At least for Series 2 this isn't that much of an issue any more: despite tracking a 2 hour workout every day, the battery easily lasts through the day and the night. And it recharges fully while I'm showering on the next day.
I could easily use the watch for sleep tracking, but the SDK is a bit limited for 3rd party apps to be able to automatically start and stop tracking.
I hope Apple will either improve the SDK or add a built-in sleep tracker and alarm feature as described by OP (though in my case the point is moot as I have a very efficient fur-based alarm clock that will claw my face on the first sign of daylight in order to be fed)
I agree; I charge it while I'm in the shower and so does everybody I know who actually uses their Apple watch (which means, about 15% of those people I know who bought one).
The battery (in the second version of the product) now lasts long enough to make that work — except sometimes on the weekend when I might go a day without a shower.
I also want the smart sleep tracking app badly. The reason I bought this crappy watch was solely for the vibration-on-wrist when you have to make a turn when using navigation.
Unfortunately, that iOS feature is horribly broken — it automatically switches to "car mode" when you go faster than a brisk walk, which means it doesn't work for navigating on a bicycle, skateboard, foot scooter, or even just running.
So the device has very little utility for me as it stands — but a sleep-cycle-aware, vibrate-only alarm clock would make it worth the purchase price for me.
And Apple (since I know you clearly must lurk on every hacker news thread waiting for unsolicited advice from strangers on how to fix your lame products): fixing the stupid "automatically switch to car mode" misfeature would also make the watch worth its price to me.
I got Withings Steel which has this functionality, does not need to be charged for ~8months and allows to set "margins of error" how much deviance from the set time is allowed (to better match your sleep phase).
Yeah. What they need is a true full day's charge and a fast charge so you can charge it in the morning while you get ready (and maybe a top off at night). Or for a lot of people you can probably do it now by taking it off when you get home and charging it until you go to bed then wearing it overnight. There's an opportunity in the morning to top off the charge again if it's not making it through the day.
A sleep mode could also make over night wear more feasible. Really you don't want any notifications coming through anyways so all the wireless connectivity can be turned off along with the screen and the processor clocked waaaay down.
I think I have the newer iWatch, so I'm unsure about previous models, but I can get a full two days of use out of it. It's actually a bit of a downside for me since I always forget to recharge it :-)
ugh, the timer! Do you use the chronograph watch face too? I always accidentally hit the stopwatch and 3 hours later realize it's been running the whole time.
Series 0 (original AppleWatch) here.
I charge the watch while showering in the morning and while getting ready for bed. So it lasts a day, easily.
And I love it tapping me awake in the morning, as does my MSO.
I had the Pebble Steel before, and before that a Fitbit Armband, all with silent alarms.
Interesting that apple seems to be following the same model as they did with their mobile devices in terms of developer functionality. Their view seems to be to start off really tightly locked down and then gradually open up additional features to developers. It makes sense in that its much easier to open stuff up after its been locked down then to lock down stuff once people have built stuff on it.
I think this goes well with their other line of thought:"It is so difficult to remove a feature once we've added it, so it is best to be careful adding new features and start with a few great features first." That's how they have developed iOS.
I recall a high-ranking individual (Jobs, Cook, or Forstall) from Apple saying this a couple of years ago, but I don't remember when, where, or context. Sorry.
I dabbled in scala for a while a few years ago and ultimately decided not to invest the time becoming an expert in it for the following reasons.
1) Slow compile times, I really value fast feedback and if it takes me over a second to compile and run a unit test that just doesn't cut it for me.
2) No clear idiomatic style and having many different ways of doing things each of which can imply different behaviour in different contexts.
I used to feel the same way about fast feedback, but after working on slower to compile applications for a few years, I'm not sure it's a good way of working.
When I used to work like that, I'd write code, and constantly be checking that it compiled. I'd be watching my test dashboard and feel happy turning the lights green. But it was definitely a crutch.
If you asked me to code without a compiler I'd make basic syntax errors. I'd let basic, predicable bugs slip through because they weren't covered by my tests. In my rush to turn the next light green, I wasn't thinking enough.
Maybe that's not how you work, but if it is, try building once a day and turning syntax highlighting off for a couple weeks. For me, (being forced to) work like that for a while has helped me long term.
Seems like they actually use RP-1 (rocket fuel) as the hydraulic fluid so that it is burned as fuel after it has been used. This means that the hydraulic fluid isnt "dead mass"
I wonder what the sable referred to in the job description is referring to? Could it be SableVM.SableVM is a clean room implementation of the JVM but is no longer being maintained.
Ha, sadly no. Sable is the name of an internal Amazon product that the person posting the job must have forgotten was internal. Nothing secret afaik, just not something offered on AWS.
I agree with everything you said. Here is an interesting lwn article from when the azule people originally tried to push their change/enhancements upstream.
Its a pitty that this type of GC hasn't found widespread use because it gives us the best of both worlds, in terms of automatics memory management and performance.
Well I think it was not there fault and not the linux peoples fault. I have read everything I could find on this.
The linux people are write to not just exept code from outsider into there most importent subsystems like the scheduler. Azul did more of a code dumb then really try to get patches upstream. If they had taken the time to split up there code into diffrent patches and then take the time to explain why they needed it, why lots of other people also needed it, they might have gotten lot of it threw, or at least get the conversation rolling on what the linux guys could do to make managed runtimes faster.
Its of course also true that managed runtimes are not what linux kernal hackers focus on.
So it boils down to Azul guys not having enougth time to do it right and the linux people were not exited enougth to roll withit themself.
Maybe there was a lot more talk going on in the background, but I at least could not find much more on this.
I've been following Philip Reames' blog, it's good to see LLVM get some serious precise GC love.
Reading the job advert, I would have to wonder if they want to avoid an all in, 100% bet on the Hotspot JVM, not to mention strict JVMs in general. I wouldn't be surprised if they have the best concentration of knowledge on Hotspot in the world, including Oracle, might be getting a bit tired of it, and certainly would know the limitations of its code base by now.
I think that they might just want to profit from all the love going into LLVM. Currenlty hotspot has costum optimization and if you have a product based on it you have to maintain this and improve it. If you manage to creat a fast powerful LLVM based JVM you can profit from the other work going into that space and maybe distance yourself from the orcale standard.
However, currently not that many JIT are LLVM based so it seams that it needs some love to get this to working well. Both for GC and compilation speed. Thats at least my guess.
You can actually get an iPhone 4S replacement battery + tools to change the battery for less then $10 dollars. Certainly a-lot cheaper than replacing the whole phone.
I upgraded to iOS 8 on my 4S and found it to be a nice improvement. I'm not sure if I'll even upgrade my device during this cycle. It feels like it has plenty of life left to me.
