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First Renders of Upcoming Google Smartwatches Emerge Online
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And yet, Android devices seem to have no problem with any of this, and selling similar quality round smartwatches for half of what Apple does. forgive me if I don't take your word for it.
Perhaps, but I also disagree with your assessment.
Some designs are inherently better, and it doesn't matter if the innards are mechanical or electronic. The round watch face, is something that consumers like and want. If Google can provide functionality on par with the square apple watch, I'd call that innovation.
Don't understand this point at all. "Round" is an advantage for a smartwatch? How so? Your mistake is thinking that a smartwatch is the same product as a conventional watch. They're completely different. Analog watches have ONE FUNCTION, so a round screen works in their case. How someone at a tech blog can look at a Moto 360, with it's cut corners and flat tire and say that it has some sort of "advantage" over Apple is really beyond me.
I'm sure Apple are easily competent enough to make short work of those and any other minor issues and if they do their round design would enjoy the same success as the current rectangular offering.
I was laughing so hard when I read this that I could barely type. There must be no access to the internet where you live.
The advantage is that people like the look of them, over the square watches. While they are computers on the wrist, they are also a fashion statement as well and people are very conscience of how a watch looks on their wrist as much as the features it includes
Way to cherry pick your examples. Try comparing it to the latest Huawei 42mm watch. Not a first generation effort that made poor design choices, as limited by current technology. I'd love for someone to explain to me why Apple has limited its display to one of the smaller in the industry rather than going edge to edge. Or why Apple put form over function to achieve a particular look, rather than maximize the way data can be viewed on the display.
I can't believe that some people are still small enough as to resort to pejoratives as a counterargument. You must have taken a break from playing Pokemon Go to type that.
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Way to use your speculation as examples. Whatever the reasoning Apple used, it's obviously working as the Appple Watch IS the smartwatch market right now. That's a fact, by the way...much more of an effective argument.
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And yet the Apple Watch is outselling it's round counterparts at a 12 to 1 rate. Who has the advantage again? Speaking of fashion statements...the Apple Watch has been featured in spreads for pretty much every legit fashion publication in the industry, so there's also that.
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Yes it is, and I'm also a happy Apple watch owner. I'm only offering my opinion that I think round watches have an advantage. People seem to be coming out of the woodwork to attach that thesis with a ferocity that is a bit baffling. Its my opinion, based on my life experience. I think Google may be on to something with their design and like the iPhone, we may see an erosion of sales to competitors - who knows, that's the future. I for one like the look of the google watch, regardless if that position is attacked as antiquated and short sited.
I'd argue that the thesis that the Apple Watch shape is more functional has been attacked with equal ferocity, and nobody seems to be baffled by it. People are passionate about what tech they like..on both sides.
I'm going to get torched for this but round watches are where its at. The Samsung Gear S2 3g blows the apple watch out of the water. Yeah it may run tizen and not have all the apps that Apple Watch has but the one killer feature is being able to forward calls, texts and emails right to my watch no matter where my phone is and works seamlessly.
Round watches are the norm (though not exclusively, there have always been a few rectangular watches for design aesthetic reasons) because the vast majority of watches display the time by turning hands to point them in the general direction of numbers, which, for a long time was the only method available. Round is an efficient shape if the watch needs to point fixed-length mechanical hands from a central spindle. It's inefficient for any display of information other than a single radial analog gauge, as evidenced by all the rectangular screens around us.
There were also a whole bunch of people, nine years ago, saying, "look, phones with an output-only screen on the upper half and a physical keyboard and other buttons on the lower half is the norm, this whole idea of one big touchscreen and a virtual keyboard is madness and will never catch on." Try to find a smartphone like that now. Time will tell.
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If you're presented with display cases showing hundreds of round watches, and two or three mixed in somewhere that aren't round... you will tend to pick whichever of the round watches appeals to you the most, likely not even aware that there are any non-round choices. This is exactly where the watch market is now. No average consumer goes to a watch store saying, "show me watches but I only want to see round ones - don't show me any that aren't round." They're choosing from what they perceive to be the only available choices.
Before the iPhone came out, you could easily look at the available phones and deduce, "clearly, the market has spoken and people like and want mechanical keyboards". And, as we all recall, practically no one bought the iPhone when it first came out, and it has had a really hard time catching on, because consumers clearly only want phones with mechanical keyboards, as shown by what was on the market at the time.
Also, Apple doesn't make any square watches. They make a rectangular watch.
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Playing devils advocate, I'd be pretty sure there is some fairly savvy Apple marketing behind many of those Apple Watch fashion spreads. Apple has collected some people who are quite accomplished at courting various specific markets, like fashion, music, etc.
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This is not an accident. The worst thing for smart watches is to blend in. They need to be tastefully different to encourage adoption.
Shape is not negated at any point, however your opinion is not and cannot be wrong.
And then for him to change his mind and build a round smartwatch.
The Apple Watch's design isn't encouraging me at the moment.
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No. Just the first part.
Round is skeumorphic, it's a legacy of how the mechanism was created to measure time. It may look nice, but it doesn't scale past a clock face and a few complications. Just like steam punk will always look cool, but no one would actually use any of those devices for their every day carry.
I prefer the round watch look. It just looks more "natural" in my mind. So aesthetically, I do love the round look. However, in using a Smart Watch like an Apple Watch or Google Watch, I can't see it being useful shape for anything other than a few functions.
And to be fair, I really like the Hermes square watch face - I'd really like it if Apple would give us something like that on the Apple Watch. Round watch face with a square watch seems silly to me.
And to be fair, I really like the Hermes square watch face - I'd really like it if Apple would give us something like that on the Apple Watch. Round watch face with a square watch seems silly to me.
I stopped reading at that point.
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Ok, I bit and read the rest. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, pretty sure the Apple Watch had this "killer feature" from day 1.
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I miss Steve Jobs to bury rectangular smartwatches forever with a single sentence. I do not want a rectangular watch. Ever. Give me round. Other manufacturers can do it. Why can't Apple?
no, what's idiotic is thinking the analogy is about watching television shows. it isn't. it's about displaying data. if you have a hard time with that, forget TV monitors and instead think of PC monitors -- they aren't round, because our data content renders best in rectangles, not circles. this is ancient news. literally -- ancient. tablets and books are square, not round.