Is the pullout of the macOS 3.1.1 update an indicator of problems with the Apple Watch besides dwindling sales? Would Apple Watch eventually suffer the same fate as Pebble watch which was sold last week to Fitbit?
A review by Gizmodo writer Alex Cranz of the Apple Watch paints a bleak picture not only of the timepiece made by the Cupertino-based tech giant. It is a bleak outlook at the smartwatch in general which Cranz foresees would eventually die because of its being worthless.
Slow App
After Cranz opened the $230 Apple Watch, she immediately regretted the decision to purchase the smartwatch. For one, she found the Phillips Hue light switch app too slow. One reason why Cranz bought the watch was so she could turn on and off the light in a dark room. However, because of the slow app, she instead uses her phone to light a room.
Cranz also found the Apple Watch buggy since there was an apparent lag when she would be notified of phone calls and texts through the smartwatch. But Cranz notes the Apple timepiece has good battery life that lasts 24 hours, better than other smartwatches such as the Moto360 which only averages eight to 12 hours.
Unexciting Timepiece
The reviewer blames the disappointment in smartwatches, such as the Apple Watch, to being half-baked products that would only excite “the most devoted nerds.” Cranz predicts the imminent death of the smartwatch based on weak sales.
Data from IDC said that Apple shipped 4 million Apple Watches in the third quarter of 2015. For the same quarter in 2016, the shipment was down 70 percent to only about 1 million timepieces.
Meanwhile, Gizmodo reports that despite the sale last week of Pebble’s assets to Fitbit, the watchmaker would not shutter its servers which keep the app on the watch functioning. It would only do that in 2018, otherwise the Pebble watch owners would experience bricking of their smartwatches similar to what Apple Watch owners who downloaded the MacOS 3.1.1 update suffered.