeless evening … so no wristwatch allowed).
If one owns two of the most beautiful and iconic watches ever created by man, why would one take interest in an Apple Watch? Living in The Netherlands, I had the privilige of pondering this question between April 24th (launch in de US) and July 17th (launch in The Netherlands). After several weeks of meticulously reading all MDN reviews of the Apple Watch I was absolutely convinced I was no early adopter and I would wait for Apple Watch 2. That would definately bring me more functionalities, renewed design, higher speed (native apps) and an hopefully technological advancements with more versatile sensors.
Until I ran into the perfect opportunity of purchasing the watch below retail price (hey, I am still Dutch after all ;-)). I picked up the Sports version in Space Grey series 7000 aluminum, because I love the colour of this material and I figured the financial impact would be less then if I would purchase one of the stainless steel versions (the Space Black with Link bracelet would be my favorite choice). So there was no risk whatsoever for me to try it on and give it a shot. And boy, was I in for a treat …
Yesterday, on Day 21 After Purchase, I considered for the first time in 21 days to change my watch. I put on my Rolex, had breakfast with my girls, and before getting into my car, ran upstairs to change watches in favour of the Apple Watch. … Say what?! … I was genually flabbergasted… how on earth could I let down my companion-for-years-Rolex in favour of a watch that I had used for just three weeks? What did Tim Cook and his team cook up that was so enticing and all-consuming, even measured by industry standards and market leaders? Well, here’s the secret…
The Apple Watch is not a timepiece jewel like my other high end Swiss watches are. It is unfair for both to even consider comparing them or to compete against each other. Just like an old wind-up alarm clock and a Macbook both tell time, they are nowhere even close to being the same device. The only thing the Apple Watch and my Swiss Duo have in common, and that may prove to be kind of a thing: they compete for the same wrist time! As it turns out, I have more need for a Personal Life Assistant (PLA) on my wrist than just a watch, even such beautiful and reliable ones as my Swiss watches. And Apple cleverly designed the Watch in a way that your wrist just happens to be the best place for their ‘most personal device yet’. And why? What is the ‘killer app’? Well for me, there is none specific. Just like it has been written a lot on MDN, the Watch is a well thought-of combination of features you will need in your personal life.
Being able to read my WhatsApps, emails and imessages without having to adress my iPhone 6/Plus is probably the best one. Heck, that sure saves time and battery life! And Siri is just so well developed that responding to messages has never been easier.
Second best for me is the Activity App. I never thought that such simple reminders to stand up every hour, or being rewarded for achieving my daily calorie goals were so engaging. Even if the calorie count would not be quite accurate, it matters not: it is still fun and rewarding to move more!
Every other great function the Watch offers is at a combined third place. Photos from my youngest to show directly from my wrist? Great! Feeling awkward when reenacting a scene from Knight Rider when I take a phone call from my wrist at the mall? Who cares! The surprisingly fun features just kept coming these last few weeks and I still love them. And last but not least: telling time. Yes the Watch Faces are distincively Apple and I just love how Apple combines a nice Face with practical information, top of the list being able to see my next appointment in a glance.
So now what? How about The Duo? At least there must be SOME practical advantage they have over the Apple Watch? To quote our beloved Steve Jobs when adressing a stylus in the first iPhone presentation in 2007: “ … No!”.
Water resistance? Surely the Rolex will outperform the Watch? … Yes of course it does, when you go swimming or scuba diving. But for every day use I just keep on my Watch for everything I do. So by now my 3-year old has washed it almost daily (yes, fully submerged for at least 5 minutes) and I wear it every day in the shower… Dry off carefully and you are ready to go!
The battery life then? Surely an automatic watch will outlast the Apple Watch? Sure it does, but at times I do not need it. For me it does not matter that my watch keeps running when I am asleep, as long as it is ready to go when I get up. So I put on my Watch at 06:00 hrs, I put it on its charger at 23:00 hrs after medium to heavy use during the day, and it still has an average of 35% battery life left!
It is lonely at the top. By now I managed to flick a switch in my head: my beloved Swiss Watches will remain the most beautiful jewelry and the best handcrafted mechanical watches in the world, and I will regard and wear them as such with pride. But my Apple Watch with its excellent mix of build quality, design, reliability and functionality has managed to take up at least 80% of my wrist time in less then a month, and it will likely continue to do so for many more months to come. A remarkable achievement.
Do they have a dive computer app for it?
No, because Apple does not certify it for diving. They would certainly not approve an app for that purpose.
What I find interesting is that these are exactly the same arguments that were used when the Apple iPhone came out in June of 2007. . . from people who were using cheap dumb phones that made phone calls and messaged, and might take a photos. They were shocked that people would buy a phone that retailed for $695. "Nobody will buy an overpriced piece of junk phone when they can get X for a mere $100!" Then they said the same about the iPad. . . Look where we are today. . . The Apple Watch has sold more units in its first three months than the iPhone sold in its first year on the market and more than the iPad sold in its first 90 days in 2010, which was the best selling product of all time up until now.
Apple has sold 1.2 Billion iOS devices since 2007. Some 300 million of those will work with the Apple Watch.
I, after two months of daily use and extended experience, find the Apple Watch one of the most useful purchases I've made in some time. So have most of the people who have purchased one, rating their satisfaction with the product at 97%, an unheard of satisfaction rating for a new version 1.0 product.
