Apple just put in a more capable processor, wifi and cellular, a brighter display and more sensors. They are just consuming the entire battery over a day because it is not such a big deal for customers.

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berkes 5 days ago | parent [-]

Is it not a big deal? Or do customers lack the choice?

If Apple had two lines of smartwatches, one for city/work crowd with the WiFi, Bright screen, NFC, powerful processor etc. but with tiny battery life. And another for hike/off-grid/travel/festival crowd without wifi, a slower, blander screen, slower hardware, less features but over a week)weeks on one charge.

Would people not buy the second option?

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ramses0 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

It wouldn't fly and/or would be "one more SKU" to support with expensive software development.

They've seriously stuck themselves in a pickle with their WatchOS offering. They can't move away from touch-screen b/c they've committed to "being able to enter a PIN" from the device (so they can offer AND PROTECT on-watch payment capabilities).

They can't move away from touch-screen b/c they've duped all the uber's and door-dash's, and big-bank.com into writing "watch apps" that assume a touch screen.

The Garmin Fenix has the best response to this that I've seen so far, a "pinch-to-activate" touch screen on some of their watches with "enough" buttons (Up, Down, OK, Back, "light"). You can use the watch normally without fear of accidental activations and when you start up the map-type-stuff, it'll either auto-activate a twiddly touchscreen or you can "pinch to activate" (hold two diagonal buttons for 2-3 seconds) and then start messing with it (or are able to turn it off w/o issue).

They can't move away from bright color screens because then people can't have pictures of their kids on their watch, and at that point it's no longer an "Apple" product.

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edent 5 days ago | parent [-]

This cheap device is also touchscreen. Only single point though - no idea if Apple is multi touch.

	▲	extra88 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Apple Watch is multi-touch, if you hold two fingers on the face, it announces the time. Which relates to the cost and battery life of the Apple Watch, it's a mainstream device that many people with varying disabilities can use. It has a full-fledged screen reader in its operating system, in addition to the development costs to support multiple interaction modalities, some will not be achievable with lower-powered, less specialized processors.

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Zak 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

People can buy the second option from someone else, like RePebble.

Of course if they want to use it with an Apple phone, it will have artificial limitations[0]. That, rather than adding a product line that doesn't align with most of their market is what Apple should fix.

[0] https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-...