Will you buy an Apple Watch?

[Ronnie-]

What made you think Android apps would run on the Apple watch? Even Apple iphone apps have to be coded to support the Apple watch. It's the same for Android. Android apps have to be coded to work on my Sony Android watch.

Given that most of the functionality is tied to the iPhone, why get an Apple watch if you have an Android?

It appeared he was answering the question that the thread asked, and giving the reason why.
No, he will not buy one because it will not interface with his android phone.

I did not take it as he was thinking that it would.

 

[TheForce]

Thanks for the correction. My bad!

 

[rockymtnhigh]

It appeared he was answering the question that the thread asked, and giving the reason why.
No, he will not buy one because it will not interface with his android phone.

I did not take it as he was thinking that it would.

Well I am glad we have that cleared up. Phew.... Smith to the rescue.

 

[navychop]

"....Heck, I'd even jump on board with a Mac computer if it weren't for my needs for video editing. PC's are still vastly superior in that regard...."

My, how things have changed.

But some relatives of my wife, professional artists and photographers, use Macs exclusively, as does the Marketing department at work. Granted, most of the work is stills.

 

[TheForce]

My, how things have changed.

But some relatives of my wife, professional artists and photographers, use Macs exclusively, as does the Marketing department at work. Granted, most of the work is stills.

Depends on what you need to do. I've used both and taken formal training in Final Cut Pro. If you just need to do photo grading, and simple video editing projects, then yes, Mac's will work fine. But get into the high end of video, stereography, 4K real time, and advanced CMOS error correction tools, multilayer keying and rotoscoping, Blu Ray 2D and 3D authoring, all this is being done in the PC world. No software at all for Macs. For Macs the best of the best software is probably Adobe but this can be run on both platforms however, project management and archival is still better with PC's I guess the most robust editing package is still the Avid Media Composer. This will run on both platforms with same features. However, if you ask a builder of the systems, they generally will say the PC build offers better performance at lower price point. Back in the 90's the situation was reversed, and the Mac had the stronger build.

PS- we bought an iMAC for the kitchen some time ago. My wife uses it mostly. It's design for the decor was just better.

 

[Foxbat]

I'd say that since most of the video processing has been offloaded to GPUs, either through CUDA or OpenCL, a non-Apple box will have more flexibility and options for rendering. Apple's new Mac Pro is a great piece of Art, but they should have stayed with the PCI-e card cage and tower format.

NVidia seems to have the best GPUs right now, but it does bounce back and forth with AMD. Apple went with AMD when they were looking good, but what now? No one is talking about an upgrade path for the GPUs in the Mac Pro, even though it's a very modular design that seems like it would lend itself to very rare, expensive GPU cards to replace the current cards.

I was watching MacBreak on TWiT and one of the Picks of the Week was "Deliveries", and App that has been updated for Apple Watch. It notifies you when UPS has put your package on the truck for delivery. It is smart enough to recognize a Tracking number in the iOS Clipboard so adding a new tracking item is easier. The idea is to have all of this in one place.

I just noticed that it isn't a freebie, however.

 

[TheForce]

No status change on my SS watch as of this morning so I contacted Apple to see what's going on. The CSR I chatted with made some claims that I proved were not true. She then said, she was sorry but that was what she was told to say. I also asked who I can contact to check status on the schedule and she said the only way is to check the order status page which is updated the moment the order status changes, there is no delay. Can't fault her for her honesty, but it seems Apple is not shipping out in the order they received.

 

[navychop]

Don, believe me, my artistic relatives do VERY high end work. They (usually) make a very good living at it. I guarantee you have seen their work, have eaten food out of containers they've decorated and their work has entertained you and perhaps help persuade you to buy.

Maybe they started when Macs were tops and stayed with them. But their commercial and industrial work is in demand. I dare say there isn't a grocery store in the country that doesn't have something for sale with their work on it.

 

[TheForce]

Don, believe me, my artistic relatives do VERY high end work. They (usually) make a very good living at it. I guarantee you have seen their work, have eaten food out of containers they've decorated and their work has entertained you and perhaps help persuade you to buy.

Maybe they started when Macs were tops and stayed with them. But their commercial and industrial work is in demand. I dare say there isn't a grocery store in the country that doesn't have something for sale with their work on it.

