Setting the iWatch bar

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Earlier this year, Motorola ended its short stay with Google when it was sold to Lenovo.

TechCrunch has confirmed reports that Lenovo is buying Motorola Mobility from Google. This is the division within Google that the company purchased in 2011 for $12.5 billion. Motorola Mobility will go to Lenovo for $2.91 billion.

Lenovo-owned Motorola quietly released a smart-watch yesterday, the Moto 360. Everyone’s tastes differ of course, but for me, this is the watch that sets the bar for Android and for smart-watches. This is the watch that you should keep in mind when and if Apple announces an iWatch next Tuesday.

There are competing watches from Samsung, LG, and Pebble, and they all share a common Android heritage and a common design aesthetic. In my opinion, they are clunky and wrongly sized for most wrists.

The Moto 360 is the least objectionable of all the designs, and that’s the point. At a minimum, watches are supposed to tell the time and look good. All of the current smart watches tell the time quite well. None of them meet that second criteria.

When Apple first announced the iPhone, there were plenty of competing smart phones. All of them let you make phone calls and do things like send and receive email. That was the bar that Apple had to clear and they did it easily, leaving an entire industry in the dust.

Given how mature and well funded the industry has become, it is unlikely the iWatch can turn the smart-watch industry on its ear. But there is much room for improvement, both aesthetically and functionally. To me, the Moto 360 is the bar to clear. And it has obvious functional flaws (for example, the chopped area at the bottom of the watch face seems to be dead screen space) and suffers from the single wrist size problem (it’s way too big for anyone with small wrists). And the design is nice, but no competition to any of the higher end watches.

Still, the bar has been set. Watch the video embedded below to get a sense of the Moto 360. Looking forward to Tuesday.



37 thoughts on “Setting the iWatch bar”

  1. I like this piece very much, and appreciate that it calls attention to this Moto 360 ad as a benchmark that Apple should beat in every way possible.

    I still don’t completely understand some of the shots in the ad, because they appear to be showing a perfectly circular display when some of the watch faces are being shown. Yet, in other watch face shots it’s clear that the bottom of the display is cropped.

    It made me think that the display might be circular after all, and only when apps that are touch-enabled are in use is there a blank area at the bottom of the watch face. But, after the second or third time through, I saw that the consistent cropping at the bottom edge of the display that everyone has been pointing out.

  2. How does this set the bar? Maybe by design alone, but there’s much more to a e-watch than design. Like how does this track my health? What can I actually do with it other than see notifications of email and calls? etc.

    PS. Thanks Google for selling another American company overseas. You asshats.

  4. I’m not sure if it is has the heart rate monitor or not. The Gear Live does.

    To understand Android Wear, you really need to use one. It changes your interactions with your data.

  9. “Given how mature and well funded the industry has become, it is unlikely the iPhone can turn the smart-phone industry on its ear. “

    Doesn’t that sound silly?

  10. Gruber quips it is the motorola 270. But the main issue from all the reviews is that the 12 hour battery life just doesn’t cut it.

  11. I agree John. My point is that several of these shots make the face appear to be a perfectly circular display. A lot of people who might look at this ad and be attracted to the aesthetics of the 360 might not notice the flattened display until they get to the store to purchase it.

  13. Yep, absolutely.

    With the Gear Live I have found I don’t use it all day. I’m sure others will use it differently but I mute my watch while driving (dangerous if not, seriously; both hands off the wheel to interact) and usually take it off at my desk.

    So…my hope is the battery life works for the way I use it. For v2 though, they gotta step this up.

  16. This appears to be just a conceptual idea at the moment. The watch in the commercial is not 100% real and the interface at the end has been sloppily masked onto the watch. The website buy option lists the watch on backorder. I think Motorola, rather Lenovo, wanted to make a splash before Apple’s announcement next week. At the moment, this is just a mirage.

  18. ” And it has obvious functional flaws (for example, the chopped area at the bottom of the watch face seems to be dead screen space) “

    It has the ambient light sensor, the only smartwatch with auto-brightness

  19. Watches were invented because Jewelry wearing was outlawed by
    Church of switzerland.
    So Watches are fashion items that last decades.

