Will you buy an Apple Watch?

[rvvaquero]

For those who want to stay on the cutting edge, but away from the bleeding edge, this seems like a pretty good deal.

AW Ultra with cellular for $629.

 

[Foxbat]

I just did my first Fitness routine through my Apple TV and Apple Watch. My first thought was how cool was this? My pulse and ring status was presented overlaying the instructors so I could see if I needed to increase or decrease intensity to stay in the target heart rate zone.

I see you can pair your watch or your iPhone, but I doubt the iPhone would give you the same biometric feedback. Maybe for a treadmill.

That’s an iPhone Fitness+ display example paired using an Apple Watch.​

It was tricky finding the Fitness App in the App Store, just searching for “fitness” brought up others. Here’s the link:

‎Fitness

‎Apple Fitness and Apple Fitness+ Get a comprehensive view of your fitness including Activity details and history, Trends, Awards, and Sharing with family and friends. Subscribe to Apple Fitness+ for thousands of workouts and meditations that drop every week to help you stay active and mindful...

apps.apple.com

 

[Foxbat]

PSA: Apple released watchOS v10.1.1 which is reported to fix a battery drain issue for some users. I updated my Series 8 the other day and I started today over 60% after recharging to 100% Wednesday morning. This is up 10-15% from where it usually is. Fingers-crossed this is the new normal.

 

[TheForce]

One problem I have with those who complain about battery life on these devices is they don't realize you don't get something for nothing in return. When it comes to battery you either increase the battery or you reduce the load. It is possible make the OS and apps more efficient but it seems that is far more difficult to do than to just reduce function and performance of the software. The other way is to just increase the size of the battery with a new watch as the battery technology is already epitomized for present day state of the art.

Recent this same debate is out with the new Meta Quest 3. Popular complaint is that the more robust games and running them at higher frame rate and much higher resolution along with Mixed reality has taken a serious hit on play time with the internal battery. My solution was to buy a 3rd party head band that has additional batter power and came with two so I can just swap them out before the internal goes dead, keeping on on the charger. This allows unlimited time. However Meta released a new OS to address the battery drain issue by reducing the system back to the capability of the Oculus Quest 2. What's the point of buying a 3 with all those new features and quality if you just disable them for battery run time? Fortunately this is optional. With my auxiliary batteries I can keep the highest quality, features, and speed and never have to stop to recharge the Quest 3.

You might think that you can't increase the battery in the Apple watch but you can upgrade to the Ultra series that has a much more efficient processor and larger battery. It is bigger so you'll have to get used to that which took me about 30 minutes of wearing vs my older AW6. I now can even read the email on my watch with its higher res brighter screen and don't need to put on my reading glasses.

Life is good with the right tools.

 

[harshness]

Life is good with the right tools.

Assuming you have the means to acquire these relatively expensive tools.

 

[TheForce]

Assuming you have the means to acquire these relatively expensive tools.

If you think like that then you are already defeated by your own attitude.

 

[harshness]

If you think like that then you are already defeated by your own attitude.

Perhaps more by your sense of priorities.

 

[telstar_1]

Wasn't the whole phone supposed to be on a wristwatch? Facetiming, too. When is that coming?

 

[TheForce]

Facetiming, too. When is that coming?

I've been asking for that for several years now. I thought the Ultra would have added that but no deal. There is a company that makes a BT enabled Wristcam band and I bought that to test out and it works great for shooting video and pictures. Even has two cameras one for the selfie. While it does have a video conferencing it only works between two wrist cam people and is not compatible with Facetime. Seems Apple won't give them permission to have that compatibility.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMrhOz7V72s&t=179s

 

[Foxbat]

Thank goodness Apple didn’t adapt the Dick Tracy design. Those knobs protruding from the case look like they would be painful if you bent your left hand back.

If I want to Video FaceTime someone, I’ll just use my iPhone. I have used the watch for an Audio FaceTime call and it works just fine for that.

 

[telstar_1]

Thank goodness Apple didn’t adapt the Dick Tracy design. Those knobs protruding from the case look like they would be painful if you bent your left hand back.

If I want to Video FaceTime someone, I’ll just use my iPhone. I have used the watch for an Audio FaceTime call and it works just fine for that.

Also that sketch is out of perspective. You can't hold your arm like that. Maybe we should have gotten the shoe phone.

 

[TheForce]

I have used the watch for an Audio FaceTime call and it works just fine for that.

What the heck is Audio Face Time? Is that like shooting a video with a camcorder with the lens cap left on? Kind of defeats the purpose. Who watches TV with the picture shut off?

 

[harshness]

What the heck is Audio Face Time?

Maybe that's how you ensure that the call goes out across the Internet rather than the PSTN?

 

[TheForce]

Got the latest update on the Apple watch Ultra 2 last night and happy to report that the buggy double tap feature seems to have been fixed. I never used it as it was a waste of time but now it appears to work 100%. I will likely be using it more often now since accessing information scrolling through works so well and not needing my other hand.

What needs improvement is many of the apps do not support Double Tap yet.

 

[Foxbat]

Since I have a Series 8, direct support of the Double-Tap is limited to the Accessibility Features. watchOS 10.2 hasn’t made any improvements that I can see to that functionality.

One thing 10.2 did bring that I added was the Snoopy watch face. There are a considerable number of Snoopy animations (some where he interacts with the watch hands) which are pretty amusing.

 

[TheForce]

If you were planning to get a new AW it may be too late!

Apple has had to pull all Apple Watch sales due to a US claim they violated a Blood Oxygen sensor import contained in the AW since 2020. Apple plans to challenge the claim but until they they decided to stop selling them.

Shares of Apple Inc. (AAPL) dropped 1.4% in morning trading Monday, after The Wall Street Journal reported the technology giant was set to halt Apple Watch sales in a preemptive move to comply with a U.S. import ban regarding use of blood-oxygen sensors. The ban, which would include the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, comes after the U.S. International Trade Commission found that Apple violated patents in most new models of its smartwatches since 2020, the WSJ report said. The sales halt comes even as Apple said it strongly disagrees with the finding, and that it is pursuing legal options, the report said. Apple's stock, which has eased 1.6% since closing at a record $198.11 on Dec. 14, has run up 50% year to date while the Nasdaq Composite has rallied 41.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 12.5%.

 

[mackie99]

Buy the New Apple Watch Now Before It’s Banned

You have until Christmas Eve to secure your new Apple Watch Series 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2.

gizmodo.com

Santa’s elves better hurry up and ship those new Apple Watches. Starting Dec. 21, the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 will no longer be available for sale. Christmas Eve is the last day to buy one at the brick-and-mortar Apple retail store.

What’s going on? Like all significant patent disputes, they come to a head around a major holiday. According to 9to5Mac, Apple is halting sales of its smartwatches because of a patent disagreement with a medical device maker. Masimo, which sells its version of blood oxygen monitoring to hospitals, claims the SpO2 monitor in the latest models of the Apple Watch violates one of its long-standing patents and stole information during a closed meeting back in 2013 after being approached by Apple for collaboration.

 

[klang]

Cool, I've got an illegal watch on my wrist.

I'm confident something will get worked out.

 

[navychop]

What make$ you $ay that?

 

[navychop]

So is it a patent problem, an illegally imported device problem, or both?