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Motorola Has No Plans For a New Smartwatch (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Lenovo Moto today confirmed that it will not be releasing a new smartwatch for the launch of Android Wear 2.0, due early next year. The company had earlier said it would not be releasing a new smartwatch in 2016, but it is now saying that it doesn't plan to put out a new device timed to the arrival of Google's newest wearable platform, either. Shakil Barkat, head of global product development at Moto, said the company doesn't "see enough pull in the market to put [a new smartwatch] out at this time," though it may revisit the market in the future should technologies for the wrist improve. "Wearables do not have broad enough appeal for us to continue to build on it year after year," Barkat said, and indicated that smartwatches and other wearable devices will not be in Moto's annual device roadmap. Whether or not Moto does jump back into the smartwatch market is still up in the air, but Barkat is leaving the possibility open. "We believe the wrist still has value and there will be a point where they provide value to consumers more than they do today," Barkat said. But it doesn't appear that we'll be getting a new Moto 360 or other smartwatch any time in the near future. Google announced back in September that it would be delaying the launch of Android Wear 2.0 from this fall to next year. LG and Huawei have also confirmed that they would not be releasing new smartwatches until at least next year.
I have been honestly thinking, what are those smart watches used for? If the thing does not show time without pressing button or shaking it, it is useless for keeping sneakily track of remaining time in corporate meetings. And if the device needs to be charged more often than phone, can it be trusted as timekeeper?
I'd be prepared to accept a six monthly charging cycle (still ten times more often than regular watches) but every frig'ing day is ridiculous.
Ah yes, queue the "but my Casio ..." posts that plaster every smart watch thread.
Are you really having that much trouble getting over the word "watch" in the name? It's not a watch. It's a fairly powerful computer that happens to be in a watch form-factor. Do you hear the word "watch" and just shut off your brain after that? It's called a smartWATCH because calling it a "wrist hobblinsnicker" is poor marketing. If the only possible thing you can imagine using a smartwatch for is the same things for which you use your Casio, you are right, buying one would be friggin' ridiculous.
If you don't want a computer on your wrist, that's fine, but making comparisons to your Casio's battery life is about as smart as making a comparison between a calculator and a laptop computer. I mean really, imagine those idiots. A handheld calculator can multiply numbers just as good as that desktop and costs hundreds or THOUSANDS of times less. It NEVER needs to be charged. It fits in my pocket. It doesn't need a full keyboard with all of those useless letter and function keys. It has a built in display saving me hundreds of dollars. The OS NEVER needs upgrading, and it never, ever crashes.