All About The Apple Watch With Alan Dye, John Gruber, & Om Malik¶
Published on Mon, 5 Oct 2020 10:00:00 +0000
A comprehensive deep-dive into Apple's latest smartwatch.
Synopsis¶
This episode of Hodinkee Radio is entirely devoted to the Apple Watch, specifically the newly released Series 6 and SE models. Host Stephen Pulvirent structures the episode around two main conversations that provide both insider and expert perspectives on Apple's latest wearable technology.
The first segment features a rare interview with Alan Dye, Apple's VP of Human Interface Design, who oversees the team responsible for designing all Apple Watch faces and user interactions. Dye discusses the design philosophy behind the new watch faces, explaining how his team draws inspiration from traditional horology while leveraging digital capabilities to go beyond what mechanical watches can do. He reveals insights about Apple's design process, including how they responded quickly to create the hand-washing feature in response to the pandemic, and discusses the challenges of designing systems and platforms rather than fixed watch faces. Dye emphasizes Apple's attention to small details, from typography choices to the evolution of watch bands, and how these refinements represent the company's commitment to craftsmanship at industrial scale.
The second segment features a lively discussion between John Gruber and Ome Malik, both longtime Apple experts and mechanical watch enthusiasts. They analyze Apple's product strategy, particularly the decision to offer three models at different price points (Series 6, SE, and Series 3), which reflects Tim Cook's approach of keeping older hardware at lower prices to expand the ecosystem. The conversation covers practical topics like the new Solo Loop bands and their sizing challenges, battery life and sleep tracking trade-offs, and how the Apple Watch serves as a gateway to Apple's services ecosystem. Gruber and Malik discuss the incremental but meaningful improvements in Series 6, with Malik particularly praising how the watch finally feels complete and cohesive. They conclude by addressing whether users should upgrade, with both recommending the always-on display as a game-changing feature for those with older models, while suggesting Series 5 owners can skip this generation.
Throughout the episode, all participants acknowledge Apple's exceptional attention to detail in small design elements that often go unnoticed but significantly enhance the user experience, from the Milanese loop's magnetic clasp to the seamless band-swapping system that has influenced traditional watchmakers.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Ome Malik | That's the the genius of Apple Design is that they make you products which you don't really talk about in like how good they are. We just only talk about when they don't work as as well as they they should because we expect them. That is what I've I love about this company is the little things. Just the little things. Not the ooh ah big big big bang announcement. Just the little stuff they do is so so much more exciting for me |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverant and this is Hodinky Radio. This week we're all about the Apple Watch. A couple weeks ago, Apple dropped two new Apple Watches, the Series 6 and the SE, and there's been plenty of digital ink spilled on them, tons of videos recorded, tons of podcasts, but we're gonna give you one more thing. Uh I wanted to go a little deeper here. I wanted to go behind the scenes, behind the spec sheets, and offer up some thoughts and opinions from the real experts. So I had to enlist the help of some friends and some folks in the industry to be my guide here. The first one up is Alan Dye. He's Apple's VP of Human Interface Design and, he's the guy responsible for the team that designs all the watch faces and basically anything else that you use to interact with your Apple Watch. We talk about why Alan and his team are still really interested in analog old school horology and some of the challenges they face when trying to design watch face platforms instead of set-in-stone faces. It's a rare opportunity to get to speak with a senior executive at Apple, and hopefully this gives you a nice peek behind the curtain. After that, I sit down with two other Hotinky Radio alums, John Gruber and Ome Malik. They're both lovers of mechanical watches, they're both real longtime Apple experts, and I think they're uniquely suited to speak on the subject. Plus, I just like the guys. They're both really nice guys, really smart. And as you'll hear, uh, they're friends and our conversation was quite lively. So we talk about Apple strategy, we talk about the hardware itself, uh, we talk a little bit about the solo loop uh watch bands and how to get them to fit right. I always make sure when I'm in Cupertino for the big Apple events to make sure to get a coffee with these guys before I leave. Uh it's kind of how I I make sure'm fully wrapping my head around the news. Since I couldn't do that this year, I figured I'd do it virtually and we'd record it so that all of you could sit in. So we got a lot to cover today, and without further ado, let's do this. Well thanks so much for joining us, Alan. It's uh it's good to see you remotely. I I'm disappointed I don't get to join you at Apple Park this year, but uh yeah, good to see you anyway. So good to see you as well, and thanks for having me on. Yeah, so uh it's it's been what it's been about two weeks since |
| Alan Dye | Yeah, it's all been very positive. You know, uh you know, we we um we keep a close eye on those things. Uh we're we're we're busy thinking about what's next and working on what's next. But so far, you know, it's been lovely to to hear such positive responses from everything from the the updates the hardware to all the work we've been doing on on Watch OS 7 uh and especially a lot of the new faces I'm getting I'm getting uh a lot of positive feedback. I've got two two little ones at home who just got watches. Uh they're they're a little more critical, but for the most part uh fairly fairly positive. Is that your uh is that your like super secret focus group there. That's right. That's right. Um we we give them MMs as well uh for for positive comments, but no they're they're they're they're uh they're loving it and it's been it's been fun to see them uh exploring Apple Watch for the first |
| Stephen Pulvirent | time. That's awesome. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, you mentioned like you're you're always working on the next thing, and you know, we we experience it at Hodinky as well, and I think every company experiences this, which is by the time something goes out into the world, it's old news to you. Like it's news to everybody else, but it's old news to you, and you're already working on the next thing. So I I wonder, is is there anything or any feedback you've gotten since uh people were able to start interacting with with Watch OS seven or the series six that maybe you weren't anticipating stuff stuff that just like didn't didn't occur to you throughout the process and now you're like, oh okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I think that happ |
| Alan Dye | ens. Th that of course happens uh uh a l along the way. Um I think uh oftentimes, you know, it it sort of takes our software going out into the world in order to to uncover some of these things or even just notice different patterns or trends or ways that people actually use our products that that maybe we didn't anticipate. Um you know one thing for certain we understood, you know, in in in in in such a great Apple sort of way, that there was a team off thinking about hand washing quite quite a while ago, and um quite quite a few quite quite a few months ago, and they they had a real deep understanding of how we could better understand if someone was actually in the act of washing their hands through through motion data, through maybe some s through sound. And uh you know, again, this wasn't feedback from customers per se, but uh we we saw what was happening in the world and we scrambled to come up with uh a UI and an experience that would encourage users to wash their hands for twenty seconds. And I'm really proud of the work that we did there to sort of respond to some things that were happening in the world |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, that's that must be a sort of unusual I mean it's everything about this year has been unusual, but that that must be a sort of unusual case for you and your team where instead of having you know years of sort of planning and development, a situation pops up that that calls for a real a real solution that your team has the ability to solve. Can can you think have there ever been other instances like that where sort of midway through a development process some new use case pops up that's sort of like mission critical, uh that you need to kind of do do quickly and and efficiently |
