With the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatch one has to ask….why?
Most technology companies have run with that concept, shying away from attempting to shoehorn the smartphone inside a watch, deciding instead to connect up to people’s smartphones utilizing Bluetooth. There’s great reasons for that approach. You can run large, stunning apps on the smartphone, taking advantage of its large screen, potent processor, and always-on connection, but preserve what you do on the watch restricted to tasks that suit the smaller size. So although playing Real Racing 3 on the watch might not be a very good notion, rapidly glancing over to see a text message is much more convenient and practical.
Maybe there is demand – a recent campaign on Kickstarter. Smartwatch maker Pebble did this to develop a small device with a handful of bite-size apps, but where most of the heavy lifting is taking place on the smartphone. Does every person now have a Pebble? No, but its Kickstarter campaign quite speedily raised higher than $10 million, clearly beyond the upstart’s expectations.
For Samsung, this is hardly new terrain. Go back in Samsung history — to the heady days of 1999 — and you will uncover that Samsung was pushing a Dick Tracy-like device. Why? Due to the fact that the wireless marketplace was “saturated.” Oops
Naturally this is a new battleground between Apple and Samsung.
Samsung is publicly prepping for this fight. Apple has been mum amid a slew of reports that it has a team in Cupertino, California, focusing on the iWatch, or whatever it might end up being called. Startup Pebble, meanwhile, has gained a real fan base, demonstrating that an app-filled watch linked to a smartphone surely has some eager buyers.