Apple Watch - why I'm cautiously interested
I said this today:
And a discussion ensued with @UPSLynx and @Ryder so I thought I'd bring it over here. I'll paraphrase the rest of what I said in it:
My phone is always in the same building as me, that's fine, but my desired interaction with it is as close to zero as possible. I get maybe 2-3 important notifications a day. I want to a) never miss those and b) not get out phone for the other 20.
I think Pebble is already doing great work for that use case. The taptic comm part is the Apple upsell to me. There is a deep, subtle power in nonverbal communication, and that's a big deal to me. I'm interested to see how it works. Unfortunately I'd need 2 to really know and I seriously doubt @Aaron's gonna let me. 
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For the record, this represents the first serious thought I've given to it. I'm not much of a gadget geek, nor a watch geek (not that I think many in that group are seriously interested), nor a very fashionable person. I like my tech simple and as unobtrusive as possible. What's slowly drawing me to it is the idea it would actually reduce/diminish my gadget interactions in a day while possibly making them less superficial. It's a neat idea.
@Aaron wouldn't "not let you" so much as he would ruthlessly mock it constantly, which is probably worse.
I think he would physically attack me if I tried to put one on his wrist.
How far away can you be from your phone and still have it work?
I conjecture "in the house/car/office" is close enough, even if it's strictly Bluetooth pairing. I'm not aware of any other antennae in it. I'm curious about things like "will Apple Pay still work if I left my phone at home?". I haven't read anything on that so far.
I'll restate on here what I said on Twitter.
I'm DYING for a smart watch that carries the battery life of Pebble with the capability of Gear/Apple Watch. Not that I'm expecting the latter to have battery life that lasts for a week any time soon, but the "12-16 hours" of battery life is unacceptable to me for a device you wear on your wrist. It's not even close. I want at least 24 hours out of it.
I'll probably end up going with Pebble for the time being to hold me over. I do really want a smart watch because it makes my geek senses tingle in a lot of ways. The upcoming models look really promising.
As much as I like gadgets, nothing has really tickled my fancy with smart watches. This is one time I'm going to stay on the outside looking in until I find a compelling reason to have one.
I backed the New Pebble Kickstarter. It will be my first SmartWatch. I'm looking forward to playing with it.
Been watching this apple for some time now, don't see what the big deal is...
i prefer granny smith...
Honeycrisp or GTFO.
I have to throw in with the naysayers here... the battery life on these devices has been what kept me away from them as well. There have been a few times where I almost pulled the trigger on a Pebble, because the battery life and funcionality seemed really good, but just never could get past the plasticy look they have. The Pebble Steel looked a bit less cheap, but still just didn't quite strike my fancy enough to justify the price tag. The Pebble Time Steel looks really compelling, but at this point I wear a Seiko 5 every day which looks nicer and I've upgraded to a FitBit Charge HR on my other wrist.
I think I need a third wrist.
As for apples... get that modern hybrid shit outta here. Heirloom apples are the way to go.
AppleHipster
I like my Pebble because it doesn't do everything that Android Wear and the Apple watch do. It's not intrusive into my day to day (read: I'm not constantly playing with it.) Sounds like that's not what you are looking for though. If that is the case, then I have to admit that the Apple watch looks to more useable that a Wear device.
My Moto 360 might not be a full 24 hours, but it has exceptional battery life in my standard use cases. Sure, I charge it every night, but typically when I put it on it's sitting around 40-50% after a 14-hour day. That seems to fit many of your desires, though it's certainly not as much longevity as the Pebbles. For me, though, I prefer the Wear functionality and integration to the Pebble's, and I imagine the Apple watch gets close to that as well.
The real reason for an Apple watch...
(why is he using it when he's right in KITT?)
my friend has a google watch. we ordered pizza on it last night... surprisingly simple and quick.
In using the Samsung Gear Live for a while now, I've found it to be a great filter for the phone. Instead of getting a buzz and having it be a mystery (I always have my phone(s) on silent) I flip up my watch to see what the deal is. "Oh another dumb FB comment, or I have a meeting in 10, or somebody is pinging me". You can't really do a whole lot with the watch itself as far as input, it's not a phone replacement. However, that's what it should be.
In seeing the Apple Watch UI, it looks like they are trying to cram way too much into the watch. The brilliance of new interfaces today is when they are only featuring the essentials, nothing more. It's much more about quality over quantity.
Like, how on Earth are you supposed to select one of 1,000 apps like this...
I have both a Pebble and a Gear and I have become really attached to the Gear. I know the battery life is INFINITELY better on the Pebble, but, all the pretty custom watch faces and features make the Gear worth it for me so much more. Having Google Now on it makes it far better IMHO by itself.
Also, I can relive my dreams as an 11 year old.
People who are touting a >18 hour battery life as important make me scratch my head. I leave my house at 6am and go to bed around 10-11pm and I generally do so with ~30-50% left on my Moto 360. With wireless charging and the fact that I don't know of anyone who wears their watch to bed, the >24 hour battery life thing is really not a selling point.
It's not about the daily routine (though I've already got too many damn things to plug in each night). It's about those times I'm flying, or traveling, or stuck somewhere with only one charge cable - which my phone will obviously take over a watch - and being stuck with a device on my wrist that does literally nothing when it's dead.
I wear a watch on my wrist for time keeping. I want to know what time it is, I look at it. I want a smartphone to do that primarily as well, and then be an interface to my whatevers. But the moment that watch goes dead, I lose that absolutely essential functionality, and at that point, it's just a dumb piece of plastic and glass on my wrist doing nothing.
This guy is a pro photographer that puts into words exactly why I can't dig current gen smart watches with their ~16-18 hour battery life. It just isn't good enough.
http://scottkelby.com/2015/im-dumping-my-apple-watch/
Also, there are people who want their smart watches to do sleep tracking (one of my favorite FitBit features). Obviously something you have to plug in every single night won't be able to do that.
It's all image. It used to be cool to have just an iPhone. Now, that's not enough. If you're sporting both, then you're a real Apple fan I guess.
Almost all my non-tech friends have asked if my Samsung Gear is an Apple Watch.
Yet another reason why I went with the lovely roundness of the Moto 360. People are (still, 8 months later) very interested in it, but it has never been confused with an Apple watch.
That's sweet. I still think the 360 is the best option available. The only reason I use the Samsung is that I got it for free.
imo if I went for a smart watch, the LG Urbane wins by a mile.