| Alan Dye | ? Well, I think I think there are oftentimes, you know, part of the design process and part of making products dictates the fact that along the way, we're going to discover different capabilities of you know, our our our products that are gonna force us to think a bit differently about the design of our products. Um and so w without a doubt, I think that's that's uh a a very regular part of our process. You know, we're constantly there's constantly a back and forth between all of our I mean that's the the the great thing about I think about the our process and the the work that we do at Apple is this constant conversation between the various teams. And so we we''rere, you know, constantly learning about what what what capabilities we have, what we don't have, what's what seems to be working, what doesn't, and and we're allowed to kind of, or we're able to then just sort of adjust from from from there. But I mean this is definitely one of those cases where I think the team there's no question we would have done it otherwise. You know, this is something the team had been after for a while, but the timing really worked out quite well and we we we did hustle to get it in uh for for this Yeah, for sure |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Well I I mean to look a little a little more big picture, I mean from from my standpoint on the on the press side of things, the first question I get from from readers, from listeners, whatever, when a new a new Apple Watch comes out, or really any new update to to an existing watch, is should should I upgrade? Like why, why do I want to upgrade? What's my use case? D does this thing if I'm an existing user, does this thing matter to me? And and I have my own my own thoughts. I've expressed them on on the site already. People can go check that out. But I'm curious from your your standpoint, if somebody goes from from an Apple Watch Series 5 running Watch OS 6 to an Apple Watch Series 6 running Watch OS 7, what do you think are going to be the the biggest tangible changes uh for them day to day. What what are the things that you would want to call out as reasons why people might want to take that leap |
| Alan Dye | ? Well of course first and foremost, you know, one of the the things that we have built upon year after year is just the the the health and wellness aspect of Apple Watch. So you know we the the the b blood oxygen uh center is something that, you know, I can't help but think is important now and will be continue to be important into the future. We're really proud of the work we did across all of our ecosystem around sleep. So I think that's a really compelling part of Apple Watch. And of course, we're we're also really proud of all the work that we've done with all the new faces. And and and and you know uh obviously this there's a wide variety of there, but we also know in so many ways the Watch Face is at the core of the user experience on Apple Watch. watch OS seven and and and I think that's probably, you know, obviously first and foremost gonna be the thing that people notice the most |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. I the new watch faces, you know, for me as as a watch person, uh are are particularly interesting this time around. Um I think we've seen this in the past, even from day one. I mean I remember at that first event, you know, six years ago now, um, you know, seeing some nods to traditional watchmaking in the first batch of watch faces, but I think this most recent batch might be the most the most overt in its references. Um, you know, things like the count up face referencing a a dive bezel, things like the GMT face, which very clearly referenced some some classic travel watches, the Rolex GMT being kind of most prevalent. Right. I wonder what's what's your thinking behind integrating these little nods to traditional watchmaking into the watch faces |
| Alan Dye | ? Well, I mean we've talked about this a little bit in the past, and it's it's been at the core of our process like you mentioned since the very beginning. Right? Traditional watches, or I could even say more broadly, traditional ways of tracking the passage of time. Yeah. Have always had a big influence in our designs. Last year we talked a lot about the solar dial. I think that's a really good example of this. And you know, we've always so we've always had this, you know, we've always certainly been huge fans of traditional watches and have a huge respect for the design. And while we certainly embrace that history, also want to do what we can only do on Apple Watch. Right. Right. So, you know, while we love, you know, and certainly our users love for us to kind of pull inspiration from that history, like like the chronograph Pro or the GMT or the count up that you mentioned, uh, because of the information and the capability that they provide, and that that history dictates that that capability is an important thing for users, whether you're a car enthusiast or an aviation expert. What what we love to do is not just draw on that inspiration, but also through the capabilities of Apple Watch and the technology go a whole lot further and so we're only interested if we can do something that certainly a traditional mechanical watch can't do. So for example, you know, the new GMT face certainly allows for a whole bunch of personalization. It's very it's very easy to move between different you know cities and of course the um you know the the the dial itself even even changes depending on uh what city you've chosen and what time of year it is. So those are things you just couldn't do in the past, but we can do it because of the digital medium |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, totally. I mean I think the the GMT phase is a r is a really interesting one to me and I I think points to sort of a a broader design choice that that I wanted to ask you about, which is if we look at Apple in the sort of early days of iOS, you know, skew morphism was was a huge, huge thing. I mean you had like fake felt in game center, you had your notes app looked like a legal pad, all of those things. And Apple moved away into much more of a sort of flat, layered transparency sort of style of of design. And its seem to me like some of these new faces and and to some extent, Apple Watch faces in general, have charted a middle ground here. Like they're not skeworphic, but they they do sort of simulate the idea of physical moving parts uh in a way that maybe isn't what we've seen on on iOS and some other Apple platforms over over the last couple of years. Is that something you landed on specifically because of the Apple Watch or is is it some |
| Alan Dye | other sort of motivation behind that? I think it's it's in this case it's very specific to Apple Watch. You know, we we you know I think we consciously even early on we decided to have both digital faces and analog faces, which seems probably in hindsight a small decision, but I think it was very important to us that we understand how people have become accustomed to telling time. Right? So we we we even have these these uh digital versions of analog hands um that we've stuck pretty consistently to and pretty rigorously rigorously to the design of. Um but at the same time, like I think it's important to remember that the watch is is certainly a much more intimate product than we've than we've ever made before. You wear it on your wrist. You have a connection to it that's that's consististentent and pers throughout the day. I think early on, a big decision we made as a design team was also to have a physical crown. So from the very beginning, we wanted to establish the watch as an icon for hopefully the future of of what a watch could be, but also reference back to the past. And so there are always these ways that we, you know, I think have have tried to um br bring some of what makes a traditional watch a watch into Apple Watch, but also do it in a very digital way. So the digital cron is a great example where we understood that it could be such an important icon for the watch, but also play a very critical role in input because we we knew we wanted to um allow for a different type of input that didn't require your your your your finger always being on the display itself. So we've been we've been we've been obsessed with this for for a while and and and um you know well while you know I don't think we ever made a conscious decision frankly we we never even talk about schiomorphism or didn't I don't know I don't even know if we knew the definition of that w word until IOS seven. Um but but certainly we um we we love this idea of blurring the the lines between software and hardware and also you know paying respect to the the history of watchmaking |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. No, that that all makes a a ton of sense. Um you know in that in that answer, you know, you mentioned that that things are that the Apple Watch is more personal. And that's always been, I think, a part of how Apple has has communicated around the Apple Watch, is that it's it's the most personal Apple device. And with that comes tons of personalization options. That's in every watch face. It's in, you know, kind of the infrastructure of Watch OS as well. And with that, that that must come with some design challenges for you and your team because you're not building, you're not designing sort of discrete uh objects, you're designing systems, and they have to work in sort of an infinite number of configurations. And how does that change your approach as as a designer and as you know, the leader of a design team when you're you're building you're almost building building blocks instead of building a final a final object |
