At Computex in Taipei today, Asus unveiled the successor to the ZenWatch — the ZenWatch 2. The company’s second Android Wear Smartwatch comes less than 10 months after its predecessor was unveiled, with key usability improvements.
Asus will be offering the ZenWatch 2 in two different sizes: 37mm and 41mm. The display glass on the smartwatch has a 2.5D curvature, and it features a better (IP67 vs. IP55) rating.
Asus has also improved the design of the smartwatch, but the ample bezel space surrounding the display means the ZenWatch 2 does not look as good as the Moto 360 or the LG Urbane Watch.
The Taiwanse OEM will be offering the smartwatch in three different steel finishes: Silver, Gunmetal and Rose Gold, with different types of bands, including those made of plastic and leather. The bands will be available in either 18 or 22mm strap sizes.
Asus has copied the digital crown of the Apple Watch on the ZenWatch 2, but it is unclear what the crown does. The smartwatch now also features wireless magnetic charging with reduced charging times.
Details about the availability and price of the ZenWatch 2 remain unknown.
The long wait for the Apple Watch is almost over, but wait one second—you don’t necessarily have to rush out and spend £349 (or more) to get some of its most useful features on your wrist. You can add these tweaks and third-party apps to Android Wear to get a more Apple Watch-like experience from your wearable.
Not that you necessarily want to turn your Android Wear watch into an Apple Watch of course — but it’s fun to take a look at what’s possible. You can easily get notifications, play your music, check the weather, search online, get walking directions and so on on both platforms, so we’re going to focus on a handful of features that are distinctly Apple Watch.
Doodling
This is an easy one: The upcoming Android Wear update from Google is going to include support for doodled emoji, so all you really need to do is wait for the software to appear on your phone. Scribble out a shape and your watch will convert it into a colourful character ready to send to a friend.
If you want to do some more detailed doodling, similar to the way Kevin Lynch demoed on stage at the Apple launch event in September, then try Draw Watch; it’s not the most sophisticated drawing app you’re ever going to find but it lets you use multiple colours then share your creations with others.
A Gallery of Photos
You can’t see very much of a photo on your wrist, but nevertheless Apple has baked the functionality right into the Apple Watch software. If you want to be able to flick through your pictures on Android Wear, then MyRoll Gallery is probably your the best option at the moment.
Even if you don’t have a wristwatch to go with your smartphone, it’s a very capable Android app in its own right, offering advanced tools for organising and sharing your pictures from your mobile devices. The Android Wear extension lets you view, delete and share images with a few taps on your Android Wear smartwatch.
A Gallery of Apps
Apple Watch uses a swarming map of coloured icons to represent apps on your wrist, whereas on Android Wear you’re relying on lists and voice control to bring up whatever it is you need. Enter Bubble Cloud Widgets + Wear, which replicates the bubble effect on your Android smartphone and smartwatch.
You can even place contacts inside some of your bubbles if you wish, so you get the contacts screen and the apps screen of the Apple Watch combined together. If you don’t take to it, then Wear Mini Launcher is another powerful and free launcher app that gets your shortcuts together in neat rows and columns.
A Gallery of Watch Faces
If there’s a particular Apple Watch face that’s caught your eye and you’re a little nonplussed that you can’t get it on Android Wear, give WatchMaker Premium Watch Face (£1.39) a try. You might not be able to recreate all of the Apple Watch faces in exact detail but you can exercise your creative talents and give it a go.
There’s a strong community of users behind the app as well, so you can get inspiration and borrow faces from other people working with the same set of tools. Android Wear Faces Creator isn’t quite as comprehensive in terms of features, but it is free to use and won’t take you long to get to grips with.
Instagram on Your Wrist
Instagram has been heavily featured as one of the Apple Watch apps that will be ready when the wearable breaks cover — it’s been widely used in Apple’s promotional materials and on its website — and while there’s no official support for Instagram on Android Wear there are some alternatives you can try out.
Wear for Instagram is going to set you back 92p but it lets you view and like Instagram photos and comments from your wrist. Similarly there’s Instant for Android Wear, free to install, which also gives you access to photos, comments and likes, and enables you to show some love to a picture with a double-tap.
Customised vibrations
The special ‘taptic feedback engine’ in the the Apple Watch has been getting a lot of attention and with good reason. Individually customised buzzes and prods can let you know what type of notification is coming through without you even having to turn your wrist to look at the watch face itself.
Android Wear can’t quite match that kind of subtlety, but you can use Augmented SmartWatch Pro (£2.19) to get “smart haptics” on your Android Wear device. Again the end result is that you’ll be able to tell what kind of notification is coming through just by the buzz on your wrist.
Health and Fitness
Apple devoted plenty of time to health and fitness at the Apple Watch launch event, and while Google doesn’t seem to be quite as ambitious in this area right now, Google Fit is still a worthy competitor — unlike Apple Health, you can get at all of your activity data on the web as well as through your mobile.
You can start and stop workouts from your wrist, and of course the sensors built into whatever Android Wear device you have can help with step counting and heart rate monitoring. Some Google-powered watches have standalone GPS too, handy if you want to leave your phone at home while you’re jogging.
iOS Compatibility
Well, this is just a rumour, but a pretty credible one nonetheless—after all, iPhones support everything from the Chromecast to Google Maps, so there’s no real reason why Android Wear couldn’t be added to the mix too. Sit tight and there might be some news in store at I/O in May.
