9to5mac:

Here are the Apple Watch dimensions:

• 38 mm model: 38.6 x 33.3 x 10.5 mm
• 42 mm model: 42 x 35.9 x 10.5 mm

And here are some of the dimensions of popular Android Wear devices:

• Asus ZenWatch: 51 x 39.9 x 7.9 ~ 9.4 mm
• LG G Watch R: 53.6 x 46.4 x 9.7 mm
• Moto 360: 46 x 46 x 11.5 mm
• LG G Watch: 46.5 x 37.9 x 9.95 mm
• Sony SmartWatch 3: 51 x 36 x 10 mm
• Samsung Gear Live: 56.4 x 37.9 x 8.9 mm
• Huawei Watch: 42 x 42 x 11.3 mm

Since we're just beginning the Smartwatch 2.0 era and we're waiting to see if smartwatches will gain traction with the mainstream consumer, there are two important questions to ask:

• How many women will wear a smartwatch?
• How many women will pay to wear a smartwatch?

If the answer to the first question isn't favorable (at least a few million), there's no point in even asking about the second one.

So when I look at the dimensions of these Android Wear 1.0 watches, the question comes up: how many women will wear a masculine-looking gadget on their wrist that is over 46 mm?

Apple, on the other hand, has designed a watch in a size suitable for women. Now, I'm not saying that all women will buy an Apple Watch, but I bet there will be a hell of a lot more women in the Apple Watch corner than the Android Wear corner.

Non-Techie Girl #1:

That changes the game for messaging I think for really young people. And it's right on my wrist. It's so easy, I love it!

Non-Techie Girl #2:

If I'm at a party and a guy is being super creepy, I could just double-tap it, that will be like, "Come save me, right now! Rescue me!"

Girl code taken to the next level.

As I've said before, I really do believe Digital Touch is an underrated feature that will become a fan favorite. Something like how front-facing cameras on phones were never considered revolutionary, yet people LOVE selfies and it's become a big part of our culture.

While I don't think people will buy an Apple Watch for Digital Touch, I do see people falling in love with it once they start using it.

And this won't be a feature that people will use with all their friends. Rather, it will be used with their closest friends, which is actually even more powerful.

(Note to the haters: this BuzzFeed video was NOT paid for by Apple)

Matthew Panzarino:

People that have worn the Watch say that they take their phones out of their pockets far, far less than they used to. A simple tap to reply or glance on the wrist or dictation is a massively different interaction model than pulling out an iPhone, unlocking it and being pulled into its merciless vortex of attention suck.

One user told me that they nearly “stopped” using their phone during the day; they used to have it out and now they don’t, period. That’s insane when you think about how much the blue glow of smartphone screens has dominated our social interactions over the past decade.

This is exactly what I've experienced since getting my Pebble smartwatch last year. It's helped me greatly in getting me to stop fiddling with my phone when I'm out with friends while still allowing me to stay on top of urgent notifications, usually from my boss.

It really doesn't seem like much, but the time you save by not having to whip out your smartphone every time you get a notification really starts to add up. Being able to stay on top of your notifications with a half-second glance has done wonders for allowing me to live more in the moment instead of behind my iPhone.

This time and attention-saving solution is definitely not the most sexiest feature to market, but it's something that everyone will benefit from once they actually experience it.

This. Exactly this. But built into the Apple Watch.

When Apple first announced communication as one of Apple Watch's three tent pole features, it sounded gimmicky to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw beauty in how well it humanizes technology.

This isn't a feature that will wow you when you read about it. This isn't something that will jump out at you when you read tech specs or feature lists. Rather, this is the kind of feature that you may very well fall in love with once you actually experience it. This is about making an emotional connection.

John Gruber:

Further, I don’t think any of the stainless steel bands will be available for retail purchase. They’ll sell sport bands, which you’ll be able to use on any Apple Watch, but I don’t think any of the nicer bands will be available for retail purchase. Don’t hold your breath for a space black Link Bracelet to put on your $349 Sport model. The nicer bands aren’t accessories that Apple hopes you’ll tack onto your purchase; they’re signifiers of how much you paid for your stainless steel or gold Apple Watch. [emphasis mine]

Agree. This reminds me of how Rolex has two bracelets for their timepieces — Jubilee and President. Because Rolexes can come in three very similar-looking metals — stainless steel, white gold, and platinum — Rolex offers the President bracelet for only white gold and platinum. So when you see a Rolex with a President band, you'll know the wearer paid for more than a stainless steel Rolex.

It's great to see a smartwatch-maker finally thinking fashion-first, not technology-first.

This is exactly what I envision Apple will do with the iPhone. The iPhone matures enough to replace your PC and then you just wirelessly sling the interface to a variety of "dumb screens," whether it be a tablet-sized screen, a laptop-sized screen with a keyboard, a desktop monitor with keyboard & mouse, a TV, or even a car center console.

Then years down the line, the Apple Watch — or another computing device that is always on you — replaces the iPhone as the centerpiece of your digital life.

As for this Neptune Duo? It demos really well but A) it's too masculine-geeky for mainstream, and B) it'll be severals years until the technology is good & cheap enough to make this idea into something more meaningful.

Kit Eaton:

Fans are happy because 19 hours of “mixed” use, with the watch mainly on standby and in typical-to-heavy use for only about 2.5 to 3.5 hours a day is actually quite generous—it means a nightly charge during a typical 8-hours of bed time is going to be more than enough. [...]

