Google Launches 'Android Wear' Project for Wearable Devices

[Mockenrue]

I used to collect watches. Loved them.

Haven't worn one since I owned my first cell phone with a clock built in.

I don't get the fascination with a watch. Just me I guess... but I wouldn't wear one.

I agree. I always wore a watch until my last one broke and I never replaced it. Ironically, it's a Moto feature that continues to make me NOT want to buy a smart watch, even the admittedly cool-looking Moto 360. The Active Display feature of the Moto X allows for glanceable time and notifications without waking the whole screen or pressing a physical button. I had no idea how great that was until I had it.

It makes sense that they are voice-based, and I'm sure Apple's will heavily rely on Siri. But that's another turn-off for me. I feel dumb talking to my phone, and it would be worse talking into my wrist - especially on public transportation (which I ride to work every day) like the creepy guy in the video.

 

[Gudi]

Bluetooth headsets are a LIFESAVER for me. They allow me to talk and conduct business while driving.

And "business while driving" is the opposite of what most people do with their smartphones. Smartwatches may also become LIFESAVERS for some people and not be worth it for everybody else.

There are naysayers to every category. You can make a great argument saying most people don't "need" a smartphone over a regular flip phone, yet here we are with most consumers owning a smartphone.

It's not a new category but a new peripheral to the category smartphones. Much like smart toothbrushes. You can make a good argument against a $200 toothbrush, you can't make a good argument against the usefulness of smartphones, who are really just general-purpose computers with thousands of useful applications. A dumbphone can't replace a smartphone. If both would cost the same, no one would choose a flip phone. Only movie criminals like flip phones, because they can be broken apart.

 

[IFRIT]

Not strictly true, they copied Blackberry and called it Android, then saw Jobs introduce the iPhone, realised it was superior, and chnaged Android into a clone of that instead.

Yes Android looks and behaves just like iOS..... they arn't even based on the same core OS, learn some facts before typing.

Some of the posts in this thread really make me want to smash my face into the keyboard.

 

[kevinof]

This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klteYv1Uv9A is why we need wearables

Seriously though. I don't know if this stuff will take off. Might not be for everyone but it could be a big market. I do like what Google have done here. it's a nice, clean UI - it's basically Google now running on a watch but it's the right way to do it as you want to keep the information focussed and clear. Much better than anything else we've seen so far.

 

[apolloa]

Wow, Google and Motorola have just slammed that gauntlet down at Apple... such a smooth OS on that watch.

Still not for me, but very very very very impressive and Apple will certainly have it's work cut out now.

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Products only exist when you can buy them... It remains to be seen if they can hit that target.

So why the hell are you posting on MacRUMORS then?

 

[NachoGrande]

Until Apple makes one, right?

Rolex could make one and I wouldn't wear it. I have no use for a watch that updates me.

 

[apolloa]

It is vapor. There is nothing threatening Apple about this launch that we know of yet. I can go pickup a stone out of the dirt as my new product and put up a press conference about "launching" a new product.

It's only threatening, if it has great battery life, a great a operating system, and actually does something to change lives and level-up humanity by creating something so compelling that becomes part of your daily routine. A shiny picture of a watch with chamfered edges doesn't do that by itself. A lot of things "demo" well.

I don't know of a single hardware example in recent memory that created a new category designed by Motorola or LG or Asus or any of those other copycat OEMs mentioned here. I would like to take the opportunity and coin the term NOEM (pronounced No EM) to refer to LG and the other companies (non-original equipment manufacturers)

Making insanely great stuff is insanely hard. Making stuff that integrates so well into your life that you couldn't imagine your new world without it, is maddeningly difficult. Any company can launch, but not just anyone can level-up humanity with their launch.

Erm, NO mate it is not. It is NOT vapor when you launch the platform AND have a manufacturing partner demo a pre-production product on the same day!

The Apple Television IS Vapor as it does not exist, it is nothing more then made up rumours, no one has seen any platform for it or any pre-production models.

 

[Bayshun]

Long before wearable tech became the next big thing, there were rumors that Apple was working on a smart watch. Now there's such a big push towards it. Samsung made (a crappy) one, and now Google has Android Wear; yet there's still no official confirmation that Apple is even actively creating one.

Now I know computerized watches have been around since long before this recent trend. Just like there were smartphones before the iPhone, and tablet computers before the iPad. It makes me wonder, though, what is going on at Apple? Why does it seem like it's taking them so long to put new things out there?

Personal opinions about Android aside, it is a solid contender against iOS. Google has the money, and has a popular reputation for quality. The Samsung watch may have been a bust, but if Google is really throwing their muscle behind this one they may just beat Apple to the punch.

 

[itsmeorthedog]

It is the best looking smart watch to date, I'll give you that, but still not a compelling reason enough for me to jump into what I otherwise consider a redundant device category. If there comes a day that taking my phone out of my pocket becomes so difficult that I require a redundant screen on my wrist, I'll go out and buy a segway to drive me from my door to my car. **

 

[Gudi]

So what do you want? Let's not build any phone till we can build a iPhone.

Let's not mistake the iPhone for a phone, when it really is a mobile general-purpose computer.

You always try and build the best you can with the materials and knowledge you have today. That's how we got from a mud hut to a skyscraper.

The best we can build with todays materials and knowledge are smartphones and tablets. Try to build a smartwatch with todays technology and the system will fail under its own shortcomings. Believe it or not, people always wanted to build much higher than they could. So rational humans have developed science to predict whether a new building will collapse under its own weight or not. Please go on and build what can not be build, a useful smartwatch with decent battery life.

Or perhaps you think we should of stayed in mud huts till we perfected the skyscraper plans and materials.

