Fossil joins Apple Watch competition with Moto 360-like Android Wear product

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 66
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    But but but how hard can it be? /s
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0130U8Y2C

    1) Yikes! Did you notice it's #1 in sales for mid-range disc (aka: Frisbees)? WTH?!

    2) The following item seems off to me. Since when does Apple sell their products on Amazon at a much higher retailer price than in their stores, and then list a completely fake original cost to make it look like a deal? What am I missing?

    edit: Sold by Value Gadgets and fulfilled by Amazon, and the seller answered a question about the prices saying it should be $400 + $4.99 shipping. Something is definitely wrong with that.
  • Reply 42 of 66
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Putting a digital display inside a classic watch body makes about as much sense stylistically as replacing a grandfather clock face with a round digital screen.

    Samsung will do that I am sure.
  • Reply 44 of 66
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    melgross wrote: »
    It doesn't really matter. They have half of the game just knowing how to make watch cases, styling, and how to sell them. Technical expertise can always be bought. Apple does it all the time.

    it's that easy. which is why all those android smartphone makers are making so much profit. oh wait...they're not making any profit at all because making compelling products is not easy at all, hired technical resources be damned.
  • Reply 45 of 66
    levilevi Posts: 344member
    Man, I actually feel bad for them.
  • Reply 46 of 66
    Gosh that is an ugly assed watch from Fossil.
    It makes me realise now nice the AppleWatch actually is.
  • Reply 47 of 66
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,309member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    I agree. I'm one of these who loves the complex, partly to mostly, hand manufactured nature of the high quality mechanical watch, and I have a few.



    But, except for the really higher priced brands, a lot of medium priced watches will disappear. By medium priced, I meant from about $400 to $2,000. Cheap watches will remain, because they are cheap. Really high priced ones will remain because they are mostly a status symbol no matter what the companies and the watch owners say otherwise. Some are even collectibles as soon as they are released.



    If Google gets their system in order, then it will do just fine, believe it or not. I'm not about to become complacent, and I advise others here not to becom either. I well remember the first year Android phones came out. They did terribly, and the question asked was; "Where are all the Android phones?" Well, the second year they began to come out, and we all know what happened. Same thing for tablets.



    At some point, Android Wear will have much better watches, and people will start buying them, particularly if they remain less expensive.

    Yet, Google's business model has already defined a low to zero profit marketplace for Android Wearables. Soon there will be hundreds, then thousands of smartwatch models copying all of the traditional brands, at surprisingly low costs. It will get quite ugly.

     

    So, yeah, Android Wearables will see wide adoption, but very few of those brands will approach Apple's standards. All Apple has to do is continue what it is doing now; filling out and improving the ecosystem.

  • Reply 48 of 66
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    aderutter wrote: »
    Gosh that is an ugly assed watch from Fossil.
    It makes me realise now nice the AppleWatch actually is.

    I have to laugh when people knock ?Watch for being bulky. As if this isn't bulky:

    lg-watch-urbane-9431.0.jpg
  • Reply 49 of 66
    The Fossil sneak peek is embarrassing..
    The smart watch category, from the start has been an early adopter gadget and will not change anyone's life like the Apple iPhone did in my opinion. For sure, post Steve's passing; Wall Street pushed Apple into (prematurely make the debut version) to manage the stock price, that's the reason "why" the mini phone on your wrist was made..sorry Apple zombies out there...this was not made for you. Now Fossil Group has re-reacted to this category..I say it this way since Fossil has been making blue tooth watches since 2000, with Microsoft, and Sony Ericsson, for example which were both disastrous flops. Fossil lost over $12M (that's a lot of money outside of Apple) over the development of these gadget bricks over the years, and disbanded their technology division in 2012 and never looked back...until that is the fashion watch bubble burst in 2014 with the added hubbub of Apple watch was on its way. A round analog viewing area, tracking of cloud based data and the use of NFC through an app un-theathered to the smart phone is the correct direction for a connected wrist device. All that's out there today is a waste of money.
  • Reply 50 of 66
    The thing is gigantic and not good looking at all... it's like they tried to mash a traditional watch together with a "smart watch" and managed to make neither one look good in a singular product.

