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Android Wear Needs More Than a New Name To Fight Apple Watch (cnet.com)
Less than two months before Google I/O, Google has rebranded its Android Wear watch platform to "Wear OS." The recent name change is part of a move to have its watches stand apart from Android, but it could also indicate that Google's smartwatch strategy is about to shift. Google may release a completely new Wear OS focused on the Google Assistant or a Google-branded smartwatch. Scott Stein writes via CNET that Android Wear needs more than a new name to fight the Apple Watch: The Apple Watch took over the top spot in global wearable sales recently, according to IDC, despite the fact that it's only compatible with iPhones. Fitbit just announced the Versa, a promising casual smartwatch that will interface with any iPhone or Android and starts at just $200. The wearable market is growing. But where is Google in that picture? The Fossil Group, maker of many of the Android Wear watch products last year, reported some promising numbers: "In 2017, Fossil Group nearly doubled its wearables business to more than $300 million, including 20 percent of watch sales in Q4," said Greg McKelvey, Fossil's chief strategy and digital officer, as part of Google's Wear OS announcement. So it sounds like Android Wear -- sorry, Wear OS -- is still in the game. But the problem, for me, is that I've never found Android Wear watches to be particularly great. Google relaunched Android Wear over a year ago with new software and added fitness smarts, plus standalone phone functions. But Apple's watch strategy has advanced faster, with better hardware. The Apple Watch S3 can be a phone, now. So can Samsung's Gear S3, which runs on Tizen. Google, meanwhile, stopped adding cellular functions to watches after the lackluster LG Watch Sport last year.
Smart Watches have flopped. I bought a Pebble, but am back to a $30 Casio. Most people wear no watch at all, and have no intent to do so.
They're both irrelevant. Most people just don't care.
Apple takes all the profit, and leaves the fandroids fighting over the scraps. But pat yourselves on the back for that smartphone market share.
Usually Google suffer from poor marketing, and this is part of the issue here. Android Wear, however, is a major part -technical- issues.
I got 2 android wear watches so far. The first was the LG one from launch. It was slow as hell and very buggy at the beginning.
I eventually got a Moto 360 second gen. It was better, but also buggy. Connectivity issues, weird glitches, random battery drains. The stupid flat tire meant none of the watch faces looked good, too.
It got worse though: when they updated to Android Wear 2, a lot of options changed or were hard to find. Worse, now when I get a new phone, because of the requirement to reset the watch to pair, it becomes semi-incompatible with the current version of the phone software. That makes pairing incredibly difficult. If you try enough times it eventually works. Or you can just download an APK of an old version on a sketchy website and have it work for sure (wtf?)
If they could just get the software to work reliably and consistently, they'd have a chance.
better watch design, better User interface, better nfc, better network
Button do something
crown do something
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Why would you go back to a Casio after having used a Pebble? I backed the Time Steel and it's my favorite watch by far.
I love the ability to change watch faces, the always on e-paper display and the 5+ day battery life. If I get a text, a Hipchat message or an email, I can just look down at my wrist instead of fishing my phone out of my pocket and then keying in the passphrase. It sounds simple, but is extremely convenient. I can reply by talking into the watch or selecting a canned message. I also run Music Boss so I get album art on my wrist for whatever I'm listening to on Spotify and can change tracks and adjust volume with the watch.
Now that Fitbit's destroyed Pebble I'm kind of stuck. I won't buy an Android watch because the battery life is unacceptable. I can't buy an iWatch because they only work with iPhones. I won't buy a Fitbit because I want a smartwatch and not a fitness tracker. I really liked that Sony watch with the e-paper wristband, but it's only sold in Japan. The Pebble Time Steel met my needs perfectly and there's nothing else on the market like it.
Saw another article on this that had it right. Qualcomm isn't motivated to invest in the platform. Android wear watches are large, bulky and slow. Apple invests in designing its chips and platform. That allows them to put out a leading edge product. Similarly, Samsung does the chip design for their watches. Unless Google starts taking the lead on the chip design or Qualcomm gets motivated, Android Wear / Wear OS will never compete.
While I found the original Apple Watch underwhelming and lacking purpose, I do like me series 3. My primary phone is actually an Android. They can share phone numbers, just not text messages (you need an iPhone to set up the number sharing then switch your sim back). The watch is nice for working out and doing outdoor activities in case of an emergency.
Putting a full computer in a phone actually resulted in a more useful device, enough to dismiss the dismal battery life. The real problem here is that putting a computer in a watch doesn't actually increase the utility of the watch but still results in dismal battery life. Fixing either problem will vastly increase people's interest in these computer watches.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I bought my new near-$1000 Galaxy S9+ pocket computer (pC) plus sensors because it's bloody awesome in terms of what it does as compared to what it costs. It's also capable of performing the role of a phone, but I almost never use my pocket computer as a phone, so I can't tell you too much about that.
