How expensive would these bands be? and if you wanted different bands for different looks you'd have to pay for all these components again? And what about 3rd party bands? Or would this be a specific watch model for people who don't care about changing bands? I change mine depending upon what I'm wearing but some people might not care.
I think the difference lies in how Apple originally marketed the Watch -- as a fashion watch and tech gadget -- versus its current direction of heading towards making it more functional by adding improved sports related tracking and also headed towards fulfilling its original purpose as a medical device monitoring things that physicians and their patients are interested in (such as blood pressure and glucose readings). The Watch as it currently exists with just a central heart rate tracker on the watch itself is too limited to do those things -- it needs a band that can do more than strap it to your wrist.
I think adding those metrics will determine if the Watch continues as a stand out, standalone performer or an also ran.
For instance: much of endurance sports center around metabolic paramters such as: aerobic vs anaerobic levels as well lactate threshold, etc... IF (and that's a big if) the Watch could be made to check and monitor those things, it would be a major step forward for endurance athletic training. Right now, that can only be done by lab testing and then trying to extrapolate those metrics to the field -- but that is a very crude and rough way of doing it because the parameters that affect those metrics change day-by-day and minute-to-minute.
Geez, they stole this idea from BLOCKS, the kickstarter that raised $1.6 million USD. This has been around for years already. https://www.chooseblocks.com/ Go get your own idea, Apple!
I think they may have an issue with this patent since a company called Blocks (chooseblocks.com) has been working on this very idea and is now in last stage before going to production.
This would be considered pre-existing artwork and thus Apple should not be able to patent the idea... But then again they are Apple and there may be trouble for the small startup.
That isn't how patents work. It's not the idea that is patented, but how it's implemented.
Geez, they stole this idea from BLOCKS, the kickstarter that raised $1.6 million USD. This has been around for years already. https://www.chooseblocks.com/ Go get your own idea, Apple!
Super low value post. First, Apple surely has been thinking about these things long before some kickstarter group because Apple has been working on the Watch far longer than we'd ever heard of it or likely than that company even existed. Second, Apple has plenty of its own ideas. Third -- multiple companies can have similar ideas because ideas are the very easy part. Implantation is the hard part. Easy to say "I have an idea!" and upload a kickstarter video -- very hard to design and engineer and manufacture and sell it. Thus the kickstarter graveyard.
When the Watch came out a couple of years ago I thought it was a missed opportunity on Apple's part that they made it rectangular rather than circular, as all smartwatches back then were still bulky ugly rectangles. I've seen a few circular Android smartwatches lately and some make for a handsome design. The patent illustration here is circular. Still I'm glad now that Apple stuck with the rectangle. As the whole smartwatch industry now seems to have chosen the circle, resulting in designs at times almost indistinguishable from each other. But you see an Watch today and you instantly know what it is and who makes it. Almost as distinctive as when the first iPod came out and you could tell who had one and who didn't by the then distinctive white plastic wrapped wires of the EarPods.
How expensive would these bands be? and if you wanted different bands for different looks you'd have to pay for all these components again? And what about 3rd party bands? Or would this be a specific watch model for people who don't care about changing bands? I change mine depending upon what I'm wearing but some people might not care.
Are you actually trying to criticize the future price of a thing that hasnt even been released or announced, but merely patented? Do you realize how absurd that is?
As for the other questions, I don't think Apple gives a crap about third-party bands. These would be modules for this concept, if you wanted to wear something else I'm sure you would be free to do so but it wouldn't be this.
Well there's no way a modular watch band would be cheap.
And? When the first patents for smartwatches, smartphones, tablets, computers, AirPods, and heck even light bulbs came out there was likely no way they would be cheap. I'm struggling to understand how your projected pricing on an unreleased, unannounced product is a reasonable criticism, since it doesn't even exist and we literally have no idea what the actual market price will be.
I think they may have an issue with this patent since a company called Blocks (chooseblocks.com) has been working on this very idea and is now in last stage before going to production.
This would be considered pre-existing artwork and thus Apple should not be able to patent the idea... But then again they are Apple and there may be trouble for the small startup.
You dont patent ideas, you patent the implementations/process of the ideas.
Comments
I think the difference lies in how Apple originally marketed the Watch -- as a fashion watch and tech gadget -- versus its current direction of heading towards making it more functional by adding improved sports related tracking and also headed towards fulfilling its original purpose as a medical device monitoring things that physicians and their patients are interested in (such as blood pressure and glucose readings). The Watch as it currently exists with just a central heart rate tracker on the watch itself is too limited to do those things -- it needs a band that can do more than strap it to your wrist.
I think adding those metrics will determine if the Watch continues as a stand out, standalone performer or an also ran.
For instance: much of endurance sports center around metabolic paramters such as: aerobic vs anaerobic levels as well lactate threshold, etc... IF (and that's a big if) the Watch could be made to check and monitor those things, it would be a major step forward for endurance athletic training. Right now, that can only be done by lab testing and then trying to extrapolate those metrics to the field -- but that is a very crude and rough way of doing it because the parameters that affect those metrics change day-by-day and minute-to-minute.
Like so...
http://newatlas.com/sgnl-smart-strap/45190/
Sure not as good as headphones but does mean you can take a call with only one device.
...
Any more ideas?
Oxygenation
Lactic Acid level
Sugar level