Linked List: September 10, 2014

Wednesday, 10 September 2014

A Watch Guy’s Thoughts on the Apple Watch After Seeing It in the Metal ★

Benjamin Clymer, Hodinkee:

I’m not even sure we can call it a watch. Okay, it goes on the wrist, and it happens to tell the time, but that’s about where the similarities between Apple’s just announced watch and the hand-assembled, often painstakingly finished mechanical watches we write about, and obsess over, end. I was lucky enough to be invited to Cupertino to witness the announcement of the Apple Watch firsthand, and though I do not believe it poses any threat to haute horology manufactures, I do think the Apple Watch will be a big problem for low-priced quartz watches, and even some entry-level mechanical watches. In years to come, it could pose a larger threat to higher end brands, too. The reason? Apple got more details right on their watch than the vast majority of Swiss and Asian brands do with similarly priced watches, and those details add up to a really impressive piece of design. It offers so much more functionality than other digitals it’s almost embarrassing. But it’s not perfect, by any means. Read on to hear my thoughts on the Apple Watch, from the perspective of a watch guy.

I’ve been a huge fan of Clymer and Hodinkee for years; his take on the Apple Watch is the best I’ve seen regarding the watch as a watch. Astute.

Valleywag: ‘Macworld Staff Mostly Canned After Biggest Apple News Day of the Year’ ★

Sam Biddle:

The economic reality of running a print publication dedicated to Apple news is a total disaster, of course — blogs run a monopoly on that, and have for years. But squeezing one last grueling day of marathon iPhone coverage out of a team on the verge of firing is not cool.

Seems like a real dick move on IDG’s part.

Speculation on Apple’s Live Event Stream Failure ★

Dan Rayburn:

Apple’s live stream of the unveiling of the iPhone 6 and Watch was a disaster today right from the start, with many users like myself having problems trying to watch the event. While at first I assumed it must be a capacity issue pertaining to Akamai, a deeper look at the code on Apple’s page and some other elements from the event shows that decisions made by Apple pertaining to their website, and problems with how they setup storage on Amazon’s S3 service, contributed the biggest problems to the event.

(Via Shawn King.)

Update: A lot of readers are saying Rayburn’s speculation is way off-base, so take it with a large grain of salt. The comments on his post explain much of what he got wrong/doesn’t understand.

Update 2: Another analysis of the stream problems, from Simon Fredsted.

Jason Snell Leaves Macworld, Staff Laid Off ★

Jason Snell:

Unfortunately, many of my colleagues lost their jobs today. If there’s anything I can do to help them, I will. I have had time to plan for this day, but they haven’t. You probably know some of them. Please join with me in giving them sympathy and support.

I’ve known Jason and many of the staffers at Macworld for years. I just saw them yesterday. This is hard for me to believe, and very sad.

Macworld is not closing, but the print magazine is closing, and it sounds like a lot of the familiar bylines will be gone.

Update: Re-reading Snell’s announcement, I have to say, it’s a masterpiece of tone and restraint.