Should Swiss watch makers attempt a smartwatch?

▼ Matt Richman thinks that TAG Heuer, maker of Swiss luxury watches, shouldn't waste time making a smartwatch:

TAG Heuer’s smartwatch won’t sell. There’s no market for it.

In order to have even a chance of being as feature-rich as Apple Watch, then, TAG’s smartwatch will have to pair with an Android phone. However, TAG wearers aren’t Android users. Rich people buy TAG watches, but rich people don’t buy Android phones.

I couldn't disagree more.

At this point, the Apple Watch is barely more than vaporware. The ascend of the smartwatch is in the very early stages. All kinds of things can happen.

Yes, Apple has three advantages: the most desirable potential smartwatch wearers tend to be iPhone users, and Apple can integrate the Apple Watch and the iPhone any way they see fit. They're also in the position to build custom chips.

So yes, Apple is going to be in the best position to do what Apple is doing: building a smartwatch that's barely more than a dumb terminal that uses the iPhone's computing power. However, that's more a limitation than a feature. Wouldn't a smartwatch with its own cellular connectivity be much better? It's probably too early for that right now, but that could change a few years down the road.

Also, how necessary is the deep integration between the phone and the watch? Most watch functions that need an assist from the phone could work just fine using a third-party app that runs in the background on the iPhone. The main issue would be the phone-related features, but apparently the Pebble can hook into those to a reasonable extent today.

Last but not least, Apple needs to sell tens of millions of watches to make for a viable new product category. This means the average price will have to be much lower than the price of a Swiss luxury watch. So Apple needs to depend on scale to provide value, while a company like TAG Hueur can use much more expensive materials and processes and still have good margins, although they'd have to depend more on off-the-shelf electronics.

Sure, it's entirely possible that the Swiss luxury watch makers are in trouble. But it's still way too early to write them off.

Permalink - posted 2015-01-07

iPhone 6 network speed

▼ It was only a few months ago that I first got 4G/LTE working on my iPhone 5 using a Vodafone NL prepaid SIM, and the results weren't very spectacular: at home, I got 12 Mbps down, which is actually slightly slower than the 3G I get from KPN. Up speed was respectable at 5 or 6 Mbps. In the city center I got slightly better speeds at 20/20 Mbps.

So I was very curious what the iPhone 6, which supports many more LTE frequency bands, would do on the Vodafone LTE network. So I popped in the SIM... and nothing happened. Despite my best efforts and many reboots, I was stuck on 3G for almost a day. Or even GPRS on the 2G network:

Not sure if that did the trick, but I finally got 4G after resetting my network settings. When I first popped in the SIM, I got a text message with a link to a provisioning profile, but that seems to give me the same settings that also appear automatically. However, when I later put my KPN SIM back in the phone, I couldn't get any data service until I removed the Vodafone provisioning profile.

I did some testing as I was traveling home by train, and I got various speeds, starting at about 20/20 Mbps down and up and going as high as 68/36 Mbps:

It's too bad that data plans are so limited and/or expensive, as you can burn though a gigabyte of data in two minutes at these speeds. Vodafone NL apparently doesn't support Voice over LTE yet, as I dropped down to 3G as soon as I made a voice call.

Wi-Fi has also been improved—but only on the 5 GHz band. On the 2.4 GHz band, you still get a maximum of 72 Mbps 802.11n:

The iPhone 5 and 5S did 150 Mbps 802.11n on the 5 GHz band; the iPhone 6 adds 433 Mbps 802.11ac:

These speeds are a good deal lower than what you get on a computer because computers usually have three antennas, which means they can be three times as fast if three data streams can reach the antennas independently. With only one Wi-Fi antenna, the iPhone is limited to 433 Mbps, but it'll reach that maximum more often.

Transferring files between my computer and the iPhone using iTunes, I got about 7 megabytes per second on the 2.4 GHz band, which completely saturates the channel. I got 15 to 22 Mbps on 5 GHz, which doesn't come close to saturating the channel. So if you're still using a 2.4 GHz only Wi-Fi base station or home router, you may want to consider upgrading it to something that supports at least 802.11n—preferably 802.11ac—on the 5 GHz band and you'll get better speed more consistently.

I would have loved to test Bluetooth 4.0 performance, but the iPhone doesn't support file transfers over Bluetooth. Annoying. Nokia could do this more than ten years ago. Apparently they want us to use their proprietary AirDrop system instead. I've seen this work very quickly between two Macs recently, but between my Mac and my iPhone, it takes forever for the two to "see" each other and the transfers then happen at about 5 megabytes per second.

Bottom line: the iPhone 6's networking can be very fast, but it all depends on the SIMs, Wi-Fi base stations, frequency bands and transfer protocols. So I'm glad it still comes with a USB cable, even if it's only USB 2.

