Dan Frommer on Google’s smart watch demo at I/O:
While it’s impressive how small today’s computers can get, Google and its partners have still failed to demonstrate truly compelling use cases—let alone “rich user experiences”—that will create a mass market for $200+ smartwatches. In almost every example during Singleton’s presentation, simply accessing a smartphone—an activity Google says its one billion Android users already do an average of 125 times a day—seems like it would be a more capable and comfortable solution. (And there’s no either/or option here—today’s smartwatches must be paired to a phone in the vicinity to access the internet.)
Never mind the watches themselves, which seem awkwardly large, must be charged daily, don’t handle sunlight very well, and simply aren’t cool.
This last bit, “simply aren’t cool” says a lot. It’s hard to master cool, hard to create cool. Apple may not always get it right, but their commitment to a cool design aesthetic runs very deep.
You made me rewatch the D11 interview with Tim Cook. To quote him: “There’s nothing that’s going to convince a kid who has never worn glasses or a band or a watch, to wear one. There’s lots of things to solve in this space, but it is an area that is ripe to explore and get excited about. It is another very key branch of the Post-PC tree.”
It’s not only about cool aesthetic design, it’s about what is solves and more importantly, how it solves it.
if it doesnt do it in a cool way, a watch/wearable will fail. this isnt just computing, this is stuff you wear in public.
That’s why everyone cheered for the Moto 360 when they announced they’d get one. It is clearly the best looking device.
I ordered the Gear Live to start testing but my daily will be the 360, no doubt.
“You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.” – Steve Jobs
Exactly.
It doesn’t really matter what your phone looks like because it’s spends so much time in your pocket. Although it does matter what the watch does for you, being practically clothing and visible at all times, looks very important.
All these smart watches right now look like a solution in search of a problem. And designing it to look like a traditional watch seems to me to be form over function. A circular display is perfectly fine for displaying the time but for other information it seems inferior. And you can tell with the Moto 360 because sometimes pieces of text are cut off and there’s a black band at the bottom where the digitizer is.
And they seem to be hoping that software devs can figure out a better use for them.
Current smart watches – simply aren’t cool.
Google Glass – aggressively uncool.
I haven’t seen any cut off text but Google provided great tools to adjust the UI for different watch styles. I also never saw any letterboxing. Care to share links to these issues?
Perfectly stated. And even when Google “dog foods” a product, they don’t seem to understand that the average consumer’s need (and tolerance for complexity) is different than that of the average Google software engineer.
It’s almost as if Google’s engineers design their products. The “customer experience” isn’t as important as features, features, features. Terrible.
Agree. Most people think “design” and “fashion” are the same thing. They’re not. Fashion is how something looks. Design is how something works.
One thing that isn’t cool, for me anyway, is being interrupted by 2nd or 3rd-level notifications. “Coach X signed with team Y for 2015” isn’t something that I need to read while I’m in the middle of a debugging session. Later when I’m not deeply uni-tasking. Not now.
I recently read a review of one of the current smart watches and the reviewer said it added considerable stress to his day. For no good reason. It would buzz every time he got an email, a text, whenever his favorite team scored, etc. For me, an important smart phone “feature” is the ability put it in your pocket and ignore it when you need to uni-task.
Your device should work for you. You should never be a slave to your device. And a wrist-top “second screen” smart watch seems to be the worst of two worlds: it is potentially highly distracting and it has precious little value-add. Any wrist-top device that Apple ships will need to go far beyond being just a “second screen and remote control” for iPhone.
Just change your settings: http://www.androidcentral.com/how-set-your-android-wear-watch.
But then won’t you miss notifications, and have to check your both your phone and watch?
You can just turn off specific apps if one is noisier than another or have alerts on the phone instead of the watch or vice versa or both.
Point: you have control.
http://smartwatchchic.tumblr.com/
I got your point about control. My point is, if you switch things off on the watch, you’ll end up having to check the phone anyway, so then what’s the point of even having the watch?
At the current incarnation, I can’t see much use for any of these watches.
Health monitoring.
Google Now (search, maps, etc).
I’ve shown 360 (which is prettier than the other bricks) to ~20 different women of different ages and backgrounds. Not one of them would be caught dead wearing it.
http://37.media.tumblr.com/0f221c1e4d4b0a6d6e0df0b8e5b20596/tumblr_n2nyw2t0FM1qz4rlzo1_500.jpg
OK, I’ll stop now. Something about shooting fish in barrels.
Show them Glass.
😉
LMBO!
Good views on a small wrist. [edit: meaning it shows us how big it actually is on the wrist not that it looks good on small wrists]
This is expected though. First runs at products are always too big/thick. When the tech allows it, we’ll see a smaller version.
Until then…guess we’re stuck with mini-poptarts on our wrist. 🙂
Let’s ask someone who avoids wearing glasses to put something on their face that’s dorkier than an asthma inhaler at a Segway drag race.
