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The Register reports: "Apple's bad hair day: Watch 'stripped' of health sensors":
Apple has ditched plans to make its new smart watch a health-monitoring device following problems with the technology and regulatory issues, according to reports.
Sources told The Wall Street Journal that some of the features were too complicated, while others would have prompted unwanted regulatory oversight. It said development of its health sensor technology has failed to meet standards, with inconsistency from sensor readings, arising from hairy arms or dry skin.
"Apple also experimented with ways to detect blood pressure or the amount of oxygen in the blood, but the results were inconsistent," said the paper.
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Apple Ditches Health-Monitoring Features from Watch
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Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by K_benzoate on Thursday February 19 2015, @04:17AM
It's a glorified pedometer, like all "smart" watches. I want this product category to fail so badly, because it's just an obvious push to artificially create a new market now that laptops, smart phones, and tablets are fully saturated. The constant drum beat of GROWTH drives these big firms to such madness. It's not good enough just to sell a lot of devices. You have to sell more every year. Your *rate* of growth has to increase every year, too. If you're just doing brisk but steady business investors think you're dead in the water--which creates a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Apple (and Samsung, et al) need a new upgrade treadmill. They've gotten everyone on the 3-4 year laptop/tablet cycle, the 1-2 year phone cycle. There aren't any more humans left to sell to who want and can buy these things, so the only solution is to find another device to sell to the same people.
And it's a glorified pedometer called a "smart" watch. I just wish that, for once, consumers would say enough and reject this idiocy.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:08AM
I think the 3-4 year laptop cycle has been, and is going continue to quickly slow down. We're hitting the point where laptops are about as good as they need to be, baring software mandating hardware upgrades, and there's enough alternatives for that kind of stuff for anyone who doesn't have more money than brains when those mandated upgrades do happen. I'm more pissed off about 1-2 year old peripherals not being usable (ever) with the next (Windows) OS that comes out.
Even my several year old tablet does everything I want it to as well as it did when I got it. Of course, I only really use it for PDFs and ebooks, because it fits in a laptop bag better than equal volume of D&D books would, but it would be more than enough for just about anything else I'm causally aware of on the play store. Only other things that would be "nice" to have in it that you see nowadays would be a cellular radio and maybe a form factor that is more square. I still look at the new stuff and think "shinies". I don't buy it though, just allow myself to be impressed. That's enough for my particular brand of consumerism. I (generally) use hardware until it dies, and I drive my cars until they die. I guess I might be a minority. Really, I'm here, so I must be. I think your "average person" though would actually be somewhere reasonably healthy between the "use it till it dies" crowd and the asshole that immediately rushes out to buy every Apple product the moment it comes out.
I'm actually cautiously optimistic about gadgets that supply some sort of form factor outside of what we already have. It is still just an overglorified pedometer that tells you when the brick in your pocket tells it that you have a text message, but eventually someone's going to actually come up with a significant feature for it that might make it useful. It's at least more compelling than "Buy our new model laptop. It's 'Apple Black and Silver'!" For example, Microsoft AR thing might be interesting if it doesn't turn into vaporware. Might send every last thing it sees back to the mothership and be too damn creepy to consider. Difficult to say without more hard details. I also have an odd fascination with wristwatches and the "wearable" fad going around, so maybe I'm letting it slide on that.
Sigh. I don't know. Maybe I just really WANT you to be wrong though.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Kilo110 on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:35PM
I agree with you regarding the drive for growth. But your disdain and constant use of "glorified pedometer" says more about your lack of imagination than about smart watches.
As someone who has owned multiple pebble watches and an android wear device, I get considerable utility out of these devices and I use them daily. I easily made the transition from an automatic watch to a smart watch and never looked back. This is usually where people ask so what does a smartwatch do that can justify the price when theres a perfectly good phone in your pocket. It's mostly about convenience. You personally might not value convenience, but many people do.
Here are a few uses for me.
1. the pebble is 5atm waterproof. meaning I can use it safely in a shower or pool. I can change music tracks, launch different applications, read incoming texts and emails, and screen phone calls and even answer them on speakerphone if I deem it important enough. I never miss any important messages or calls and I don't need to fumble with my phone with wet hands.
