OK Google... G A M E O N !
Hang On! Here we go! This is gonna be fun!
Or, as Steve would say:
Welcome,
Google.
Seriously.
The Android Wear platform was introduced some 6 months before Apple said they'd be bringing an Apple Watch to market, and a bit more than a year before it actually was available. Apple of course had a much better system in place out-of-the gate as would be expected so the AI article is accurate in saying Android Wear 2.0 is playing catchup in many areas, and not offering all that much in the way of new and unique stuff.
The smartwatch market still has a lot of growing up to do.
1st gen apple watch owner ordered within 4 minutes of its availability. 10 bands to date. Change them like underwear. Daily, sometimes more often. Yes, and people notice that you have a different band. They are amazed at how easy it is to change.
1st gen apple watch owner ordered within 4 minutes of its availability. 10 bands to date. Change them like underwear. Daily, sometimes more often. Yes, and people notice that you have a different band. They are amazed at how easy it is to change.
I did this briefly in the mid-1980s, with the hottest fashion trend at the time using easily interchangable grosgrain and leather bands. Had an extensive collection I'd invested hundreds of dollars into, and swapped them often, if not daily -- and people commented on them all the time. It was a fun time. Eventually it became a PITA, so I stopped doing it as often, then the fad was over and nobody did it, and people stopped noticing (or caring?). I ended up putting a nice leather strap on it until I could finally afford a nice chronograph watch with a steel bracelet. I still brought it out for "dress" occasions until it stopped working and wasn't worth repairing, but I much preferred an entirely different look over just switching out the band, something I appreciate to this day.
i love that the bands are so easy to swap out, when needed, as it makes a single purchase much more versitile. But for me, bands alone will never be enough to make up for complete package. I'd rather open a drawer of watches in the morning and select the one that appeals to me the most at that moment, rather than just what band I want to wear with the same identical rectangle. Been there, done that.
First of all, I hate Hate HATE the round smart watches. Secondly, I would like automatic workout detection since I haven't once remembered to start the workout app on my watch.
Agree, but with me it's forgetting to turn the workout off after finishing. I drive home from the gym, check the time, and see that my treadmill walk is still on! It sort of knows this by stopping the distance, but the workout time is still ticking away. Needs to be more proactive by giving an alert when it senses that I have sgotten off the treadmill.
If it weren't for the competitive nature between Samsung and LG, Android wear wouldn't have any capable OEMs. And no, Sony's watches aren't remotely competitive.
And the whole thing about Android wear allowing LTE connectivity. Who outside of Samsung is even capable of producing such a device?!? I believe that it will be coming to Apple when Intel builds a modem on their upcoming 10 nm process. QCOM's revenues are now under serious threat and they may be unable to compete with Samsung and Intel for 5G modems in wearable devices.
Google has some very hard choices to make also. Android wear is about to be left behind in the major technology shift.
As quoted in the link given above, "As per the sources, Huawei has been looking for the operating system other than Google’s Android as Google has not been very collaborative with the company."
i really doubt thay LG is going to save Android wear.
Let me just put in my (possibly worthless) two cents, I think where Apple nailed it is with the bands. I know with all the other technologies these things offer, putting emphasis on the band is pretty silly right? Well, not in my opinion. The thing that makes Apple Watches so appealing outside of their technology is they just look darn awesome with their bands. There are so many to choose from and Apple does a great thing by showing you a Watch face and colors and complement that band perfectly. These Android Wear 2.0 watch while cool...I think don't have very appealing bands. I suppose it is all subjective, but like I said just my two cents. I'm glad Apple put as much thought into their bands as the watch itself.
By the way, I was an early adopter and got my Apple Watch only a few weeks after it was initially released. Back then, hardly anyone had one on. This year, I see them on so many people. Each one with a different type of band...so happy to Apple for gaining market share.
One thing that does concern me is that Apple has made such a great product that people won't want to upgrade often. I mean I have no reason to buy another. My 1st generation works just fine for me. I am only concerned because again people will say YoY decline in Apple Watch sales because no one will want to upgrade like me. This is what happened with their iPad. It is not that the iPad is bad product it is just it is such a good product that hardly anyone needs to buy the latest and greatest.
I agree with this and would add that, if the goal is simple device sales, then a slow upgrade cycle is a problem. But, if the goal is customer satisfaction (figuring that a happy customer will be more likely to trust the brand for some future generation of the product or a whole different product), then this level of continued use is a plus, even at the short term cost of somewhat fewer sales. Focusing on consumer happiness/satisfaction seems like a valid business philosophy, especially when combined with a focus on profitability (not maximizing aggregate profits but maximizing profit per unit - i.e., margins). For more, I had these related thoughts: http://q10a1.blogspot.com/2015/04/tablet-doom-and-gloom.html
Android Wear launched months earlier. People were saying Apple missed the boat. How the fortune has changed.
