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Quick Take on the new Apple Watches

Posted by Matt Birchler
— 1 min read

My buddy Michael Rockwell wrote up a great recap of yesterday's Apple event:

Apple doesn’t need to convince every existing Apple Watch owner to upgrade, they just need to continue iterating and expand the Apple Watch’s appeal. I think the water proofing improvements and GPS will do that. They’re clearly positioning the Watch more as a fitness device — between swimming and being able to map your route while running — and I think that’s the right move.

(You knew I was going to quote the Apple Watch part, didn't you?)

I agree entirely that Apple made the right changes to get the most bang for their buck with the new Apple Watch Series 1 + 2. The processor is way faster1, GPS is a huge addition, waterproofing is big, and the new price point of the Series 1 line is more aggressive than I expected.

All of these decisions make a marked improvement in important ways. The $269 entry level price point makes it $80 cheaper to get an Apple Watch, which is kin of amazing. The addition of GPS makes this appeal a lot more to runners, while the additional water resistance makes this a device you'll feel safe wearing in more situations. And a faster processor is of course going to make everything just run a little more smoothly.

I still want to see Apple add always on watch faces, an LTE data connection, and massive speed improvements, but those can come next year or the year after. I think Apple will draw in more real people with the things they added this week than just about anything else they could have added.


  1. We'll see exactly how much faster in practice.