What Apple's iWatch Can Learn From Pebble 97
redletterdave (2493036) writes "Many believe Apple's iWatch will marry the looks of a luxury wristwatch with the powerful sensors found in today's fitness wristbands, and, of course, familiar elements from the iPhone and iPad shrunken down and reconfigured to work from your wrist. Apple is undoubtedly full of its own ideas. But it would also benefit from looking at the progenitor of the modern smartwatch—or rather, its steely successor—both as inspiration and as a model to surpass."
WTF? Pebble is not "progenitor" (Score:2, Interesting)
I cannot believe I wasted my time reading TFA.
More than one year before the Pebble there was Metawatch [metawatch.org] (which uses exactly the same display type), and ages before the Pebble there were much, much more advanced "smartwatches".
Your Hatred, based on what? (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it the hight of irony that Apple would be so blatant in their copying of hardware and calling it "inspiration"
Do you find nothing rather silly about your remark given that Apple is not selling a smart-watch nor has said they are going to?
I mean, Apple-Haters have kind of ignored reality before, but never have stopped to the depths of complaint that something that doesn't even exist is not innovative.
Not a watch (Score:4, Interesting)
What's really funny is that Apple is likely not even working on a watch and the rest of you are going to seem rather silly going on at such lengths about something that does not and will not exist.
Three keys (Score:4, Interesting)
First is that it must focus on doing things that watches can do well. So the time, the date, alarms, etc.
Second is that it should not try to do anything that a watch is terrible at. Such as no making notes, text messaging, complicated mapping, etc.
But the last and more important thing is that it do something very phone friendly that way too cool. This would be something like having a navigation system where you enter your destination on some other device or by voice and then the phone shows very simple navigation cues such as vibrate when you should turn and simple arrows and other numbers. A map would just be stupid. The same with almost every other app. They must be extra simple. Focus on the quick check of the wrist vs any input.
This is very important. Data basically can not be input into this tiny device. It must be for quick data consumption only. The rule should be that if the data needs more than a glance then it shouldn't be coming from the watch.
Personally, at this point, I can't see the watch being much use as a stand alone device. It needs to be tied to a phone. But as batteries and electronics get better then an LTE version might be feasible. One of the most important things is that this thing not be a big bulky hassle.
One last ask of Apple; please don't put that stupid carousel interface in.
I will be curious how one will go about buying things for the watch. It almost certainly will have to be on a separate device. But maybe you could tell iCloud what you want sent to the watch and then it will go. But if it is paired to a device that must accompany it then it will be easy.