Gadget or Gimmick?

Yesterday saw the announcement of the release of a new product line to the Apple family, the Apple watch. It is hailed as the most personal item that Apple has ever designed, by Apple themselves. The question is, is this device a gadget or gimmick that really going to go no where for the majority of us.

As always it forthcoming launch onto the market in 2015 was greeted in wonder and feverish delight by the almost religious audience of the Apple faithful. Features the new watch includes are:

• The ability to be actuate to within 50 milliseconds of world time standards and to automatically change time zones as you travel.
• Calender based notification system telling you important schedule information, appointments and life events.
• Personal messaging features that will allow you to send and receive messages from collogues, friends and family.
• In built fitness features that monitor you physical activity to encourage the wearer to become more active.
• A inbuilt workout application for dedicated cardiovascular sessions, which adapts to your own bodies needs.
• Seamless intergeneration with you iPhone and applications.  

In true with Apples style of marketing it is being sold to the public, as device that everyone needs and should own, and that there is a Apple watch for everyone.

The problem I see is it doesn't have anything about that makes you think I really want one of those. All the things the watch can do my phone can do already and a lot more. In fact all I could see it doing is adding to the stress levels of the constant would of communication we already live in. Even the fitness apps are already available on the most, if not all, smart phones. As for time keeping a lot of people have already ditched their watches and use their phones to tell the time and if they wanted a watch they could pick one up for a tenner at Argos rather than spend hundreds of pounds.

Having asked about 80 technophiles today if they were interested in a Apple watch only two of them said they would and then not until the technology had matured. Both as it happened were members of the Apple sect who already have Apple everything and hate anything non Apple. This leads me to believe that what we are looking at, at least in its current form something that has at best limited appeal to mass market that Apple is trying to capture. So to answer the question "Gadget or Gimmick?" at the moment it nothing more than a Gimmick and at best a boys toy.

Death of a Classic

During all the hype of the launch of the new iPhone and the Apple watch, the death of a classic was quietly going on in the background as iPod Classic was killed off by Apple. As the main show was going on behind the scenes the someone at Apple was removing all traces of the device from their online store. No longer will you be able to buy a device to store your top 40,000 tunes you brought from Apples iTunes.

The first generation iPod Classic was first released on the 23rd October 2001. At its core was a 5GB hard drive that could hold around a 1,000 songs that was accessed by a mechanical scroll wheel and a centre button and other buttons around the wheel. Battery life back then was around 10 hours, which would have been long enough for most people.This lasted just a year before the second version came out with a touch sensitive wheel and larger hard drives.In 2005 video was added to the iPod Classic abilities for the first time.

The final version that was discontinued on the 9th September 2014 was the 6th generation of the iPod Classic and it first hit the shops some 7 years ago. Initially the 6 generation devices where released with 80GB hard drives and these were increased to 160GB drives in the final production models. By now the battery life had increased to 36 hours for music and 6 hours for video. Many people thought it sales would stop in 2013 but the iPod Classic refused to die until today.

Many fans of the old iPod Classic took to social media sites to morn its passing what it did for the fortunes of Apple during its period of rebirth at the start of the century. With some saying it was still the Apple device to own out of all the range. Thankfully you can still buy one new form Argos and alike but if you want one you will have to be quick.