- Most of us don’t know what type of wearable device we’d really like, or even if we want one at all. And hardly anyone is buying them. Manufacturers don’t know what to make, so they’re endlessly regurgitating ideas they copy from one another. Yet predictions of how fabulous the wearable life will be are whipping everyone into a frenzy.
I don't think so. Wristwatches are smaller and more convenient than pocketwatches. Smartphones are bigger and more involved than dumb phones. More than that, smartphones are defined by feature creep - my first smartphone had a 240x320 screen and one camera. My current smartphone is 1080p, has two cameras (one of them shoots 14MP or 4k video at 120hz - it has better still resolution than my Canon 5D and better video resolution than my friend's RED MX), stereo speakers, a GPS antenna, bluetooth, a compass, a gyroscope and wonders I don't even know how to use. Wearables are supposed to be less complex, smaller and more convenient than our phones. The analogy is inverted.
Wearables are necessarily less complex. If it's strapped to your body somehow, it's less convenient to manipulate. an Iphone 6 plus on an armband isn't a wearable, it's a phablet you've anchored to your bicep. A Nexus 6 on your wrist is a Nexus 6 you can only use one hand on. Complexity requires dexterity. Wearables are less dextrous than non-wearables. Pocket watches had latching covers to protect their watch glass because opening a watch glass cover was a natural, easy motion when the pocket watch was in your palm. Wristwatches don't because it's cumbersome and inconvenient, even though wristwatches actually need more protection than pocket watches.
Wearables need to A) look good. Phones aren't something you wear. B) overcome the stigma against wearing a large screen. C) last long enough to not be annoying or go dead midway through the day. D) work in bright sunlight, survive harsh environments, etc. I honestly don't see watches replacing phones. Not now, not ever. They will become a very good tool to help use of phones, but I can't see it going further than that. It will become a "Tracker" that you can see and monitor your day and life through, where the phone is a "portal" to the internet and to other people.
I have one from Goqii and i am still waiting for their new update. I personally believe that these kind of wearable gadgets is one of the best way to monitor your health in the busy world.
Honestly, pebble has it down on what a smartwatch should be. App ecosystem. Small and simple, power-sipping processor. Screen that can be read day and night. Only three buttons so apps can't have complex touch-based controls, and have to use simple menu's and interfaces. Durable, waterproof, etc. Fast to charge, and battery that lasts seven days. Does hardly anything on it's own, and relies on a phone to work. Works on all mobile platforms so you aren't tied to one phone. Also, programming stuff for pebble looks really interesting, because memory space and processor space is very limited. Brings back challenges that have kind of stopped existing in "the average" program. All it needs is voice recognition, perhaps a speaker, and you would have all you need.
More accurately put, "wearable tech needs to find a product." "genre defining" is easy - it's the Pebble, a kickstarted geek gadget that tells you things you already know in a vaguely more convenient way than whipping out your phone but is known about and talked about more than it's actually bought or paid for. The Nike Plus is wearable tech going back to 2006. It's been a part of the iPhone ecosystem all along. Eight years on, how's that going? The rate of abandonment of wearables, right now, is 50 percent within 6 months. Now - you can go "that's because they're cheap and nearly disposable and people aren't going to do with a $300 AWatch what they do with a $85 FitBit" or you can go "people aren't going to drop $300 on an AWatch the way they will on an $85 Fitbit because they suspect they'll get bored with it in six months." I'm guessing it'll be the latter, not the former.However, the company let go as many as 55 engineers and other hardware and manufacturing specialists who oversaw the development of future wearable hardware -- including a slimmer FuelBand slated for the fall, a person familiar with the matter told CNET. And with no concrete plans to keep making those wearable gadgets, Nike is making a play to focus on software with Nike+.
"It suggests that they were struggling to make money with those products, and going the software route likely allows them to minimize the capital investment and ongoing investment in these markets," Buss added.
In all fairness to this point, Nike realized that their best Plus partner was about to mop the floor in Q1 2915 with a product that could actually define wearables for the mass market for the first time. I think Apple is extremely smart to play to the fashion and status of the device. They get mocked for it, but at the end of the day little tiny wearable gadgets just dont do that much yet for the average consumer. It goes beyond arguing that it shouldn't be ugly because you wear it. I think it actually has to go one better and look not just passable but fantastic because the utility, at the end of the day, just can't stand up on its own. Form and function both have to be as close to 100% as possible.The Nike Plus is wearable tech going back to 2006. It's been a part of the iPhone ecosystem all along. Eight years on, how's that going?
You have a point, but I'll argue that the emphasis is on "could." I was wrong about the iPod, I was wrong about the iPad. I may very well be wrong about the AWatch but I'm just not sure that many people need to pay that much for that thing, you know?