2.the speech-to-text on android wear is really good. I feel comfortable dictating texts and emails using it while driving. Its also surprisingly good at filtering out background noise. I can even be listening to music and it'll still pick apart my voice and accurately
3. different watchfaces provide lot of flexibility. Usually I prefer an analog watchface along with day and date. I have to travel often for work and when I do I switch to a multi timezone watchface where I can have 2 or more times on my watch to quickly see if it's ok to make that call back home or not. During the bitcoin boom a year ago I had a live BTC ticker along with a digital clock as a watchface. There are so many possibilities.
4. I've an android phone and along with the excellent Tasker program I can use the watch to control my home automation devices using preprogrammed button combinations or voice control. It's very convenient.
5. I was at the airport about two weeks ago on a United flight. Google saw the flight confirmation email and automatically grabbed the boarding pass QR code and sent it to my moto 360 watch. I literally waved my hand under a scanner to board the plane at the gate.
6. My mother has lost a lot of her hearing and she used to always miss phone calls. I bought her a pebble and now that her wrist vibrates when someone calls her, she never misses them. She also uses facebook and whatsapp quite a great deal and loves the notifications.
Those are only a handful I know of. I'm sure there are many many more.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @03:28PM
Let me pick that apart for you...
1. the pebble is 5atm waterproof. meaning I can use it safely in a shower or pool. I can change music tracks, launch different applications, read incoming texts and emails, and screen phone calls and even answer them on speakerphone if I deem it important enough. I never miss any important messages or calls and I don't need to fumble with my phone with wet hands.
How freaking hard is it for you to not be connected for the short amount of time you take a shower? Why is your brain rewired to *need* to be able to read incoming texts/e-mails while you are washing yourself?
How important is a message or call really? How often do you get life-or-death-calls (I'm thinking shit like "Dad, they arrested me and you're my one phone call")?
2.the speech-to-text on android wear is really good. I feel comfortable dictating texts and emails using it while driving. Its also surprisingly good at filtering out background noise. I can even be listening to music and it'll still pick apart my voice and accurately
This has nothing to do with wearables.
3. different watchfaces provide lot of flexibility. Usually I prefer an analog watchface along with day and date. I have to travel often for work and when I do I switch to a multi timezone watchface where I can have 2 or more times on my watch to quickly see if it's ok to make that call back home or not. During the bitcoin boom a year ago I had a live BTC ticker along with a digital clock as a watchface. There are so many possibilities.
You have lost the ability to either a) do mental math in order to compute your current 'real' time or your reference time of b) you forgot how to change the time on your wristwatch.
You are dumb!
The BTC ticker... don't even get me started...
4. I've an android phone and along with the excellent Tasker program I can use the watch to control my home automation devices using preprogrammed button combinations or voice control. It's very convenient.
Convenience != good
The same could be done on your phone. Again, why the need to be constantly completely hooked up? Do you sleep in pods filled with goo and have a huge pin stuck in the back of your skull? http://veilofreality.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/neo-wakes-in-matrix-pod.jpg [wordpress.com]
5. I was at the airport about two weeks ago on a United flight. website saw the flight confirmation email and automatically grabbed the boarding pass QR code and sent it to my moto 360 watch. I literally waved my hand under a scanner to board the plane at the gate.
Congratulations, you saved a tree by going paperless and about 5 seconds of your life by pulling out your phone and showing the QR code. You must feel so proud.
6. My mother has lost a lot of her hearing and she used to always miss phone calls. I bought her a pebble and now that her wrist vibrates when someone calls her, she never misses them. She also uses website and whatsapp quite a great deal and loves the notifications.
So now that your mother can pick up the phone, you can yell into yours so she can hear you on the other side, right?
My point is larger than wearables, it stretches over all devices and reaches into the trend of society of being connected 24/7/365.25... What the heck is up with that?
Back in my day, when I got bored... well tough luck... Find something else productive to do. These days if you are bored, you take out your little shiny bobble and stare into the abyss that the internet has become.
FFS, disconnect already!
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:23PM
Try again without the personal insults.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:24PM
No, you deserved them
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:25PM
Nah I didn't.