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Apple Watch Hack Adds a Browser For Your Wrist
TechCrunch reports that the Apple Watch now evidently has an tantalizing, but unofficial, feature: a browser, created by the jailbreak developer known as Comex. "Not great" is their headline-level assessment of what it looks like to use, which can't be too surprising: even a large watch face is still a small screen, by comparison to a laptop, a tablet, or even a phone. Venture Beat's assessment is similar: "As you’d expect, it’s an awkward mess." Making hardware do things it wasn't intended to is still a worthy pursuit, though, and TechCrunch notes: Out of the box, running arbitrary code like this shouldn’t be possible — while a native SDK is inbound, only stuff built with Apple’s somewhat limited WatchKit framework is supposed to run on the device for now. Is this a subtle demonstration of the world’s first jailbroken Apple Watch?
"As you’d expect, it’s an awkward mess."
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I'd like an RSS reader for my Pebble, I can only imagine it being better on an Apple Watch.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I used to browse the web on a Palm Treo with almost the same number of pixels as the Apple Watch has. Tapping on links would suck but it wouldnt be a big deal to spin crown on it to cycle through the clickable areas of the screen. Tie it into the bookmarks on the phone and, while not the most robust thing in the world, you could at least get some light reading in.
I remember people asking about why anybody would use an internet browser on their phone when they could just use their laptop.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Every Apple phone up to this point has been jailbroken and allowed to run third party stuff.
There are no tethered or untethered jailbreak options for the current OS 8.3.
Maybe someone can port a text mode browser like Lynx, Elinks or W3M or something really hardcore, a command-line browser like edbrowse (http://edbrowse.org/). Then we don't have to worry about all the panning and dragging around the small screen.
Zoom in on one section of the page, then pan around the page as the user moves their wrist around (using the gyro to detect motion). It'd be like viewing the webpage through a tiny magnifying glass!
It's funny because they acknowledge that a really cool and fundamental feature
If you see a browser on a watch, they have failed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I used to browse the web on a Palm Treo with almost the same number of pixels as the Apple Watch has.
I didn't have the Treo but I seem to remember the screen being a lot larger, and it also had a keyboard too...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The return of WAP sites.
Are any of them still around?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Indeed, I still don't understand why anyone would want an Apple Watch.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I had a Sony Ericsson J300A phone at one point. It was tiny little thing, but fast for the time. Despite the tiny display, it was fine for catching up on the news and other light browsing tasks.
Of course, back then, having a "mobile site" meant something completely different than it does today. I can see the Apple Watch being fine for mobile web use in 2005.
Required reading for internet skeptics
I hacked my browser to be an Apple Watch.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm building an iPhone app that tells you (on your iPhone screen) what time it is on your Apple Watch.
It's a way to use your phone, so that you don't have to glance at your watch.
It's going to be awesome. Next I'm going to make a way to show you the iPhone alerts on your Apple Watch, on your iPhone.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I wish there is a poll "Do you have or plan to buy this year the Apple Watch v 1.0?" to show a Yes being < 5%.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
up to this point
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
i know lots of companies are trying to merge their technologies until everything ends up being...well, everything! but ive started changing my mindset about all this crap. i was gonna purchase an apple watch - but then realised it was 'good' at the stuff it done, but not great at the specifics? i got a microsoft band ( 3 day battery life on normal use, great health tracking and simple notifications from the phone ) . i got rid of my 16GB Macbook pro ( which i was only using for watching films and browsing the web since i recently upgraded my PC ) and purchased a chromebook with a 14 hour battery life.
i used to love the idea of having devices that could do more and more stuff - but i think theyre losing so much focus that the basics of what SHOULD be great is getting lost.
the only exception i make to this in my life is my phone - as i appreciate all the functions it offers and does them quite well.
Back then you also had a different mobile web design standard.
It tried to stay with strict html/2 features. And was quite limited.
What would be like if you used that device today.
When I first started to use the web, I was at 800*600 at 8 bit display. I used Mosaic or Lynx. I used a slip connection to dial in at 14.4k.
And I had access to the primitive web. Most of it were links to FTP sites.
Today it is a very different web, so saying my old tech worked great 10 years ago doesn't mean it will work well today.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's right .. After a sale and a return of a pay as you go android smart phone my total cost was $65.00 And it's real easy to run a browser on a Moto 360.
http://dilbert.com/strip/1998-...
