I was thinking about all the new android/sammy round faced watches last night. Took a look at the new Motos, sammys and the Huawei. They look a world better than their predecessors but I still find them lacking or undesirable for a number of reasons.
I have always thought I would prefer a round shape watch over anything else; but I have to say after wearing my Apple Watch for a while now, I think the rectangular face is the best display for a smart watch. Round watch faces made sense when you had mechanical hands rotating in a circle. The device told time and the design served its purpose, people added complications for a few other features over time, but primarily it was used to tell time. Smart watches really are communication devices, and text and images just look way better viewed in a rectangular format. No cutting the view off, or unnecessary scrolling needed for simple displays. We read books that are on rectangular pages, not viewed in a circular format, because that's the way it's most effective and efficient. People for the most part stopped wearing watches because they no longer needed to rely on it to tell time. Plenty of other devices around that it became not as critical to have a timepiece on your wrist. I don't believe we are buying smart watches to tell the time anymore, so why sacrifice your screen real estate to a design that no longer serves the purpose?
As for people who comment on the need for "always on" screen capabilities, if people weren't wearing watches for decades and got by with nothing on their wrists, what's with the sudden need to see the time every second of the day now (exception being a stopwatch function maybe)? I see this "complaint" about the Apple Watch as coming from competition just trying to differentiate themselves and trying to convince potential customers to stay with their round faces offering such a "feature", but don't forget it's also at a sacrifice of something else, watch thickness, screen resolution and coloration, etc.
I have always thought I would prefer a round shape watch over anything else; but I have to say after wearing my Apple Watch for a while now, I think the rectangular face is the best display for a smart watch. Round watch faces made sense when you had mechanical hands rotating in a circle. The device told time and the design served its purpose, people added complications for a few other features over time, but primarily it was used to tell time. Smart watches really are communication devices, and text and images just look way better viewed in a rectangular format. No cutting the view off, or unnecessary scrolling needed for simple displays. We read books that are on rectangular pages, not viewed in a circular format, because that's the way it's most effective and efficient. People for the most part stopped wearing watches because they no longer needed to rely on it to tell time. Plenty of other devices around that it became not as critical to have a timepiece on your wrist. I don't believe we are buying smart watches to tell the time anymore, so why sacrifice your screen real estate to a design that no longer serves the purpose?
As for people who comment on the need for "always on" screen capabilities, if people weren't wearing watches for decades and got by with nothing on their wrists, what's with the sudden need to see the time every second of the day now (exception being a stopwatch function maybe)? I see this "complaint" about the Apple Watch as coming from competition just trying to differentiate themselves and trying to convince potential customers to stay with their round faces offering such a "feature", but don't forget it's also at a sacrifice of something else, watch thickness, screen resolution and coloration, etc.
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