Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Sam Grobart considers the recent buzz surrounding smart devices worn around the wrist, a space once dominated by the fitness set is now fair game for mobile device giants like Samsung and Apple.
One correction as per what Grobart misstates in the video: Nike’s FuelBand does not require an iPhone or any lesser phone “to do the heavy lifting of crunching all that data to tell you how many steps you’ve taken or how many calories you’ve burned.” The FuelBand’s handles all of that data and displays it on its built-in display. All the iPhone does is display that data in prettier fashion along with past data (stored at Nike’s website) that’s been generated by the FuelBand.
Direct link to video here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple CEO Tim Cook, D10 Conference, May 29, 2012:
I have on a Nike FuelBand…. I think there are some cool things that can be done and I think it is an interesting area. The question is, “Can it change somebody’s behavior?” …I think the book hasn’t been written on that yet. If it’s just a cool thing to know, it will fade, but if it can really drive someone to act differently, to behave differently, then I think it can be pretty cool. And, so I think the verdict is out and it’ll largely be determined by how much innovation is in that area… I think it’ll be interesting.
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What ever Apple does on that front will be interesting. The Moscone Center, Apple Banner, “Come Watch the Future Unfold”. The media will be tripping all over themselves saying I told you so, believing their own prophetic parroting. Then Apple will reveal how they plan for you to Watch the Future Unfold, destroying the entrenched media with one giant slap in the face, with a Viewing experience that transcends all.
you sound disturbingly and frightningly similar to an evangelistic fundamentalist.
Also, Apple was awarded this patent several months back.
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/08/apple-wins-patent-for-never-released-lifestyle-companion-app.html
Put the pieces together and you have an iWatch/bracelet with various bio sensors, feeds back to your iPhone, Siri becomes a speaking digital lifestyle coach helping you with goals, barriers to change, incorporates your interests, other medical stuff perhaps. Behavior science meets up with real time time data to help you achieve what is important to you. It’s not about just being an exercise tracking device…it’s about helping you change.
All I have to say is it better be waterproof!!!
According to Steve Jobs, Apple has always been at the intersection of technology and liberal arts.
The iWatch will bring this one step further:
Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you the intersection of time and space. The space-time continuum as envisaged by Einstein and realised by Steve Jobs’ successors.
I think the work now has to do with battery life and locking down the patents. They don’t want another Android/Samsung debacle.
Sorry NB, Apple patented the living daylights outta the iPhone, but that only meant they lost less ground than if they hadn’t. Sad state of affairs with the courts failure to understand and protect Apple IP. Taken together with the troll court in Texas, it plain sucks.
I have some time to kill waiting for a hearing. I’m at a Marriott across from the courthouse, in the cafe area. This isn’t a tourist hotel, I come here all the time and I don’t remember ever seeing a child. It is pretty much all guest in Philly for business or lawyers killing time between cases.
There are about a dozen guys here now. Looking around I see a grand total of one on them wearing a watch—and it has hands. I haven’t work a watch in five or six years, they are in a drawer with dead batteries.
Maybe Apple should start researching a smart top hat or smart suspenders, or maybe a virtual reality monocle. How about projecting smart spats that project an image in front of you beamed from your shoe? They could interface with your cloud based storage snuff box.
Think different.
benn there, done that. is that all Apple’s got these days sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssshhhhhhhhh
Google already has the monocle…Google glass
A watch, smart or dumb, is a relic. I don’t see a market for such wearable technology. It’s dorky.
I can’t see apple doing anything with a watch. The speculation seems a bit silly.
I’ve had one of these since January.
http://www.mybasis.com
I can tell you it has driven me to change my behavior. There are some things lacking on it however. There are no audible alarms or alerts, and oddly-enough, they have developed an Android App first to connect via Bluetooth to the watch, and the iOS App they tell me is still a long ways away.
Their argument for that reasoning was that there are far more Android users, to which I and others responded with, People that get a free phone are less likely to buy a $200 watch.
Anyway, I still like the idea, and I haven’t worn a watch in years, but have gotten used to it over the last 3 months almost, and it is working to keep me motivated to get in better shape.
There is an incredible amount of science behind this watch, which is why I bought it when it was in the funding stage, it has a series of LED’s on the back of the watch that measure blood flow, perspiration etc. You can wear it in the shower, and it tracks sleep and a number of other things.
This is another one I have bought, and I like the idea of this one as well, so can’t wait for it to arrive this summer:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/amiigo-fitness-bracelet-for-iphone-and-android
We are living in interesting times.
Good luck with that wrist thing. I don’t wear anything on my wrists, but I’m assuming that these companies believe enough people do, and will, that they should invest in the wrist area.
I’m really getting tired of all these people that claim nobody wears watches anymore. I did some research on various web sites and a majority of them, who ran polls or discussions on this topic, came back that anywhere from 60%-80% of the people still wear watches on almost a daily basis. One went to as low as 52% but that is still over half.
Just because you don’t wear one doesn’t mean that most people don’t. A problem I see with most the arguments against a watch deal directly with time only.
Imagine if an iWatch told you much more than time (as we all agree that it would). Imagine the ability to quickly see notifications from your phone without the hassle of pulling it out of your pocket. I’m not talking about making phone calls or responding to texts and emails, just the ability to quickly receive that information and then decide if you want to respond by pulling out your phone. That make the idea worth it to me.
I have several ask me what time it is, because they notice I’m wearing a watch and asking me is quicker and more convenient than pulling out their phones. I’m not going to be able to tell you who that text was from indicated by a chime from your phone buried deep within your pocket.
There is a lot of potential for a watch that can monitor a person’s vital signs, weight, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc and then remind them to take their meds or whatever and also send the info to their physician’s office for monitoring.
Is everyone overlooking the most successful health/sports-oriented watchmaker?
http://www.polar.com
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Breaking with the tradition and abandoning the constraints is the consistent belief of Chanel.