depends which camp of apple watch (or smart watch in general) users you are asking.

the camp that sees the smartwatch as an accessory to their smartphone that does fitness tracking and maybe a few other useful things to avoid pulling their phone out constantly - those people want MUCH longer battery life.

the camp that sees the smartwatch as a REPLACEMENT to their smartphone, they are perfectly fine with the current battery life.

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Oreb 6 days ago | parent [-]

I am closer to the first camp than the second, and I don’t understand why I would need longer battery life. The watch charges very quickly, and there is never a day when I don’t have the chance to charge at some point. I usually do it during my morning shower.

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wooger 5 days ago | parent [-]

1. People use these GPS watches for Ironman triathlons, ultra running & cycling events etc. They can't and won't charge before the battery is done - and remember the battery with a daily charge will degrade significantly. If it's borderline on release, it'll be inadequate after a year.

2. Just for general convenience, having to take another special cable for every late night or overnight trip is maddening. I always have a phone anyway for any actual interactions.

I find it hard to believe many people are writing texts on their watches, it's just a nice to have gimmick feature that everyone I know has stopped using.

	▲	gf000 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> and remember the battery with a daily charge will degrade significantly. If it's borderline on release, it'll be inadequate after a year. That has not been my experience though - having used both an Apple Watch and a Pixel Watch for years on end every single day. Absolutely outside my area of expertise, but I would imagine that you can design batteries to have a much longer lifetime (no of recharge cycles) when their capacity is smaller.
	▲	NetMageSCW 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That’s not how Lion charging works - degradation and lifetime (to a first approximation) depend on full charges. If you charge daily from 80% to 100% or charge every 5 days from 1% to 100%, your battery degradation and lifetime will be the same.