    Plus, I still don't understand why round Android watches have that small blank, black space at the bottom of the face. I'm sure the reasons are technical and if that's the case, they should've figured out a method to design around it or wait until it's fully figured out before putting it out there. It's hideous and makes the watch look incomplete and amateur.
  • Reply 51 of 66
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member

    amazing, only 10 years ago - this was the state of the art 'smart' watch - it doesn't look so bad, especially compared to the gargantuan turd above,  but this watch
    lacked siri, payments, photos, and a whole lot more - technology has come a long way in 10 years. 
    I agree it's not bad looking at all. It's very similar to the ?Watch design in fact. Many similarities. I'd like to see them side-by-side actually to see how significant the differences in size. I'd also be curious about the battery life. But if Apple offered that Fossile design as a model, I'd consider buying it.

    But you're right, technology has come a long way in 10 years. Nobody is saying Fossil is Apple, but they certainly aren't un-familiar with smart watches, nor their problems. If anybody could step up their game Fossil seems a respectable candidate. They could do better than Android, but then again everybody should strive to do better than Android. The issue with Android and Samsung at the moment is the same that Apple faces -- the watch today has to be tied to a phone. That 10 year old technology was likely pretty autonomous. But since the watch offloads so much of it's data processing to the phone, the watchmaker is forced to partner with someone who is tied into a phone operating system, and they sure won't get a license from Apple for that. So in the short term, I don't see many other choices if hey want to get a presence in the marketplace, while developing something else.

    The Swiss watchmakers faced the same situation when Quartz watches entered the market, and Fossil is a direct result of that decimating period. No doubt smart watches will change the landscape similarly for watchmakers, but I just don't get all this glee that the ?Watch is going to run them all out of business. Competition is good, choice is good, and I look forward to see what other concepts come out of Apple's raising the bar in this area from others.
  • Reply 52 of 66
    jsmythe00 wrote: »
    ....I haven't wore a watch since 17 and I'm 41 now. 2 months ago...I went in to an Apple Store just to "look" at the watch and walked out wearing one.

    It really is a quality product.

    I did the exact same thing! It has been years since I have last worn a watch as well. High school, I think? My wife and I went into an Apple Store because she was interested in it. We couldn't walk out of the store with one at that time, but we both immediately ordered one online. I think it was on my wrist for, I dunno... 20 seconds before I loved it? And I initially had no interest in it nor did I see it as necessary when it was announced. Trying it on, and ultimately using it every single day, I can hardly live without it now.

    The thing is, I don't feel that my iPhone 6 is any less useful because I have the ? Watch. Apple has simply created a symbiosis between these devices that improves the user experience wonderfully. I just can't wait for Apple Pay to get to Canada!!
  • Reply 53 of 66
    jsmythe00 wrote: »
    Which ones did you get?

    It had taken me about a week to understand that the device is requires different...thought. It's not for content creation or consumption. It's not a communicator or browser or MP3.

    I think it's that extra drizzle sauce on your $80 steak plate. It adds sonething memorable an already delicious dish(apple product collection).

    Two months in and I just started using the fitness aspects of the watch. Combined w the phone and some good apps I'm tracking my health in minute detail.

    Ha, enjoy the health tracking. I just use it to track my calories and how much I'm standing, lol. But my wife uses the Health app all the time and the data the ? Watch collects, combined with the iPhone's interaction, it is pretty great. Enjoy!

    We both got Sport models.
  • Reply 54 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    solipsismy wrote: »
    Half the game is the HW? No. That's half the categories if you divvy them up into simply HW and SW, but that's not even close to being half the effort, especially since we'e not even considering it to be all of the HW. Furthermore, learning to do HW is a lot easier than learning how to make an OS and apps, and that's before we even get into optimizing SW for specific HW or stating that Fossil appears to have no experience in designing any computing devices, which would seem to be HW that's out of their purview.
    Apple does what all the time? Not use their own OS or circuit designs on major product categories? :???:

    You really are going overboard here. There is no reason Fossil would have to make the OS, as they're using android Wear. They might write a few of their own apps, but they would do that they way many companies do, and farm them out. Nothing new here.

    This watch is obviously the Motorola watch. Fossil had to do little other than style and make the case. Possibly, Motorola did all of that too. You're finding problems that don't exist. They never need to make the interior mechanisms of these digital watches. I guarantee that they will be, or already is, an industry building up that will make digital movements and sell them to watchmakers. Watchmakers will design cases and bands around those movements, as do mechanical watch makers now.

    Apple bought over 24 small technology companies last year alone, according to their own count. They bought a number of companies over the past few years when they decided to develop their version of ARM's chips. They bought the company that developed the touch sensor. They have bought numerous software companies, or programs over the years.

