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Microsoft Gearing Up To Release a Smartwatch of Its Own
SmartAboutThings writes The smartwatch market is still in its nascent form, but with Apple releasing its AppleWatch in early 2015, things are going to change. And Microsoft wants to make sure it's not late to the party, as it has been so many times in the past. That's why it plans on releasing its own smartwatch, which would be the first new category under CEO Nadella. The device could get launched with two specific features that could make it stand apart from other similar devices — much better battery life and cross-platform support for iOS and Android users. A release before this year's holiday season is in the cards, with no details on the pricing nor availability. (Also at Reuters and The Inquirer.)
I bet it's called the X-Watch, has an x86 CPU and tries to cram the regular version of Windows into a 2" display with a tiny cursor controlled by a Kinect camera you wear on your head via the included X-BaseballCap.
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Microsoft supports Outlook on Android and IOS. OneDrive works on IOS, Android, Windows and OS/X
Skype works on just about all platforms.
I guess Microsoft being number 3 in the mobile space makes them support more platforms.
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Can't be as bad as Apple's.
I'm normally in line with what Apple produces (and potentialy biased too) but their watch is a total let down. Pebble has been doing this for long.
Its only compatible with Microsoft time, requires network access for a license check before you can set or change any functions, and won't be supported in 7 years time.
Wait no more, with this new windows watch you will be able to make pauses during your work and stare a wonderful 8-bit blue.
No need to wait for the 16h to drink your tea, with the windows watch you get random bluescreens every time!
Now available with the new RandomFunctionEx32! It is random 7.9999 times in 8!
Call now, and get a free copy of Windows 10 Fisher price edition!
Did it? Who declared that? They seemed to be selling fairly well when I was in my local EE store yesterday, buying my two Lumia 930s :) At least another 5 Windows Phones were sold while I was being dealt with, and the store had a full display and demo area set aside for Cortana, which was drawing some interest.
I am seeing more and more Windows Phones in the wild these days - yup, anecdotal evidence etc, but its something to be noted none the less.
Since when does MS stuff get categorized as an Android item?
You know what they say: "The plural of Anecdote is not Data". Windows Phone sales decline as share shrinks to just 2.5 percent
Anyone remember Apple in the early-1990s? Coming down off a high of realizing they could charge $6000 for a computer, the company felt invincible and practically started chasing every Next Big Thing that came along. It didn't make a difference whether they had any background in it, whether anyone in their market wanted it, or whether it really was going to be the Next Big Thing - if someone said it was, they were on it!
By the mid-90s it was clear the company was in utter disarray. Teams throughout the company were chasing products as mundane as X.400 servers while at the same time offering the ridiculously designed PowerTalk that, for all purposes, rendered the server useless. Meanwhile no one could be bothered to work on anything as dull as the OS, which became a ridiculous collection of warts on bags. Copeland was the most obvious symptom of this problem, not the end result.
And then came Jobs. First he fires most everyone while personally interviewing new hires. Almost all ongoing projects were cancelled outright, even ones that maybe shouldn't have. Lots of utter trash, like OpenDoc and CyberDog, were thankfully killed, although people still lament HyperCard to this day. In any event, within ONE YEAR the iMac was introduced and by 2000 the Mac lineup was completely overhauled and greatly simplified. THEN they did iPod.
I believe the lesson to be learned here is that any company, no matter how large, can only do so many *new* things well. That number appears to be somewhere around two. You can continue improving existing lines, but radical change requires the entire employee base to pull in the same direction, and maintaining cohesion at that level on too many projects is simply not going to work.
So...
It is really a good time for MS to be doing a watch? The phone and tablet efforts are still completely up in the air. I don't run a multi-billion dollar company (and I'm very happy to say that) but it seems pretty clear that jumping into yet another product category while *every one* of their other categories needs major work seems extreme unwise to me. Hell, Windows 8 is universally detested. That needs to be addressed first.
Unlike Samsung and Apple's watches, which are meant as an accessory / extension for their existing flagship mobile devices, I would think MS would tend to make something a little more stand-alone and not so intimately tied to a specific device or OS. That, IMO, would be a good thing.