Today, Samsung and others have backed away from Android Wear. Looking at Wear's latest, vision and development seem to have stagnated. Execution is also a problem since they can't address basic issues like size, battery life, UI on round face. It's a problem because when they try to cater to every shape and new features, they end up catering to no one. Implementation will be subpar and buggy as some review point out.
Fashion-wise, they are focused on the geeks and utility. Even if users have multiple Android Wear watches, the feature rich or new ones are all big (to have good battery life) and geeky. Multiple watches approach gets expensive especially when the Android crowd cherish low price and free software. Many would rather go for cheap sports bands. You get a whole bag of colorful bands too just for a few dollars. AppleWatch is also squeezing the lower end by reducing price of old models.
Need more options like Hermes' bands to soften, lift, and broaden the appeal. But not too many that cheapens the fashion ecosystem. Bands that extend watch functionality sounds interesting too, like that camera band for AppleWatch. Then again it is niche/geeky.
It looks like for Apple, the network is the computer. With AirPods and Beats X, the Watch gains a new dimension. Suddenly it feels like Apple has already established its own wireless project Ara. You can mix and match computing power (phone), earphone, bands, case material, etc. easily. Parts are waterproof, drop-proof and electrically safe. They have solved all the Ara issues quietly with the help of the W1 chip and their network stack.
Will be interesting to see how the ecosystem evolves further. On a related note, Google is also a bit slow in adapting to Apple's native UI. Microsoft is rather good at it. I got both their translator software on my phone. But MS's software blends into Apple's ecosystem better. Their translator includes a watch extension. It's still early but it looks like developers will continue to help the Watch to appeal to the geeky users too.
I own an Apple Watch 2 and I love it, but I think Android Wear 2.0 will be great with LTE and the built-in Google Play Store. I actually would not mind buying one, but I really like Apple's ecosystem and Android's reliability is just not there.
OK Google... G A M E O N !
Hang On! Here we go! This is gonna be fun!
Or, as Steve would say:
Welcome,
Google.
Seriously.
The Android Wear platform was introduced some 6 months before Apple said they'd be bringing an Apple Watch to market, and a bit more than a year before it actually was available. Apple of course had a much better system in place out-of-the gate as would be expected so the AI article is accurate in saying Android Wear 2.0 is playing catchup in many areas, and not offering all that much in the way of new and unique stuff.
The smartwatch market still has a lot of growing up to do.
Are you talking about the toys they marketed?
In any event, they just became competitive. So: 'Welcome, Google. Seriously.'
I own an Apple Watch 2 and I love it, but I think Android Wear 2.0 will be great with LTE and the built-in Google Play Store. I actually would not mind buying one, but I really like Apple's ecosystem and Android's reliability is just not there.
Honestly, who has the hardware capability of putting a cellular baseband radio into a smartwatch outside of Samsung?
I believe it is coming to Apple.
For now, Samsung's Gear S3 frontier is a nice watch with LTE. It is quite large. It does have a battery life of 3 days. Oh, it doesn't run Android wear.
Android wear watches still won't sell. Outside of Apple only Samsung makes a nice watch. And if Huawei's next watch does indeed run Tizen, Android wear won't be going anywhere.
First of all, I hate Hate HATE the round smart watches. Secondly, I would like automatic workout detection since I haven't once remembered to start the workout app on my watch.
Agree, but with me it's forgetting to turn the workout off after finishing. I drive home from the gym, check the time, and see that my treadmill walk is still on! It sort of knows this by stopping the distance, but the workout time is still ticking away. Needs to be more proactive by giving an alert when it senses that I have sgotten off the treadmill.
Yes, i'd like it if you could retroactively shorten the length of a workout session since i often accidentally leave it running too long.
I own an Apple Watch 2 and I love it, but I think Android Wear 2.0 will be great with LTE and the built-in Google Play Store. I actually would not mind buying one, but I really like Apple's ecosystem and Android's reliability is just not there.
Honestly, who has the hardware capability of putting a cellular baseband radio into a smartwatch outside of Samsung?
I believe it is coming to Apple.
For now, Samsung's Gear S3 frontier is a nice watch with LTE. It is quite large. It does have a battery life of 3 days. Oh, it doesn't run Android wear.
Android wear watches still won't sell. Outside of Apple only Samsung makes a nice watch. And if Huawei's next watch does indeed run Tizen, Android wear won't be going anywhere.
I suspect with the number of licensees ranging from traditional watch companies, to smartphone manufacturers, to fitness/GPS companies, to medical device providers, to IoT devices you've never even imagined, that Android Wear will be just fine.
