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Author Topic: Apple Watch James Mays Film Handler Posts: 5 From: Kent, WA, USA Registered: Dec 2015 posted 11-16-2016 12:01 AM                    I've read and heard lot of feedback on Apple Watches and so far good reviews at all. But for recommendation on outdoor watches or sport watches, I can say Garmin is the best. Just leaving my 2 cents.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-16-2016 12:41 PM                     The Apple Watch is now on its 2nd generation. The new one runs faster, has stand-alone GPS, Siri voice command support and is now water proof (apparently even in salt water). But there's still no camera for Dick Tracy style functions and no 3G/4G. You still have to pair it with a late model iPhone. I think this phone is really only going to appeal to customers who have bought heavily into the Apple product ecosystem. If you don't already own a recent iPhone buying an Apple Watch is going to be a really expensive prospect. The watch by itself is $400. They do have a "Nike" version, but I'm not sure what's so "Nike" about black band with some lime green holes in it. Samsung has their new Gear S3 watch. It has some unique features and can run independently via LTE or connect via Bluetooth or WiFi. But the freaking thing costs $499! Jeez! Fitbit still dominates the "wearables" market. I think it all has to do with price. In the last 18 months Apple's share of the "wearables" market has declined to 7% while Fitbit has 25% of the market. It seems to be a lot easier for customers to blow $50 to $100 for a basic fitness tracking watch.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-16-2016 03:04 PM                        I read somewhere that Apple is going to post their first annual sales decline in many years this year. People are just tired of replacing their expensive devices every year. My best friend's wife has a Samsung smartwatch... she was all raving about it when she first got it (last year for Christmas) but I can't remember the last time I actually saw her wearing it.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-16-2016 04:38 PM                     quote: Mike Blakesley I read somewhere that Apple is going to post their first annual sales decline in many years this year. People are just tired of replacing their expensive devices every year. Yeah, there's the problem of diminishing returns on each iPhone release. Declining sales figures on smart phones is an industry-wide problem that affects more companies than just Apple. The Apple Watch hasn't been as big a hit as Apple expected. The iPad Pro costs too much; at that price and size footprint why not just buy a full blown notebook computer? Apple has been taking its personal computer customer base very much for granted. I think Apple's fixation on making computers smaller, thinner and more limited in features is finally starting to backfire. Not everyone "wears" their computer as digital jewelry on the way to the coffee shop or hair salon. Rival workstation companies are not trying at all to emulate the miniature design of the Mac Pro "tower." Critics are beating up on the company for the ports and features they removed from the latest Mac Book Pro. Hopefully rival computer companies will take note of this and, for once, not try to copy it. Personal computer sales are kind of in the toilet across the board. But selling a notebook with limited features, very few ports and little expansion/upgrade potential is not a great way to generate sales.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-16-2016 09:01 PM                        I suppose part of the problem with desktops is, they're lasting too long, plus the hard drives on them are getting big enough that lack of space isn't really a problem anymore, unless you're a Joe Redifer type with a ton of graphics, video etc. onboard. Used to be I would replace my computer (or add a drive to it) when it filled up, but I haven't had to do that lately. I find it WAY easier to do actual work on a desktop rather than an iPad or a notebook.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-16-2016 10:59 PM                     Desktops are best for work. No question about that. You get a lot more bang for the buck, better options for performance, expansion, upgrades, etc. You can hook up multiple monitors. I use a notebook at home because after 8 hours of sitting at a computer desk I don't want to sit in my 2nd bedroom with my leg chained to another computer desk. I can at least watch TV or go somewhere away from home when I'm using a notebook. Desktop computers are indeed lasting longer. Even the notebooks are lasting a long time. My current notebook is 5 years old and still running just fine. My girlfriend's Toshiba notebook is 8 years old. She's only now thinking about buying a new notebook because her AC adapter is worn out and she can't find a working replacement. I'm hoping the power connection on the computer isn't somehow damaged. I think computer companies like Dell are playing games with how you can configure these things. There is a wide gap between cheap, entry level garbage and a system that's going to have productive computing power. If you want a certain amount of RAM, a Blu-ray burner, etc. they push you into a high end category very fast. Regarding Dell specifically, their notebook line now kind of sucks. It's not nearly as good as it was a few years ago. If you want a really powerful notebook you have to buy a high end model from their workstation line up on the business side of their web site or get into the Alienware product line up. And even in those parts of their site you'll have a hard time getting a notebook with a built-in optical disc drive. They're all basically copying Apple, even if the idea is bad. HTC has a new Android phone that has no headphone jack. They had to copy the latest iPhone's moves. The latest Mac notebooks have little if any user service-able parts. Everything is glued or soldered into the machine. It won't be long before all the Windows-based notebooks follow suit with that stupidity.