Linked List: April 13, 2015

Monday, 13 April 2015

Om Malik feels differently:

What blew me away was the exceptional attention to the details. The way you could slide on and off the bands from the watch was smooth and slick. There wasn’t a need for any special tools — a tiny bit of pressure does the job of sliding the bands on and off. The sliding has the smoothness of silk Then there is the quality of the leather. Just as Hermes’ leather has a unique feel to it, I bet you that soon we will talk about the Apple feel when it comes to mass-produced leather products. I touched some leather bands and was extremely blown away — thin, supple and yet you could feel that the leather could take the abuse of running with the watch, the sweat and the dirt. It was sublime. And there are magnets that allow one to clasp and unclasp the bands. It might not mean anything to many, but for me these details are enough to overlook the software shortcomings that have started cropping up in Apple products.

Functionality aside, I think one of the biggest innovations in Apple Watch is the band-swapping mechanism. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it, but once I did, I was convinced it was as easy to do as Apple says. There’s never been a watch with this sort of feature. People are going to find it fun to swap bands, and Apple is going to make a tidy sum selling them.

Some Say To-May-To ★

Mike Rundle is not impressed by Apple Watch. He thinks it’s too small:

I was shocked at how small and slight the Apple Watch felt on my wrist. I’m a larger guy (6' and built like a linebacker who retired and got a little fat) and when I tried the 42mm Apple Watch Sport on, I thought it was the 38mm. I thought it was tiny and there was some mistake. It is the smallest watch that’s ever been on my wrist.

And he doesn’t like the leather bands:

I’ll just get right to it: Apple’s leather bands feel terrible. They feel like fake leather. You know how chicken nuggets are made out of that heavily processed pink chicken sludge? That’s what I think Apple does to make their leather bands. They start with real leather from some fancy tannery and then grind and engineer and twist and mold that original, nice leather into something that only has a passing resemblance to leather in the finished product.

I’ve heard this from a few others, particularly regarding the Leather Loop — that it feels not like a leather watch strap but like a magnetic metal watch strap with a thin layer of leather wrapping it. I haven’t spent significant time with any of the leather bands, but I did get to examine the Leather Loop on Nilay Patel’s watch, and my impression was positive.

Black Is the New Black ★

One more thing about those Apple Watch estimates from Slice Intelligence: if they’re accurate, they suggest Apple screwed up the color choices for the Sport collection. According to Slice, a whopping 64 percent of Sport purchases were for the space gray model with black band, 22 percent for white, and a mere 6/4/4 for blue/green/pink respectively. If this is even close to the true mix, Apple probably should have left the blue/green/pink bands as accessories only, and added a black-strap-on-silver-sport-watch choice.

Market Research Firm Estimates Apple Watch Orders on First Day ★

I would take these numbers with an enormous grain of salt, given the methodology: Slice Intelligence is an opt-in service that reads your email and gleans receipts from your inbox. I really have no idea what type of person would opt into such a service, but of their 2 million customers, 9,080 bought one or more Apple Watches on the first day, and they extrapolated from this:

Despite ho-hum reviews, even by some of the most ardent Apple fans, Slice Intelligence estimates that 957,000 people in the U.S. pre-ordered an Apple Watch on Friday, the first day the watch was available for sale. According to ereceipt [sic] data from a panel of two million online shoppers, each Apple Watch buyer ordered an average of 1.3 watches, spending $503.83 per watch. Those ordering an Apple Watch Sport spent $382.83 per watch and those ordering the Apple Watch spent $707.04.

Apple has not announced any numbers regarding pre-orders, and I don’t think they’re going to — they announced months ago that they will not be breaking out watch revenue numbers or unit sales in financial reports, for competitive reasons. So we’re left with conjecture like this report from Slice Intelligence.

I’ve seen this report linked all over the news today, and many of the headlines state something to the effect that Apple sold “one million” watches. First, it’s just wrong to take these estimates as fact — any credible headline needs to emphasize that these figures are estimates. Second, I can’t find any record of Slice Intelligence having made similar estimates of Apple product sales in that past — estimates that we could double check against what Apple eventually reported.

But third, “one million pre-orders” is not what Slice even claims. They’re saying “957,000 people in the U.S. pre-ordered an Apple Watch on Friday” and that each ordered an average of 1.3 watches. That’s 1.25 million watches — and it’s only for the U.S. Apple Watch went on sale in nine countries last week, all of them major markets. So even if you believe Slice’s estimates are accurate, they imply that customers around the world ordered millions of Apple Watches, plural, on the first day.

Google Fiber Announces Upcoming Service in Charlotte; Time Warner Cable Makes Speeds Six Times Faster ★

Jon Brodkin, reporting for Ars Technica:

With Google Fiber preparing an expansion into Charlotte, North Carolina, incumbent cable operator Time Warner Cable is trying to hold onto customers by dramatically increasing Internet speeds at no extra charge.

“The Internet transformation will begin this summer and will include speed increases on TWC residential Internet plans at no additional cost, with customers experiencing increases up to six times faster, depending on their current level of Internet service,” Time Warner Cable announced last week. “For example, customers who subscribe to Standard, formerly up to 15Mbps, will now receive up to 50Mbps, customers who subscribe to Extreme, formerly up to 30Mbps, will now receive up to 200Mbps; and customers who subscribe to Ultimate, formerly up to 50Mbps, will receive up to 300Mbps, at no extra charge.” […]

Last year in Austin, Texas, Time Warner Cable upgraded its 100Mbps Internet plan to 300Mbps after Google decided to offer service there.

Funny what even just the announcement of competition will do.

Apple Seeds First iOS 8.4 Beta to Developers With New Music App ★

Interesting; I probably would have bet that 8.3 was the last update to iOS 8 before Apple went full steam ahead on iOS 9. Perhaps a (welcome) sign that they’re moving away from monolithic “here’s all the new stuff all at once” annual updates.

EFF Busts Podcasting Patent, Invalidating Key Claims at Patent Office ★

The EFF:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) invalidated key claims in the so-called “podcasting patent” today after a petition for review from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) — a decision that significantly curtails the ability of a patent troll to threaten podcasters big and small.

“We’re grateful for all the support of our challenge to this patent. Today is a big victory for the podcasting community” said EFF Staff Attorney Daniel Nazer, who also holds the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents. “We’re glad the Patent Office recognized what we all knew: ‘podcasting’ had been around for many years and this company does not own it.”

This one is near and dear to my heart — I’ll celebrate by making another contribution to the EFF. (And how great is it that there exists a “Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents”?)