I'm sure they do but that has nothing to do with whether the PC has capability that the Mac's just do not have when it comes to certain technical requirements. The finest artist may use nothing but canvas, a brush, and oil, but that does not mean the canvas, brush, and oil can render a 3D BluRay disk. My point originally was, I continue to use a PC for video editing work because the Mac's just don't have the capability I need.

I'd say that since most of the video processing has been offloaded to GPUs, either through CUDA or OpenCL, a non-Apple box will have more flexibility and options for rendering. Apple's new Mac Pro is a great piece of Art, but they should have stayed with the PCI-e card cage and tower format.

NVidia seems to have the best GPUs right now, but it does bounce back and forth with AMD. Apple went with AMD when they were looking good, but what now? No one is talking about an upgrade path for the GPUs in the Mac Pro, even though it's a very modular design that seems like it would lend itself to very rare, expensive GPU cards to replace the current cards.

Roland- I might agree but Apple has a different direction for their product line. In recent years they have embarked on a direction other computer companies have avoided. Design. When you consider most people today use a computer in the home to do one thing most often- Communicate and look stuff up. Second is just do personal finance and shopping. Content creation is an extremely small market, always has been. Very high end content creation is much smaller yet. So it's no surprise that design is a bigger priority for Apple as they develop for the future. The Apple watch will be very popular because it offers the better design elegance that other smart watches lacked, primarily a smaller package that spews high quality, which is what people want in a wearable or piece of functional jewelry.

As for AMD and nVidia, both perform well if the application is written for that hardware. I bought a high end AMD card that was recommended by Sony for their Vegas Pro editing. The card cost more than most people spend on 3 PC's But it supports 4 3D monitors and can play 3D HD in real time while editing. The storage is a PCIe card with dual stream 256Gb capacity and is 4 times faster than the fastest SSD that most are familiar with. This allows me to play a 3D timeline with 2 3D clips simultaneously and the video card will do color correction and resizing in real time, 24 fps. Fortunately, most high end video editing software supports open CL and Cuda today so the card choice is no longer a problem. I have now switched to Grass Valley Edius as Sony Vegas is being retired.

Thanks for the update on the UPS tracking with Apple watch. I'll be able to use that for sure. Most of these apps are cheap so if it's not free, paying a buck or 3 is almost free. Most of the free apps are just previews anyway and I usually buy to get all the features opened up. Hard to quibble over a few bucks after paying the price on the watch and iphone.

 

[TheForce]

Out with my wife today and complete strangers stop and ask her: How did you get that Apple watch? Or, Is that the Apple watch? She said it's like that everywhere she goes. Our waiter at the restaurant said he ordered one and won't see it until June, wondered how she got hers so soon. She said after awhile she gets tired of people asking her about it and puts it in her purse to get a break.

 

[TheForce]

I'm excited again. All the items are now showing up on my CC including my SS 42mm with SS link band. Just waiting for the UPS shipping number now. I've been following the watches on ebay and it seems Apple will be shipping quite a few of the SS 42 mm this week and many of the bids are posting ship confirmation to arrive this week. It's a good way to tell what others are getting. The bidding is insane, however with prices going up as high as double Apple's retail.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I'm excited again. All the items are now showing up on my CC including my SS 42mm with SS link band. Just waiting for the UPS shipping number now. I've been following the watches on ebay and it seems Apple will be shipping quite a few of the SS 42 mm this week and many of the bids are posting ship confirmation to arrive this week. It's a good way to tell what others are getting. The bidding is insane, however with prices going up as high as double Apple's retail.

So? Put your soon-to-arrive watch up on eBay and double your investment?

 

[TheForce]

No, but I was tempted to bid on a couple early this morning so I could immediately offer them back again. 6 hours later I was out bid on all of them. I have a feeling the frenzy to pay up for the watches will all go away as soon as the wait time goes below one month. The prices on Amazon are even more insane.

I also ordered two colored bands and one Milanese SS band for my wife.

Just checked and only my watch is now listed as shipped on the Apple web site. Hopefully the others will show up as shipped too.