| Alan Dye | . Right, right. I mean you know luckily we have a we we we have a team that has been thinking about systems and systems across ecosystems for quite a long time. So I think the the most important thing from a design perspective, and you're totally right to point this out, is it's one of the biggest challenges we've got, which is how do you continuously design uh you know a face, a series of faces or a collection of faces, whereby each one can stand on its own. And yet, even within each one, you can have so many variations and customization options. But then how do you design them as a series that can kind of hang and live together comfortably? So a lot for us is it's about that rigor early on. So what were those choices we made from the very beginning around things like typography, you know, and and and or grid systems or line weight or how we draw icons? And so while we have evolved some of those things, we've actually taken great care to be very consistent in how we apply some of those just very basic core elements that make design design. To go back to type for a second, I think that's a great example of something where we initially drew a typeface for legibility specifically for Apple Watch that eventually became the San Francisco font that we use in all of our products. And we we've introduced many versions of San Francisco because we want to we want that font to take on different characteristics and maybe even feel different. You can see that on the typograph face we just released. But at the same time, the forms are very consistent from character to character. Even when we treat one with a serif and one without, um they're they're they're cousins to one another. And this all these things are very important to us so they can kind of hang together |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I mean it's it's also I think it's striking that the the number of complications that one can fit into a given watch face has has increased over the years. And that I wonder does does that come as as a is that a conscious decision to say, okay, users want more things on the surface immediately, and so we're gonna make it work for them, or is that also to some extent a a sort of outcome of refining your own design process and finding elegant ways for these things to sort of fit and interact together or possibly b |
| Alan Dye | oth. I think it's both and it also comes as a consequence of some of the advances we've made in the display, some of the advances we've made in the compute power. So being able to run all these complications simultaneously, being able to just literally fit more on the display over the past few years has been uh really I mean of course we've we've we've we've thought about this for a long time as something we've anticipated, but uh not only is it a challenge, but it's something we really look forward to and I think we've gotten better and better at the art of of displaying a a a very robust and rich and detailed amount of information but in a very small space. So I think as designers, many of us with a history of graphic design, I think we can't help but really love those sorts of challenges. Yeah. And it's especially interesting when you get into describing data that maybe you wouldn't have seen uh on a traditional watch like something like AQI or the air quality index |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . You know kind of following following that train of thought a little bit, um are were there times along the way or watch faces that were designed along the way where you maybe tried to pack too much in and you realize like, okay, this we've we've now hit the upper limit. Like we we now need to kind of scale back, peel back, reduce the number of options, and like kind of build where the the edges of that framework are |
| Alan Dye | ? That's a great question. I mean I'll say that uh 99% of the work that we design as a studio uh doesn't make it out into the world. I think that's probably, you know, not uncommon for for any design team, but certainly for us, um, we're pretty rigorous about what gets out there. Uh I don't know specifically that that that that's ever happened. I mean, I keep hoping we can make the GMT dial fade over time if you happen to be in tropical tropical locations, but that's something we're still working on in terms of uh in terms of the the the software there I' Im' Im'm half kidding. Um but for the most part you know I think the the the the work that we do and the and the really interesting thing about working as a studio is yeah there there there are times that there's a great deal of times that that we make work, maybe even some really great work that we don't put out into the world that doesn't make it. Um and oftentimes what I've noticed over time, and and the real lovely thing is that that work find its way is finds its way into something else or finds its way into a different product. And that's why the way that we work is so important |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Awesome. Well thanks so much for making the time. I know you're you're a busy man and it's good to get to chat remotely and hopefully things will clear up and soon enough I can come back out and see you uh see you at HQ. Would absolutely love that. |
| Alan Dye | Very much looking forward to that day. Yeah. Same. Good to see you and stay in touch. Thanks, Alan. All right. Bye-bye |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Up next, we have my conversation with John Gruber and Ome Malik hey thanks so much for joining us guys really appreciate you both uh making time to hop on this call. Thank you, Steven, for having us. Yeah, thank you. I think it's been what, it's been about a year since we've had Ohm on the show, and I think about two years, I guess, since uh John since we had you on for the Apple Watch Series 4 chat. Yeah, yeah. We talked about Series 4 when they changed the the form factor slightly. Oh yeah yeah. Wow it's crazy how forever ago that feels after uh the 2020 we've been having. That feels like 10 years ago. Feels like we're talking about palm pilots. Which for the record, if we ever want to do a palm pilot episode, I am more than happy to uh to host that conversation as well. That would be |
| Ome Malik | a good one. Is that an old man joke? I mean you're not old enough to make those jokes, Steven |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Me? I uh all right, I'll I'll fully date myself uh showing I'm not that old, but uh I got a palm pilot my junior year of high school and I thought I was the coolest person in the entire world uh with my palm pilot in my like, you know, whatever AP government class or whatever I was doing back then. Uh thought I was very, very cool. Knew how to write in graffiti. It was uh it was a different different different time. My palm pilot and my ri my Motorola razor |
| Ome Malik | . You were definitely uh ahead of your time. I'm not sure about the cool part, but it's okay |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I'll t I'll take that coming from you, um. I'll uh I'll I'll I'll take that one. Um cool. Well we're we're here to chat mostly about Apple Watch. I'm sure we'll we'll touch on some other things, but uh it was a couple weeks ago that Apple did their their |
| Ome Malik | Yeah, I you know, I used to love going to Cupertino, but boy, it's uh it's quite a hike, especially if you have to leave early in the morning and uh the barrier traffic didn't help. But I appreciate this, you know, a more democratic, more open minded, you know, approach to events, you know, put the stream out, let people g you know, whether it's journalists, analysts, regular regular humans get all the information at the same time and make their own conclusions. I and also it saves a lot of energy just, you know, it's good for the planet if, you know, hundreds of people are not driving to Kuba |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, that's that's totally fair. Uh I know John you you expressed in your writing right after the event that one of the one of the downsides you saw to there not being a live event was that w you know, those of us in the press didn't get to get hands on with the products immediately. Uh so there was kind of a lot left left to the imagination for that, you know, couple day window between uh the keynote and and when people could see see the products, right? Yeah, I think uh |
