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Five years ago, a collective mania overtook the industry. Nobody could think of a clear reason why consumers needed an expensive "smart" watch when they already had a smartphone in their hand, pocket or bag. What value could it deliver? Even Google didn't seem sure: in its now notorious launch video, a punter used a watch simply to replicate features on their phone. But the industry convinced itself that wearables were another platform, and nobody wanted to be a sad second in this race. So the giants entered the market. Not because they wanted to, but as a hedge. Someone else might take a lead.
As we predicted in 2014, this was a solution looking for a problem. And an expensive one, at that.
Are wearable devices whose OS wakes up only when needed for smart features the answer?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @10:51PM (1 child)
I have the original Apple Watch and it’s definitely sufficiently useful to keep my expensive mechanical watches off my wrist.
The most useful feature is the little what’s next display of the calendar events. It shows the time and place (ie. meeting room) of where and when I need to be next. My phone is always buried in my pocket, and the watch just vibrates and I can look down and see what’s up - like a ‘quick look’ function for calendar, SMS and emails. I don’t try to reply with it (except some yes/no one touch responses), and just pull out the phone if it’s important.
Also handy as a parking timer. ‘Hey Siri, set timer for two hours.” Without looking down.
Probably tracks every movement I make, but not any more than the phone it’s tethered to.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:28AM
Phones have been rooted, and reinstalled, with *exactly* those features that the user wants/needs. Watches? I've not noticed any efforts to root them. As long as you don't care who is tracking your, or why, then it won't matter to you. But there are many of us who refuse to surrender to corporate tracking 24/7.