Indeed, I still don't understand why anyone would want an Apple Watch.
Me either, but if people want them, there they are. And if its a mouth foaming issue against Apple, there will be plenty of Android watches.
Hell, I cant figure why anyone would even want a regular wristwatch.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I remember people asking about why anybody would use an internet browser on their phone when they could just use their laptop.
I have an iphone, but it really isn't all that for browsing, same with Android. I suspect I'm an outlier, because I like big. I've got 2-27 inch screens at home, and will be two 30s next chance I get.
I do often use my phone to tether to my laptop.
Maybe it's presbyopia, I dunno. I do note that some smartphones are getting to the size where people look a little silly holding a tablet to their head. Like something PeeWee Herman would use.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I use the browser on my Android Wear watch regularly to show transit arrival predictions from my website, TransSee. I added a setting to push the header information to be bottom to get it to be easier to read.
there will likely never be a jailbreak of 8.3. 8.4 is coming out in a month or so, and 9 will be coming out in the fall, so 8.3 will likely remain unbeatable. it looks like apple plugged existing holes that enabled past jailbreaks, so the hacker community is starting from scratch. and the cat and mouse game continues...
8.2 was jailbreaked by a Chinese hacker group. why would anybody want to install software on their phone from a Chinese hacker group? makes no sense.
I remember people asking about why anybody would use an internet browser on their phone when they could just use their laptop.
Most people didn't except in the case where they didn't have their laptop with them because it was a crappy user experience, then the iPhone came along and made the experience good. The Apple Watch needs you to have your phone with you for connectivity so I don't think many people are going to prefer browsing on a watch which is a poor experience where you have to scroll through clickable areas and can't type URLs when they can just use their iPhone.
I think reality is going to, again, surprise us.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I think reality is going to, again, surprise us.
I like the optimism but an intuitive smartphone browser solved an actual problem, an Apple Watch browser (even if it's intuitive) still doesn't solve any problem, provide any advantage or improve on any workflow. Scrolling through the clickable areas is how WAP browsing worked on my dumbphone and that is just awful.
I cant figure why anyone would even want a regular wristwatch.
Going out on a limb here, it might be to do with telling the time.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I remember people asking about why anybody would use an internet browser on their phone when they could just use their laptop.
That was back when phones had a two inch screen, and it was an entirely legitimate point.
Internet browsers on a medium to large screened smartphone are usable enough, but they're still frustrating compared to a laptop (or tablet).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I cant figure why anyone would even want a regular wristwatch.
Going out on a limb here, it might be to do with telling the time.
True, but I already am surrounded by devices that tell me what time it is. The car radio display, the office, my iphone, my desktop, my laptop, my tablets, a clock in most of the rooms of my house.
One more device, and one that gets stinky if it's got a leather band, or pinches off the hair on my wrist, Or just sweaty if plastic, has about 0 added value.
Now of course watches are often used as a status symbol. but I think I'll pass on that.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That was back when phones had a two inch screen, and it was an entirely legitimate point.
It was back when PocketPC's were at the peak, and no it wasn't a legitimate point. This was happening at the same time cameras with cell phones were being poo-poo'd because apparently everybody on this site has a good deal more pocket space than the average person.
Personally I don't know whether to attribute this to typical Slashdot contrarianism or if the expense was high enough people were going to have to wait and that was how they kept their envy under control. Probably a mixture of both.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly - "smart watches" aren't particularly for telling time, they are a small display that's visible at a glance for notifications and other information you want easily. For example, my Pebble tells me about my next meeting, including drive time, which is great to be able to easily watch so that I stay on schedule. And it's an activity tracker (running Up software) so I don't need to wear a separate activity tracker band. And it tells me who's calling so that I can decide whether to accept or reject a call w/out pulling my phone out. And check Uber cabs in the area. Think of it as the most valuable 10% of what you can do on a phone, made more convenient so that you don't have to pull your phone out as often.
Nobody dies if they don't have a smart watch, of course, but it does make life easier.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Whereas today the browsing experience on an tablet/smartphone is pretty much on par with what you get on a desktop/laptop.
Right. Stop and think for a minute about why that happened.
No it was because those cameras were of such poor quality as to be almost useless
No it wasn't. The fact even the earliest shittiest cell phone camera was better than not having a camera at all. The logic was that everybody'd start carrying their camera with them at all times. That was flawed logic on day one.