Which is why I think Apple is smart to lead with design as much as they have. People will spend that much on jewelry. But fashion is a fickle thing. They're actually best poised to pull it off from both a design and technology (best platform by far for average consumer) standpoint though imo. I think the killer sleeper use-case for the Apple Watch it actually Apple Pay. You're at the checkout, watch is on your wrist, and before your stuff is bagged up you just paid. Buying some clothes, you get rung up, associate begins to bag and you've already paid. It sounds stupid, the thought that people will pay hundreds of dollars for something that will let them give their money away a few moments faster, but I think it could be huge. At the end of the day, it's getting you out of there quicker and people often want to get out of there quicker. I'm willing to take a small bet that this will be the most lauded use case aside from fitness crap in the year after it's out...
The thing about jewelry is that if everybody's wearing it it becomes a uniform, not a bangle. That's the thing about iPhones - you can customize them with cases. AWatches? The band's what you get. The rest of it is software - an intangible that doesn't cost anything to sport. Apple isn't making jewelry, they're making tech gadgets that they hope aren't too ugly to forestall adoption. And the thing about Apple Pay is it requires large-scale rollout to, well, all of retail. Yeah, they've got it at Whole Foods. Yeah, they've got it at Wells Fargo. Those outfits that have smart card readers can flip to Apple Pay pretty easily, but I don't see those much and I'm in urban Los Angeles. Apple Pay works if you shop primarily at Fortune 100 retailers, otherwise it's just another thing. So now instead of just whipping out your card, you have to know what implement you're using to use your money, rather than just what bank account. I dunno. I remain unconvinced. Square permits just about anybody to take credit cards pretty painlessly and the penetration of Square amongst small businesses is chequered at best.
You don't think Apple's watch bands don't stand as customization and an accessory better than an iPhone case? I'm reaaaaaly not so sure about that. In the wake of the watch's announcement, when you leave the sphere of the tech press and travel into watch-world, I've seen an inordinate amount of buzz about the bands specifically. About how desirable they are, how amazingly the are tooled and crafted, and how they put a lot of what is coming out of Switzerland look "amateurish". Check out the section in this review on the bands in particular: http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/hodinkee-apple-watch-review This is from one of the most famous watch blogs out there, and they're basically saying not only does the band on the watch stand out, it stands out in the word of wrist watches. Period. It's coming. October 2015 is the deadline, and as retailers upgrade for this, they'll be upgrading to NFC en masse:
http://www.tsys.com/acquiring/engage/white-papers/EMV-Preparing-for-Changes-to-the-Retail-Payment-Process.cfm I can't speak to this, but I can speculate that Square suffered by coming up with an idea that wasn't defensible, and the big players copied it and marched right in to compete on cost. My wife uses this plugged into an iPad at her store to process payments. It's just Square. But cheaper. Cheaper than a traditional payment terminal as well (her old one is collecting dust in the back room). And oh yeah, it integrates with her Quickbooks. I think Square had an early innovative lead with mobile sellers (art fairs, contractors, etc) but others have now caught up. Another reason Square (and Intuit GoPayment and similar mobile processors) kinda sucks is that it...kinda sucks. It just isn't robust at all and offers poor integration with accounting software and weak reporting. It's been getting better, but if you're doing anything more than pickling beets at the farmers market or running a one store boutique, it's just dead to you. That market just isn't where the money is in payments processing, -you actually want to be Apple Pay focused on the Fortune 100. I think I read recently that Square's failure to capture larger retailers was leading to their growth stumbling, and less than a year ago they were actively shopping to be acquired (according to the tech rumor mill). That didn't happen, and now they're looking to raise another round of VC.The thing about jewelry is that if everybody's wearing it it becomes a uniform, not a bangle. That's the thing about iPhones - you can customize them with cases. AWatches? The band's what you get.
nd the thing about Apple Pay is it requires large-scale rollout to, well, all of retail. Yeah, they've got it at Whole Foods. Yeah, they've got it at Wells Fargo. Those outfits that have smart card readers can flip to Apple Pay pretty easily, but I don't see those much and I'm in urban Los Angeles...
I dunno. I remain unconvinced. Square permits just about anybody to take credit cards pretty painlessly and the penetration of Square amongst small businesses is chequered at best.
We'll have to agree to disagree. 1) I haven't heard the apple watch discussed at all outside of the techosphere. It's a test-pattern. Nobody I've met wants one. The Hodinkee blog is from when the watch was brand spanking new - it's essentially speculation. There's no real world test as of yet. 2) It's also possible that Square didn't dominate for the same reason Nike plus didn't dominate: there isn't that much need for the product. My wife's been using a Square for three or four years now and it only comes up rarely. She also takes checks, cash and paypal. 3) Regardless of whether or not Square "sucks", the investment cost to get into it is zero. They charge you $10 at Kinko's and refund you $11. They ship new ones at random - we've got three of them sitting around the house. And they'll take a Centurion card so it's not like they're inadequate. You've listed reasons they could succeed, not reasons they will succeed. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
For sure, I don't want to be too far on the side of saying it will be a hit...I'm just saying I could see it. Much more than any other wearable so far. But ultimately, do you really need what wearables can do for you atm? Meh. Regarding Square, yeah, I think so. Their market just isn't that massive. What does your wife do? I don't see too many people taking checks. My wife doesn't even take them in her store (exceptions for customers she knows well).