“We’ve heard for quite some time that Apple is hard at work on its next big thing, a smartwatch. There’s even a product name all picked out by the pundits, the iWatch. According to persistent rumors Apple has dozens, maybe even hundreds, of its brightest employees getting the iWatch ready to blow everybody away,” James Kendrick writes for ZDNet. “As exciting as rumors make the smartwatch sound, I don’t think Apple is going to be able to adequately address some practical issues.”
“If you’re like most people you have the smartphone, in the case of Apple’s iWatch that would be the iPhone, in your hand most of the time that you’re free to use a smartwatch. There’s no compelling reason to look at the watch when you have a nice, big, high-resolution screen in your hand,” Kendrick writes. “The smartwatch ends up being used mostly as, you guessed it, a watch. Even that is less than useful as the time is displayed on that iPhone in the hand.”
Kendrick writes, “The watch display would have to be a touch screen to be practical, and that brings challenges when a screen is that tiny. If you display icons and controls big enough to be tapped with a fingertip, that little screen gets filled up really quickly. You end up with a touch screen that doesn’t display much at all which limits the practical functions Apple can give to its fancy iWatch.”
“Apple has surprised us before and while I don’t think it can solve these problems perhaps it has one more thing. Maybe they’ve figured out how to address all the issues I’ve raised, and come up with a unique, compelling function to get us to snap up the iWatch,” Kendrick wusses out. “If they do release a watch that doesn’t address the problems outlined here I predict the iWatch will fail miserably. Of course, I’ve been wrong before so Apple might just make me eat crow.”
Read more in the full article here.
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All I need a smart watch to do is tell me the time in different zones quickly by gesture, the ambient temperature and barometric pressure of the room I’m in or the place I’m at outside, my current skin temperature, current heart rate with a the capability to save it to a log, blood pressure, and the current weather outside all by itself without needing another device. If it could have its own GPS that would be good but if it had gyros and GPS it would make a nice compass for walking trips
Then I would want it to work with my smart phone and be able to order apps for it on the watch itself or via the larger displays of other apple gear.
The problem is… I don’t want to wear a watch again.
The biggest unsolved problem Apple has is ‘Pundits’!!! That and all the speculation on features of a yet to be released device. It can’t even be stated with absolute certainty that Apple will produce an iWatch! 🙂
When I open a watch magazine, I see many of the most fantastic and beautiful time pieces ever created. Watches from PP, Cartier, LV inspire us and make us want to wear such a beautiful piece. Amazed at all the complex movements. (We can throw Tag, Omega, and even Rolex in the mix).
What concerns me about an iWatch is that it would look like another piece of utilitarian plastic crap that I would never wear.
Did anyone watch the video about the guy who build a gold watch from a nano? Looked pretty nice, but the nano is still too much like a computer.
The I watch should be a designer piece that integrated beatiful design with key functions that would integrate with my phone.
IMHO, the iWatch doesn’t even need a “screen”. Actually, if Apple could build a complex movement piece with integration to the iPhone and allow jewelers to add elements that appeal to some (like diamonds, rubies, sapphires) with mixtures of platinum, white gold, and othe fine metals… Then we could have a timepiece to be worn proudly.
Sort of agree, but think that the entire category of “smart watches” is really idiotic. Ultimately, size restrictions will lead to battery and screen limitations, which prohibit it from being as feature rich as a smartphone — meaning I’ll still carry a smartphone. So, what will I use this thing for?
iWatch – Yawn. Win, lose or draw it is not going to be a game changer for Apple.