There really isn't anything here that would have me wanting to get one. I feel this is a preemptive me too device with no real product vision. Well, other than "we really need to get a watch out before Apple so we can say they copied us".
There isn't anything about any smart-watch that would have me wanting to get one. Apple's is going to be equally useless.
The ridiculous part is the price-point. People who spend $300 on a watch, want something that looks nice. They don't want to spend $300 to strap a smart-phone to their wrist, when they already have one in their pockets.
I'm glad I wasn't the only feeling this. It seems almost a foregone conclusion to tech "pundits" that watches are going to be the salvation for Apple's iPhone fatigue. I just don't get it, the biggest use case is usually "your smart phone is in your pocket, now you won't have to get it out". The only time my smartphone is't already visible is when I am walking or eating dinner (and most of my friends continue to put their smartphones out on the table when eating out).
Until some wearable device can actually replace a smartphone instead of complement it, I think you're right. Not many people want to carry yet another device, so you've got to have a pretty awesome and broadly appealing use case to convince them to do so. I just don't see it with the Gear (or the Glass for that matter).
I don't think that Apple will release a wrist device until there is a good use case for it and curved glass is inexpensive enough to produce in large quantities.
Here's the problem though, a smartphone is a computer, there simply isn't anything that you can't program it to do, so at best, the smart-watch is going to replicate the functionality of a device that we already own.
Function follows form, or vice versa. I'm not saying I know what need a wrist computer would solve that a smartphone doesn't, but these needs could exist. Arm motion tracking? Pocket free computing?
I could be wrong; Apple might have a surprise in store for us. On the other hand I could be right, and the iWatch could become a billion-dollar in spite of that. Only time will tell for sure.
Tablets took off because the screen size is so much better for consuming content and getting certain types of work done.
The usefulness of tablets seemed obvious to me and many others before they became popular. I don't see an obvious use-case for smart-watches, unless they are extremely affordable. $300 is more than twice what I would pay for a fully-featured watch, and that's if there is a killer feature that justifies their existence.
And, I'm thinking, do we really need to take a step backwards again with the camera? Smartphones are really just now catching up in photo quality where cameras were years ago (relatively speaking). Do we really need to go back to 1.9 megapixels, just to say we have a camera strapped to our wrists?
Across the board, it just seems like an unnecessary, underpowered smartphone duplicate, when smartphones are already comfortable for most.
The fitness application is the biggest I see for the watch, and of course, better dedicated watches already exist for that.
> "Smartphones are really just now catching up in photo quality where cameras were years ago"
I disagree. Smartphones aren't even close to catching up in photo quality to where cameras were years ago. Cheapo point and shoot (film!) cameras from the 90s can run circles around the image quality being produced by modern smartphones.
Smartphone pictures are grainy, frequently out of focus, noisy as shit, and either too dark or burning with the brightness of Krypton's sun. They're terrible. The crappy Panasonic film point and shoot my family had in the early 90s made better pictures than this without any fancy manual controls or knobs.
But it doesn't seem like it matters. People don't really care about how good their photos look, but rather that the photo exists and is being shared. Smartphones didn't win the camera game because they were better cameras (in fact, they are almost always atrocious, terrible cameras), they won because they were handy and way easier for spontaneous, off the cuff shots.
I'm not a fan of this watch myself, but IMO the camera is fine.
Side note: "going back" to 1.9 megapixels might just mean better pictures. The megapixel race in smartphone cameras has gotten pretty ridiculous. You are just getting more pixels full of noise, discoloration, and horrendous image quality. The bottleneck in image quality isn't resolution, it's sensor tech and lens quality - neither of which has made it into smartphone advertisements for a long, long time.
>Smartphones aren't even close to catching up in photo quality to where cameras were years ago
Yeah, I was being generous. Phones have made great strides though and the better ones have gotten to a much more acceptable quality. I don't expect SLR quality, but I'm not ready to move backwards either.