Imagine someone tries to sell you a wristwatch that only tells the time if you also carry a pocket watch.
That’s essentially what most current and imagined wrist-wearables are offering. The market doesn’t know whether to die laughing, or just run away.
But what if the wearable didn’t try to be a poor dinky-size copy of what wonderful tiny computer with great display.you already have in your pocket, or nearby.
Instead the wearable would do stuff only a device permanently strapped to your body can do: report intimately on what’s happening to that body.
It could report to your phone, iTouch, iPad, Mac or Apple TV, all with screens a wrist can never match. Or it can use a wireless connection of its own in emergency situations to appeal to 9-1-1 or other potential helpers.
It can act on its own in emergencies because it has no power-sucking display of its own. It doesn’t need one because it is able to hand-off visuals to much better screens.
A wristwatch that can operate alone, but is made much better by the faces of linked pocket watches, bedside and grandfather clocks, and even Big Ben.
Goodbye to the urge to die laughing, or run away.
[whispering] psst…it was a joke.
Hey John, part of what bothers me about the search / maps argument for a smart watch is this:
If I save 2 seconds by initiating a search on my wrist instead of pulling out my phone, how much time to I then lose by having to try and scroll through / clarify / scan the results on a tiny screen or wait for a computer voice to read them to me?
It really seems like a tiny subset of activities that are better end-to-end when done on a watch instead of a smartphone.
I think it has been proven that you CAN do some sort of search / map functionality on a smart watch now. What hasn’t been shown at all is that doing those things on a watch is better at all than doing them on a phone / tablet. If it isn’t better, then why do it at all? Just to show “it can be done”? That’s the problem with Glass and Android Wear in my opinion, just because it can be done and that’s neat doesn’t mean it does anything better.
I have yet to test it but if it is as fast as Google Now on my phone, 2 seconds would never happen. Google sends audio data on the fly, like Siri will do in iOS 8, so results are almost instantaneous for voice recognition.
As for searching and scanning, I prob wouldn’t do something like that on my watch aside from a small/targeted search [ie – searching for closest _____ location vs a general info search].
Very true on proving whether it is better or not. I think real-world use [coming this month as watches start shipping this week] will truly show us whether it is novelty, annoying or really a better experience.
I’ll give some leeway on v1 of Wear and the “upcoming” iWatch since v1 of is usually more novelty/hype than need. The only thing I know for sure it will help w/ is not reading notifications constantly on my phone and maps while driving with the added plus of heart monitoring [which I like the idea of].
Fair points! I guess we are really only seeing the beginning of wearables, not a culmination.
For the record – the 2 seconds to search on the phone vs. the watch was just referring to the time needed to pull the phone out of my pocket vs. holding up my wrist. As far as I can tell, those 2 seconds, when they really are saved, is ultimately the only value addition of a smart watch over just a smart phone right now (aside from the occasional cases when you’re holding something with both hands and can’t pull out the phone at all).
I do wonder if Android Wear will shift in priorities or presentation after the iWatch is released if Apple makes a significantly different value proposition or use case.
Somehow, I don’t feel like Android Wear in its current incarnation ultimately changes the game enough for 99% of people to need one of these smart watches. My guess is that Apple will make a better case for mainstream adoption and solve more problems better. At that point, I think Android Wear will have to change to keep up, and we will look back at how it exists now and feel that many were probably too charitable with their plaudits.
I hear you on the 2 seconds. It becomes less of a big deal for me because I have a Moto X and can speak to it without hands. I question how useful the watch will be but I’m a sucker for new stuff so the Gear Live is on order. LOL.
Oh I’m pretty sure Wear will continue along the “Android” path vs mimicking Apple’s offering aside from basic/expected features, namely along the health monitoring side. My expectation is Apple’s offering will dwarf Wear on the health side. That, IMHO, is the biggest value prop they could offer since Siri isn’t as powerful as Google Now, in terms of giving you information before you ask.
But…you’re right. If Apple does something seriously “catchy” and changes the game, yet again, Google better fast follow. lol. If not, us Android geeks will be rocking our poptart slabs on our wrists trying to hold on to the dream! LOL
Ha ha! I guess only time will tell. Either way, it will be fun to see how it plays out. Who needs World Cup when the epic Apple vs. Google matchup is always on? 🙂
For real. It should be a reality show. 🙂
For a reference point in this discussion, here is a review: http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/30/5856846/android-wear-review-the-everything-inbox. I think they nailed it: the future is bright but current devices are just ok.
I think this http://www.displayblog.com/2014/06/27/moto-360-fatally-flawed/ is the “black band at the bottom” rogifan is referring to.
Ahh…gotcha. Thx. I thought he meant letterboxing.
I still haven’t seen any text get snipped though.