“Google’s long-rumored smartwatch is real, and still ‘officially’ expected to begin shipping in mid to late March,” Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch. “However, many members of the smartwatch team inside Google believe that date will either be pushed back to June, or the watch will end up shipping incomplete with a smaller feature set than originally intended.”
“The smartwatch prototypes are currently on lockdown in a Google building, under high security, and they’re not able to be taken out for fear that news will leak,” Perez reports. “According to people familiar with the matter, an early prototype of the watch had a Pebble Steel-like metal band, square face, and a colorful digital display featuring a gradient background where colors gently fade from one to the next. It also seemed to have a more masculine vibe, also like the Pebble Steel. But we’re hearing now that Google has settled on shipping a watch with a plastic band instead for the initial release.”
“Like the previous prototype, the watch has a full-color display, with an LCD background that basically looks ‘like a cheap smartphone,’ we’re told, which is capable of displaying a full-color image,” Perez reports. “The whole idea behind the watch’s concept is that you shouldn’t have to take out your phone for various ambient alerts, like finding out who’s calling you or who just texted, for example.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Google’s watch may ship “incomplete with a smaller feature set than originally intended.”
Then, a few months after Apple unveils iWatch, Google’s “originally intended” features will magically appear.
Google’s Android before and after Apple’s iPhone:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]