Better known as 318230.
You're wrong. Out of all software giants, Microsoft invests the most into research and emerging technologies. Marketing of these technologies is poor tbh, but still doesn't make Microsoft not innovative.
http://research.microsoft.com/
I've heard that Microsoft phones are pretty popular in europe.
Can somebody explain why the links I have included have been modified? Not fair from /. to remove links and direct the traffic to already big outlets. Slashdot is also about diversity and supporting smaller publications, from what I remember.
Are you new to submitting? I've had a bunch make it to the front page... the mods Heavily modify your submission. To the point that, you might as well not even bother spending time typing it up nicely. I got concerned when they not only corrected things but wrote their own diatribes into the submission, made their own mistakes and such, and then attributed the post to me. So I don't submit nearly as much anymore.
If you're going to quote me with "Charliemopps writes" then it should be cut&paste. If you're altering it, Slashdot needs a different statement like "Submitted by..." etc...
At least another 5 Windows Phones were sold while I was being dealt with.
Was this some kind of fire sale to get rid of stock?
I've never been to a "local EE store" on a non-launch day and had that many customers waiting in line to buy the exact same product, of any product.
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Your comment on the crown makes no sense - it's somewhat off-center by a few mm, not really any harder to reach than any other crown. And because the watch is reverseable it can be on either side.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I run the phone program for my company. We currently have around 200 users. I have purchased over 100 devices this year for employees, and not one has selected a windows phone. I offer whatever the current flagship phone is for each brand. Now, its useful to note that this is in the US. Because our germany counter part, has many more windows phones. However, I notice that German's are very anti google.
It sort of worked. But it was too much of a pain but it worked when I tried. Eventually I stopped updating the data and carried around long obsolete phone numbers, addresses etc for a long time. It had super good battery life. Lasted 12 years or so. Then I went back to a simple Casio GShock.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It seems as if an always on OLED display would be the major source of battery drain - and so I don't get why watch makers haven't used e-ink. Come into the market as Timex and not a Rolex. A simplistic device which displayed time and push notifications at a $50 price point seems like it'd quickly dominate the market. Heck, you could even make it an e-ink background to a nice analog watch for that matter (although that'd probably up the total price). This sort of thing wouldn't need the processing power (i.e. more battery drain) as the current giant glossy types either. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I don't get the high-end luxury approach.
Open API would be natural too; especially given a low price point this type of watch could quickly be a community favorite.
Please reboot for the change to take effect...
I don't think the MS mobile products were a failure. Marketing a phone in this industry is an uphill battle especially when the retail stores push Apple as the ideal product and Android as the economy option. I'm not talking out of my ass, I've been to 3 stores while looking to replace my wife's phone and the story was the same at all stores:
- Apple is the best if you can afford it
- Android phone are nice and they cost less
- Windows Phone. I wouldn't sell you that if my life depended on it. Why? Long moment of silence... They have no apps.
So ignorance and pre-made opinion will fail any new player to the market. That's the truth. Ended up getting my wife a Nexus which I find better than any Apple product offered yet... My 2 cents.
MS Watch: Hi there, I see you are trying to find the time.
Human: Yes, please tell me the time.
MS Watch: Would you like that in military time or civilian time?
Human: Sigh...civilian please.
MS Watch: Which time zone are you in?
Human: Hell, I don't know, you figure it out.
MS Watch: Hmmm....you must be in Tuvalu's time zone, are you on the east or the west side?
Human: Egads...just give me the time and tell me what time zone you got it from.
MS Watch: I don't think I like your attitude.
Human: You don't know the time, do you?
MS Watch: Why don't you tell me the time?
Human: ** shoots self in head **
MS Watch: Look, I'm not telling the time to a dead guy, are you really dead?
Human: ** raises a weak hand with gun...the final shot is fired **
MS Watch: Errr....I need a software upgrade and could you please reboot me? Yoo hoo? Yo? Sign...bloody humans!