Unfortunately, analog watches don’t allow me to leave my phone at home when I go for a run and let me listen to music, take phone calls, get directions, track my speed, etc.
Why not just go for a run? You don't need to "get directions" or "track speed"... you're running not driving. If someone calls you when you're out running, call them back when you get home!
I had a Garmin GPS watch for running a decade ago. Of course because of the technology at the time, it was a lot larger. Even back then I used it to track my pace when I was running.
Also heart rate based training isn’t a new concept. Neither is running to music. I’m running much shorter distances now - because age. But the only thing that made running half marathons tolerable was music.
Fair enough. So we have no choice but to buy all these products that deny right to repair, and/or make it difficult to keep for longer than the manufacturer's imposed artificial lifespan.
Let’s say I could easily replace the battery in my old iPhone 4s. What good would it do me when none of the cellular carriers support it?
My Apple Watch 3rd Gen also has a cell phone chip that one day will be obsolete. While the cellular version of the 3rd Gen Watch has 16GB of memory, the non cell version has 8GB and is already struggling with operating system updates.
As far as AirPods, if you have seen the tear down, it’s mostly a huge battery. Throwing away the battery and keeping the rest wouldn’t cut down on ewaste meaningfully even at scale.
Even if I could replace the battery of an x86 Mac easily, why would I want a laptop that sounds like a freight train when I open a few Chrome tabs, gets hot, has horrible battery life and is still slower than an M1 MacBook Air for $999 that beats it on all measures?
But let’s get back to the Garmin GPS watch example. Have you seen how big and bulky those things are compared to an Apple Watch. Do you think I would want to use that in 2022? I had to use a separate chest band to measure my heart rate. Now it’s built into the watch.
How can I measure my heart rate with it while I’m running? How can I do pace training? When I’m walking in a city I don’t want to take my $1200 iPhone out while I’m trying to find directions. I can just glance down at my watch.
