The Information today reports that Facebook is developing an Apple Watch rival with a focus on health and messaging. The social media / advertising firm is looking to launch the watch as soon as 2022. The report cites four anonymous sources close to the project.
The Information’s report says that Facebook is planning to include a cellular connection with its smartwatch so it could work without a smartphone. The Facebook wearable would have a tight integration with Facebook Messenger, but health features could be compatible with popular fitness platforms like Peloton.
However, as The Information notes, consumers trusting Facebook with health data may be an uphill battle:
The wrist device is expected to work via a cellular connection, without needing a smartphone. Facebook additionally plans to allow the device to connect to the services or hardware of health and fitness companies, such as Peloton Interactive, the maker of internet-connected exercise bikes. Given its spotty track record with user privacy, Facebook could face blowback from consumers with its wrist wearable, especially related to health aspects of the device.
As far as the OS, this first smartwatch is expected to run on Google’s Android but that Facebook is also developing its own OS for future wearables.
MacDailyNews Take: Unless Facebook is planning to conduct millions of forced lobotomies per day from now until launch, their user tracking targeted ad delivery device is D.O.A.
Nobody in their right mind will buy a “Facebook Watch” because that’s exactly what it’d be: Facebook watching users 24/7.
Facebook is to privacy as Chernobyl is to nuclear power. — MacDailyNews, February 3, 2021
All of these “social media” platforms – Twitter, Parler, Facebook – are cancers on society. They are clearly eating society from the inside out. There’s something unsavory within human nature that “digital distance” amplifies to the point of disgust.
If you quit these cancers you will quickly realize what they are and what they do. You will be happier and healthier to have excised them from your life.
We haven’t had personal Twitter or Facebook accounts for many years now. And very happily so. — MacDailyNews, January 9, 2021
The high level of panic that Apple has induced into the Facebook cancer is heartening. — MacDailyNews, February 1, 2021