| John Gruber | I know that the word privilege gets tossed around very easily these days, and rightly so. But it it it is. And and it makes but but being locked in with this quarantine and having all of these events be virtual, it does remind me what a privilege it is to be in a position in the media where I get invited to these events and get to do things like uh see all of the products hands on afterwards. And that's always it it focused it for me because that's what I've always tried to do in my like in the first twenty-four hours after one of these events is try to provide to my readers the perspective that I got from this position of being there, whatever it is that I noticed. But you know, the most obvious thing would be what does it actually feel like to have these new watch bands on or something like that? In a way that all of Apple's presentation is all visual. You know, i if if you can convey a sense of the feel of something or when we get into talking about the color of certain finishes, everybody knows that that stuff really matters what lighting you're in. You know, what w how does it compare? How dark is graphite steel, that sort of thing. And you just can't do that if it's all remote. And so there is something missing. I mean, there's something gained, I think, by not uh having to travel, but there's also clearly a a lot that's lost |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. No, I I I agree with both of you. Um I mean it kind kind of simultaneously and for for me the thing I missed the most was getting to chat with other other journalists, uh be being able to be in that big demo room and while everyone's, you know, waiting 'cause there's a limited amount of product and it's a whole kerfuffle and kind of a a a circus in some ways, but uh getting to just have those little conversations with other people and get other people's first impressions. I always find I I end up learning things and pick and kind of discovering things that I hadn't picked up myself. Uh and I I missed that, I think, this this go around |
| Ome Malik | . No, I don't deny any of those things. I just feel that at times for some of these events, just like the ha it's it's like, you know, you they gotta reserve these events for very special occasions, not for feature upgrades. And on top of that, they've done a good job of getting the products in the hands of journalists just right after the keynote or the day of the keynote in it's I know at least for some of the the bigger uh names in journalism like you know John and you know uh what's his name Marcus Lee, Marcus Brown Lee and folks like that, they get the div you know, the you know, the d device in their hand and yeah, you know, it's it's I don't think we get a lot of time with with the products hands on, you know, when even when you're there at the event, unless like you get into a special uh uh you know, uh briefing session with the team. I mean and and that's uh that's again only a privilege few get to that position. But like in general terms I do feel that this more open democratic process is actually good for good good to get the information out. I like I like this approach. I'm on I'm in minority maybe. But I do miss seeing no I do miss seeing John. I mean it's like probably the only time I get to see him is at these events and otherwise otherwise he's just a voice in my ear in when I listen to his podcast |
| John Gruber | . from Philadelphia on my east coaster. So if I do come out for a Cupertino event, I like to stay in San Francisco where it's civilized and there's better places to eat than to actually stay down in the Cupertino area. So I have often over the years hitched a ride with Ohm and that makes that makes the Bay Area traffic better. We get to catch up on the ride to and fro. That is indeed true. Now if |
| Ome Malik | you do live if you do stay in Cupertino, I can tell you some of the best South Indian food is available in Kuputina in a place called Sarvanabhavan, which is probably as good as it gets outside of India. So there is some upside to it |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . All right, well I I now have something to look forward to next year for my trip to Cupertino, hopefully, assuming next year uh trips trips to Cupertino are happening. But uh yeah, I'm definitely ohm gonna bother you for that uh that recommendation again next year Thank you, sir. that, you know, one of the reasons you thought not having a keynote uh a big, you know, in person event this year wasn't wasn't a problem is that, you know, this year, at least as far as Apple Watch is concerned, was mostly about about small upgrades, right? Like this this year was I I |
| Ome Malik | wouldn't say they are you know incremental upgrades. They are upgrades. They are upgrades to features. But they were they are pretty, you know, pretty impressive new you know, new additions to the watch. I I but I don't think of it as like oh this is like you know, sometimes when we went from iPhone three G to iPhone four, my God, that was just like the way the device looked was very different. And so it you know, it was pretty exciting. And then we went from like, you know, from from, you know, iPhone, you know, nine and and ten to like where we are now. Those are like substantial, you know, UX design. I mean total total look change. You know, that would I that was fun to be like, you know, experiencing those devices firsthand. But this one is I think it just is finally coming to a point where it was supposed to be. I I you know, I I know John's not gonna like this, but you know, the I the the Apple Watch four would have been the watch Steve would have been okay releasing and this would be the Apple Watch six would be the one you know he could he wouldn't stop talking about. Like that's how I think about it. This one is actually and I've been wearing it pretty much every day since I got it. Like you know and and I was not wearing the earlier watches as much. This one just feels right. It does right. It's actually believe it or not, delivering more in terms of uh you know the, city works better on it, the screen and the m the power management is better. There are little things in this watch which just make it oh yeah, finally it's working. Like it just it just there is not very few annoyances with the with the watch, right? And I know I went a little bit off tangent, but A little |
| Stephen Pulvirent | just a little off |
| John Gruber | . I was I was gonna be nice there, John. I was gonna let him have it. Can I just can I just jump in? I just wanna jump in though. I think w the that the example that he just cited is worth noting. The iPhone and I know it's a it the whole talking about iPhones when we're supposed to be talking about the watch is tangential. But going from the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4 was the perfect example of being there in person because the big change was going to retina displays, right? And it was the first consumer device with a quote unquote retina display. But that meant everybody at home was absorbing the news on something that's not a retina display. Whether you watched Apple's event or you went to their website afterwards and you're looking at photos of it, or you went to the media and you're looking at the pictures that they have, how do you show a retina disc display on a non-retina display to convey what it's like. It it's actually devilishly tricky, you know, and you can zoom in and show that if you have like a jeweler's loop, you can see that there's four pixels packed into the space where there used to be one. But you really need that subjective take, right? That that is the canonical example of hey, what what does somebody who actually saw one in person think? And |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. No, I I I think that's that's a really, really good point. And and I think up until now, I think every year we've seen a watch where it's it's pretty substantially different from the one the year before. I mean, whether the general form factor's changing or not, but it's it's there's something to latch onto in person that you couldn't or wouldn't experience kind of virtually. Whereas this year it felt and maybe it was just me adjusting my my brain and my expectations, but it it felt like if you s if you knew the series five, it was pretty easy to digest what was new about the series six without having to live with it for a few days. I mean, does it did did you guys feel that way or is that just me |