You are trying really hard to evangelize this, so what is the advantage that will attract users
That is a disingenuous assumption of my motives. If I'm evangelizing anything it's objectivity. History has already told you that your assumptions can easily be wrong, this case is no different. Tech gets better, software gets better, and we live in an age where information is being digested to suit your needs. There's no reason to think it won't happen.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
As we have seen information becoming more rich in content and the bandwidth of mobile devices increasing we have seen screen sizes increase to accommodate that richness, not a reduction in the information to fit smaller screens.
This is plainly untrue. Not only do we have the "Reader" mode that digests the information but we've lived in the RSS age for quite a while now. We haven't even started discussing the running of apps designed for the watch. We're well beyond WAP, as you've mentioned later in your post, and it's in a perfect place to create a browsing experience for something like the Apple Watch. Even Samsung has added a wheel to their lineup for the same purpose.
The Apple Watch requires you to carry your iPhone for internet access! Which means in this case you do have the better experience with you right in your pocket!
I bolded the operative part of your statement. To answer an earlier comment you made: Plenty of people made the case that cell phones were a terrible form factor for browsing the net.
Even though that requirement didn't exist for cell phone cameras they still didn't outpace traditional point-and-shoot cameras until their quality was close to parity, we all know this already.
Outpacing anything is not a factor in this conversation. Nobody's telling you to throw your phone away.
Where did I assume your motives? I didn't suggest any motivation whatsoever, in fact I asked what your motives were.
You said I was evangelizing the watch. Your question was built from that premise. Browsing on the watch could turn out to be totally useless. Nothing I've said actually discounts that possibility because I'm saying, instead, that you can't tell that from here. I can invent reasons, but that's incongruous to the point I've been making.
And they have also told us that those assumptions can be right, so the question to you is: why do you believe these assumptions to be wrong?
I don't believe they're wrong, I just don't believe they're right. Now if you're really asking why I'm receptive to the idea it's because I have a Pebble Watch that, in short, is a second monitor for my phone. I have plenty of cases where it's more useful to get information on that display than to remove my phone from my pocket. If you'd like to know more about that I'd be happy to share that info with you.
And I can pose the irrefutable counter-argument that there is no reason to think it will happen...
Lots of people thought that their reasoning for cell phones not having cameras was irrefutable, too. It's not. Just being proven wrong due to lack of foresight is reason enough. The real irrefutable question is: "Do modern smartwatches want to part you from your money?" I'm not being snarky, that's perfectly fine.
So again, what is the advantage that will attract users? Why would somebody use the browser on the watch instead of the browser of the smartphone in their pocket?
You can reach your wrist quicker than dig into your pocket. I get headlines on my Pebble Watch, for example. I'd love to be able to scroll down and finish the story since I'm already there.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Really? That's it? The idea that the inferior watch-based experience requires both your arms makes it already a flawed and unpalatable idea, it's more difficult and, if you're carrying something, less convenient.
Heh. You're the first person I've talked to that complained about smart watches using both hands. Kudos to that. Anyway, this is exactly the benefit the watches bring and a growing number of people like it.
In case you haven't noticed we already have plenty of watches with browsers and it is a massive "do not want" from consumers. RSS headlines? Sure. Reading articles? Nope.
No, we really don't have it, yet. We're still at the vga phone camera stage. As for the massive "do not want' from consumers, you're saying that after Apple sold over a million Apple Watches.
...but if you're going to take the time to read the article associated with the RSS feed then you're going to do the trivial task of taking your phone to do so given the advantages the phone has over the watch.
If all I have to do is scroll a little further, I won't bother getting the phone out.
So your "benefit" is that you don't have to reach into your pocket and you feel that outweighs all the negatives?
All of them? No. A lot of them? Oh, yes. Actually the Pebble Watch has been a great purchase for me, my phone spends a lot more time in my pocket. I want more from it.
I said you were evangelizing the browser-on-watch concept, how do you misinterpret that to me assuming your motives?
For starters: No, I did not evangelize browser-on-watch. There's your misinterpretation right there. What I am telling you about, for the second time, is objectivity. You seriously just said something as stupid as "... watch-based experience requires both your arms makes it already a flawed and unpalatable idea." Why is that stupid? You've never tried it. You don't know... which in and of itself isn't so bad, but you're arguing with somebody who does know. It's not helping you. You've already learned this lesson, but here we are, 2015, and you're doing it again.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)