I know that Apple Watch has been out for a long time. But have you noticed that it has almost no traction compared to the iPhone? Do you know why? The stupid screen is too small. Nobody enjoys squinting at a tiny screen when they have the Time on a big iPhone screen to appreciate. The other big problem is that the battery life is too short on a single charge. Can you imaging going on a weeks trips and the watch dies because you can't charge it? What do you do if you are in the desert hiking for a week? No more time keeping? It is not like you can easily connect a usb-c cable to it either. The proprietary power connections really hinders its acceptance as a "watch" because people do happen to travel all over the world with a watch (notice the different time zones on the turnable dial fixture for many popular non-digital brands). OK. Enough of this gripe. I will tell you now the two main points of this post.
1) Apple needs to take out the battery and put it in the bands. You can have 5 or six segments for the band and each segment is mini-battery. It can even be designed to match the rugged 2-tone steel/gold bands of Rolex and others. This would increase the battery life on a single charge to match that of iPhones. Short battery life is BAD BAD BAD.
2) Use a different display technology to offset the small real estate of the watch face. For example, make a small projector inside that can project onto a wall or your chest or hands, or ANYWHERE so that you actually see a larger image (at a minimum project light at least to the size of the iPhone clearly). For example, with the watch on, make a gesture or sound and the projector beams a display for 15 seconds (adjustable) that you can then project anywhere. Or even wirelessly send the image to your fashionable Rayband digital image enabled sunglasses (maybe apple's ar glasses if it is not too bulky).
Meh.
My Ultra is, hands-down, a vastly superior smartphone to the original iPhone (which was itself a revolutionary smartphone when released). The case is smaller and lighter than many mechanical watches, especially the much-prized and crazy expensive Rolex Submariner. The display is gorgeous. Sure, it’s smaller than that of a phone — but, again, its functionality blows that of early smartphones out of the water. I have not even the slightest hint of trouble texting, checking emails, navigating with maps … calendar, weather, workouts, shopping lists, phone calls (it’s a better speakerphone than my iPhone Xs was!), ApplePay, alarms and stopwatches and timers … and and and …
And the battery? It goes on the charger when I hop in the shower; when I’m done, it’s at least to 80%, which will typically be down to about 40-50% by the next day’s shower. I’m not going more than a day without showering, or showering somewhere without power … but, even so, I could trivially skip a day and still have charge. If I need more than that, the watch running out of battery is the least of my concerns.
I don’t want batteries in the bands. I want to be able to put on a cheap-but-nice leather band without worrying about the watch dying. I don’t want to project my watch onto the nearest wall for everybody to see. I don’t want to have to stand in front of a wall to read my email. I don’t want to try to read my email on my chest. And I certainly don’t want a half-pound hand-sized “watch” with a built-in DLP projector strapped to my wrist.
You’re on the right track at the end. The VisionPro — or, rather, its first descendant that’s ready for all-day wearing — will obviate the need for a watch. And, not just a watch and not just a phone … not just laptops, but desktops. Those doing text entry that’s more than a SMS message at a time will still likely want a physical keyboard, but that’s it.
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