Smartwatch

The new Withings Activité smart watch is beautiful, unlike many of the other entrants to the market.

The first thing that stands out to me is how clearly different the approach to creating this product must have been. If you take Samsung, LG, or even Pebble (I’ll talk about Motorola in a moment) it is pretty obvious they started with a list of features and built the watch around it. Withings has undoubtedly started with a simple and timeless watch design and added intelligence to it. These two approaches are worlds apart.

Make no mistake, Apple has evaluated, designed, and strongly considered variations of a smart watch, but the tech media is blowing up with absolute certainty that “the iWatch” will be released. It won’t. The is no iWatch. I’m not saying it will never be released, but not in 2014, and likely not for at least a handful of years after that, if ever.

There have been compelling discussions on this. One by Craig Hockenberry at Furbo, and another by Ben Bajarin at Techpinions - both are excellent reads. Craig’s highlights a multitude of serious concerns for entering the wearable space and poses the quintessential question for Apple:

UPDATE #

After giving on on Google Hangouts it seems, they are now live on YouTube.

Everyone I’ve talked to trying to sign into the Moto360 event on Google Hangouts has been met with timeouts and errors, though the participants list suggests some people are able to log in. I’ve tried on 3 devices - iPhone, iPad, and a Windows PC with no luck. I’ve also tried 2 wifi networks and a strong LTE connection on both the iPad and iPhone - no luck.

If we reported on every screen size, material, product, and mold shape that Apple has tried, it would be like drinking from a fire hose. I’m not saying new screen sizes won’t appear in new devices eventually, but let’s be realistic.

• iPad “Pro” - Nope*.
• Larger iPhone - likely in the next 2 years. I would expect an announcement related to vector-izing graphics in the OS to be part of this.
• Smart “Watch” - I don’t see what Apple has to gain here. I think Gruber’s idea of a new iPod with a watch strap is more likely, but even that isn’t something I’d bet on. Once battery technology improves, I think this could change. Right now the batteries needed are far too large for a device worthy of the Apple brand.

*The time frame on the “nope” projection is 2-3 years. Not happening.

I backed the Pebble Kickstarter project on day 3 and was anxious for all 471 days of my wait. There are pros and cons with it, I find myself wearing it for a month or so, then not for the next 3 weeks. Torn in between the two worlds. Plenty of reviews have been written, so I’ll skip that.

I found one shocking side effect of wearing the watch that I had not expected, and it remains one of the largest sticking points for me. It isn’t the Pebble’s fault though.

TechCrunch - The War For Your Wrist

I largely agree here. The smartwatch thing just isn’t there yet. I like my Pebble (I was an early Kickstarter backer) but it isn’t something I can’t live without. It is too thick, iOS is admittedly limited with these types of devices, and the 3rd party app support isn’t what I hoped it would be.  There is hope for the market, but it is going to be a while before this takes off.