Android Needs To Watch Out

Wearable computers are all the rage, it would seem, and Apple's intention to build an iWatch is well mooted.  There's been a lot of rumours floating around and it's thought that they will have something on the shelves before the end of the year.  But they won't be the first.

In fact there are a few wearable computer watches on sale right now and another has just been announced.  It's the Androidy watch, designed in the UK and ready to pre-order right now.  It works on Android - hence the name, I guess - and appears to be a full featured device.  It is a phone - I'm not sure how practical it is talking into your wrist and then putting your hand to your ear, I guess some protocols are needed there although it also features Bluetooth.  So a headset could be paired up I guess.

It will run anything that can be obtained on the Android Store, which means you can use it for pretty much anything you want, and the screen shots I've seen so far show it using the sat nav app.  But the screen is only 2 inches in size so you'll be squinting quite hard to read your eBook and following your route might have to rely on the spoken instructions.

But the real insight to me are the promotional photos showing smart looking young men and women wearing the watch.  They're all very well turned out - James Bond wouldn't look out of place in the adverts - and of course, being paid models, they all look very happy.

However the watch, diminutive that it is in terms of Android phones, is actually quite intrusively bulky.  The watch itself runs in landscape format across your wrist, with the bulk of the width leaning across the top part of your hand.  I think anyone doing anything remotely normal such as leaning on their hand or simply moving their wrist will find it constrained by the watch.

This is the challenge for Apple and anyone else looking at making a wearable computer for the wrist.  No matter how functional it is, it is likely to interfere with wrist movement and become quite uncomfortable. So while a few will wear the watch to make a statement, most normal people will identify that it's much easier to use a tablet computer. Or an Android phone - who would have thought?

However Samsung announced a range of curved, bendable LCD screens this week.  These screens are just about to start production and are intended to provide more robust, crack resistant tablet screen - oh I hope Google and Asus are listening - but I reckon that the material is a natural for devices such as the iWatch. A device that wraps around the wrist like an amulet is likely to have amore usable screen and be less difficult to wear.

I wish the makers of the Androidy watch all the best, but hope that Apple and other manufacturers look at the bendy screens as the way around the obvious problems.

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Apple Endorses Google Glass

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, would appear to be the anti-Jobs, the man who Steve never was.  Despite having the best top job in the world - and let's be fair, most top jobs look great from where we're sitting, so running Apple has to be the top job of top jobs - he's never looked that comfortable in the role.  He always looks like he's waiting for Steve to pop up and when's the last time you saw Tim Cook wearing a turtle neck sweater?  That's no way to run a hip tech company, surely?

He's been talking about what is coming up in the Apple world ahead of the announcements expected real soon - it's a tradition that Apple like to maintain that they deny anything true and dismiss anything they forgot to invent as a fad.  Like seven inch tablets, for example.  Of course, if Steve had been right then Apple would have been laughing all the way to the bank, but nobody would have remembered he dismissed seven inch tablets as too small to be of practical use.  Now Apple are just laughing all the way to the bank.

So Tim has been talking about Apple - he's really sorry about Apple maps, by the way.  Tell that to the driver who used it to cross the San Francisco bridge and came off the other side in Widnes, Cheshire.

He's pretty dismissive about the iWatch, which pretty much confirms it's nearly ready. Unfortunately the interviewer forgot to ask what colours it wasn't going to come in so we'll have to guess, but I reckon white has to be up there.  And black, for variety.  I guess between the two colours they'll go with anything you choose to wear as long as it's a black turtle neck sweater.

He was extremely dismissive of Google Glass - something about it only appealing to a very specific market, so I guess the bookies will stop taking bets now.  Google must be cock a hoop as Tim has practically endorsed their product.  Is it too late for me to patent the iBowTie?

But Google have another celebration on their hands because Apple are thinking of producing Android apps, which means they've already produced them and are trying to work out how they can launch them without losing face. How about they try mentioning they may be thinking about it?  That might work.  The first App to be ported? How about the iShovel?

Finally he did confirm that iOS is going to be overhauled, like that's been a secret.  It's better than throwing the towel in.  We all know by now that it is going to be a lot less fussy than the current version, visually, but actually I think most users want it to work better, not keep on moving backwards with each iteration.  However Tim has alluded to a more customisable desktop - he's not committing which means it's a done deal, of course.