With that out of the way those two LG watches announced yesterday are not well thought out. The cheaper of the two lacking NFC, required for Android Pay which a lot of folks would like to see on a smartwatch (ala Apple Watch) while the more expensive has everything but a cook-stove, and a price and size to match. On top of that they have no style whatsoever IMHO. Why LG wouldn't have done something more along the lines of either Huawei or better yet the recently-released Asus Zenwatch 3 I've no idea. Hardly worth the effort on those two new LG smartwatches.
Interesting to read the negative reactions to circular watch faces. Or, maybe not that interesting since this is an Apple site, but for me the square face means I'd probably never buy an Apple Watch. Someone noted that the Apple Watch has style like a watch should....which it kind of does, but I don't think I'd ever buy a square analog watch, and certainly not a square smart one, as it makes it all the more obvious that it's a gadget. I think having both designs as Android Wear does is clearly better, since then there's something for everyone.
All that said, while I've tried them out I don't own a smartwatch from any brand, and I'm not seeing anything in Wear 2.0 to convince me to buy one.
I never wear watches so I'm not interested in an Apple Watch but if I were interested in a watch wearable, I would never get one for exactly the reasons you describe. It's all down to preferences but I've always found the Apple Watch to be more than ugly precisely due to its shape.
First of all, I hate Hate HATE the round smart watches. Secondly, I would like automatic workout detection since I haven't once remembered to start the workout app on my watch.
Agree, but with me it's forgetting to turn the workout off after finishing. I drive home from the gym, check the time, and see that my treadmill walk is still on! It sort of knows this by stopping the distance, but the workout time is still ticking away. Needs to be more proactive by giving an alert when it senses that I have sgotten off the treadmill.
Yes, i'd like it if you could retroactively shorten the length of a workout session since i often accidentally leave it running too long.
I had been using ICardio to monitor and record workouts (running, cycling, weights, etc.) on my IPhone. And, now it is also an app on the Apple Watch. I like it better than Apple's app for aerobic exercise because it displays a graph of heart rate (on the phone) that can be helpful in analyzing a run or bike ride. But, in addition, you are able to edit workouts after the fact -- such as adjusting the time.
Third party exercise apps are just now starting to come out for the Apple Watch because Apple just opened up the watch's metrics to them with Watch OS3.
One thing that I do not like about it is that you have to have ICardio running on both your phone and your watch to use the watch app. And, the watch app has a one or two second delay to refresh when you raise your wrist --- which Apple's app does not have. I find it to be instantaneous even on the original series watch.
By the way, ICardio updates exercise in both Apple's Health app and its Activity app -- so you don't lose anything if you switch back and forth between the ICardio app and Apple's app.
I own an Apple Watch 2 and I love it, but I think Android Wear 2.0 will be great with LTE and the built-in Google Play Store. I actually would not mind buying one, but I really like Apple's ecosystem and Android's reliability is just not there.
Honestly, who has the hardware capability of putting a cellular baseband radio into a smartwatch outside of Samsung?
I believe it is coming to Apple.
For now, Samsung's Gear S3 frontier is a nice watch with LTE. It is quite large. It does have a battery life of 3 days. Oh, it doesn't run Android wear.
Android wear watches still won't sell. Outside of Apple only Samsung makes a nice watch. And if Huawei's next watch does indeed run Tizen, Android wear won't be going anywhere.
I suspect with the number of licensees ranging from traditional watch companies, to smartphone manufacturers, to fitness/GPS companies, to medical device providers, to IoT devices you've never even imagined, that Android Wear will be just fine.
With that out of the way those two LG watches announced yesterday are not well thought out. The cheaper of the two lacking NFC, required for Android Pay which a lot of folks would like to see on a smartwatch (ala Apple Watch) while the more expensive has everything but a cook-stove, and a price and size to match. On top of that they have no style whatsoever IMHO. Why LG wouldn't have done something more along the lines of either Huawei or better yet the recently-released Asus Zenwatch 3 I've no idea. Hardly worth the effort on those two new LG smartwatches.
I doubt that Android wear will amount to much. It takes cutting edge hardware to put Android wear into a decent package. The most capable hardware manufacturers are aren't using Android wear. Apple never did, Samsung (who actually is the best components manufacturer) is looking to actively move off of Android and now there's Huawei.
Samsung pay is far better than Android pay anyway.
The Zenwatch is nowhere a Gear S3 frontier. And the Bezel is genius.
Android wear is still going nowhere. The including of LTE functionality is laughable when no one can deliver such a product except Samsung. And Samsung uses Tizen.
Google should give up on Android wear. It's a development cost with no return. They don't have a capable company like Samsung driving its adoption like Samsung fool heartedly did with Android originally on smartphones. Samsung won't be making that mistake again. And from the looks of things Huawei is getting ready to do the same.
Comments
The smartwatch market still has a lot of growing up to do.
i love that the bands are so easy to swap out, when needed, as it makes a single purchase much more versitile. But for me, bands alone will never be enough to make up for complete package. I'd rather open a drawer of watches in the morning and select the one that appeals to me the most at that moment, rather than just what band I want to wear with the same identical rectangle. Been there, done that.