But you, in your uninformed and inexperienced opinion, thinking the device is just a time-keeping watch, comparable to other time-keeping watches, still claim the Apple Watch is a "ridiculous," foolish purchase.
I haven’t priced an Apple watch, it’s true.
Surely it doesn’t cost $6,000, does it?
But if it does, buying one would be as ridiculous as buying any other watch that costs $6,000.
But like I said, it’s your money, man. Knock yourself out — it’s entirely up to you.
I own a $30 Casio watch, good to 100 meters that will last for about 10 years with reasonable battery replacement and a bit of good luck - My question would be why anybody would buy either a Swiss watch or an Apple Watch. meh. What a waste of money.
Battery went dead in my watch, put it in a drawer, haven’t worn a watch since. That was Jan 1972.
You are making the classic mistake of assuming your Casio and Swiss watches and the Apple Watch are the same product category. They are not. The first two merely keeps time. The Apple Watch is a wrist mounted computer that interfaces with your iPhone, facilitates payments, receives phone calls and messages, mail, and alerts, and can run other apps one of which also keeps time.
Your Casio tells times. The Swiss Watch tells time in various formats.
The starting price for the Apple Watch Sport 7000 Anodized Aluminum in 38mm is $349, the 42mm is $399. The next up model is the Apple Watch in stainless steel at $549 and $599, increasing to $999 and $1099 in the Space Black with matching metal link bracelet. If you want the Apple Watch Edition in solid 18 karat gold in yellow or rose gold, it starts at $10,000 and goes up in increments to $17,000, and there are reports of a $35,000 model with solid gold link bracelets, which has been seen on the wrists of some very wealthy individuals.
The Apple Watch works exactly the same whether you pay $349 or $35,000. . . except that the gold Apple Watch Edition has a special gold background watch face available.
Meh sommore. Which one is going to survive getting dropped in a 5 gallon bucket of paint when the wrist band breaks, and if the answer turned out to be *none* which one would you want to replace? And btw, the Casio WOULD survive that and much more. It's a wrist watch for Pete's sake.
NO, it's not a wrist watch, for Pete's sake. Your Casio is a wrist watch. . . the Apple Watch is NOT a wrist watch. Pay attention. It's a wrist mounted COMPUTER, it only tells time as an incidental but convenient app. That is what all you naysayers are missing.
My comments were addressed to the author, and I knew you didn’t write it. You do seem pretty braggy, though.
Sorry, I was ticked off at the previous posters. . .
Just don't expect everyone else to be so enthused at each and every of the latest promotions of Apple Inc., which this article is and was (from the stupid, irritatingly worded headline on) bleating denials that it was not, not withstanding.
The only doubt would be whether or not the promotion was driven in some manner directly by the Inc., itself -- which is something I never said.
Such a dilemma. A guy buys one of the things and is so utterly torn over whether he should keep it or not, or even use it instead of the other high-dollar possessions he could wear on the same wrist.
FreeRepublic needs threads like this one in particular, like it needs it's present programming to be de-programed back to old the occasional glitch malfunction that had John driving to San Jose whether he wanted to go or not.
But next time, address them as though you are writing about the article, not about the person whose name is on the post. . . it makes it clearer who you mean. OK? Several others on here seem to think the same thing.
After looking at the responses, I find it amazing that most everyone has no concept that the Apple watch’s timekeeping capabilities are among the LEAST of it’s features, while this is the ONLY capability of the more expensive watches.
Then you have the obligatory anti-Apple idiots; who equate Apple with sodomy.
Ignorance must be bliss, because a great many of these posters are about as ignorant as they come when it’s time to look at the Apple watch, and what it does. They have no idea that it tracks your pulse, elevation, GPS, movements, gait as you walk, it uses low power Bluetooth to communicate these factors to the higher capacity CPU in the phone (and higher powered battery) such that these factors can be tracked, plotted and utilized by Health based software. These people do not realize that if they travel, the watch can track the status of their flights, display the boarding pass on the face and make processing through the line effortless. They do not realize that you can use the watch to get an Uber ride from your airport to your hotel, or use the watch to make phone calls, play music, get news, check social status updates, as a shopping list for groceries, to navigate you both outside on the street (discreetly telling you when to go straight, turn left or right), or even help out around the house. It can start your car (depending upon your car), activate or deactivate your home security - and this is just the tip of the ice berg.
Just amazing what people comment about, yet have no clue as to what they are speaking about. Sure, you can do many of these things without the watch - but the watch is designed to make these things more convenient. And if you don’t want one - no one is forcing you to buy one.
Excellent analysis of the commentary I've seen posted on most Apple Watch threads. It is amazing all the comments from people who have never seen one much less worn or even handled one. They are convinced there's no difference between an Apple Watch and a traditional clock on the wrist. . . so they dive off the deep-end in their criticisms of something they have no clue about and deride anyone who does know what they are talking about, thinking they have to be deluded or foolish in some way.
Thanks for that reply.
Once, I had a nice little watch that only had little marks for the *hours*.....if I had to read the time, I had to count the marks with my finger, to figure out the *hour*....dumb watch. Dumber me. ;D
This Moldovo always blows my mind. My little mind.
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