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-17-2016 09:22 AM                     As if I didn't write enough crap in the last post I had another point to make about the current crop of computers being sold: solid state hard drives. I think the primary motivation for computer companies putting solid state drives into more systems is all about making the product lighter and thinner (and more costly/profitable). Even though SSDs are significantly faster than traditional hard disc drives, I don't think performance is the driving concern. Computer companies market SSDs as being far more reliable, durable and long lasting than traditional hard discs, but SSDs have their own drawbacks. They cost a lot more per gigabyte. Some of the "ultra portable" notebooks out there have ridiculously low disc capacities, like 64GB or 128GB. After the OS eats up its huge chunk of that space and you install the applications you want to run you'll have very little room for anything else. I wouldn't buy a modern computer with anything less than 500GB for the internal boot drive. And I usually keep all my files stored on external drives.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 11-17-2016 12:57 PM                        On my main desktop computer I have a SSD for the boot and system drive and a regular hard drive for my /home and /var directories. I think that's a good compromise. My web and mail server, on the other hand, just has a SSD in it since it doesn't have to contain a huge amount of data. It has only one moving part (one fan on top) and runs almost completely silently. And it uses less power than it would otherwise. I'm going to be setting up another web and mail server for someone else shortly (as soon as I get around to it) and will put a SSD into that too. SSD's are great in their place, but aren't what you want for big-data applications.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-17-2016 01:49 PM                     SSD's also have their own limited life span. You get only so many write cycles in one before it goes bad. Some computer industry articles I've read about SSD's brag about getting 5 or 6 years of life from them. But it's not difficult at all to get 6 years of life from a decently equipped computer these days. There's no guarantee you'll get 5 or more years of use from a SSD. And there may be little warning at all when it suddenly goes bad. Out of nowhere the drive may just immediately stop working. With traditional hard discs there are usually some obvious warning signs a drive is about to go bad, which gives a good chance to move any critical data off that drive and onto a new one. One other thing that worries me with SSD's is the form factor. Some can be removed and replaced with a new unit if the drive's size and connection is a clearly defined standard. Other manufacturers will literally glue their own proprietary SSD into the computer or even solder the bank of SSD chips into the motherboard. Again, we can thank Apple for some of this bullshit. When the SSD fails out of nowhere the computer either has to be shipped off to repair (for much $$$) or the computer just becomes a door stop.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-17-2016 06:53 PM                        As mentioned above, desktop computers haven't improved much of late. I am still using a desktop that I built in late 2011. I looked into upgrading it, but, ultimately, I would be spending $1k+ for (maybe) a 20% performance improvement, which I really don't need, anyway. I will probably wait another year or two before replacing it. Graphics cards have improved, but few non-gamers will notice or appreciate the difference. The same is true for laptops--performance hasn't improved much in the last few years. They _have_ become smaller and lighter, but, for most of us, they got "good enough" in the small-and-light department a decade ago.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-17-2016 09:17 PM                     My theory is computing companies have become more fixated on their stock price and trying to sell stock to investors. Selling computers to customers has become secondary. So they're playing it safe, not taking many chances to try to keep their balance sheets looking consistently good. They don't want to make any big moves that could put their stock prices on a roller coaster ride. That strategy just seems really stupid from a big picture sense. The only way they can get customers excited at all about buying a new computer is by offering a very heavy discount or appearing to offer one. Even at a deep discount I just can't get excited about a computer that only has a screen, keyboard, a limited amount of ram, limited capacity hard disc, limited number of ports and not even a freaking optical disc drive. I laugh at the idea of spending $1500, $2500 or even $3000 for some crap like that. Technology advances and improvements in performance are now happening at a very incremental rate. It's as if the computing companies are trying to milk out as much as they can from one product generation before moving on to the next. You don't hear anyone talking about Moore's Law anymore. I think Intel screwed a lot of computing companies with the naming of its CPUs. It's confusing as hell. My 5 year old notebook has a Core i7 quad core CPU. Brand new high end notebooks have Core i7 quad core CPUs. You can only tell the difference between the two in fine print. Nothing is clear. 3rd generation, 6th generation, yadda yadda yadda, etc. makes no damned sense to average consumers. What computing companies have done is just encourage customers to hold on to whatever computer they have, no matter how old or slow it might be, until that existing computer breaks and cannot be repaired. 20 years ago lots of people wanted to upgrade their computers to the latest and greatest models they could afford. They were excited about it then. That's not the case anymore.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 11-17-2016 11:54 PM                        In a lot of cases, computers are fast enough for what people want them for. And if you're just checking Facebook or looking at pictures of the grandkids, you don't even need a computer any more. For over twenty years I upgraded my computer at least once every two years, and always got a lot more grunt than I had before. Today my main desktop computer is something that I purchased in 2011 and the only thing I've done to it is to add the SSD drive. The only reason that I bought this one at the time was because my old one died, and I have zero interest in getting another new one until this one dies.  |  IP: Logged

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