| John Gruber | ? I think so. I I thought that was definitely the case where uh you know they've added one major new sensor, the blood oxygen uh level in the you know sensor the dis the power management is better in a way where they can say it it charges faster, it lasts longer, and the always on display is brighter in the always on mode, meaning like you know, the the mode when it doesn't think you're staring at it. And that's it. Really at a technical level. I don't I don't think there's anything else even really to say. Yeah that's a pretty short list, very easy to understand. But that's not to say those are insignificant upgrades. But it's very easy to describe versus the series five |
| Ome Malik | . I think there is just a little bit like everything just feels more cohesive and coherent and just seems to work much better compared to the previous version. Like the four and the five were like they left a lot to be desired, but this one just feels like, oh yeah, this is how it's supposed to work. I think that's I don't even know how to even, you know, say anything more than just that. This is how like it I don't feel that there is a missing piece right now. I would love for them to add a sensor so that they can measure blood pressure because, you know, I think that would be the last sensor I need from a from a health perspective to make this like a compl |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ete package. Yeah, that's that's interesting. I mean that's that's a sensor that I think we've seen a lot a lot of kind of like virtual ink spilled uh writing about and and the other thing people were asking for that we did get, but in kind of a modified fashion, is sleep tracking. Um, and we've got sleep tracking now, but without a like substantially increased battery life. Um, and and I wonder how you guys have found the process of attempting to sort of like instead of charging your watch while you're sleeping, kind of like finding stopgap times to to charge it, have you found that experience to be pretty pretty easy and pretty seamless, or do you find yourself still wishing that it had, let's say, like, you know, two to three day battery life so that you didn't have to worry about it throughout the day? I I definitely st |
| John Gruber | ill wish that it did. I still find and uh I think that coming a as a as a an aficionado of mechanical watches uh coming from that world and and when you're used to automatics you you're used to some of the same mentality. You don't charge an automatic, but you do have to wind it and you have to wear it to keep it wound and and you're used to oh, you know, this one has stopped, I've got to do something I've got to set the time. So some of that mentality's the same. But then once you get in a groove of wearing an automatic, you just keep wearing it every day and you don't do anything. And it feels like a huge step backwards if you wear the watch every day that you still have to find time. I I mean I I uh it I get in a group I the thing for me is I started sleep tracking like a year ago with the series five before it was a feature of the OS and there were third party apps that would just use the health sensors to do it. And they actually do a surprisingly good job. Um it it I was actually just talking to the developer of one of them, uh David Smith, who's who has an app called Sleep Plus Plus. Um and like he said, and I think he's right that you it's pretty easy for a developer to look at the health heuristics of your breathing and your heart rate and stuff like that and uh I guess heart rate, I guess it the watch doesn't pick up your breathing, but just your your heart rate and pick up when you're asleep combined with motion. And any kind of app that tries to go deeper than that and tell you like, oh, you're in REM state two or three is that that's BS. They don't they can't do that. But they can tell you how long you sleep, what hours, and you can get trends. So I've gotten in the groove of charging my Apple Watch, you know, like during morning coffee and just sort of knowing that I'm doing that and it works pretty well. But you can't, you know, it it honestly, it's it's funny. I find that it's an interesting like when I get in a groove of wearing an Apple Watch, and I typically do it all weekdays long and maybe wear other watches on weekends. But it in the coronavirus quarantine it sort of promotes daily hygiene because it's like, well, I might as well go get a shower because I need to charge my watch. It's it's good that it can uh it can push you in that direction too. What am I gonna do while I'm not wearing my watch? Well I c I guess I'll get a sho |
| Ome Malik | wer. I you know, I don't wear it at night mostly because I have uh I suffer from sleep apnea, so I wear a sleep ap machine and I mean a one thing another thing I don't need is another device on my body. I mean it's like that C Pap machine is is a nightmare to wear to begin with. So but I I I charge it at night. It's perfectly fine. I turn off all notifications on all devices at eight PM. I don't really care if somebody wants to reach me or not. And you know, I mean if they wanna like my mother calls me if she needs me, right? She has a old fashioned phone, so I mean though they're the only my parents are the only people I'm okay listening and hearing from at night because they live in India and the time zone is different. But the watch I love wearing it all the time. It's on my right hand. On my left hand, I have my grand saco. I mean, you know, call me one of those weird people with two watches, but I wear I'm wearing a health sensor and a and a and a real watch. That's how I think about it |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . So when you do that, do you keep your notifications and stuff on for the Apple Watch or are you really kind of wearing it fully passively as as a sensor |
| Ome Malik | ? No, I use like I use the watch for like replying to you know uh messages. I use the notifications like sometimes I get a DM notification from Twitter because I don't really stay logged into Twitter. So I get the notifications on a few things, not everything. Plus I check uh I use the activity and like you know the nudges to stand up and I walk around. I have my activity monitor. Like I have those uh notifications modified to my taste. And I I like it. Like I mean like I'm walking more, you know, I'm standing up more. I'm like, you know, it's like I I have a digital nanny now |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I think I think maybe I need I need to pay more attention to it. I could use a a digital nanny in the uh ages of of quarantine. Uh you are so young and so skinny, so you don't need that. It's a it's guys who are chubs like me who need that help. Oh man, you you you haven't seen me since quarantine started, man. It's uh it's not not trending in the right direction here. It's uh but we're we're gonna have to do something about it. But uh I wanted to talk a little bit more nitty-gritty about the the product and the the ecosystem that the product lives in as as well. Um since both of you guys are so familiar kind of in the long tail of of Apple as a company and kind of how they build their suites of products and and kind of the broader company strategy. And I think how Apple Watch fits into that is is an interesting thing and a thing that, you know, I I don't know how many of our listeners know a ton about that. Some may, some may not, but um the first thing I wanted to talk about is the fact that the new, what we're calling the new Apple Watch, right, is the Apple Watch Series 6, but there's there's actually two new Apple Watches. There's the Series 6, and then there's the SE, which is the more budget-friendly, I guess you could call it option. Um, but strangely, Apple is also leaving the series three in the lineup, which is a little less expensive than the SE. And and I'm curious what what either or both of you think about this new lineup that we have six, SE and Series 3. Uh especially keeping in mind the fact that the series three is is substantively different in terms of of the hardware from either the series six or the S E |