Number two smartwatch by marketshare: Samsung.
Garmin and Fitbit aren't true smart watches.
Outside of Apple and Samsung, the market share for the others is quite small.
Huawei makes a decent smart watch but even they are getting ready to abandon Android wear.
https://dazeinfo.com/2016/09/30/huawei-tizen-os-android-wear-smartwatch/
If it weren't for the competitive nature between Samsung and LG, Android wear wouldn't have any capable OEMs. And no, Sony's watches aren't remotely competitive.
And the whole thing about Android wear allowing LTE connectivity. Who outside of Samsung is even capable of producing such a device?!? I believe that it will be coming to Apple when Intel builds a modem on their upcoming 10 nm process. QCOM's revenues are now under serious threat and they may be unable to compete with Samsung and Intel for 5G modems in wearable devices.
Google has some very hard choices to make also. Android wear is about to be left behind in the major technology shift.
As quoted in the link given above, "As per the sources, Huawei has been looking for the operating system other than Google’s Android as Google has not been very collaborative with the company."
i really doubt thay LG is going to save Android wear.
Today, Samsung and others have backed away from Android Wear. Looking at Wear's latest, vision and development seem to have stagnated. Execution is also a problem since they can't address basic issues like size, battery life, UI on round face. It's a problem because when they try to cater to every shape and new features, they end up catering to no one. Implementation will be subpar and buggy as some review point out.
Fashion-wise, they are focused on the geeks and utility. Even if users have multiple Android Wear watches, the feature rich or new ones are all big (to have good battery life) and geeky. Multiple watches approach gets expensive especially when the Android crowd cherish low price and free software. Many would rather go for cheap sports bands. You get a whole bag of colorful bands too just for a few dollars. AppleWatch is also squeezing the lower end by reducing price of old models.
Need more options like Hermes' bands to soften, lift, and broaden the appeal. But not too many that cheapens the fashion ecosystem. Bands that extend watch functionality sounds interesting too, like that camera band for AppleWatch. Then again it is niche/geeky.
It looks like for Apple, the network is the computer. With AirPods and Beats X, the Watch gains a new dimension. Suddenly it feels like Apple has already established its own wireless project Ara. You can mix and match computing power (phone), earphone, bands, case material, etc. easily. Parts are waterproof, drop-proof and electrically safe. They have solved all the Ara issues quietly with the help of the W1 chip and their network stack.
Will be interesting to see how the ecosystem evolves further. On a related note, Google is also a bit slow in adapting to Apple's native UI. Microsoft is rather good at it. I got both their translator software on my phone. But MS's software blends into Apple's ecosystem better. Their translator includes a watch extension. It's still early but it looks like developers will continue to help the Watch to appeal to the geeky users too.
In any event, they just became competitive. So: 'Welcome, Google. Seriously.'
I believe it is coming to Apple.
For now, Samsung's Gear S3 frontier is a nice watch with LTE. It is quite large. It does have a battery life of 3 days. Oh, it doesn't run Android wear.
Android wear watches still won't sell. Outside of Apple only Samsung makes a nice watch. And if Huawei's next watch does indeed run Tizen, Android wear won't be going anywhere.
With that out of the way those two LG watches announced yesterday are not well thought out. The cheaper of the two lacking NFC, required for Android Pay which a lot of folks would like to see on a smartwatch (ala Apple Watch) while the more expensive has everything but a cook-stove, and a price and size to match. On top of that they have no style whatsoever IMHO. Why LG wouldn't have done something more along the lines of either Huawei or better yet the recently-released Asus Zenwatch 3 I've no idea. Hardly worth the effort on those two new LG smartwatches.
Third party exercise apps are just now starting to come out for the Apple Watch because Apple just opened up the watch's metrics to them with Watch OS3.
One thing that I do not like about it is that you have to have ICardio running on both your phone and your watch to use the watch app. And, the watch app has a one or two second delay to refresh when you raise your wrist --- which Apple's app does not have. I find it to be instantaneous even on the original series watch.
By the way, ICardio updates exercise in both Apple's Health app and its Activity app -- so you don't lose anything if you switch back and forth between the ICardio app and Apple's app.
Samsung pay is far better than Android pay anyway.
The Zenwatch is nowhere a Gear S3 frontier. And the Bezel is genius.
Android wear is still going nowhere. The including of LTE functionality is laughable when no one can deliver such a product except Samsung. And Samsung uses Tizen.
Google should give up on Android wear. It's a development cost with no return. They don't have a capable company like Samsung driving its adoption like Samsung fool heartedly did with Android originally on smartphones. Samsung won't be making that mistake again. And from the looks of things Huawei is getting ready to do the same.