Apple launches new Apple Watch Ultra

[pedal menace]

29 minutes ago, Bub Marley said:

So after having another glance at the Garmin website, and just looking through the specs. I just picked the Garmin Instinct 2 which is R 7,000 and I have to say the amount of features listed is pretty astonishing compared to what Apple gives you. I can 100% say that value for money, the Garmin wins hands down no question about it. I might even consider getting that instead of a new Apple Watch when the time is right just based on what you get. Looks wise, I still dont think it looks that great but you can’t deny you’re getting so much more bang for buck.

See there is hope for these loyal Apple followers 🤣 - some of their products are just not wort the money. R18k for the ultra??? Are they MAD!!!! And then taking the view that a possible 36-hour battery is the best thing since sliced toast - best invention EVER!!! Are they blind??? Make it a round face, give it 1 week of battery life with training and YEAH - I will consider. 

Will it sell? - likely like hotcakes! The human race never fails to surprise me. 

 

[sirmoun10goat]

A good reason to buy a premium garmin watch  over any other sports watch (or even a garmin head unit) out there is FirstBeat which using the HR sensor, can determine a whole variety of things. It’s so good it was able to pick up a higher than usual HR (which I attribute to my body trying to repair an adductor injury) and actually encouraging me to rest.

Apple may be be rich with other features, but the Garmin integration of FirstBeat is incredible and far more useful than the Apple ecosystem. I don’t need my watch integrated with my phone/laptop/appleTV, I just need it paired so that I can upload my activities to GarminConnect.

[Cardio Goth]

I don't get why this has become such a polarised debate. I am a more than happy Apple user for most devices - I have owned and used more phones Macbooks, iPads and watches than I can count because, like it or not, the Apple ecosystem is better than any other. But I use a cheap Garmin watch because I occasionally go running and a Wahoo Bolt and HRM for cycling because, surprise surprise, they connect to everything else in the ecosystem I have and are, brand notwithstanding, completely fit for my purpose.

If I needed a new smart watch, I would happily look at Apple. If I needed a new GPS, I would happily look at Garmin or Hammerhead. Why does your choice need to be a statement about who you are?

[Jbr]

Waiting for the delivery guy 😁

Did some research, there still is some uncertainty about a few things :

- getting an eSim from Vodacom, I know I'll have to pay a monthly extra for it already but will I need to change my plan to have access to it.. let's see

- syncing everything from the watch to itervals.icu with HealthFit, not an issue

- running youtube music in my airpods : not an issue

- listening to youtube in the background : that might be an issue, and it would suck because that means I must take my phone with if I want to listen to stuff that's not on podcast format (which I do all the time)

- tracking rides : I have a few options there, navigr8 seems like a good one according to one of the videos posted earlier, might try Athlytic as well to run actual workouts, or do some research. I want an app to run and record workouts (does the lap, shows the target power / 3s power / hr / time remaining) and ideally connects to intervals.icu plan. That I haven't found yet but will try everything I find and hopefully find something, otherwise I might try to make one myself.

[BigDL]

1 hour ago, Jbr said:

Waiting for the delivery guy 😁

Did some research, there still is some uncertainty about a few things :

- getting an eSim from Vodacom, I know I'll have to pay a monthly extra for it already but will I need to change my plan to have access to it.. let's see

- syncing everything from the watch to itervals.icu with HealthFit, not an issue

- running youtube music in my airpods : not an issue

- listening to youtube in the background : that might be an issue, and it would suck because that means I must take my phone with if I want to listen to stuff that's not on podcast format (which I do all the time)

- tracking rides : I have a few options there, navigr8 seems like a good one according to one of the videos posted earlier, might try Athlytic as well to run actual workouts, or do some research. I want an app to run and record workouts (does the lap, shows the target power / 3s power / hr / time remaining) and ideally connects to intervals.icu plan. That I haven't found yet but will try everything I find and hopefully find something, otherwise I might try to make one myself.

Nice one 

[Frosty]

2 hours ago, Jbr said:

Waiting for the delivery guy 😁

Did some research, there still is some uncertainty about a few things :

- getting an eSim from Vodacom, I know I'll have to pay a monthly extra for it already but will I need to change my plan to have access to it.. let's see

- syncing everything from the watch to itervals.icu with HealthFit, not an issue

- running youtube music in my airpods : not an issue

- listening to youtube in the background : that might be an issue, and it would suck because that means I must take my phone with if I want to listen to stuff that's not on podcast format (which I do all the time)

- tracking rides : I have a few options there, navigr8 seems like a good one according to one of the videos posted earlier, might try Athlytic as well to run actual workouts, or do some research. I want an app to run and record workouts (does the lap, shows the target power / 3s power / hr / time remaining) and ideally connects to intervals.icu plan. That I haven't found yet but will try everything I find and hopefully find something, otherwise I might try to make one myself.

I have two numbers, an eSIM and a normal SIM, on my phone. I’m not paying anything extra, other than the top up costs (that number is a PAYG); but on MTN and not Vodacom.

When I asked for the eSIM, they asked for my Watch, assuming that’s why I was asking. 

[Jbr]

17 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I have two numbers, an eSIM and a normal SIM, on my phone. I’m not paying anything extra, other than the top up costs (that number is a PAYG); but on MTN and not Vodacom.

