You do realize, that the UI literally looks like the pebble times UI right?No, fully serious. The AW looks likes a cheap kids toy one of my kids have. But even that has a better interface.
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Pebble Announces New 'Pebble Time Round' Smart Watch
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Uh, it's a smart watch ... problem solved. Round still wins over rectangular in this instance.
Not for a person who is used to wearing a traditional wristwatch. For some who have never worn a watch or wants as slim a profile on their wrist as possible they will opt for the 38mm Watch and accept the inherent compromises with using so small a display. For everyone else, a round smart watch will fit on their wrist no differently than any other round watch ever made. Heck 42mm isn't even a very big watch by todays standards. However, because the Watch fills the whole wrist with it's four corners, some may say the Watch looks bulky in comparison to a round watch.
Again, if you want to read an article on your smartwatch, you are using it in a way Jony Ive did not design it to be used. In which case, you should have the option to optimize your watch display to use it in any non-conventual way you wish. But there's no reason a good round smart watch UI can't be written to accommodate you. As I've pointed out before, compared with the Huawei, the current Apple display will fit easily within the confines of the larger round display area. So if you wanted to read an article, it could easily scroll within a centered box at the exact same size and resolution as it does the Watch without sacrificing anything, except your frame border would be semi-circles instead of black bands, space which a designer could use to add "complications" such as the time or date which would actually give you more room in the text box as the following example shows.
Moreover, Apple is already compromising the experience someone with a 38mm Watch is having due to text clipping and re-sizing of text so that it is still legible via a "glance". So you're already making sacrifices in order to use the watch for reading blocks of text and lists by opting for the 38mm watch. As long as you're doing this, what's the difference in framing it within a circle, other than you just don't personally care for circles?
All I'm gonna say is that I could have picked up a Pebble Time (square one) on clearance at Target this past weekend for a bill... Not gonna find my Apple Watch at a price like that *cough*
This is the 69th post that Mac 128 has made extolling the virtues of round smartwatches since joining the forum in April!
But that doesn't mean they are 'worth' more, 'look' better or anything inbetween - only that the fan boys will pay more...
Strange - my 5yo has this on and we've had a dozen or more people in the last 2 days ask why we bought him the expense AW. Pmsl.... Even the people in the Apple Store keep giving it a second look. One even joked it was the beta watch.
Your comparison is more about bezel area. Given the same square mm of bezel area around a display, rectangular goes back to being better at displaying some things (even if some people don't like the look). I expect bezel areas to continue to get smaller in the future, given advances in display circuitry, chip mounting and connection technologies.
This new Pebble is a bit silly. They made a round looking watch display by simply masking off the corners of a rectangular display chip.
I don't get it. The round watch face was necessitated by the classic watch hands and the clock design. It just naturally dictated a round form. It doesn't make sense to cling to a round watch face when there is no mechanical necessity for it. A smartwatch with a square face makes far better sense for the modern touch interface than a round one.
I admire these guys for pushing forward instead of doing what most companies do when Apple enters their market (i.e., scoff, whine, etc.) But this feels like a step backward which is too bad. I love Apple's products but I'd be lying through my teeth if I didn't say they don't need a determined competitor to keep them moving. That's why I don't do a lot of complaining about Android despite the fact that my experiences with it have been awful. This doesn't convince me that Pebble is going to be able to be the competitor Apple needs.
I admire these guys for pushing forward instead of doing what most companies do when Apple enters their market (i.e., scoff, whine, etc.) But this feels like a step backward which is too bad. I love Apple's products but I'd be lying through my teeth if I didn't say they don't need a determined competitor to keep them moving. That's why I don't do a lot of complaining about Android despite the fact that my experiences with it have been awful. This doesn't convince me that Pebble is going to be able to be the competitor Apple needs.
Oh absolutely. Once Apple expands the display to the edges, then of a round watch and a square watch of equal diameter with edge-to-edge displays, the round will provide less area for use, and will lose most of its current advantages over the Watch.
However, keep in mind, the 38mm watch already sacrifices display area for a smaller watch. And the entire edge-to-edge crystal of the 38mm will still almost fit completely into a 42mm round bezel as depicted below in yellow. So at most, in order to have a round watch, a person will have no less than the complete area of a current 38mm including the entire frame bezel, which is larger than the current 42mm Watch display. Of course that ratio changes when the diameter of the watch shrinks, but that's the same tradeoff Apple is currently making by offering the 38mm watch. Now the 42mm edge-to-edge rectangle changes the game entirely, but I would still argue using the entire frame bezel of the 42mm display (in red below), that the area of it seems pretty comparable to the round watch (without doing any advanced math), which of course would be optimized for a round UI.
So no matter how you slice it, compromises are going to be made for size and design choice. Apple has made it clear that the Watch is a fashion accessory (if that wasn't clear before, co-branding an edition with Hermes certainly does), and as such people are going to want more choice than the same black rectangle dressed up with different bands, and case finishes. Wearing a smaller Watch already sacrifices display area. So who's going to care if they have less than optimal display area as long as they have a shape that pleases them?
That CEO looks really nervous and uncomfortable in that video.
"M... maybe they'll get one"
Well it does now. Originally it sucked with iOS but that's been resolved for some time. Also, Apple allows Google and MS apps, so clearly they play nice with competitors at times.
The reason they made watches round is because initially they were just modified pocket watches.
The fit on the wrist of round watches isn't that great, in is fact not as good as a rectangle which make the watch/bracelet combo flow one into another. That's especially true if your active (that's why you have sports bands).
The first rectangular watches appeared around 1918 when watches appeared and were VERY popular throughout the 1920s to early 30s. Square watches sort of fell out of fashion because the watches made for the military were round and that large diffusion during and post war cimented the form. While using a round face takes a bit less space for an analog watch, space saving doesn't seem to be the reason to do it considering how big some of those watches are these days (men's watches have grown in size a lot over the last 20 years).
REALLY?! I've heard that comment over and over without a smidgen of intelligence attached to it, for 30 years! Apple products have aided my ability to provide for my single income, family of five very well. Doesn’t seem too doomed to me. Buy some Apple stock and get over yourself. Or at the very least provide some intelligent point in your comments.
MacRumors, you need a thumbs down button as badly as Facebook.
It's a joke like safari is snappier, but does it bend, etc.