| John Gruber | . I think it exemplifies the sort of Tim Cook era of Apple. And I know that we're a long way, you know, ten years into it really at this point. Uh uh compared to the Steve Jobs era, and in this in the previous decade from say 2000 to 2010, and it it kind of breaks neatly on the decade markers, really. Um Apple had a lot fewer products, you know, fewer product lineups, and within each lineup fewer products. And tended to get rid of old ones when new ones came. And if new whatever, new iPods came in a you wanted one of the old ones, you better get one quick because they would disappear. Whereas the Tim Cook formula across the line is this sort of uh introduce new ones at the high end and the mid-range and keep older years old hardware at lower and move it down the lower price points. And it works. And I think it I I don't think that it I don't mean this as criticism of Tim Cook versus Steve Jobs. I think it's the nature of Apple's uh incredible growth over that period. I think that what what Apple is doing and and with keeping the series three watch at a one ninety nine price point, which uh on a percentage basis is a lot cheaper than the two seventy nine starting point for this the i or the watch SE, you know, whatever I what's it called? Apple Watch SE. Um that's on a percentage basis, it's pretty significant. It's uh I can't do the math in my head, but you know, it's gotta be what, 25% Yeah. Um it's you know it it it gets more people in the ecosystem. And I think it's clear when when Apple uses this SE name, it tends to mean uh it's somewhere in between product generations and they it means lower price and something that will stay around for a while. And so like when they say it's a series four or a series five or series six, that's like an annual schedule. I think that what we now have is the uh the S E will be in the lineup for years to come at lower and lower price poin And that by not putting a number on it, it doesn't really make it seem old. It just sort of means this is the SE and it'll be there for a while. And if it gets more people in the door and gets them into the basics of just tracking their health in general with the watch, getting their notifications and some of those ecosystem things like getting into Apple Pay, which for me, I I using the watch for Apple Pay and this whole quarantine thing without touching and going places and and paying and not having to use my phone with a mask on and and you know, which everybody knows is a pain. And you just double click the thing on your watch and move it up against the Apple Pay Center. It it that feels like so amazing in a way that it didn't before this whole thing started. So the one ninety-nine price point is the main issue. I mean, clearly that's why the old watch stays around and I think it's just speaks to the the reach that Apple is trying to get to with this product |
| Ome Malik | . Yeah, I think the other thing we should not forget that there is a lot of two hundred dollar watches out there which can be replaced by the Apple Watch. A lot of people buy those two hundred dollar watches, you know. Clearly not Hodinky readers, but definitely, you know, tons of companies have benefited from those low price watches and i think we should keep an eye on the the continuous erosion of fossil as a brand and all these so-called designer watches i think that's the market you know apple can suck in pretty easily. This is this is a classic strategy. We've seen it before with the iPhone. But then there is another aspect to this product, which is data. I think the amount of data they can gather with more devices in the market, the better they can educate their their, you know, the so-called the brains of you know their their AI to keep making you know the the device more useful. You know, even though they're doing it with privacy and all those kind of issues uh at uh you know as as core of their business strategy, they still learn a lot. I mean, if more people are using this watch. And I think, you know, the more devices means you know better data for for making better analysis and better research over a period of time. I think there is a huge upside to them trying to expand the footprint of the product |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, that's that that last bit Ohm, I think is is particularly interesting is is the idea of expanding the number of people using Apple Watch both to make Apple Watch better and also presumably it's it's to bring people into the Apple ecosystem too. I mean, at 199, that's gotta be that's gotta be the least expensive piece of Apple hardware since maybe the iPod Shuffle back in the day. Uh and the ability to kind of get in into the ecosystem at that that level maybe eventually brings people into iPhone. Maybe it gets people subscribing to iCloud, to Apple Music, all of those things. And like that that's got to be a part of the strategy here, right |
| Ome Malik | ? Yeah. I mean the i the younger cynical me would also see it as it's a trillion dollar company. They gotta keep growing. So they gotta suck up money from every every which way they can. No, that makes that makes a lot of sense. I don't think that's a good about everything these days. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | So I I don't I don't know. I don't think there's anything anything inherently negative about that. I mean like they're they're it makes sense and it's it's good to kind of call it what it is I guess. But I I don't know. One of one of the takeaways from from me from the the keynote and I said this in the the little video we produced on Hodinky, but you know, with Apple really hammered home the ways in which Apple Watch is a gateway to Apple services and to whether they're Apple's in-house services or what you can get through the app store, which we know Apple also makes makes a nice profit on. But um you know the the keynote started with Tim Cook running through all the apps he uses on a daily basis on his Apple Watch. Everybody who got up on the sort of like virtual stage, everybody who was a part of this video for the watch section was talking about all the things they do, all the apps they use, all the services they subscribe to. And and I think, you know, with things like fitness Plus and the way that the Apple Watch integrates with that, which is coming sometime in the next few weeks, weeks and months, uh the new Apple One subscription service. I I also I I think at this point, Apple Watch is a pretty nice anchor to the Apple services, and it's maybe incentive for people who are you know Spotify users to switch over or people who are using Google Drive to maybe switch over to to iCloud to just kind of streamline everything. Uh and to be able to do that with, you know, obviously I'm sure Apple makes a pretty penny on on a $199 watch, but I would imagine that if that gets the customer to sign up for a nine ninety nine a month service, uh, that service very quickly outstrips the watch in terms of of financial firepower, right |
| John Gruber | ? I don't know. I guess so, you know. Uh uh you know, if i you can just do the quick math again and you know, if somebody subscribed for you know, fifteen dollars a month times ten months is a hundred and fifty dollars, so what, $180 a year, you're up to almost to the cost of the watch, and that's you know, presumably the margins are higher on the services than than hardware. Yeah. Um but it's you know it's complicated math because like they don't own the music and they actually have to pay you know for Apple Music, they have to pay the actual artists and but yeah, I mean it's I I think it's just a general overall strategy of getting people into an ecosystem and lock in gets a bad word, you know, and if you you know uh people can be annoyed by it, but it's like sometimes the lock in isn't like a strategic penalty or a trap that's been set, but it's really just well, if you buy into our version of X, Y, and Z, they just work together nicer. You know, and you're you are you i it does keep you in and then even if you're not an enthusiast who wants to upgrade their phone every one year or every two years and you really just want to buy one of these phones and a watch and use it for five or six years until it really is outdated. It still e even in that long range game where you're playing half decade at a time uh to get the consumers upgrade money, they they don't even think about it, right? That that's they they think even if they haven't bought a new phone for five years, they think, well maybe this is the year I'll get a new phone. Everybody's pictures look better than mine. I'll get a new camera. And if they're thinking which new iPhone should I buy instead of which new phone should I buy, or which new Apple Watch should I buy, as opposed to what watch or you know, fitness trackers should I buy, that's it it's obvious you know, the strategic benefits of that are obvious. You don't have to be a you don't have to be a business genius to see that that if you can get a lot of people thinking that it's it's a huge benefit |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, tot totally. Um to to get out of the the strategy stuff, I I do want to make sure we talk about uh the the nitty-gritty of the the hardware of the series six and and one of the things that comes with the series six are the new the new bands. Uh and John I know you you've written quite a quite a bit over the last couple weeks. You're you're sort of the solo loop uh whisperer or guru on uh on the web. But uh yeah, I'm just curious what you guys thought about about the new bands. Uh I I have kind of mixed feelings that I've I've talked about a little bit before, but uh I'm curious what your what your takes are on the new bands. Well I guess I should go |