Permalink - posted 2014-12-28

The iPhone 6

▼ I wasn't even sure I was going to get the new iPhone this year, even though I've been upgrading iPhones every other year until now. I liked the long battery life of the iPhone 6+ as well as the 1920x1080 screen—until it turned out that Apple uses some weird scaling tricks rather than the native resolution. And I wasn't sure I could handle the size and weight of the 6+. The 6, on the other hand, didn't seem to come with any must-have features. And maybe it's silly, but the notion of having to replace my iPhone 5 cases and its dock also made upgrading significantly less appealing.

But then the sleep/wake button of my iPhone 5 started to act up, and after the earlier battery replacement, I started to doubt whether I'd get another year of good use out of it. So I got the black space gray 64 GB iPhone 6. (You get to actually use 56 GB.)

First impressions: it's so thin! Somehow, the iPhone 5 still comes across as a box shape, while the iPhone 6 is flat, almost two-dimensional. The curved edges of the iPhone 6 are much nicer to the touch than the sharp edges of the iPhone 5. The downside is that it seems easy to drop, and when that happens, easy for the glass, that partially curves around the edges, to shatter.

The larger screen is great when using the device, allowing for bigger letters or more text. However, the 6 is absolutely less pocketable than the 5. In pants with shallow pockets, it often sticks out a bit and can easily be yanked out by the headphone cable. In pants with deep pockets, I'm afraid that bending the iPhone is a real possibility. But these problems can be solved with the right case, more about that in a later post.

I guess the increased size is responsible for the sleep/wake button being moved from the top to the side. That took some getting used to. But apart from that, I'm not very happy with the change, for two reasons. One is that there's now buttons on both long sides, which makes it harder to use the phone in landscape with a stand. The other issue is that you now have to be careful positioning your fingers on the opposite side when using either the sleep/wake or the volume buttons in order to avoid squeezing a button on the opposite side, too.

It's hard to notice the extra speed that the 64-bit A8 SoC provides without a side-by-side comparison, but the iPhone 6 certainly doesn't make me wait very often, and all the open/close animations are buttery smooth. The iPhone 5 screen was already very good, and the iPhone 6 screen is a little better still. I'm surprised Apple used a 667x375 "point" (1334x750 pixel) screen. Apparently they're not afraid of odd numbers. So the iPhone 6 screen resolution is a hair higher than 1280x720 "720p" but not even close to 1920x1080 "1080p".

On the tech spec page, Apple says the iPhone 6 supports "H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High Profile level 4.2". That's already twice the number of pixels per second supported by Blu-ray. However, the new iPhone will also happily play 4k (3840 or 4096 pixels wide) H.264 high profile level 5.1 video. The iPhone 6 also uses the newer H.265 video codec for Facetime, but I couldn't get it to play an H.265 video file encoded with the new Handbrake. Which wouldn't be a very attractive option anyway, because it took me 13 times longer to encode a test file as H.265 than as regular H.264, while the H.265 file was only 25% smaller.

Every year, the iPhone has gained more sensors. It now has:

• A proximity sensor
• An ambient light sensor
• A GPS/GLONASS location "sensor"
• A compass
• A gyroscope
• An acceleration/orientation sensor
• A barometer
• A fingerprint reader

Unlocking the iPhone with a fingerprint is extremely convenient, and the sensor is very accurate. The main issue is having moist fingers. However, there is a tradeoff: if you enable TouchID for unlocking your iPhone, it will always immediately lock when the screen turns off. Which means you first have to unlock the phone before you can ask Siri to start an application. Really annoying. Third party support for TouchID is also still lacking, I've only been able to use it with the App Store a few times, but Amazon, Paypal, my bank and various telco account status apps still require typing a numerical code. Now that I don't have to type my security code several times a day anymore, it would also be good to start using a longer code. However, the only choice is between a 4-digit PIN and an alphanumeric code. What I'd like is a longer numeric code, as typing numbers on the numeric keyboard is way easier than using the alphanumeric keyboard.

Along with the fingerprint sensor, last year Apple introduced the M7 motion coprocessor. By offloading monitoring of the motion sensors to the M7, it's possible to monitor those continuously without much battery impact. And with iOS 8 Healthkit, the iPhone 5S and newer now count your steps throughout the day. Using the barometer, the iPhone 6 can even count how many flights of stairs you've climbed. On a nice, straight walk, the iPhone actually got the distance I walked right compared to the distance measured using a GPS app, but it also easily gets confused, especially when I use my bicycle. The stair counting also isn't super accurate. But as a way to see if you got your daily dose of exercise, these measurements are more than sufficient.

I always wondered why even today, airplanes use air pressure to determine their altitude rather than radio/radar altimeters. Turns out that using a barometer (air pressure sensor) can be sufficiently precise to give you your elevation within less than a meter. Using an app like Bar-o-Meter, you can read out the iPhone's barometer and get a pretty good idea of your elevation. Apple uses the barometer to detect when you're climbing stairs. I haven't found a really good barometer app yet, but Bar-o-Meter has a today view widget, so for now, I'm using that one. It's especially interesting to look at the barometer when flying: the air pressure drops to 800 hPa or even less, about 75% of what's normal at sea level. In Madrid, at 700 meters, air pressure is 10% less than at sea level.

