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Topic: Apple Watch

Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.

Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004

posted 03-16-2015 09:47 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Track pads suck when used with graphics programs or other complicated creative software applications. I must at least use a mouse, if not a Wacom graphics tablet, when using my graphics programs. Trying to use a track pad and apply keyboard short cuts at the same time doesn't work very well.

Yes. But you would never ever ever use this particular machine for that purpose. It doesn't have the processor power for that. It's simply not designed for such applications.

For what it IS designed for, I don't see a problem.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 03-16-2015 01:45 PM

quote: Sam Graham
Yes. But you would never ever ever use this particular machine for that purpose. It doesn't have the processor power for that. It's simply not designed for such applications.

For what it IS designed for, I don't see a problem.

Sam, you have to be kidding? There is a very little reason to buy this Apple Macbook. Even the Apple faithful are having a hard time trying to understand how backwards this product is.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-16-2015 03:12 PM

quote: Sam Graham
Yes. But you would never ever ever use this particular machine for that purpose. It doesn't have the processor power for that. It's simply not designed for such applications.

The new MacBook almost has the power to run creative applications. It needs at least some graphics performance to drive the 2304 X 1440 resolution 12" display. Obviously the notebook gets hurt by using an integrated graphics chip (Intel HD Graphics 5300) rather than a dedicated graphics board, such as the nVidia GeForce GT 750M in the 15" MacBook Pro.

If the new MacBook is all about portability combined with basic computing use, why not just get an iPad? There are some creative things I can do on an iPad that can't be done on the new MacBook, such as using some of Adobe's mobile applications that come with Creative Cloud. Adobe's Draw and Line applications can sync between Photoshop & Illustrator via the cloud. Adobe's Ink & Slide tools allow precision drawing and drafting on the iPad.

The new MacBook is interesting from a design and engineering perspective. It is impressive how they were able to make the computer so thin, yet make improvements to the keyboard and trackpad. Unfortunately the single USB-C port (and the need for various kinds of cable adapters) doesn't make it practical for "desktop replacement" use. So I would end up looking for some of those new design improvements to appear in other notebooks like the MacBook Pro.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-20-2015 01:03 AM

Bad sign for the Watch: it's now the subject of late night tv jokes.

quote:
Seth Meyers: If you've been waiting for an Apple product you can accidentally destroy while washing your hands, have I got good news for you!

Apple Watch, you're great for all those times I've looked at my phone and said "This is nice, but I wish it was harder to see and operate!"

Hey let me check my Watch, oh! Time to look like a douchebag!

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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 03-20-2015 11:24 AM

I seem to recall David Letterman using an iPad as a drink tray.

Stuff like this is like being a celebrity: The only thing worse than having bad things said about you is having nothing said about you.

Awareness is the key with publicity. Getting someone that is watched by lots of people to mention the product is good, even if they are poking fun at it.

Unless they come out and say: "I've tried it, I wanted to like it, but after a week, I've come to the conclusion that it's complete unmitigated crap" -- it's still a win.

That said, I haven't seen anything up to this point that makes me want to buy one. It will be interesting to see what its impact will be once released and people actually start using it.

9-12 months from now, there will have been enough people that have tried it that we'll know if it is a tremendous success, or just a high-profile lackluster product.

Minor shortcomings can be handled by a Gen-2 release. Major shortcomings/lack of appeal will result in its non-renewal in the product cycle or outright cancellation. Apple has shown incredible patience with some of its products that didn't take the world by storm in iPod/iPhone/iPad fashion. Just look at how long the Apple TV has stuck around, essentially unchanged. It's just now getting some traction with some new deals and a lowered price.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-20-2015 11:57 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Bad sign for the Watch: it's now the subject of late night tv jokes.

Meanwhile this morning Good Morning America was running what amounted to a commercial passing as a news story. No disclaimer about ABC being owned by Disney, a company that occupies a seat on Apple's board. The piece was about product testing for the Apple watch. They went to some secret gymnasium/testing facility in a non-descript building in an industrial park. Somebody claimed it was one of the world's most advanced fitness testing facilities. A couple dozen people were doing yoga and running on treadmills while hooked up to oxygen hoses. When the story finished one of the anchors said her daughter couldn't wait til the iWatch goes on sale.