    Where have you been? You think that Apple developed all of their hardware and software technologies themselves? How naive!
  • Reply 55 of 66
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    melgross wrote: »
    You really are going overboard here.

    I'm analyzing what you said, and that doesn't jibe with the reality that they have half the game with "watch cases, styling, and how to sell them" or your comments that they can simply buy "technical experts". I'm sure executives at nearly every company that was doing well in a market while a major paradigm shift was happening said the same thing and yet Yahoo, HP, MS in mobile, Palm, Creative, BB, Nokia, Dell, and countless other companies with solid marketshare, excellent mindshare, and deep pockets couldn't save themselves by hiring some "technical experts" to shore up their inability to plan properly for the future, nor is knowing how to make a watch case even half the effort involved for the modern wearable market. That isn't to say that Fossil, as an example, can't survive. I have absolutely no knowledge of their future and zero stake in either their success or failure, but your comments implying the wearable CE market is a calk walk for Fossil and other traditional watch markers simply has no foundation.
  • Reply 56 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    rogifan wrote: »
    You're right about most watches looking alike. But for watch aficionados they're not. The problem is why would I buy an LG over Moto or now Fossil? I suppose pick the one that has the best battery life and customer service?

    People can complain about the high price of ?Watch but to me the fit and finish on the device is impeccable. The Sport band one of the most comfortable watch bands I've ever worn. I've been wearing the white one for 3 weeks now and it's still as white as when I first got the watch. No discolorations from sweat, it's not dirty. It's just perfect. I tried on a Moto 360 at Best Buy and it felt very cheap. Plus it was humongous on my wrist. This fallacy that you can make something premium for cheap is just that. Look no further than the new Samsung phones which are equal to or even more expensive than iPhone.

    I'm a watch aficionado, and I'm not too proud to admit that if you take a number of watches from several manufacturers that have similar styles, colors and just a few complications, I can't tell them apart without having to look more closely that a couple of feet, sometimes.

    The point is that while some watch manufacturers have come up with rather bizarre styles, most people want watches that stick to generally accepted styles. That includes people buying watches in the $10,000 to maybe $30,000 range. When you get to even higher price level, the watches do tend to come even more bizarre, with many requiring a degree in mechanical engineering to be able to read them.

    But digital watches aren't intended as art pieces. They are intended to be used for the functionality. And with small watch faces, there are only so many ways to do that, without getting into that bizarre state that mechanical watches on the really high end have gotten into.

    So, sure, watches do basically look alike. They are getting bigger though. The newest "standard" size is up to a whopping 52mm diameter, and over 25nn thick. Compared to those, the 42mm Apple Watch, which is narrower than if it were round, is absolutely diminutive.

    I agree that the Apple Watch is beautiful in its precision. Holding it, even the Sport model seems very high quality. The Watch model is beautiful. Sure, it's not going to be to everyone's taste. I would be very surprised of it were. So we're hearing rumors that Apple is working on different styles, possibly for next year, even. That would make sense. The fact that they have two sizes already shows forethought that other makers haven't yet managed, but now they will.
  • Reply 57 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    nolamacguy wrote: »
    it's that easy. which is why all those android smartphone makers are making so much profit. oh wait...they're not making any profit at all because making compelling products is not easy at all, hired technical resources be damned.

    This is very different. You can try to be flippant, but it isn't the iPhone with a worldwide marketshare of 82%. So while most aren't making money, that's because developing a smartphone is very complex. While Apple is taking the high road here, which is fine by me, Android Wear will be cheaper. Lots of people choose cheap.

    If Android Wear watches drop to $200, or less, a lot of them will be sold, even if they aren't very good, or don't look that great. That's just the human condition. And you know it.

    If a manufacturer, or several, decides to make Android Wear modules that just need to be popped into a case, then the digital watch industry will be like the mechanical watch industry is now, from the cheapest watches, to some of the most expensive. That will bring prices down. Individual watch makers won't have to develop their own modules. Again, this is the way the watch industry operates now. Only some companies develop their own movements. The rest buy them from other manufacturers. The Swatch Group is the world's biggest manufacturer of watches, both cheap, and very expensive. But they are also the world's largest maker of mechanical movements, both cheap, and very expensive, for OEM watch manufacturers at both ends of the spectrum.