Oh right, there's also the NFC reader. Unfortunately, there's no Apple Pay outside the US at this time and the NFC reader can't be used for anything else. Hopefully both of these things will change in the future, but at this time my iPhone 6 has no working NFC.

Over the next week, I'll have additional posts about the iPhone 6:

• The iPhone 6 as a camera and Comparing depth of field: iPhone 6 vs camera
• iPhone 6 network speed
• Recording slow motion video with the iPhone 6
• iPhone 6 accessories
• Cycling and walking with the iPhone
• Powering the iPhone

Permalink - posted 2014-12-23

Connect your iPhone 6 to your Mac for faster charging

▼ I got myself an iPhone 6 last month. Because it has a larger battery than previous iPhones but the iPhone chargers have remained the same since the iPhone 3G days, I was a bit worried about how long it takes to charge the iPhone 6.

iPhones and other devices with a lithium ion or lithium polymer battery first charge to 80% fairly rapidly and then the charging slows down for the final 20%. At some point, And at some point, Apple started to declare the battery 100% charged even though it was still charging. The Battery Doctor app claims to show when the battery is really fully charged. (But beware of all the "optimizing" and advertising in the app. But hey, it's free.)

My old iPhone 5 with its 5.5 Wh (Watt hour) battery charged at a rate of about 1% per minute until the 80% point. On the charger, my new iPhone 6 with its 6.9 Wh battery charges at 14% per 15 minutes until it reaches 80%. But... connected to my late 2013 MacBook Pro, it charges at 11% per 10 minutes. So the iPhone 5 would reach 80% in 80 minutes, the iPhone 6 on the charger in 86 minutes and the iPhone 6 connected to the computer in 73 minutes. So that's almost a 15 minute difference. Then, it takes about another hour to for the battery to be completely full.

All USB ports and chargers provide 5 Volts. Under the original specifications, USB ports can deliver 500 milliamps (mA) or 2.5 Watts. iPhone chargers deliver 1000 mA or 5 W. As of about 2008/2009, Apple computers can deliver the same 1000 mA to Apple devices. USB 3 ports can deliver 900 mA. But it turns out that my one-year-old MacBook Pro will actually deliver no less than 2100 mA (10.5 W) to my iPhone 6, if we can trust the system (click About This Mac under the  menu):

Coincidentally, this is the same amount of power that the iPad charger delivers. (Which you can use safely with the iPhone.) So actually it's a bit disappointing that the iPhone 6 only charges 18% faster with more than twice the power available. However, the iPhone 6+ has a 50% bigger battery than the iPhone 6, so for the iPhone 6+ the difference is very likely much larger.

Permalink - posted 2014-12-16

Apple Watch: Moore's Law need not apply

▼ Jean-Louis Gassée over at Monday Note has an interesting article talking about how cameras used to last for decades back in the analog days, while they're obsolete within a year or two now that they're digital. And how the same thing is about to happen to the watch: an old mechanical watch will keep doing its thing for decades (I'm assuming some upkeep here), but not so much for an Apple Watch:

There’s no carrier subsidy for the AppleWatch. That could be a problem when Moore’s Law makes the $5K high-end model obsolete.

I'm not so sure Moore's Law is going to make the Apple Watch obsolete within just a few years. Moore's Law states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (a computer chip) doubles every two years, and perhaps doubles in performance every 18 months. However, a smartwatch isn't limited by the number of transistors or the speed of those transistors, but rather, the battery powering those transistors. And despite the transistors in mobile CPUs getting smaller, they don't seem to be getting that much more power efficient at undemanding tasks.

This is a list of battery capacities for most iPhones, along with the number of hours they'll play audio and the amount of power playing audio thus takes:

• iPhone: 5180 mWh, 24, 216 mW
• iPhone 3G: 4255 mWh, 24, 177 mW
• iPhone 3GS: 4514 mWh, 30, 150 mW
• iPhone 4: 5254 mWh, 40, 131 mW
• iPhone 4S: 5291 mWh, 40, 132 mW
• iPhone 5: 5472 mWh, 40, 137 mW
• iPhone 5S 5966 mWh, 40, 149 mW
• iPhone 6: 6914 mWh, 50, 138 mW

(Source: Wikipedia List of iOS devices.)

Since the iPhone 3GS the power an iPhone uses to play audio has been between 130 and 150 milliwatts. So for an undemanding task like playing audio there has been no improvement to the iPhone in five years. (Caveats apply; I'm looking at the big picture here.)

As such, I'd be very surprised to see new watches released every year that significantly improve on the previous model's technical specifications. I think the Apple Watch is going to be like the Apple TV or Airport Wi-Fi base stations in this regard: significant updates happen rarely, but modest under-the-hood hardware improvements are rolled out once every year or two without fanfare and with little impact to the user experience.

I am going to be very upset when the 2016 model adds GPS, though. If anything, the watch v1.0's Achilles heel is going to be lack of GPS.

Permalink - posted 2014-12-08