    Don’t tell me iWatch is trying to solve that problem.

    The reason regular people have stopped wearing watches is because
    they have smartphone will a clock in the front screen.

    $300 watch that only lasts 5 years that has to recharged every day.
    Can’t see in the sunlight. and you are going to talk to it
    in front of everybody.
    Now your watch will interfere (radiation frequency) with every little thing as well.

  20. I walked through the grocery store talking to my Gear Live and felt AWKWARD! My wife mocks me by talking to her wrist and saying “Go-go-gadget ______” (she changes the last part each time). 🙂

  24. i think the real issue here is that they are looking at it as a watch. Taking an old school and possibly outdated item and slapping some high tech into it to make it modern.

    Whereas Apple might not be making a watch at all. They could be looking at this as a wrist wearable. And looking at it in terms of what are the things that an item we have on our wrist would be ideal for. What questions can it answer. Time being only one of them. Sure some folks might use it as their watch but some may not, choosing to keep wearing a traditional watch because they want to. But time isn’t the primary goal of this wearable, nor may it have a watch like size and shape unless that happens to be the ideal form for all the functions or at least the vast majority

  26. It doesn’t have to have a bunch of features, that’s not the Apple philosophy. It has to have the most important features, and it has to accomplish them in the most seamless and stylish way. Only over time iterate towards feature parity.

    (I don’t mean “stylish” because Apple products are all about style, though they tend to be attractively designed. It’s just that style is a function of something you wear, and as such that would be an important feature).

    If I were to be inspired to consider purchasing such a product, it would have to be minimalist, tell the time, handle alerts, and handle mobile payments (assuming that’s a big push for Apple). That’s all it would HAVE to do. That could be done by something without a face, even, which appeals to me.

    I would imagine that could also handle a pedometer and some other health stuff. As a diabetic, I’d love to see how a blood sugar monitor would work, though I would be leery until there was data on its reliability.

  27. “There are competing watches from Samsung, LG, and Pebble, and they all share a common Android heritage…”

    The latest Samsung Gear watches run Tizen, not Android. And Tizen could eventually replace Android on Samsung’s iPad and iPhone clones. Unless their software engineers are a bunch of total fuckups. (Pretty good likelihood of the latter.)

  30. A buddy of mine knows a guy at Google, and goes there once in a while to see advanced concept demos. He saw a Moto 360 running about 4 months, but didn’t say anything in detail about it. (Could have been a display soldered to a perf-board for all I know.)

  32. Exactly. Apple has fooled competitors into drastic mistakes with its product naming. For example, “iPhone.”

    Competitors though iPhone was a phone that could run a browser and a few apps. So the Palms and Motorolas and Nokias of the world figured they could just keep on making the same old thing.

    Nope. iPhone a full mobile computer that happens to have a phone app. Took competitors 5 years to even begin to figure that out. And calling their wrist-top computer an “iWatch” might do the same thing to the current crop of “smart watch” manufacturers. They’ll miss the point. (E.g. Touch ID for contactless payment through “iWatch” to add value to the device.)

  33. A watch you charge twice a day seems … DOA.

    I have a Timex whose battery lasts … so long that I’ve had it most of a year and haven’t found out yet.

    It tells the time, and it looks like A Watch Should doing it. Even tells me the day of week and date (though in Moto’s favor, it needs adjustment every month at month-end).

    It was about $30.

    (Downsides, in potentia: Does nothing else. Can’t change the display.

    Upsides: Who cares about any of that crap?

    I only ever wear it with my suit anyhow.

    Watches. Are. Dead.)

  35. Interfere how?

    People have been using bluetooth devices on their person for years, and “interference” doesn’t seem to be an issue.

    (Now, I agree with most of the rest – smartwatches don’t seem compelling, and watches are mostly fashion items now*.

    But maybe someone will make ’em compelling. Not Samsung or Motorola, of course, but maybe that fruit-named company, starts with A…)

    (* See above, re. only wearing my Timex with my suit.)

  37. “My point is that several of these shots make the face appear to be a perfectly circular display.”
    Bait and switch. What would you expect from the competition?

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