If the maximum your wisdom allows for is mud huts, it would be stupid to start building skyscrapers. This is the time in which our technology allows us to build very capable smartphones and tablets. That's what we should build today. The era for smartwatches has not yet come.

How dumb and stupid is that.

To build a skyscraper only to see it collapse? Very stupid and very dumb.

That's how humans got where they are.

Self-esteem.

 

[dailyrebel]

I agree that the whole "talking into a watch" is pretty silly. The other features are useful though, and hopefully it is not a product that depends on voice.

Come on guys who would not like to talk to the watch i think it wil look super rad. I cant wait to talk to my watch. its the vision of our childhood that never came true. But hopefully soon

 

[ThunderSkunk]

But Google, I don't have a closet full of flimsy flannel shirts and cheap beanies to dress up in, to make wearing this ugly watch ironic like the important teenagers in the ad. I'd just be a dork wearing a stupid looking watch irritating people in public by sporadically yelling into it.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Should i replace my Rolex for this???

Btw. Motorola is a joke company. How many hype they make it is still a dead company.

We'll see how dead it is and how much of a joke it is when the Lenovo deal goes through. Lenovo will be laughing all the way to the bank if they are as successful with Moto as they have been with computers.

 

[Gudi]

Come on guys who would not like to talk to the watch i think it will look super rad. I cant wait to talk to my watch. its the vision of our childhood that never came true. But hopefully soon.

And of your parents childhood, but not of your kids childhood. They are already facetiming with each other. On your wrist or in your hand, it's really not that different.

 

[617aircav]

nice, this may send me back to android.

 

[mejsric]

We'll see how dead it is and how much of a joke it is when the Lenovo deal goes through. Lenovo will be laughing all the way to the bank if they are as successful with Moto as they have been with computers.

We'll see how dead it is and how much of a joke it is when the Google deal goes through. Google will be laughing all the way to the bank if they are as successful with Moto as they have been with computers.

Remember???
Even Google cant save Motorola.

 

[firewood]

distracted driving?

So when these things come out, will governments make looking at ones watch illegal while driving?

A driver might be able to see their watch without taking their hands off the steering wheel, but then they are not really looking at the road for that instant.

 

[kdarling]

Say how long the battery lasts and than I will decide, if it has a battery or not. The Galaxy Gear has up to 2 days of battery which for a watch equals to no battery life.

The WIMM's battery lasted just over 24 hours, which is why I stopped wearing it. I hated taking it off each night. So I agree with you that smartwatches need to last longer.

Of course, it didn't help that I had WiFi on all the time, since I rarely carried my smartphone at the time, and I used the watch instead. (It had a great little RSS news reader with images. Surprising how well you could use such a small screen for that.)

As for thickness, the sloped band cleverly hid most of that.

To be useful underway the screen backlight must outshine the sun. That alone will empty the battery. It is undoable with todays technology, despite you people claiming to own such devices. What you have are dreams and promises, not useful products.

The WIMM had a very cool dual mode screen.

When you were using it, it was in full color backlit mode.

When you weren't actively using it, it fell back to a power conserving B&W transflective (*) mode so you could always see the time display... most especially in the sunlight. In that mode, it also only updated the display once a minute, which was fine for a watchface that you'd casually glance at.

(*) For those who don't know: transflective displays use the light around you to reflect back up through the LCD display as its backlight. The more light around you, the better it looks. Perfect for sunlight usage, and very low power of course.

 

[AppleScruff1]

We'll see how dead it is and how much of a joke it is when the Google deal goes through. Google will be laughing all the way to the bank if they are as successful with Moto as they have been with computers.

Remember???
Even Google cant save Motorola.

Google got what they wanted from Motorola and made no attempt to "save" them. My money is on Lenovo if they do with Moto as they did with IBM pc's.

 

[paradox00]

Wow, Google and Motorola have just slammed that gauntlet down at Apple... such a smooth OS on that watch.

Still not for me, but very very very very impressive and Apple will certainly have it's work cut out now.

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So why the hell are you posting on MacRUMORS then?

I'm not sure what your point is. This article has nothing to do with Macs, nor is it about a rumour, but that's not my fault.

Apparently if you can't dispute my post logically, it's ok to post nonsense.

 

[vvswarup]

Erm, NO mate it is not. It is NOT vapor when you launch the platform AND have a manufacturing partner demo a pre-production product on the same day!

The Apple Television IS Vapor as it does not exist, it is nothing more then made up rumours, no one has seen any platform for it or any pre-production models.

Something is not vapor when the platform is launched and a manufacturing partner demoes a preproduction product on the same day.

But it is also not vapor when a hack job analyst or reporter spreads a rumor that a product is about to be released.

Apple hasn't said a word about the television. Whenever anyone asks, they just say it's an area of interest. They never came out said they're working on a TV. The can't be held responsible for rumors.

 

[Dr McKay]

However, you can't say that even the first generation iPhone lacked something, because it didn't,

MMS
Bluetooth file transfers
Video recording
Any 3rd party apps
3G

 

[elgrecomac]

I soooo don't need one.....

Now that's a good one! Until of course Apple makes one and then you'll wait overnight to get one! Lol!

 

[Frankied22]

The amount of backlash in this thread is ridiculous. We all know once Apple releases their iWatch everyone on here will love it and hail it as innovative and amazing. I will be buying one but I respect Google and I think they are quickly getting better and better, and it is a pretty big deal that they are beating Apple to the punch with smart watches and an SDK for developers. The soonest we will see a SDK for something from Apple will be WWDC.

 

[MacMan988]

People in the world are becoming more and more concerned about the weather these days.