I agree that the megapixel wars are ridiculous and that ultimate quality clearly boils down to much more than that single metric. OTOH, I disagree that the 1.9 move will produce better pics, though I don't disagree that it's possible. It's just that you'll still have the same cheap sensor and lens tech, only now paired with lower resolution.
I read that the Sony SmartWatch also supports NFC. It would be interesting to see if a standalone smartwatch app could support NFC building entry (like a replacement for your company badge). It'd be a much nicer form factor and I'd be significantly less likely to forget it at home or at my desk.
Though it's worth noting, with August and Lockitron keyless entry systems being shipped this year, I wonder if the same can't also be accomplished with the existing BLE implementation by Pebble/others
love my pebble - wish it wasn't as 'clunky', but it's exactly what a smartwatch should be - an accessory for my powerful smartphone, making my smartphone experience better. However, it recently died and i'm finding that pebble support is almost as bad as google support.
It is really surprising how Pebble hit almost all the right spots [ form factor, multi-day battery, screen readability, standard watch strap, hardware buttons, SDK ]. Sure there is room for improvement but we've now seen three big tech companies ( Sony, Samsung and Qualcomm) bringing in smartwatches and none of them got close to Pebble.
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[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 48.1 ms ] threadThe ridiculous part is the price-point. People who spend $300 on a watch, want something that looks nice. They don't want to spend $300 to strap a smart-phone to their wrist, when they already have one in their pockets.
The usefulness of tablets seemed obvious to me and many others before they became popular. I don't see an obvious use-case for smart-watches, unless they are extremely affordable. $300 is more than twice what I would pay for a fully-featured watch, and that's if there is a killer feature that justifies their existence.
And, I'm thinking, do we really need to take a step backwards again with the camera? Smartphones are really just now catching up in photo quality where cameras were years ago (relatively speaking). Do we really need to go back to 1.9 megapixels, just to say we have a camera strapped to our wrists?
Across the board, it just seems like an unnecessary, underpowered smartphone duplicate, when smartphones are already comfortable for most.
The fitness application is the biggest I see for the watch, and of course, better dedicated watches already exist for that.
Pass.
I disagree. Smartphones aren't even close to catching up in photo quality to where cameras were years ago. Cheapo point and shoot (film!) cameras from the 90s can run circles around the image quality being produced by modern smartphones.
Smartphone pictures are grainy, frequently out of focus, noisy as shit, and either too dark or burning with the brightness of Krypton's sun. They're terrible. The crappy Panasonic film point and shoot my family had in the early 90s made better pictures than this without any fancy manual controls or knobs.
But it doesn't seem like it matters. People don't really care about how good their photos look, but rather that the photo exists and is being shared. Smartphones didn't win the camera game because they were better cameras (in fact, they are almost always atrocious, terrible cameras), they won because they were handy and way easier for spontaneous, off the cuff shots.
I'm not a fan of this watch myself, but IMO the camera is fine.
Side note: "going back" to 1.9 megapixels might just mean better pictures. The megapixel race in smartphone cameras has gotten pretty ridiculous. You are just getting more pixels full of noise, discoloration, and horrendous image quality. The bottleneck in image quality isn't resolution, it's sensor tech and lens quality - neither of which has made it into smartphone advertisements for a long, long time.
Yeah, I was being generous. Phones have made great strides though and the better ones have gotten to a much more acceptable quality. I don't expect SLR quality, but I'm not ready to move backwards either.
I agree that the megapixel wars are ridiculous and that ultimate quality clearly boils down to much more than that single metric. OTOH, I disagree that the 1.9 move will produce better pics, though I don't disagree that it's possible. It's just that you'll still have the same cheap sensor and lens tech, only now paired with lower resolution.
My bet is that it's a solid step backwards.
However, Bluetooth and a monochrome LCD would get the job done just fine.
Though it's worth noting, with August and Lockitron keyless entry systems being shipped this year, I wonder if the same can't also be accomplished with the existing BLE implementation by Pebble/others