Please wait...
What's the deal with the phone-tethered watches anyway? After I started carrying a phone around everywhere I stopped wearing watches. Do a lot of people still have them?
you need both the phone and the watch.
I would be happy a watch and an ear piece.
well, they're already here:
http://www.pearl.de/a-PX1795-1010.shtml
However, I don't know how long their battery lasts.
I also like my wrists non-wrapped by some obscure electronics.
I guess the use would be if you want to controll your I-something while jogging, and view the HRM which endomondo/runtastic/whatever syncs to your i-something live instead of just after.
Jadda, jadda, jadda....
So what was the last innovative thing happening to Android phones? Bigger screens, eh?! Most of them are broken from normal usage, but the people do not seem to care. And what is there to care about an ugly, clumsy OS and a phone with a life cycle shorter than the attention span of a marketing leprechaun.
WRT Watches: I stopped wearing a watch maybe 20 years ago (when I started using pagers), but now I am thinking about getting a Pebble Steel. Simply reason: Phones are too large and unwieldy, it looks like a pissing contest when pulling them out. What do I expect from a connected watch: It should show me the time, in a fast and efficient way. It should notice me who is calling/texting/emailing. We used to see that on a ridiculously small screen, years ago. Now I turn on my 42" plasma AMOLEDIPS screen covered in DiamantOrangUtan III glass, multicore spaceship just to realize I do not want to answer a the prick who is calling or that another newsletter arrived. Also, up-fucking-time. When this spaceship runs out of fuel, I run out of track of time. This idea of a time keeping device lasting longer than 24h on battery is quiet neat, some old geezer told me about it recently. Only thing that is keeping me from insta-buying one is the price. But then again, I know people paying 500$+ for dumb watches that probably can dislocate your whole shoulder just from their weight and size.
Which leads me to the Apple Watch: I do not like the looks and it does not impress me that much. But it will set a trend, most probably. They tend to do things right, somehow, if not, the overeager zealots throw in some hype and get the rest done. Payment, Health self-monitoring, whatnot, the hipsters will love it.
With regards to the phone: I like the 5s design better and I do not need more than 4,5" of screen. The thing that attracts me is the OS. The apps are nicely done, most of them, it does what I need, but the real nice part is the integration of the devices. Calendar, Contacts, Media, Music, it all syncs across the whole brand and it does feel nice. Whats the state of PIM on Windows beyond Outlook? Is there even a state of PIM on Linux? Ok, I can not put my own files easily on an SD Card inside the phone, but in the age of streaming media, cloudboxen and all that, the urge to put a file on a "disk" you bought yourself has a smell of "mix tape" on it.
I use an Ipad 4 since easter last year, a MBA since last July, an Apple TV since last Black Friday and a Hackintosh for about 2 years. I learned to stop worrying and learned to love the fruit. There is the occasional worm to swallow, there are things I do not like. And usually I do not rant in favor of Apple (that much), but comparing the state of things to the free Linux world and the catacombs of Windows, this is technology I do actually really enjoy. Also, the Women's Acceptance Factor is massive, the things look nice and my GF is more fluent with using the Apple TV than with any other clumpsy designed DVD/Bluray Player, AV amp, HDTV. You really start to wonder why anyone builds remote controls with more than 10 buttons. And don't start with "but Android", it tears my visual cortex and my usability center apart whenever I have to fix someones unupdatable piece of lost tech.
Also, Bono and U2 can go right down to hell.
I have started writing simple programs for Android using Kivy. It is a simple process now (so simple I can do it). I can load the resultant .apk program without hooking up the USB cable as Python allows me to fire up a simple http server with just a one liner, and the phone browser allows me to install / load said program.
Not sure how easy a non-jail broken iPhone would work with this development process would be, but I am on the road to finding out.
P.S. Yes, I am calling it a program instead of the "app" moniker, as it makes me gag a little bit inside when I do slip up :-)
but.. but... teh steve told us so!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/63929972/Wozniak-calls-Apple-creation-story-a-myth
Well, here's a fun little bit of stupidness from the walled garden:
The official terms and conditions for developing "Apple Watch" applications [ http://goo.gl/VuWFoK ] include this following little gem:
"10.7 - Watch Apps whose primary function is telling time will be rejected"
Of course. You certainly aren't allowed to use your watch to learn what time it is. Third party time apps might give you a time of day other than Apple's official time of day.
Apple watch. Probably dead on the vine (or branch in this case). Of course, they could change direction, but I doubt they will. They see the gravy in going in the path they are going, instead of going with their underdog roots on quite new undertakings. The iPhone was only an innovation based on many established products available at the time:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
my wrists will remain bare as they were the last twenty years. even if they invent fusion reactors in that form factor.
Wristwatches suck. Regardless how clever they are.
Just wanted to remind everyone that Android is just a passing fad. The iFanbois have assured us that the latest iPhones and iPads will squash it, any day now...
[ If you can't see the image, go to http://tinyurl.com/p7znq9m ]
Android cannot possibly go away; it's ubiquitous on every single non-Apple smartphone. It doesn't need to either. We don't need any more technologies to "squash" any other technologies at this point.
I am simply pointing out how amusing it is that after the Apple faithful spent so much time chanting that Android was a pale imitation and it would never fare well against the iPhone, it has become *the* commodity OS for handhelds.
There are not enough players in this game anymore.
If the market is so entrenched into two operating systems that even Microsoft can't gain a foothold, the chances of Firefox OS, Ubuntu Phone, or pretty much anyone else establishing a presence in the market for smartphone OS is exactly zero.
It's all Apple and Google for this generation, whether we like it or not.
True ... although a third mobile OS has absolutely no chance of taking hold at this point, at least the hardware support could enable phone hardware to be turned into "little Linux computers" -- plug a keyboard and monitor into the phone and boot into Debian -- that sort of thing.