Engadget:
Google is ready to unveil a shiny new version of Wear OS at last. This is the third major release of the platform (the first since rebranding to Wear OS), and Google finally shows an understanding that what people want from a smartwatch is not a phone replacement. They want a reliable daily assistant and coach that is fast and unobtrusive. The new system doesn’t have obvious battery life enhancements, though, which is still a major pain that the industry has yet to solve. It may be up to Google’s partners to figure that out for themselves.
Watch the video embedded in the article to see the new Wear OS at work.
My immediate reaction? It’s still round. Dealbreaker for me.
This sounds like defend-the-flag. Many of the things that people use their Apple Watch for would have fit very nicely in a round display. Completing your circles as an example. Round displays are a problem for inappropriate uses like reading lots of text. But most traditional watch functions have been round.
“Completing your circles” would *not* fit nicely in a round display, if only because there’s more to it than just the circles: scroll down from the circles and you’ll see a percentage and tally of your stats (18 minutes out of 30 for exercise, 14% of your move goal, etc), scroll down further and you’ll see three sets of hourly breakdowns for the stats (so you can see that you stood during the 6pm window, or had a burst of activity around noon, etc), and the further down than that is your step count and total distance. So that’s almost four different screens, and a circular screen would work well for only one of them. (That also ignores that the time is still visible on all those sceeens, mainly because of the extra screen real estate a square screen has versus a round one; yay added functionality!)
“But most traditional watch functions have been round.”
And most traditional phone features have required physical buttons or controls. Your point?
Yeah, as I say. Defend the flag. They had square display and they put some UI to bolster it. A semi clever UI designer could put those stats inside the circle. I think if Apple had done round displays, everybody would be trashing square ones.
Funny, rectangular was and still is a dealbreaker for me. I get why – it’s easier to show information and images on a rectangular screen, but as a watch, its incredibly ugly to me (highly subjective opinion). The watches in the article look 100x better than the Apple Watch to me, but it’s too bad they run Google’s software rather than Apple’s.
I kind of hope Apple releases a round watch one of these years, just to see how the fan community reacts. 🙂 But unless that happens, I’ll stick with my round Garmin “semi-smart” watch (does notifications, which is all I really want). It looks great even in formal settings, is more functional as a serious fitness device, and the battery lasts 2 weeks (outside of GPS use of course).
Sounds like you’ve found the right watch for you. If all you need is notifications on a round watch, I think the Apple Watch platform is overkill (and the amount of functionality it presents does need the extra real estate afforded).
That’s one way of looking at it. The other way is that for a small wrist-style form factor, the rounded square affords much more information without taking up more useable space on the wrist.
Note that most of these round watches are larger than the Apple Watch, partially because they haven’t gotten their electronics as small, but partially because you need a bigger diameter to present the same amount of information.
Form should follow function, not the other way around, if it’s truly to be a smartwatch. For those where form is more important than function in this regard, there’s lots of other platforms (and classic watches, to boot).
(Aside: do you really think Apple just did a rounded square because they couldn’t do a round display?)
You’ve been living under a rock if you think the rectangular face is a defend-the-flag argument. It is blatantly obvious that a rectangular face is exactly the way people (who actually want and use a smart watch) prefer a smart watch to be.
The round smart watch ONLY exists because these other companies need something (ANYTHING) to be different than an Apple Watch.
This whole notion that round is better is absolutely absurd when you consider that rectangular watches have existed for almost as long. In fact, I’m pretty sure rectangular clock faces have existed a very, very, long time. Big Ben, grandfather clocks, etc.