Same thing for my smartwatch. I bought it not because it tells time - which it certainly does - but because...
Convenience of information: a smartwatch serves as a time and motion saver. Mostly pC is in pocket, stays in pocket, watch talks to pC so I don't have to.
All day:
Email? Smartwatch buzzes, roll wrist over, ah, it's that shill wanting donations for [FITB] party again, swipe it off, it's deleted. Or tap it to read it right on the watch (entirely practical in many cases) if it's of interest, or, drag out pC, or, open/switch to email client at desktop. Slack post? Ignore, it's just the intern asking another question about WhatCollegeForgotToTeach, let LowPukeOnTotemPole deal. Text? Kid wants their allowance early. Hold on face, say "NO!", let go. Oh, hey, look, a chess move! Pull out pC, deal, put away, on with life. Weather? Time? Other things? (depending on face) Roll wrist, observe CoolFaceOfTheDay.
End of day:
X steps, Y stairs, Z calories.
Beginning of day:
Sleep stats.
Available info:
Depending on the face: immediate availability of time, day, date, battery states (pC and watch), multiple time zones, image thumbnails, tiny little videos, sunup/sundown, weather, exercise state from heart rate to blood oxy (depending on watch), moon phase, GPS location / altitude / map, phone audio controls, the usual run of stopwatches, timers, counters, reminders, agenda, compass, "find my pC", tiny flashlight, and basically every notification your pC chokes up that you allow through (you can set some to not show, thank goodness.)
Different faces put different items "up front", or not, so you can manage the watch by the task at hand, so to speak. Want to change the face? Tap and hold, pick from thumbnails, bang, there you have it.
That's all without adding any apps. Apps add pretty much whatever, you have to look at them to see what's available for a particular watch. Also, I'm speaking of my Samsung smartwatch. Apple probably offers different things. I pretty much despise Apple as a company these last few years, due to their idiocy WRT my Macs and my iPad and their OS(s), so I haven't even bothered to look at what they offer in smartwatches. Mea culpa = dunno.
Some of the watch faces are undeniably very cool / pretty / info-jammed, etc. So there's lots of eye candy. I have one that's basically nothing more than a mass of moving gears. It's truly drool-worthy to the eye, and provides nothing but the time (and that's not even that easy to read with all that gold-n-silver motion going on. But... yeah, very pretty.)
There's no question that these things, all of them, vary in value to individuals. But when the value of enough of them is high enough, that's when the watch has a point.
The downsides: At the moment, near as I can tell, that's exactly two things:
Price
Battery life (mine lasts about 48 hours. It gets charged every day at my desk, which works out okay for me.)
Finally, this kind of "is it for me" weighting goes on for almost everyone. No phone / simple flip phone / smartphone (pC); bike / little car / big pickup; little shortwave portable / mega-SDR; etc., etc., etc.
TL;DR: I am very happy with my smartwatch and my pC. And that's the point, for those who get all twitterpated about smartwatches and/or phones.
--fyngyrz*
It tells the time and date. I can "charge" it by turning a little knob on the stem.
Putting a full computer in a phone actually resulted in a more useful device
It also resulted in lesser voice quality and ergonomics, and more connection problems. But people were somehow able to get past the fact that their smartPHONEs were more than phones and the functional benefit outweighed the suboptimal phone experience.
SmartWATCHes aren't watches. They are mobile devices that are nearly as functional as your phone, and surprise, they have battery lives similar to other mobile devices because magic isn't real. They are worn like watches, but functionally they aren't anything like them.
Android watches are huge, thick, and look like they're made for people with big meaty wrists. Even the most fashion forward watches are much bulkier than the apple watch.
I have a 2FA app on my watch so I never have to find my 2FA device, ever.
They show the current time when you look at them. Sounds a lot like a watch to me.
The utility is there, it's just not there for everyone yet, which is what we were saying about smart phones 14 years ago while clutching our Palm Treos and Windows Mobiles close. Anyone grumbling about a lack of utility in a smart watch either wouldn't wear a watch regardless, or just never came across one that actually had features they found useful. If I *am* going to wear a watch, it's going to be one that does more than give me the time and date.
Ondriod
The reason Apple won and Google lost is that Apple built a proper wearable SoC chip for their smartwatch. Qualcomm on the other hand phoned it in with a half-assed SoC that was already behind the times on Qualcomm's own chip roadmap. Until Qualcomm, or someone else who is a ARM licensee and has access to GPS/LTE/sensor synthesis IP designs a new wearable SoC that doesn't suck, nothing will change.