Apparently all of the above will be confirmed - or denied if we're reading this on a parallel universe - on June 10th.  If Google could rush the production of the Google Glass forward then someone could record the whole presentation using them and upload it onto YouTube on the fly.

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Where Are the Wearable Computers?

Already this year wearable computing has been a hot topic.  Apple iWatch to Google Glass there is talk about integrating computing power with the ordinary items we place on our wrists and faces every morning.  In many ways it is an obvious extension to the way computing has moved, from large bulky boxes to compact tablet computers, some of them masquerading as mobile phones.

Not all the hype is being believed - there's justifiable scepticism over the do-ability of some of these projects.  For a wristwatch to be wearable it has to be pretty small, for spectacles that will be mostly lenses there's virtually nowhere for the electronics to reside.  There's nothing inherently radical about what any of these devices are proposing to do - they are mirroring the capabilities of mobile phones, tablet computers and digital cameras but in a very compact package.  It's the package coupled with the advertised seamless integration of the functions that is setting the interest levels to high.  And the doubt levels are up there too.

There are some rumours floating around that that Google Glass is an elaborate hoax.  If it is, it's an indication that you can have too much money, and if anyone has too much, it's probably Google.

But let's suppose that the wearable computing concept is in fact very doable - and as I said there's nothing technologically difficult here apart from the integration at the minuscule scale.  In fact, the dimensions are probably only an issue if you're aiming at a budget, and for these to take off as consumer devices you have to.  So, it is possible that until economies of scale are achieved, Apple and Google may have to subsidise these products.  Well, maybe not Apple - they have a knack of stringing out a new product, working up the faithful and the packaging it in a way that makes it irresistible - but I'm not convinced Google have that skill-set yet.   The Nexus range of tablets are bumping along despite being good products - I use a Nexus 7 every day and love it - and the Chromebooks, aggressively priced that they are, don't seem to be making much of a dent in the market despite aggressive TV advertising.

So maybe the Google Glass product is giving the impression of a hoax simply because they are trying so hard to work up a head of pressure on the product launch.  They've tried the Apple approach of denial, then a series of carefully leaked reports.  They even allowed a group of  people to apply to trial beta versions for a year before launch as long as they paid $1500 for the prototypes.  Coincidently, $1500 is the projected price for Google Glass when launched.  Some find that a little bit suspicious.  I see two possible scenarios that might be considered possible.

First, they are truly prototypes and the $1500 is a significant enough sum of cash to make sure that only the serious apply to help with the trial.  But of course, $1500 is nothing to what a rival manufacturer would pay for access to a beta product to disassemble and maybe reverse engineer ahead of launch.

Second, running a competition publicly to gather applications for trialling this product provides a realistic focus group of those who probably are the target market for the finished product.  Tell a little porky to say that the successful applicants have been selected and everyone who might be a potential purchaser goes 'shucks' and awaits the launch.  In the meantime, successful 'applicants' are seen wearing the Google Glass in public, in the press and on the web.  They blog, they write newspaper columns, they promote.  But they could be wearing dummy Glass.  Or maybe the real deal, but who says they aren't Google employees?

Now look back at how Apple are managing the iWatch project.  The concept has been leaked, but virtually all the functionality has been second guessed by the on-line Apple community.  Critically the technological aims are relatively modest to that being pursued by Google, but tangible.  And one really important thing to remember about Apple is that they rarely invent new ideas, no matter what the patent lawyers keep insisting. There were MP3 players aplenty before the iPod, even very good MP3 players such as the Creative Zen (we've got a couple of these at home), but the iPod was better.  The Mac Air is hardly the only laptop in town and the iWatch isn't the first attempt at a wrist-based computing device.  But it will probably be the best example.

So the iWatch will appear and it will be a success.  No doubt about that.  When, I'm not sure, but it will come in a fantastically designed box when it does and will cost way more than it should.  Apple fans will queue around the block for days to get one.

Google Glass - fact or hoax?  If they are a fact, then they will turn up late this year or early next.  If a hoax then someone, somewhere will make them a fact, and Google will buy that someone to make sure it's them who sell them. When?  No idea, but expect it won't be more than a couple of years.

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