One very amusing thing in the puff piece about the iWatch product testing: a bunch of the computers and computer monitors in the gym were Dell-branded hardware.

quote: Scott Jentsch
That said, I haven't seen anything up to this point that makes me want to buy one. It will be interesting to see what its impact will be once released and people actually start using it.

One of the key problems is cost. The iWatch by itself starts out at a price $100 higher than the best Fitbit model. And then you must have an iPhone 5 or iPhone 6 model to pair with it.

That brings me to the big question of just what the hell has been going on with mobile phone pricing. Just this morning I saw a Sears e-mail ad showing pricing for various Apple mobile products. With sales tax included an unlocked iPhone 6 costs over $700 and an iPhone 6 Plus costs over $1000 -and that's just for the basic models; you'll add hundreds more if you want lots of memory capacity. These things cost considerably more than a well configured iPad.

Meanwhile AT&T, Verizon, Sprint & T-Mobile all seem to be quietly phasing out their subsidized phone sales. Remember the notion of paying $199 plus about $100 for other odds, ends, added fees, etc. to get the latest, greatest phone on your carrier? That doesn't seem to be available anymore. Now they all want you to pay the usual $100 or more for your smartphone plan, plus add another $20 or $30 on top of that for 2 years to get a new phone.

Mobile phones have some great technology inside, but there's no way any of them are worth $700 to $1000. That's as much as a well equipped entry level notebook computer.

Is the general public just really stupid about math and budgeting or has much of the public just gone insane? This kind of pricing makes me all the more determined to hold onto my aging HTC Android phone. I don't need a new phone that bad, much less blow another $350 on top of the giant upgrade prices just to have a new gizmo on my wrist.

quote: Scott Jentsch
Minor shortcomings can be handled by a Gen-2 release. Major shortcomings/lack of appeal will result in its non-renewal in the product cycle or outright cancellation. Apple has shown incredible patience with some of its products that didn't take the world by storm in iPod/iPhone/iPad fashion. Just look at how long the Apple TV has stuck around, essentially unchanged. It's just now getting some traction with some new deals and a lowered price.

The first iPad was really the Apple Newton way back in the early 1990s. That product didn't do too well, but then again Steve Jobs wasn't in the picture at Apple during that time.

Regarding AppleTV, at first I thought the $30 price break from $99 to $69 and its capability to run the new HBO Now streaming service was a big deal. Unfortunately for AppleTV the HBO Now exclusive deal is only for 3 months. HBO Now will likely roll out to Android, Chromecast, FireTV, Roku, XBox, PS3/4 and various Smart TV platforms afterward. AppleTV is aging seriously. Apple will have to update it if they want it to survive. Roku has gone through at least a couple product generations since AppleTV was launched. Roku3 is a very good set top box.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-20-2015 12:36 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Is the general public just really stupid about math and budgeting or has much of the public just gone insane?

The general public is just confused about what phones cost. You can't blame them though -- they've been hammered all these years with all these "free" and discount deals, in which the phone company pays most of the cost of the phone to the dealer, so the customer has no idea what phones really cost.

We used to sell cellphones at the store here and I used to tell people "Now, you're getting that phone free, but WE PAID over $250 for that phone and if you break it, it will cost you around $300 to replace it, so treat it nice!" and they would be all confused and still think the phone was only worth $50.

About the late night jokes thing....it's the very last line in Seth's comments that tells the tale. Most people don't want to wear something that makes them look like a douchebag, and when TV hosts start talking about something in that light, it's not long before that attitude prevails in the public eye, especially if the hosts keep hammering at it. Happens to politicians all the time.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-20-2015 01:23 PM

Remember Zima? That wine cooler or whatever it was lite alcoholic drink? I think David Letterman played a big role in killing it, referring to it as "that Zima crap" repeatedly on his show in the 1990s.

quote: Mike Blakesley
The general public is just confused about what phones cost. You can't blame them though -- they've been hammered all these years with all these "free" and discount deals, in which the phone company pays most of the cost of the phone to the dealer, so the customer has no idea what phones really cost.

