Jeff McFadden Import 2

I've have a handful of Raspberry Pis around, and several of them have Dallas 18B20 temperature sensors connected for data collection. Up to this point I've used all of them in 3-wire mode (Vcc, Data, Ground).

I just recieved my first Raspberry Pi 2 yesterday, and went to connect it to a network of 4 sensors to replace an Arduino I was previously using.

I ran into a few snags. Here are my notes:

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It's been 2 weeks since my 42mm Apple Watch Sport arrived. (So much for not "getting one immediately", I know). So far the experience has been mostly great.

At this point I'm dividing my thoughts into three categories: Frustrations, Delights, and Hopes.

Frustrations

• I had to do a full un-pair then
• re-pair of the watch (which is basically a restore from scratch), 2 times in the first week. I think this was at least in part due to some weird bug in one of the apps I was attempting to write for the watch, since the symptoms disappeared with I disabled some "clever" code I was using.
• Related to the need to restore, there have been a few times where some very obviously 1.0 bugs showed their heads. For example, sometimes the time doesn't show when you raise your arm, or shows only for a half second or so before disappearing.
• I went on a 1-hour walk, using the workout app, and got no credit for it in the activity app.
• If I wearing the watch loosly and doing something else, like the dishes, or working outside, it's possible to miss the taps; they aren't as strong as I would have expected in some cases.
• The app icons are just too hard to tap.
• Too much functionality is hidden behind Force Taps. I find myself force tapping everything, just to see if there's a hidden feature.
• Glances are basically useless because they don't update in the background. So you go to glance at a glance and instead you have to have an awkward and lingering stare while it tries to update itself.
• My two favorites watch faces so far, Solar and Motion, don't allow any complications to be added.
• Siri doesn't auto-send a dictated response, you still have to tap to "Send" on the screen. It would be really nice if there was a sort of cancelable count-down timer on the send button, so you could see that Siri got the text correct, then just drop your wrist and let it send in the background.
• Having the side button open your favorite contacts seems like a complete waste. I'd much prefer it launch a favorite app or glance.
• Sometimes opening an app is just slooooooow.
• "Hey Siri" doesn't always work (doesn't bring up Siri). Which is made even more frustrating because when it does work, the speech recognition is excellent.

Delights

• The faces are much nicer than I expected. The demos really did not do them justice.
• I love being able to change the face from day to day or hour to hour.
• I love the activity tracking. It's actually affecting my behavior, getting me to be a bit more active. Hopefully that sticks.
• The heart rate and workout tracking has been great. I love the data that it's collecting (I'm kind of a data nerd, to say the least).
• The battery lasts way more than a day. I go to bed with about 40% charge remaining every day.
• It not too small, not too big.
• The bands are very nice. I'm still looking forward to more 3rd party options, but the mechanism for changing them is fantastic, and the ones Apple has made are very nice.
• Opening your garage door from your wrist is just fun.
• Seeing who's at your front door on your wrist is also just fun.
• Dictation on the watch is very, very good.
• "Hey Siri, Set a timer for 20 minutes" when your hands are full is very convenient.
• Not wondering if I missed a notification, since I can glance at my wrist and see that there isn't a red dot. This has led me to leave my phone in my pocket or on the table much more than I expected.
• Being able to respond to an iMessage while driving, without having to take hands off the wheel, is great.
• The taps on the wrist when navigation is running are Just Right.
• Sports scores updates on your write with a glance is great.
• "Hey Siri, Add milk to my Grocery List"

Hopes

• Increased stability. It really isn't bad, but there are enough rough edges that I'm looking forward to versions 2, 3, 4...
• Customization of the side button functionality.
• More watch faces, please.
• More customization of watch faces.
• 3rd party app complications.
• Auto-updating glances in the background.
• Native or Native-esque apps. No more spinning dots please.
• I hope my favorite Grocery List app, AnyList, gets an app on the watch.
• Oddly enough, I kinda wish it had an LED you could use as a flashlight.
• I hope to be able to set the watch face to use 24 hour time (maybe this is possible and I've missed it so far).
• I hope that nice 3rd party bands become available soon.