| John Gruber | first since I've been told I I'm the guru. My wife tweeted that uh somebody was talking about it and she tweeted that you should ask me because apparently that's my new full-time job is measuring watch bands. I had to laugh. Um I I like 'em a lot. I think it's a very s you know, I I think anybody who's into watches knows how w how unusual it is to sell watch straps that are sized so precisely and can't be resized, right? There's certain you know rubber watches you, you know, rubber straps you can buy where you cut them to size and there's you know now it's custom fit to you. Um but this idea that they come from the factory in twelve sizes and you know it's you know they're about five to six millimeters difference. Very small, half a s you know, half a little bit over half a centimeter between, you know, say a size six and a size seven. You got to get the right one. And that's a really it just feels like this is something they've been working on for a long time. It wasn't like an idea that popped into their head just for twenty twenty. And in just the way twenty twenty worked out, it's n not the best because it's like buying shoes. You really do want to try these straps on in person and you can't in most of the country in a large part of the world because you can't go places, you can't go into stores and just try things on. Um I I'm enjoying them though. They sent me both of the new ones, the rubber regular solo loop, the rubber one and the braided fabric one. Um I'm wearing the braided one more, even though I like it less. I find that it is really, really varies. You know, it again, Hodinky podcast, I can definitely talk about this and everybody'll be like, yeah, yeah, I know. It's like, but your wrist changes size as like your your temperature changes, the air temperature changes. It's like a a wristband or watch band that fits you perfectly in the morning might be tight by midday, or vice versa. And I find the braided loop is way more susceptible to that where it's like, huh, I I've bragged on my site about how perfectly the size 7 fits me. Now it feels real loose. And then I go to bed and it's like, oh, it's tight and it's left a mark on my wrist. Whereas the rubber one it feels a little bit stretchier and just feels like it always feels just right. I like 'em a lot, but I think it's a nightmare logistically for Apple to deal with getting people these sizes when they can't actually try 'em on. Yeah |
| Ome Malik | . Um have you have you been able to find a good a good fit with the new band? Uh I have not tried these two. I the only I have only read about them on John's blog so or on a street stream. Um I am using the sport band when I when I actually you know wear the watch. I do have a favorite strap which is from a company called Nomad. They make a green leather strap, which I absolutely love. It's very it's very uh you know it's like we're very classic watch like strap and I love I love wearing that. Though I got the blue series six And the the sport band in blue with the series six looks so good. I haven't been wearing the nomad strap as much on this one. But I do like how easy it is to to swap out straps on on the watch. I just you know I love doing that. You know but I will now that you know John is waxed eloquent about the braided one and the other one, I might have to drop some coin on that |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, I I really I've I've been a fan of the the sport band for for a long time. It's one of my favorite watch straps, period. You know, if I could if I could throw one on some of my mechanical watches, I definitely would. Um but the sports interrupt |
| Ome Malik | yeah for one second. I think this the John's point on the on the straps and how long they've been working on, we already forgot the Melanie's loop strap which they did when they introduced the watch, you know the sportsman. These are little things which we don't realize how well executed they are. You know, I think this is the beauty of Apple. I think sometimes we get caught up in the trillion dollar evaluation and the hype around all the fancy products. It's the things they do for you know, the little things they do which no one actually sees, that's what makes them a better company than others. That's it. Like that is that that Milanese loopstrap, there is others out in the market which cost like many more, you know, hundreds of dollars and they don't feel as good as that one does. It you know they don't work as well as that one does. The the fact that this sports band doesn't make you sweat on your you know on your wrist like have like because we haven't noticed right we don't talk about it and I think that's the the genius of Apple Design is that they make you products which we don't really talk about in in like how good they are. They just only talk about when they don't work as as well as they they should because we expect them to be like I just love these straps. Like whatever straps they do. Just like you know, I love the AirPod Pro when they came out. I was like, wow, this this is actually a great product. And I think that is what I've I love about this company is the little things. Just the little things, not the ooh, big big big bang announcement. Just the little stuff they do is so so much more exciting for me |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, I I I think that's an amazing point. Um and I I think you know the the straps are in so many ways heads and shoulders above what most traditional watchmakers are doing. Uh and and we've seen the impact on some of the bigger traditional watchmakers from Apple. I mean we we saw after Apple released uh bracelets that you could size at home. I mean for how many you know dozens of years have, you know, these big, you know, fancy Swiss watch companies been making bracelets and been re-engineering and re-engineering their bracelets. And it took Apple stepping in to say, you know, maybe maybe you should be able to size it at home. Maybe you shouldn't have to go to a jeweler. Maybe if your wrist swells or if the weather changes or whatever and you want one more or one less link, you should be able to do that, you know, with your fingernail instead of needing a tool. Uh and we've seen brands like I mean Cartier introduced it I guess about eighteen months uh after Apple introduced it, maybe twenty four months. Um but I think it's it's they're not the only ones and and I think uh uh the the easy interchange of bands has also pushed uh watchmakers, you know, not even just engineering better bands themselves, but making it easier for people to change them. Uh because like you said, Ohm, like I love the ability to, you know, I go for a run and I have the the Velcro sport loop on it, but then I want to put the rubber sport band for the rest of the day or whatever. And the ability to do that so easily is is kind of contagious and people love it and people get really excited about it and the the kind of old traditional players have have had to adapt. Uh and I think it's interesting those you know people like to talk about our, you know, again, big picture versus small picture, like is the Apple Watch uh creating a whole new generation of buyers that are gonna buy Swiss watches? Is it secretly saving the industry? Like, oh who who knows? And people love to wring their hands about that, but what people don't talk about is like, did the Apple Watch's bracelet cause a bunch of you know 200-year-old companies to say, oh, we never thought of that. Maybe we can act maybe we can do this better by looking at |
| John Gruber | One of my favorite little things I know Ohm is just singing the praises of the Milanese loop, which I don't prefer myself, but my wife swears by because she likes a very tight fit. Um and it's pr because it's infinitely adjustable, because it's magnetic, it it can be just the way she likes it all day, you know, including if she has to just do a slight readjustment because her wrist is a little l swollen or uh you know, the opposite. Um but one of my favorite little things is they've had that band since they debuted, but like e about two years ago, maybe along with the series four, they they didn't announce it, they didn't call it like the two point oh, but they subtly changed the design such that the magnetic clasp can't fall through the loop accidentally, like when you take it off. It's just this subtle little tweak where where you used to uh for the first few years had to be careful when you took it off that you didn't open it too far or it would go through the loop. And now it stays closed but just in a big wide open O so you can get it off your hand. Um and it's like why they didn't need to do that. It was already a popular premium strap for people who like that look or like that infinitely adjustable magnetic closure, but they still improved it. You know, like and the fact that they go back and that little things like that bug them and they go and fix them, even on a strap that i is obviously not one of the best selling ones, because it's, you know it' its's expensive compared to the the sport band type bands. Um it but they still go back and fix it. I that to me speaks to the level of detail and and that sort of bring your A game rest of the watch industry, whether you're making sport watch, you know, digital watches or totally mechanical watches |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, I think that's that's that's a really, really, really great point. Um, you know, the idea that Apple Apple brings its aid game. And like I mean, we we get we get crap from people every time, you know, this cycle comes around, you know, every September. Oh, you know, Hodinky only has nice things to say about Apple. Why are they never critical of the Apple Watch? And it's you know, I think we we are reasonably critical where there's criticism to be had, but I think it it genuinely says a lot about Apple that like they they rarely just like totally biff it. Like they they usually don't come to market with with something if it's not good and thoughtful and very well considered. I mean, like I I can't think of the last time an Apple product came out and I was just and I thought this was thoughtless, or like how did this happen? You know? Uh and I I think there's there's a lot to be said for that. I think there is softw |