    If they decide to make Android Wear modules for other companies, as Motorola has done for Fossil, then everyone will get into the business.
  • Reply 58 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    tmay wrote: »
    Yet, Google's business model has already defined a low to zero profit marketplace for Android Wearables. Soon there will be hundreds, then thousands of smartwatch models copying all of the traditional brands, at surprisingly low costs. It will get quite ugly.

    So, yeah, Android Wearables will see wide adoption, but very few of those brands will approach Apple's standards. All Apple has to do is continue what it is doing now; filling out and improving the ecosystem.

    We all seem to be talking about different things here.

    These companies don't have to approach Apple's standards. Does anyone expect a $200 mechanical watch to approach the standards of mechanical watches costing more? No, they don't. Yet, many people buy a $200 watch over a $400 watch, and far more $100 watches are bought than $200 watches. That's how companies like Fossil exist.
  • Reply 59 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    solipsismy wrote: »
    I'm analyzing what you said, and that doesn't jibe with the reality that they have half the game with "watch cases, styling, and how to sell them" or your comments that they can simply buy "technical experts". I'm sure executives at nearly every company that was doing well in a market while a major paradigm shift was happening said the same thing and yet Yahoo, HP, MS in mobile, Palm, Creative, BB, Nokia, Dell, and countless other companies with solid marketshare, excellent mindshare, and deep pockets couldn't save themselves by hiring some "technical experts" to shore up their inability to plan properly for the future, nor is knowing how to make a watch case even half the effort involved for the modern wearable market. That isn't to say that Fossil, as an example, can't survive. I have absolutely no knowledge of their future and zero stake in either their success or failure, but your comments implying the wearable CE market is a calk walk for Fossil and other traditional watch markers simply has no foundation.

    You're wrong. You are pretending to yourself, despite that you must know better, that Apple develops every technology internally. It doesn't. You mentioned the OS, surely you know that it was bought, when Apple bought Next?

    I'm not saying that after Apple buys technology and software, and technology companies, and software companies, that it then doesn't continue development. Of course it does. But the nexus of that development are the people from the companies it bought, even as some drift away from Apple over time.remember that Apple bought what was going to be one FCP from Macromedia. And it bought Logic Pro. And, while I forget the name right now, it bought what turned into iTunes. And it bought from Astarte, what became the DVd writing software. I could go on for a while. Then there are all the hardware tech companies they bought.

    Do you really have to be reminded of all this?

    But if you do, then we can look to the vehicle work Apple now really does appear to be doing. Did they go to their people and ask who wanted to be on that project, and pick people to lead it? No, they hired prominent people from the automotive and battery industry, and built the R&D around them. Then they took people from within Apple to fill it out with people they needed to add to it. They've been talking to BMW about manufacturing and technology transfer, as BMW themselves admitted.

    Does this drop Apple to the level you're trying to put the Android Wear manufacturers into? No, it doesn't.

    Im not saying it's a cake walk. I'm saying that it's not as difficult as you are saying. I've mentioned the mechanical watch industry in several posts here now, and it applies to this.

    Google takes the work and responsibility of the OS and ecosystem to themselves. The OEMs don't need to do that. That's a large part of the battle. If third parties, such as the Swatch Group decide to build modules in various sizes and possibly, performance levels, then the smartwatch industry will mirror the watch industry today. You can't believe that, but it's true. And don't denigrate the Swatch Group, as they are a very high technology company. If they want to build watch modules, they will. Motorola has done the work for fossil with this first model from them.
  • Reply 60 of 66
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    melgross wrote: »
    You're wrong. You are pretending to yourself, despite that you must know better, that Apple develops every technology internally. It doesn't.

    I have absolutely no idea why you would read my statements questioning your comments about easily buying "technical experts" as a comment that suggests Apple has never bought another company for their tech. How are those even related to this conversation unless you're trying to move the conversation off point. But you win, I'll bit… RiM is a prime example when they bought QNX (and probably others) and yet it was far too late for them to make that work to counter the affects of their crumbling empire even as they were at the apex of their sales, revenue and profits so why do you think that simply buying a company, its people, its products, or its IP enough to weather any paradigm shift in a market? History clearly shows us that it's not. Buying don't mean shit if you don't know what to do with it and have it ready in time.

    So explain to me why your comments about Fossil (which I assume holds for every other traditional watch maker in existence today) will exceed in the wearable CE market simply because they can throw money at the problem?
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