But most customers had the understanding the steep $100 monthly fee they were paying for their phone plan was in part paying for that phone. If they were eligible to upgrade to a new phone they would pay $99 or $199 and have to renew their 2 year contract.

Now it seems the phone company still wants just as much money for that monthly plan. Yet the customer has to pay for a new phone in addition to his high monthly rate, either buying the phone outright for several hundred bucks or financing it at around $30 per month for two years.

Just what the hell service are these mobile phone companies providing anyway? It sure doesn't appear to be service worth $100 or more per month. They're not going to help customers move up to newer better phone models. They're playing all kinds of games with data bandwidth. Unlimited plans are very rare, even at carriers like Sprint which heavily marketed that kind of thing years ago. Yet they make all these speed claims over who has the fastest 4G or whatever. Who gives a rat's ass how fast you can stream movies or whatever over 4G if it's going to tear through a monthly bandwidth allowance in a matter of minutes!?
[Mad]

BTW, I'm still using Sprint for my mobile carrier only because of the grandfathered unlimited data plan.

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 03-20-2015 01:54 PM

When I upgraded to a "smart" phone a few years ago, I was already a Straight Talk customer and happy with their $30/month plan. I did a price compare between Straight Talk, where I would have needed to purchase my just released iPhone 5 vs Verizon contract plan for the same phone. I decided to upgrade my Straight Talk plan to unlimited phone/text/data (throttled after 3GB/month). The cost of purchasing my iPhone outright plus the $45 month unlimited plan still saved me over $900 over the cost of the similar 2 year Verizon plan. On top of that, Straight Talk iPhones here in northern NJ run on Verizon's network, so I get all the benefits and little of the cost. Straight Talk also allows you to bring your own previously owned phone to their network, both GMS and CDMA, so had I already owned a phone, it would have been even more savings by not having to buy a new phone.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-20-2015 02:20 PM

I've looked into Straight Talk, but have been hesitant about making the switch from Sprint. The problem is complaints about service quality, at least around here.

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 03-20-2015 03:28 PM

Straight Talk's customer service sucks, even on those rare occasions that you can understand what they saying (thick accents).

On the other hand, their service tends to work without any problems here in New Jersey.

Around here, Straight Talk primarily uses Verizon's network if you have a CDMA phone, and either ATT or T-Mobil's network if you have a GMS phone (depending upon home coverage area).

Most of Straight Talks phones these days are GMS, apparently ATT & T-Mobil are giving them a better bulk price. iPhones (among a few others) are CDMA because when Straight Talk first started supporting the iPhone, the other network providers were insufficient to support Straight Talk's unlimited data plans.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 03-22-2015 11:14 AM

quote: Scott Jentsch
9-12 months from now, there will have been enough people that have tried it that we'll know if it is a tremendous success, or just a high-profile lackluster product.

I think a major flop in on the cards for the Apple watch. Generation 2 and 3 are not going to be able to fix things or perceptions that the watch is pretty much useless. I still don't see how Apple is going to overcome the pairing it with an iPhone problem..

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-13-2015 12:28 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Is the general public just really stupid about math and budgeting or has much of the public just gone insane?

On "The Price Is Right" recently they had a couple of iPhones for one of the one-bid prizes. When they give away phones on that show, they ALWAYS include a calling/data plan in the price, but nobody ever seems to know how much that actually costs. The contestants will all guess $500, $700 or whatever, and the "actual retail price" is usually somewhere around $1300 per phone. People really don't pay attention to what they're paying for their phones and their other "home entertainment" options.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-09-2015 02:04 AM

Well.... looks like the iWatch is less than a stellar seller for Apple. How many Film-Techers have one?

"Apple Watch sales fall by 90% since launch"

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 11-16-2016 12:01 AM

It has been 495 days since the last post.

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