When I asked for the eSIM, they asked for my Watch, assuming that’s why I was asking. 

I would like to have my watch and my phone on the same number/plan

[BigDL]

Flipping tough - that’s for sure 

 

 

[Jbr]

watched this yesterday, except for the long shots of him flexing shirtless I must say it's promising... Being able to take calls on my bike and answers messages with or without my airpods or taking my phone out of the pocket will be game changer. I just hope you can easily set it to DND mode, because my wife tends to only call me in the middle of my hard efforts 🤣

can't wait to get mine, hopefully today CourierIT doesn't decide to skip my house in their deliveries... I was quite disappointed on friday evening when they cancelled me !

Edited October 3, 2022 by Jbr

[Shebeen]

On 9/29/2022 at 4:06 PM, pedal menace said:

See there is hope for these loyal Apple followers 🤣 - some of their products are just not wort the money. R18k for the ultra??? Are they MAD!!!! And then taking the view that a possible 36-hour battery is the best thing since sliced toast - best invention EVER!!! Are they blind??? Make it a round face, give it 1 week of battery life with training and YEAH - I will consider. 

Will it sell? - likely like hotcakes! The human race never fails to surprise me. 

 

R18k for a smart watch, I missed that one! Development cost and r&d is one thing but I shudder to think what the margins on production cost will be.

I know Garmin is taking the piss with their premium device pricing but this is a new level of crazy.

And I know people will defend it as reasonable value and in the same breath announce that they are just supporting the most profitable company in the world with pride.

[edgarblount]

 

18k is a very reasonable price for a watch....  

[Jbr]

It's an iphone on your wrist, not just a sports watch

[Showtime]

I really believe this is not for ultra athletes at all, it's about creating another price point for the apple watch. Apple rightly believed that if Garmin users were happy to pay R18k for a watch allot of Apple uses will too.

Then the question is how to differentiate this from the standard apple watch and this is a much better effort than a stainless case or a Hermes strap so well done there.

[Kom]

On 9/29/2022 at 6:08 PM, RandomEuro said:

I don't get why this has become such a polarised debate. I am a more than happy Apple user for most devices - I have owned and used more phones Macbooks, iPads and watches than I can count because, like it or not, the Apple ecosystem is better than any other. But I use a cheap Garmin watch because I occasionally go running and a Wahoo Bolt and HRM for cycling because, surprise surprise, they connect to everything else in the ecosystem I have and are, brand notwithstanding, completely fit for my purpose.

If I needed a new smart watch, I would happily look at Apple. If I needed a new GPS, I would happily look at Garmin or Hammerhead. Why does your choice need to be a statement about who you are?

Completely agree with you, it doesn’t need to be an “OR” discussion, no issues with it being “AND”.

That said, if Garmin were to make phone hardware, on a stable version of Android, id be interested to see what they could do with Hardware/OS vertical integration. I feel like Garmin could be something way more, no doubt the speed with which they make new technology available, on a stable platform is up front among the makers.

You dont buy apple products to use any of their k*k application software, its the marriage between hardware and OS they have nailed across phone, iPad, laptop, watch, AirPods etc etc They leave the last mile efforts to the App Store, which has increasingly become a per annum subscription pain in the but. You get hit hard for the hardware investment in terms of cost, and then they hand you to paid subscriptions to make it useful.

I personally am mostly in vested in Googles software on top of all my Apple products, nowadays i live in a multi window chrome browser on my Mac Pro too. It’s a matter of time before a similar company comes along to do the same.

[Showtime]

I used to be an Apple user from the iPhone 3Gs through to the Face ID era. I lost patience with

- how long it took for Apple pay to come to SA 

- the endless connection issues between my Garmin and my iPhone

so I jumped ship to Samsung and I cannot see myself going back.

For premium priced products they are just too cynically handicapped for me to feel like both Apple and myself are winning in this transaction. M series iPad is more than powerful enough to give a desktop experience when connected to an external monitor, but no because it might cannibalize Mac sales. Multi user accounts would be great for iPad but Apple would rather a family of four have four iPads. No high refresh rate screens on a R20k+ iPhone 14, 128GB storage on a R26k iPhone Pro.

Apple are protecting their product lines from each other. Steve Jobs had a very clear handle on this when he said "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will".  

I am not daft enough to say they cannot make profit but when a 64GB iPad Air exist for R13 199 and you need to pay R16 499 for the 256GB model which is actually useful it's bordering on ridiculous to point where I feel like Apple are laughing at their customers.

With Samsung I feel like they are trying to give me the best possible product for the price and I haven't had a single issue.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Showtime
Spelling

[Frosty]

3 hours ago, Shebeen said:

R18k for a smart watch, I missed that one! Development cost and r&d is one thing but I shudder to think what the margins on production cost will be.

I know Garmin is taking the piss with their premium device pricing but this is a new level of crazy.

And I know people will defend it as reasonable value and in the same breath announce that they are just supporting the most profitable company in the world with pride.

Unless it’s offered on the Apple Watch benefit (Vitality), then there’s no reason for me to buy one. The R999 every two years is worth every cent, even if it is the non-Ultra edition.