It's nice to hear the same arguments made about the iPad being made about the watch. It's doubtful the watch will be as successful as the iPad, although it's doubtful anything will be as successful as the iPad until we have holographic teleporting sensory input gadgets. They did sell more the opening weekend than Android Wear sold all last year and about 95% of all Pebbles ever sold so they've got that going for it. It will be interesting to see what apps developers come up with for the market.

Small screen etc is not a problem because all you really need to get your message across is two letters Y and O. Yo.

Most of the negativity about the iPad came before people got hands-on with it. I admit I was a bit baffled about why I would want one when it was announced, but half an hour using one and it became clear.

Apps developers aren't going to come up with anything good for the watch because it's not possible to do so. From Cult of Mac:

This will change of course. Watch version 3 or whatever might well be really good. I'm skeptical about straightforward "mini phone" type devices though. The trend in phones has been to bigger screens. Small screens are unusable. I don't buy that pulling your phone out of your pocket is a big deal. The only thing I find annoying is unlocking the phone. Pulling it out of my pocket does not annoy me.

Wearables will be a mainstream thing eventually but I don't think current smartwatches point the way. Maybe something like the Neptune Hub. IDK.

I agree that later versions of the watch are going to more capable and have no doubt later versions of iOS will give developers more access to the hardware and software for the watch, Apple is very conservative with new hardware and probably want to protect the battery life of the watch as much as possible with the new hardware so they aren't giving devs access to battery draining stuff. I'm pretty happy with what it can do now, it's going to be interesting to see what happens next year with the 2nd gen watches. Apple isn't known for being nice to it's early adopters so I can see them abandoning these watches. But I can also see them supporting swapping out the innards for new hardware to not screw the edition buyers, unlikely but possible. Hopefully having Apple in the market will improve all the wearables like the competition in phones has done.

ChrisV, I agree with basically everything you said. In fact my 6+ has gotten rid of my use of the iPad since now the screen is actually big enough that I don't mind using it at times where I use to use the iPad.

And the Touch ID has totally removed the issue of unlocking the phone for me too.

Edit: And to be clear, yes I'm talking about the Apple Watch as it is now. If there becomes a bunch of kick ass use cases for it, or it improves significantly, I'll probably re-evaluate. But things like getting turn directions on my wrist instead of looking at my phone do nothing for me.

The iPad was supposed to be even bigger than it has been and has disappointed loftier expectations. Here's something from 2011:

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1800514

Instead this happened:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...ablet-vendors/
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...es-comparison/

Didn't the iPad almost single-handedly drive Microsoft to put a tablet interface as the default UI in Windows 8? Tablets were supposed to be way bigger than this. iOS/Android tablets at this point are mostly auxiliary consumption devices for housewives and kids, as opposed to replacements for laptops and desktops they were once feared to be.

I thing something like this makes more sense than a smartwatch btw:

https://www.mota.com/mota-smart-ring/

that's ugly as sin on anyone other than Andre the Giant

The reason I felt like the ipad would be a big hit is because I would lay in my bed surfing my iPhone wishing I had a bigger screen. I did not see coming what a big hit it would be with old people and kids.

Now though with my 13" Mac Pro I can tolerate bed-surfing for a while - and my iPad 3 is so damn slow it annoys me. I don't know if I'll get a new iPad.

Garmin (and others like fitbit) have a lot of products in this area - exercise + smart watch.

I'm not really arguing that Apple's watch is the best fitness product on the market. Just that with their marketing clout and the fitness use case, I believe the product will find a home in the market. I don't think we'll all be wearing smartwatches in the future. The reason I stopped wearing a watch was because my cell phone could tell time. Why have extra devices?

I had not worn a watch ever since my first cell phone either. I actually own a smart watch now and I am surprised how much I like having it. I was a skeptic, but convenience - however minor - won me over after trying my watch.

What are the things you find convenient?

Mainly the notifications / texts. I miss a lot of calls/texts with my phone in my pocket (and can't figure out how.. but I miss them). Now I don't miss anything and I can screen what is important easily. The small things add up too - seeing time without having to pull my phone out (lol back to the future), the activity tracking/step counting.

I can't comment on the apple watch - I don't have one of those. To me, I'd expect short battery life would be a hassle - but to each their own.

I don't think anyone who says "I don't need a smart watch" is wrong at all - I don't think they will become ubiquitous. But they will be popular IMO. I think you will also see more personalization and variety when it comes to watches vs tablets and phones (more brands and models).

FWIW - I have a vivoactive (GPS smartwatch)

this is why i'm considering an asus chi

I had an iPad 3 and upgraded to the new iPad and it's much much lighter, we'll see how long I keep it though, hoping for a 12.9 inch iPad announced at WWDC.

Yeah, I don't generally get a ton of texts/calls and I definitely don't care if I miss them so that's part of why the watch isn't that appealing to me.

I wear a watch, so seeing the time isn't a big plus.

I'm interested in the fitness stuff, but am pretty sure I'd lose interest pretty quickly or be disappointed that its not as accurate/detailed as I like.

omg, just learned how to change visual studio from black on white to a dark background

soooo happy

All that's left to do is to change console output font color to green and you are certified hacker.

I don't care so much about lightness as I do waiting what feels like 30 seconds for complicated pages to render while they bounce all over the place as different elements load. The ironic thing is it's the sites specifically designed for tablets (responsive overkill) that are the worst offenders.

Also I get sick of trying to post on 2p2 as the keyboard keeps showing and hiding as more parts of the page load and it loses focus. Just stupid stuff like FB like button hides the virtual keyboard while I'm trying to type.

you using chrome? I have the worst problems with chrome's disappearing keyboard trick. Never really happens in, uh, compass browser thing. Whatever apple uses by default. Navigator?

Navigator, that was good ol' Netscape. Just typing that makes me shudder again.

Apple's browser is called Safari.

Pretty much +1. I only bought it because I was going to buy a watch (I think I didn't have one for 15ish years now) either way because pulling out the cell is annoying and also kind of lol in business settings. Figured I'd spend at least 200-300 on a watch either way so the 350 price tag didn't bother me one bit.
Just fiddling with the cell less is worth tons for me. The main reason to pull the trigger was that I'm also one of these "misses a ton of calls" kinds of people. Navigation turned out to be awesome and I didn't even consider that. The faces also look cooler than expected and I enjoy that you can change them super quickly. I use a super simple one.

Thought process was pretty much
1) Need watch
2) Miss calls, fiddle with IM a ton...yeah why not try a smartwatch and see
3) Oh there's actually one that doesn't look horrible/like a toy now (I don't like the old LGs, Pepple or Apple) available in the Play store since...a couple of days ago
4) Buy

I completely understand why people are underwhelmed or waiting...I'm mostly surprised that I find the watch actually useful.

I used Mercury browser because it had [unmentionable]. But they seem to have quietly removed it even though they still claim to have it. Probably got paid or pressured into taking it out somehow. Another reason laptops are overtaking ipads for bed surfing.

It does let you set the user-agent though. Which comes in handy on porn sites that want to redirect ipad users to some crap site.

Ya, I hate typing on iPads, I use it primarily for watching movies and the youtube. I'd rather type on a laptop than an iPad.