Glide is really interesting. The basic idea is that you fill a dropbox folder full of content, and the service generates a beautiful app for you from the content. The elevator pitch is "Hypercard for iOS".

I'm not sure if Glide will be successful, but I have no doubt that at some point something is going to be developed that allows just about anyone to create a basic mobile app that looks good and Just Works.

Something like Wordpress for mobile.

It's also clear that the low-end of the custom App Consulting market, which has been dwindling for years through consolidation and evaporation of profit, will finally be dead.

(Of course, when the custom App Consulting market dies, a new market for building all these one-off Wordpress-ish apps will spout up).

I was listening to the lastest episode of the Talk Show with guest Joanna Stern about the Apple Watch. During one section they started talking about tap as a means of communication, and the impact this might or might not have. As John wrote in his review of the watch, it's not that hard to imagine at least a few scenarios where, for example, sharing a heartbeat would be novel, intimate, and gain even widespread use.

Having thought about this more, I do wonder if perhaps the ability to effectively touch someone from afar will turn out to be a big deal. I think it will.

You can imagine that a native SDK app might even be able to take input from one person and send that to another, enabling a morse-code method of communicating, for example.

There's a lot more to consider here, but it seems like it's a bigger deal than I thought it might be at first.

It also makes me wonder just how much more intrusive it will feel to be tapped by some spammy notification in an app.

Up to this point I haven't been sold (personally) on Apple Watch. The main drawbacks as I saw them were:

1. Price. And it's a recurring price since you know you'll have to upgrade every year.
2. Size. I have small wrists and I don't like large watches. I don't even always wear a watch. I don't want to wear a huge piece of jewelry on my wrist.
3. Battery. I don't want to charge something every night, especially when it would otherwise have utility (sleep tracking).
4. Utility. What in the world is the Apple Watch (or any smart watch) going to do for me that I care about?

However, having listened to quite a few podcasts on the topic and read even more posts, I'm convinced now that (at least at some point) I'm going to want one.

1. I'll get over the price. And if the main SDK components remain the same then there isn't that much computation being done on the watch itself. The year-over-year upgrade may not turn out to be so compelling. And if your band can last more than 2 years, you'd only have to upgrade the watch, not the band.
2. I'll get over the size. Everyone will have one. It won't be so weird.
3. I'll get over the battery. Because there will be so much utility. Which leads me to...
4. Utility. I'm now convinced of enough positive use cases that I think it would really be a helpful device.

A few use cases for Apple Watch:

• When there's motion on my front porch my wrist can tap and I can see a picture from my porch camera to see who/what is there. Same with other household security notifications.

• When I get home I can open the garage door via the app I wrote to control my garage door remotely. Why would you want to do this? Because your watch knows that you are you, and theives like to steal garage door openers and use them to get into your stuff. It'd be safer to not even carry one.

• When driving and I get a text message I can easily glance at my wrist, see that it's something I care about (or not), and respond via Siri, without having to find my phone and get it out.

• My wife can find her phone in the house when she loses it.

• Easier interface to Siri.

Since my watch can know that it's me, and therefore verify that I am, in fact, me, then it can be a presence notifier on my behalf. This leads to some pretty great conclusions:

• My car can unlock the doors as I walk up, and let me start the car without another key. And I don't need a massive fob in my pocket to let me do this.

• Same with my front door (though I'm unsure I'd ever opt for a lock like this).

• Turning off the lights when we leave the house and otherwise left them on.

• Allowing me to verify myself as other services support such features. Things like Apple Pay are already there, but other sorts of checkin, registration, and verification could all be linked as well.

I'm not currently planning on getting one immediately, but I think I am far more likely to purchase one than I was a few months ago.