Ask Slashdot: What Features Belong In a 'Smartwatch'?

Nerval's Lobster writes "If the rumors are true, and Apple is indeed hard at work on a newfangled timepiece (dubbed the 'iWatch'), what unique features could such a device offer a public already overloaded with all sorts of handheld devices? Answer that question, and you're perhaps one step closer to figuring out why Apple — again, if the rumors are true — decided to devote millions of dollars and the precious hours of some very smart people in the effort. This article suggests voice control (via Siri), biometrics, mobile payments, and other possible features, but there must be loads of others that someone could think up."

Comments

Re:Time?

[_xeno_]

Hopefully the ability to accurately tell time. But with the way phones these days work at making calls, I won't hold out much hope.

Funny you should mention it, because the iPhone keeps horrible time. Which is weird, because as I understand it, GPS requires accurate timekeeping, which means that anything with a GPS chip in it can get a very accurate time. I know that my GPS-enabled camera is capable of setting its own time off of GPS.

The iPhone, on the other hand, ignores its own GPS chip in favor - well, who knows. Apple doesn't say. All I know is that the reported iPhone time is generally anywhere from a couple of seconds to over a minute off the time reported from an NTP-synced computer.

If they're planning on making it just be a "smaller iPhone" then it probably really will be a watch that can't keep accurate time.