| Ome Malik | are sometimes leaves a lot to be desired, you know. The keyboards on |
| Stephen Pulvirent | the MacBook Pros. Oh, you're right. You are absolutely right. I haven't had to scrape dirt out of my space bar since yesterday. So it shows sho shows you how good my memory is. |
| John Gruber | But it's it's sort of the exception that proves the rule where it stands out all the more, right? Like i if it had been some other brand like Lenovo well, Lenovo really has a good reputation for the keyboards, but you know, Dell maybe and they had like a a bum two year or three year run of keyboards. People would have complained. It might have been a story, but it really stuck out for Apple because it w it just seemed so baffling. It was like how do they they they surely know this? Why are they being so obstinate about it? Yeah. No, that's that's very true. |
| Ome Malik | On talking about the the the straps, you know, in two thousand fifteen I wrote a piece called uh the should, must and apples little detail, basically, which is I was talking about just the strap and like whoop straps what they were doing with the watch and some of the other things they've done over the years. And I think my conclusion was that this is a company which takes craftsmanship to an industrial scale, which is what makes it different. I don't know whether that will continue forever, but they have taken that ideology of being craftsman, being a you know, taking an artisan's approach to making mass-produced industrial scale products. That is what makes them like Apple. I think in my mind, that's what makes them Apple. And the minute, you know, you start to see them go away from that, that probably would be the first sign of alarm bells in my mind. Because that like that is how I view this company. You know, a lot of things they do are not perfect. You know, am I happy about the the app store, you know, economics and all am I happy about the the keyboard, but or the software, there are so many issues. No, I'm not gonna no deny that there are those problems, but my God, just you look at the little thing and just say, you know, respect, that's all. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. Well, we're we're starting to run out of time here, but I I want to ask one more question and kind of to close this off. And it's it's the question I get asked more than any other question about Apple Watch, and so uh I I am gonna punt it to the two of you and and let you give give our our listeners your answers. But uh the the big question is should should I upgrade right? If if you already own an Apple Watch or if you're somebody looking for the first time, those answers might be might be slightly different. But I'm I'm curious uh for for each of you, what what are kind of the yes, you should give this a shot and no, you shouldn't give this a shot parameters for for the series six |
| Ome Malik | . My uh answer to that question is if you are someone who has uh health as your priority or you have some you know other uh medical requirements in which you know you constantly need to monitor your physical activity. This is a no-brainer. You should get it. It's it's better than the previous one. And as as somebody who has a heart condition and who's diabetic and who has blood pressure problems, I love this product. Period. The second thing I would say is if you're not in in that category, then you can easily go in for the lower price models like the SE or the CVs 3 and you'll be fine |
| John Gruber | . John, where do you You you know that I'm obsessed with the always on display and I always was it I I I knew it as I was doing it and until they till they did it last year, I spent way too many words every year reviewing the watch, complaining about the fact that the display would go off when you turned your wrist away. And so and I I think for listeners of this podcast, it is as life-changing for me, I'm life changing sounds dramatic, but that's how it feels. It just I I always say like it just little things. It's just surprising to me how many times I glance at my watch to see the time off angle, and I just want to see it. And so if you have one of the ones before the last year's series five and that drives you nuts at all, it is as game changing as you think to upgrade to one that has the always on display. Um, if you have the series five from last year, I would say no, definitely not. In fact, me personally, I'm definitely not I have a series five I bought last year. I I wouldn't even think about upgrading to a series six because the blood oxygen thing alone doesn't mean enough to me and even the improved brightness for the always on display isn't a it that doesn't really change it for me. But if you have an older one, like I would say, you know, like it if you ev it's funny because we talked about the series three still being on sale. But if you bought a series three when it was brand new, I think it is a very good upgrade. I think that about a three year upgrade cycle on these, if you like wearing it, it gets you a lot. And I think that somebody upgrading from a series three that they've worn for three years will be shocked at how much better the battery life is |
| Ome Malik | . I wanted to add one point, just be you know, I think we didn't talk about it and I I I would be remiss if we don't we don't I if I don't bring it up. First of all, you know, take John's advice. He knows Apple products better than any other human on the world. Second of all, you know, we should not just view this as a device. I think as an Apple device or a singular piece of hardware. In reality, Apple device is a microcosm of how technology and humans are gonna interface. All these sensors. Apple Watch is the ideal representation of what I've been writing about, which is called sensor view. Our future is all about taking all these sensor inputs cobbling them together into a beautiful user experience and making it relevant to people like to our daily lives or to our daily needs. I think that is what is the missing piece about the Apple Watch, that it has given us a template of how we are going to live and coexist with sensors into the future in a more humanistic fashion where privacy is protected, data is protected, and it's still very individual. But it's getting there. And I think this is why I get excited about the I the Apple Watch Series six because it's is pointing to a an our n our new future with technology. I know but I I couldn't let it go because I I am that excited about the potential and the future |
| Stephen Pulvirent | No, I I I love that. I'm glad I'm glad you brought it up. And and we'll link up to the blog post you wrote, uh Apple Watch is sensory overload, um, which I think does a a pretty good job uh unpacking that that further. I think people can get a little more of of what you're talking about uh from from that story. So we'll link that up in the in the show notes. People can check that out after they're they're done listening. So yeah, thank you uh thank you guys both for joining. Um I mean I said it earlier and and I I really mean it. You know my my favorite part of going to these events is is the chance to to get out to California and to see kind of everybody who descends on on Cupertino for this this day long event. And uh so if we couldn't do it in person, it's nice to get to chat with you and and get your thoughts here uh on on Zoom and on mic for for everybody to listen to |
| Ome Malik | . Well it was a pleasure. Thank you uh Stephen and thank you John it was uh great to catch up after all these months |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Awesome. Well thanks guys and uh hopefully hopefully we can do it in person over uh over a cup of coffee sometime But I' |
| Ome Malik | m hoping 2021 is is better than than what we've been through. You and me both. Yeah. Yep. Alright, I will see you guys. Yeah. Take care. |