BTW- Mike, all these Apple watches and accessories, I bought were paid for by the price difference between my Apple stock sales in February and the buy back last week for a $10 per share gain. I reserved 20% for the taxes and took the balance to set up a budget for Apple watches for the family. I continue to build my Apple holdings. It's my largest position in my Roth and trading account.

 

[TheForce]

Busy crazy day, Tuesday. My all SS Apple watch arrived a day early! I removed the number of links that we measured back in April and it fit perfectly. It fits better than my other watches. But I can't activate it yet as I needed to buy the iphone 6+. Turns out my local Verizon store was sold out of all iphone 6's and tried to sell me a 5C. Finally located one ab out 20 minutes out of town so I put a pickup notice on it from Verizon and hopped in the car to pick it up. When the salesmen came out he had opened the box and was working with the iphone. That kind of surprised me. I asked him, Are you activating the iphone? He said yes. I said STOP! I'm not ready to make the switch yet. He apologized and put everything back in the box, had me sign for it and I left. Needed to get gas so I stopped a few minutes later and discovered my CC was declined! I tried to call the Bank and my Samsung phone got a recording that it had been disconnected. I checked in the car to see if the iphone was working and it was not. When I got home, I found my online account info saying the Samsung was no longer on my account and the iphone 6 was not fully activated, waiting for a response. I called Verizon on my wife's phone and the tech fixed it back to the Samsung. She said to power down the iphone completely and then reboot the Samsung and after that I was back on so I called the bank. They said, my CC had been flagged by security for suspicious activity at the Verizon store just a few minutes ago. I'm thinking the Verizon salesman may have stolen my CC number when I had to show him my CC and driver's license. He had taken them from me when I picked up the iphone. But that was not the case. Anyway, I verified the charge and the denied gas station charge and they reactivated the CC. So, with all this nonsense, it seems the Bank security attempted to contact me but discovered my phone number had been disconnected and made the choice to shut down my CC. It doesn't stop there. After I get all squared away, I now see my Apple orders that were listed ready for shipment, had been reversed back to "processing". After getting that squared away with Apple. I am back on for the delivery of the remaining watch I had ordered back in April. Seems Apple tried to do the final charge and the CC had declined them too. Lost a day shipping due to this nonsense.

I think this is called pin action or domino effect. One little screwup by that Verizon store sales guy who just tried to do what he thought was the right thing, caused my phone number to be disconnected which caused my CC to be put on security hold and since I couldn't answer when they called they shut down the card. That caused my other orders to be put on hold as well. All is good now and I can finish the iphone activation and get the watch working. To top it off, I was asked to add a CC to my iphone for Apple Pay and that really worked nice with the iphone camera. Brought a smile to my face. BUT, it then said my CC bank had declined the card, Please try another card. Need to call them back during business hours tomorrow. I'll try to complete the iphone activation tomorrow.

 

[stimpson]

Busy crazy day, Tuesday. My all SS Apple watch arrived a day early! I removed the number of links that we measured back in April and it fit perfectly. It fits better than my other watches. But I can't activate it yet as I needed to buy the iphone 6+. Turns out my local Verizon store was sold out of all iphone 6's and tried to sell me a 5C. Finally located one ab out 20 minutes out of town so I put a pickup notice on it from Verizon and hopped in the car to pick it up. When the salesmen came out he had opened the box and was working with the iphone. That kind of surprised me. I asked him, Are you activating the iphone? He said yes. I said STOP! I'm not ready to make the switch yet. He apologized and put everything back in the box, had me sign for it and I left. Needed to get gas so I stopped a few minutes later and discovered my CC was declined! I tried to call the Bank and my Samsung phone got a recording that it had been disconnected. I checked in the car to see if the iphone was working and it was not. When I got home, I found my online account info saying the Samsung was no longer on my account and the iphone 6 was not fully activated, waiting for a response. I called Verizon on my wife's phone and the tech fixed it back to the Samsung. She said to power down the iphone completely and then reboot the Samsung and after that I was back on so I called the bank. They said, my CC had been flagged by security for suspicious activity at the Verizon store just a few minutes ago. I'm thinking the Verizon salesman may have stolen my CC number when I had to show him my CC and driver's license. He had taken them from me when I picked up the iphone. But that was not the case. Anyway, I verified the charge and the denied gas station charge and they reactivated the CC. So, with all this nonsense, it seems the Bank security attempted to contact me but discovered my phone number had been disconnected and made the choice to shut down my CC. It doesn't stop there. After I get all squared away, I now see my Apple orders that were listed ready for shipment, had been reversed back to "processing". After getting that squared away with Apple. I am back on for the delivery of the remaining watch I had ordered back in April. Seems Apple tried to do the final charge and the CC had declined them too. Lost a day shipping due to this nonsense.

