Alright, let’s not fool ourselves alright? Apple has been developing aesthetically pleasing gadgets for a while now. But the physical hardware that they use is cheap, and the software is made at such a rate where you’re practically forced to upgrade every couple of years, or suffer using a laggy, near obsolete phone or laptop. But there’s one thing that Apple as a company do damn impressively, marketing, and it’s through that marketing that they’re able to transcend their identity of just another IT hardware/software manufacturer.
People originally bought the new wave of Apple products not because they were sensible and well-educated on their purchase, it was because of the hype that Steve Jobs was able to generate. I was a victim of that hype, I remember begging my mother to buy me one of the original 20GB iPod’s, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed owning one, up until the time that it broke half a year later… Apple were cheap in their design, instead of making an mp3 player that you could actually walk around with, they decided to retro-fit an old 2.5” laptop hard drive into the device, and just hope it wouldn’t break, despite the fact that this type of design is made to be kept still. From that point onwards I have never bought an apple product again. I have friends who still buy into them so I have seen that they have improved quite a bit with their hardware standards, but still, they never put enough into the device to make it last longer than a couple of years.
Now you might be asking yourselves; ‘Why is this idiot no body talking crap about Apple?’, Well, I just wanted to get that out of the way first, I will always be sceptical of Apple, much as I am a sceptic of all things I’ll purchase, I like to do my research and make sure I’m getting the most cost effective thing I need, while keeping an eye on quality, and is probably why I actively have to fight myself from laughing at people who wear Beats by Dre headphones in public.
So what do you get when the world see’s your products as fashion icons, and you can develop them cheap, while guaranteeing that most of your customers will return to upgrade to the next model? You get rich, filthy, and stupidly rich. And we as a society aren’t doing anything to stop that, we are enabling the scam that Apple continues to pull, and I kind of have to take my hat off to them for being able to pull this shit off for so long, while keeping the blind devotion of the masses.
While I disagree with Apple fundamentally, I have to respect their success. A hell of a lot of people love their products, and would rather die than own an competing brand. And while I think that proprietary cables are nonsense, it’s not like they’ve monopolized the entire technology industry.
Why have I chosen this to be one of our main 3 articles, if I myself am so personally against Apple? Simple, it’s because of how big the company is, sure I might not like them, but I cannot deny how successful they are, and how influential they can be at initiating new technology trends. Massive amounts of people from all over the world love their products, and it is why I think that the Apple Watch will see a lot of commercial success.
Specifications:
-The Apple Watch will be made available in 1.5in (38mm) and 1.7in (42mm) screen sizes and with 272×340 and 319×390 resolutions respectively on a square display.
-Certified to the IPX7 waterproof standard
-The Apple Watch will run a version of iOS designed from the ground up. It supports touch navigation, but the UI can also be controlled by the handset’s ‘Digital Crown’. This mechanical wheel, like that which you would normally use to set the time on a standard watch, lets you scroll and browse through the user interface.
-Apple’s new ‘Taptic engine’ improves the mapping experience, buzzing wearers with different vibrations when they need to turn left or right. This feature can also be used to send fellow Apple Watch wearers a nudge, and for notification alerts.
-Handoff is supported on the Apple Watch, a feature introduced alongside iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, and HomeKit and HealthKit support is included, which means users will be able to control devices in their home and track fitness levels while wearing the smartwatch.
-NFC will comes inside the device, allowing wearers to make use of the Apple Pay contactless payments service, which is also available on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets.
-It also reveals that the Apple Watch will take 1.5 hours to charge to 80 percent, and 2.5 hours to full.
-Other specifications include an S1 processor, Bluetooth 4.0 support, WiFi and 8GB storage.
-However, the Apple Watch won’t offer 8GB usable storage, and will instead offer a mere 75MB for photos and 2GB for music.
– ~$300 for the most basic model
It is not yet clear how much of an influence smart watch technology will have on our society; companies have already entered the market only with marginal success and little exposure. In a few years’ time, if you asked a random passer-by on the street what the first smart watch was, I bet most would answer with the Apple Watch, simply because of the marketing power they have behind them. It could be the same situation as the iPad all over again, with Apple simply popularizing an already existing technology, or it could end up like the Google Glass, quirky, complicated, and unnecessary… only time will tell.
Obtuse Bastards 