Google has the muscle, but not the ARM or other synthesis IP licenses to make their own chip. It's telling that Samsung, and ARM licensee with other synthesis IP available, hasn't made a suitable SoC for their own Tizen line.
It will probably take an unholy joint venture between Google and Amazon to create such a chip, but neither will concede access to the user data from the other, so that JV won't happen.
I backed the last Pebble also, and I could see if that was your last experience why youâ(TM)d have that impression.
But the Apple Watch is simply a million times better than the Pebble, and Iâ(TM)m just talking about my series 0 with the latest OS updates. The new watches are even better. There is a real app story going on there too, itâ(TM)s taken off more slowly than phone apps did, but fir those willing to look at what was, and think about what will be you can see it coming as sure as the next sunrise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Android Studio is slow buggy shit which is hampering developers. Amazing one of the biggest and richest companies in the world can't produce a decent IDE. A native IDE.
Without that no one cares about Android Wear. I sure don't.
with a first-generation Sony smartwatch: https://www.theverge.com/2012/...
and then a Basis tracker: http://www.bestfitnesstrackerr...
and then a Pebble: https://www.pebble.com/
and then a Moto 360: https://www.motorola.com.au/pr...
My inner gadget freak kept wanting to be wowed, but I kept not being wowed, so I kept trying other models. By the time friends started to get Apple watches, I had already transitioned to wearing traditional analog mechanical watches instead. I played with their Apple watches a bit, but it was the same basic stuff as the ones I'd tried, maybe with more spit and shine.
So smart watches got me into wristwatches... but not in the end into smart watches.
I've always been a tech early adopter, so I was expecting to eventually be seduced into the upgrade cycle or wanting the latest-and-greatest, but instead I realized that what I liked most were things like having the time on my wrist, the designs of the faces, customizing the strap/bracelet, and generally wearing them as an apparel item. What I liked least?
- Having to pair with my phone
- Having to deal with apps and taps that were cumbersome and ultimately just poorly duplicated what was on my phone
- Having to charge the watch over and over and over again
- Starting to envy the idea of having *really* timeless and personal thing on my wrist, rather than tossing out/upgrading in a year or two
Basically, I hated all the "smart" parts. And on top of that, I got a taste for the sense of the really personal nature of something that you wear on your body all the time, and suddenly didn't like the idea that this thing that was literally a part of me all the time was disposable and just a temporary relationship. For a phone, okay. For something that you touch nonstop, that becomes a part of you, it was a step too far into the bionic man world.
I have no desire to own a smart watch any longer. But I now have over 30 automatic mechanical wristwatches with lovely dials and lume, domed sapphire crystals, hefty bracelets with sold end links, and classic looks. And I am learning how to service and repair them (I recently serviced my first Slava 2427 movement) and my young son has expressed a lot of interest in them, so someday I can leave them to him and he will still be able to tell the time with them while identifying them with childhood memories and with me—something that would not be the case with a transient smart watch.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
It needs Apple numbers of hordes wanting to buy what is currently, mostly a useless gadget, considering the percentage of time you wear it vs its uses. The average human being still doesn't need what a smartwatch is right now, at their current price, with their current limitations and commitments. The only disadvantage Android has vs whatever Apple has, is that Apple buyers are simply more open to spending money on something without added value, because it goes well with their life choices.
Address some or all of these issues and they'll be better devices for it. Or rebrand the platform and watch as very little happens.
"doesn't actually increase the utility" Yet.... Smartphones, originally Palm pilots, also had the slow start on increasing utility. It's something that has to grow from somewhere.
For many, the smartphone was the replacement for a watch. Trying to duplicate the smartphone in the watch form factor is a backwards step.
The smart watch is a placeholder for contact lens heads up display. Google glass moved in the right direction in this respect but that was effectively a failure despite initial interest.
Once processor and power problems are solved, the contact lens will be the way forward but progress has to be made on less esoteric technology in the interim and the smart watch is a reasonable project, no matter how inferior it is.
Google had a much better idea with Google Glass than anyone has with these wrist-wearables. Wrist computers are never going to be more than a small niche. They're just not a very good idea.
Just keep trying to get the on-your-face stuff smaller and cheaper. That's what's going to be big, as soon as someone does it "right" (whatever that's discovered to be).
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It also resulted in lesser voice quality
What's your next guess?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
apart from a stint as a kid when I was learning to tell time.
Smart watches sold me on the idea of "watches" but not on the idea of "smart."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
They show the current time when you look at them. Sounds a lot like a watch to me.
Do does my phone. So does my desktop computer for that matter. So does my microwave.