19 hours sounds very reasonable. Picture yourself looking at and interacting with your watch for 2–3 seconds at a time as you read notifications, with the occasional 10–20 seconds used to respond to something like a tweet or text message. Add in less frequent longer interactions lasting a few minutes (like making a phone call or playing a game—even though we don’t know exactly how much game play Apple will ultimately allow in watch apps) and then that 3-hour “heavy” use window looks quite generous. You wouldn’t want to stare at such a small screen for much longer each day anyway.

I've written before how the Apple Watch's battery life is a top priority. I still believe it is, but it will take a few generations before it'll be what Apple really wants it to be.

Until then, as Kit speculates, maybe 19 hours of "mixed usage" won't be that bad. I can relate to Kit's assertion that we won't be actively fiddling with our smart watches for long periods of time. As a Pebble owner, I've played with a few Pebble apps and found I fucking can't stand holding my wrist up to my face longer than 5 seconds at a time. In those longer-than-5-seconds situations, whipping out my smartphone is just way more practical.

That said, I'm curious to see how apps will mature on smartwatches. Taking a smartphone app and shrinking it down to wrist-size is not going to cut it. App developers will really have to embrace the idea of glanceable and passive user interfaces if they want to make something revolutionary.

In response to reports of TAG Heuer looking into selling smartwatches, Matt Richman writes:

TAG Heuer’s smartwatch won’t sell. There’s no market for it.

Apple Watch requires pairing with an iPhone, and TAG’s smartwatch will need to pair with a smartphone to even have a chance of being as feature-rich as Apple Watch.

Apple isn’t going to re-engineer iOS for TAG’s benefit, so TAG’s smartwatch won’t pair with an iPhone the way Apple Watch does.

In order to have even stand a chance of being as feature-rich as Apple Watch, then, TAG’s smartwatch will have to pair with an Android phone. However, TAG wearers aren’t Android users. Rich people buy TAG watches, but rich people don’t buy Android phones.

I didn't even think about that. But another thought: how luxurious will Android Wear ever get?

If Android Wear makers don't go for luxury, they probably won't be very fashionable, which means we'll just be seeing more of what we already see right now — uber geeky watches that are too big and/or too masculine for the common female shopper.

If Android Wear goes for luxury, then, as Matt has pointed out, Android Wear makers would be trying to sell luxury smartwatches to a customer base that doesn't really appreciate luxury products.

Ben Bajarin on two possible scenarios for the upcoming smart watch market.

Scenario #1:

Apple had a near monopoly on the iPod/MP3 market. We can see a similar scenario playing out where Apple effectively “iPods” the smart watch category, maintaining dominant share over the next five to seven years. While the early success of the iPod was driven by Apple releasing iTunes for Windows, we don’t see the need for Apple to support other platforms in order to hold sway over the smart watch category. Apple’s existing iPhone customer base is large enough to keep it the foremost smart watch vendor and their smart watch platform as the reigning one in the smart watch category.

Scenario #2:

Another possible scenario is the smart watch category shapes up very much like the smart phone category. Apple succeeds at their goal to acquire the top 20% of the market and rake in the majority of the profits. While Android Wear, or another third party licensable smart watch OS, provides the software platform to the vast majority of hardware companies making smart watches.

In this scenario, the vast majority of Chinese and Hong Kong produced smart watches adopt Android Wear (or something else) and flood the market with very low cost smart watches. Also in this scenario, Swiss watch makers competing in the sub $1000 watch market start making smart watches because Apple Watch cannibalized nearly all the sales of Swiss-made watches in that price range.

I think Apple Watch will take 3-4 years to become a mainstream hit, but I don't think it'll be as huge as the iPod because it's currently designed to only work with iPhones. (Maybe in a decade we'll see Apple Watch mature into a legit standalone device, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

My big question is: will Android Wear ever appeal to enough women to become mainstream? I just can't imagine women buying into low-cost smartwatches. Well, maybe fitness bands. But most mainstream women don't wear fitness bands all day.

Either way, I'm bullish on smartwatches as a category and I'm bullish on Apple becoming the leader. Recruiting and convincing all of the right people in fashion, fitness, and medical industries will make all the difference.

Jeremy Horwitz, 9to5mac:

Where will the Apple Watch fit in Apple’s history? Today alone, we’ve seen predictions ranging from “2015 is the year of the Apple Watch” and “could change the way people live” to a somber prediction that it won’t be “the homerun product that iPod, iPhone, and iPad have been.” Similar opinions have been circulating for months.

After reading both dire and overenthusiastic predictions, as well as measuring demand several months out from the release, my belief is somewhere in the middle: the Apple Watch will do better in its first year than the first-generation Apple TV, falling somewhere between the first-generation iPhone (6.1 million units, below Apple’s target of 10 million) and the original iPad (14.8 million units, wildly surpassing most estimates). The iPhone is huge now, but it wasn’t a “gigantic hit” in its first year, while the iPad roared out of the gate and has stayed pretty strong since then. Below, I’ll explain why I think the Apple Watch will wind up between them.

I think the Apple Watch will be a slow starter for the first three years, and then catch fire in its fourth year, much like the iPhone 4.

As for the competition? They won't come anywhere close until they realize they have to think fashion-first like the Apple Watch, not gadget-first.