I think this is called pin action or domino effect. One little screwup by that Verizon store sales guy who just tried to do what he thought was the right thing, caused my phone number to be disconnected which caused my CC to be put on security hold and since I couldn't answer when they called they shut down the card. That caused my other orders to be put on hold as well. All is good now and I can finish the iphone activation and get the watch working. To top it off, I was asked to add a CC to my iphone for Apple Pay and that really worked nice with the iphone camera. Brought a smile to my face. BUT, it then said my CC bank had declined the card, Please try another card. Need to call them back during business hours tomorrow. I'll try to complete the iphone activation tomorrow.

Holly Crap!!!! What a mess!!!

 

[TheForce]

Finally got it figured out. The instructions were a bit confusing, so I went down the list of options to transfer from Samsung to iphone, selecting each one, failed and finally one worked. Had to enter the SIM card number on the iphone6+ it worked.

I suspect I'll be doing setups on stuff for the next week.

 

[Foxbat]

Technology to make your Life easier!!!

Maybe it's because I don't trust the caliber of Sales Droids in the mobile phone stores, or maybe it's because I trust the Apple Store and I have one within 25 minutes of driving, but I prefer to buy my iPhones from Apple direct. I make secure backups of my iOS devices on my Macintosh so I can restore and activate through iTunes a lot easier than in the store. I hope I have bought my last iPhone for at least two years, though.

Interesting article on the MacRumors site pointing to the article on iDownloadBlog (http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/05/13/the-apple-watch-thieves-reset-no-activation-lock-security/) saying the Apple Watch v1.0 OS doesn't have the same security safeguards that iPhones or other iOS devices have regarding Resetting the device and re-pairing it with another iPhone. I expect Apple will correct that soon enough, but in the meantime be careful with your new trinkets in public spaces.

 

[TheForce]

I just got UPS tracking on the last of my orders for gift watches. I noticed that my wife's watch delivered with UPS 2 day shipping which is what I got for free. But these other two are shipping next day air UPS. I didn't pay for that so I'll be Apple is trying real hard not to hold up on these and doing everything they can to get them delivered ASAP.

In other news I'm hearing reports that the first gray aluminum and dark gray SS watches will ship next week nearly a month ahead of original estimates.

Every store is different. Here, my Apple store is staffed with a bunch is kids who all act like they are on speed. It's rather annoying. Been that way since they opened a couple years ago. In Las Vegas both stores I went to the sales people were so relaxed and self confident, very professional. They listened, and answered. Plus the store here, in Jacksonville is always so crowded, they have two police officers at the door doing head counts, making you wait outside because the store has been declared over crowded by the Fire Department. They really need to build a bigger store or better yet a second one. So maybe then the speed freaks working there won't feel so rushed. Next week I have to go in with my wife and buy the Apple Care packages got my new iphone 6 and the two watches. When the watch site went live back on April 10 the Apple care link didn't work for the first couple hours.

Thanks for the tip on the security issue. I'll read up on it later.

 

[TheForce]

A really old question from Rockymtnhigh

Mike- you had asked about viewing in bright sunlight.

Both my SS with sapphire face and my wife's with the gorilla glass seam equally readable with default brightness settings. Viewing with high noon Florida sun on the face is very dark but not difficult to read the time. Reading email and other text messages is nearly impossible. Wearing polarized sun glasses just makes it darker yet. However, an easy trick is to just cast a shadow with your head over the watch and then even with sun glasses everything is easily readable.

As I type this on my iPad sitting under the awning wearing sun glasses, I had to turn up the brightness all the way on the ipad but I still have no problem viewing my watch, including reading the pull down email.

So, the trick is view the watch in a shadow under bright sun.

 

[tigerfan33]

Yep.
I use that trick all the time. Turn my back to the sun is a quick and easy fix.