New Apple Watch is a dive computer

[Joneill]

You can talk to a person at Apple or even have them work on your product in person at any store. I dive shearwater as well, but this is a big deal for the diving world.

How is it a big deal for the diving world? It’s only a big deal for an Apple diehard who wants an all-in-one device and doesn’t need AI or want to dive below 40m. I suspect that is not a huge market.

Beyond that, Apple has not introduced anything new/meaningful here vs the dedicated dive computers - so good if you want your Apple Watch to also be your dive computer - that’s all.

 

[brsnow]

Lol… the “genius” kids at the Apple store? You cannot talk to the actual manufacturer or project engineer like you can at Shearwater - sorry, but not even remotely on the same level at Apple or at Huish.

They have both been very helpful for me. I haven’t had issues with either company. I hope my shearwater perdix 2 last as long as my Apple laptops phone, watch have.

 

[brsnow]

How is it a big deal for the diving world? It’s only a big deal for an Apple diehard who wants an all-in-one device and doesn’t need AI or want to dive below 40m. I suspect that is not a huge market.

Beyond that, Apple has not introduced anything new/meaningful here vs the dedicated dive computers - so good if you want your Apple Watch to also be your dive computer - that’s all.

I think one month and one week subscriptions will be big for rec divers. This is geared towards active lifestyles. They are targeting the same people the allow Colorado to have a thriving dive community and economy with no water

 

[Nemrod]

How is it a big deal for the diving world? It’s only a big deal for an Apple diehard who wants an all-in-one device and doesn’t need AI or want to dive below 40m. I suspect that is not a huge market.

Beyond that, Apple has not introduced anything new/meaningful here vs the dedicated dive computers - so good if you want your Apple Watch to also be your dive computer - that’s all.

Nobody "needs" AI, well, maybe, but I do not need it or even want it. I think your description otherwise is accurate except that it describes probably 90% of the recreational diver market. We forget this is a SCUBA enthusiast board and we are not typical. Most divers rent gear, go on one or two trips a year if that and could care less about AI but love their Apple watch.

Me, I think I will stick with my dial compass, mechanical spg and a dedicated non-AI dive computer and a Citizen or Seiko watch. I do not think this Apple watch is intended to be a one and done dive computer for serious enthusiast or tech level divers. It could also serve as backup to a primary dive computer for recreational dives.

 

[Joneill]

Nobody "needs" AI, well, maybe, but I do not need it or even want it. I think your description otherwise is accurate except that it describes probably 90% of the recreational diver market. We forget this is a SCUBA enthusiast board and we are not typical. Most divers rent gear, go on one or two trips a year if that and could care less about AI but love their Apple watch.

Me, I think I will stick with my dial compass, mechanical spg and a dedicated non-AI dive computer and a Citizen or Seiko watch. I do not think this Apple watch is intended to be a one and done dive computer for serious enthusiast or tech level divers. It could also serve as backup to a primary dive computer for recreational dives.

Well… I need AI as I don’t want a dangly SPG ( had 2 fail on me as well) and I like to auto record my start and end pressure in my log. So no AI would make the Apple offering a non-starter for me even If I had interest in an all-in-one (I don’t).

 

[Sebs]

As an avid hater of all things Apple, this watch is great because it'll compete with garmin and I would like to buy on of those. Hopefully this announcement will lead to some price cuts of the mk2s.

 

[azstinger11]

How is it a big deal for the diving world? It’s only a big deal for an Apple diehard who wants an all-in-one device and doesn’t need AI or want to dive below 40m. I suspect that is not a huge market.

Beyond that, Apple has not introduced anything new/meaningful here vs the dedicated dive computers - so good if you want your Apple Watch to also be your dive computer - that’s all.

I would say infrequent divers that stay above 40m and don't give a hoot about AI is probably the single largest scuba market there is. So in that regard Apple is entering the single biggest part of the market. I really don't think many people will buy this as a dive watch, I think a ton of people will buy the apps and use them for the few weeks a year they dive, but that diving wasn't why the primary reason they bought the watch. So I do think its pretty disruptive to low/middle tier offerings, the high end stuff is safe but this wasn't meant to compete with them anyways.

 

[doctormike]

The original post where I mentioned "colossal failure" referred to switching to social media. Instagram fits that definition.

Sorry, misunderstood!

Can you point me to any headphones that use a transmission protocol compatible with underwater use?

Of course not! I have no idea how headphones work. I dig out earwax for a living. But I'm pretty sure that if there is a market for people listening to music with this watch, the least difficult part would be figuring out how to make that work. Like I say, we are already using some form of RF transmission with WAI dive computers. Right now, to listen to music on a dive, our boat captain sticks a speaker in the water and we can rock on at 100 feet. Maybe there is a way of just having the speaker play enough sound energy for you to hear it without electronics? I don't know. But if you told someone in 2007 what a 2022 iPhone could do, they probably would have had a lot of reasons why none of that would work!

It might, otherwise you are scrolling through thousands of fish, on a wheel. I don't think that would be appropriate during a dive. But, I guess you can if you want. Need to load the full database prior to the dive, though.

Why scroll? Right now, If I take my iPhone and take a pic of a plant, it will tell me what plant it is. No intrinsic reason why that wouldn't work underwater with fish. Maybe the next generation will have a camera, but until then there are things like this...

I have no problem whatsoever with switching to compass. Navigation is an important part of diving.

For the other options you mentioned. I can see a need for some of them, but I don't see Apple going down that path. So, some may be valid, but it's probably moot at this point. Maybe an option for Oceanic++ down the road to incorporate those niche features, but I don't think we'll see it anytime soon unless there is strong enough demand.

See, that's the thing about a company like Apple doing the heavy hardware lifting by producing this device. They don't have to come up with all of the other innovation. They just provide the infrastructure. Many of the actual features are provided by thousands of other developers, ranging from one person in a garage to a big software company. That's a lot of distributed brain power...

Again, I used the term colossal failure in response to the poster referencing switching to social media, which is useless during a dive. I see no problem with switching through screens that are diving related during a dive. As the primary function of the AW Ultra during a dive is dive computer function, that shouldn't be pushed to the background or shut off entirely during the dive.

See, I would do the reverse. I wouldn't use it as a DC, would rather have a standalone unit for that for the reasons I outlined upthread. But I would like to have a smart device with me on a dive, for much of the same reason why I'm happy to have one with me right now...

 

[Hatul]

One of the pluses I can see for this is being able to mark the location of the dive site (albeit on the surface) with GPS to make it easy to find the site again.

 

[BoltSnap]

The Sahara becomes an ocean of chocolate and I buy a Shearwater computer before I'd buy a MacIntrash anything.