In the meantime, if you want to hack together something that passes notifications from an iPhone to Android Wear, then check out IFTTT: Android Wear notifications are one of the actions you can use in your recipes, so you can pass over alerts for a lot of apps with just a few IFTTT procedures.
Apparently, if you drop an Apple Watch onto concrete, it breaks. And if this information is too shocking for you to believe, there's a video to prove it
Yesterday, a pair of Samsung trademarks hinted that the company was finally ready to try their hand at a circular smart watch. It didn’t take long for Samsung to come out and confirm those suspicions.
The company has issued an open invitation for developers to help them build their next wearables platform ahead of launch. They’ve confirmed that it’s for the 7 generation of their Gear lineup, and while they didn’t exactly spell out the word “circular” the teaser you see above should do enough to convince you.
Developers who want to get their apps going on the upcoming watch can get started as soon as today by heading here and grabbing the SDK. Unfortunately that’s as much as we know right now as Samsung didn’t even give us an idea as to when this product might be ready for consumers. All we know is that if the Samsung Galaxy S6 is anything to go by, Samsung’s first circular Gear smart watch could turn this market on its head.
Yesterday Apple announced the new iPhone and – “one more thing..” – Apple Watch. This is not really a surprise as everybody expected Apple to launch a smart watch with more and moreAndroid Wear based smart watches popping up. So how does Apple’s compare to the competition?
Apple Watch features
Apple Watch, like most other smart watches, comes with many features such as displaying incoming messages, calls and emails to your wrist. You’re also able to navigate using Apple Maps or track fitness related information like your heartbeat or steps walked with it. So far so good – but honestly nothing new. So what advantage does Apple Watch have over it’s Android running competitors?
First, the smart watch features a haptic feedback which is able to send “touch” signals to your hand. Doing this, the smart watch is able to, for instance, send vibrating directions to your arm to guide you to a certain destination without looking at your phone or Apple Watch. Pretty cool. Second, Apple’s smart watch comes with physical input mechanism called “Digital Crown” which functions as some sort of home button. Doing this, you are able to scroll, zoom and navigate through the device without touching the display. You are obviously also able to navigate using the touch display.
Apple also included a few nice software features such as like smart replies and direct sharing to your friends. Smart replies basically offer predefined answers based on the content of a received message. If, for instance, you receive a message from a friend asking for lunch plans Apple Watch will offer you certain predefined answers to quickly reply without typing anything. You are also able to share quick drawings from your display with friends. You are also able to use the wearable for wireless NFC payments (as long as you are in the US).
Last but not least, Apple Watch will come in three different variants called Apple Watch, Watch Sport and Watch Edition. They all come with different sorts of materials and replaceable bands. The smart watch will be available in two different sizes.
Battery life unknown, expensive & not available yet
Besides all the cool features of Apple Watch there are obviously some negative aspects. As of now, the battery life is unknown and the wearable is quite expensive in contrast to Android Wear devices already on the market. Apple Watch is said to start at $ 349 and I personally expect the Watch Edition to be priced much higher. As with many products, the smart watch will only work with iPhone 5 or newer. Apple did not announce a specific launch date and only mentioned that it will launch at the beginning of 2015.
How does Apple Watch compare to Android Wear
Honestly, I don’t believe in smart watches yet and it feels like both Apple and Android-powered wearables still need some time to be actually useful. Although Apple includes cool features it, seems like other manufacturers such as LG, Motorola and Sony might be able to implement some of them in their next product cycle. Feature wise, all smart watches basically do the same and I really don’t see a big difference. Yes, materials and form factors are different, but in the end smart watches are yet another device to push notifications in your eyesight. What bothers me most is battery life because having yet another device to charge every night seems rather impractical. I’m also not sure if I really need another device sending me notifications next to my computer, phone and tablet.
Rumors about the compatibility between iOS and Android Wear are not rare, but a new publication says that the big day will surely come. This should allow anyone to receive notifications emanating from their iPhone to their smartwatches managed by Google. In fact, Google is "very close to finishing the final details techniques" needed to bridge the gap between iOS and Android Wear , reports The Verge. The site met with "a source close to the development team" that revealed tons of details about the pairing. Apparently, the current development version of Android Wear works with a standalone application for iPhone , and is ready to receive notifications FaceTime, messages, calls and more. Voice search is also a candidate for inclusion. It can also display Google Now card information, as on Android, and may include more advanced features, such as to answer an email from Gmail or a message on Hangouts.
According to sources from CNET , the application could happen alongside an update to Android Wear . Google would have expected release in the coming weeks the new firmware , which will bring gesture control and Wi-Fi connectivity to all compatible devices.
How the standalone application will be integrated with iOS is still a mystery, but The Verge notes that the cross-platform support allows Pebble smartwatch interact with certain applications on the iPhone. While we have seen various garage integrations with a jailbroken iPhone, Google's solution should of course respect the terms of Apple's developer agreement. However, offer an experience full-featured iOS seems feasible.
Is it really possible? The incentive for Google to go about this market is that it is currently untapped. Apple sold 74.4 million iPhones during the last year-end holidays, with a share of 19.7% of the mobile market in the world today. These are numbers that could boost sales of Android devices Wear, which have so far disappointed - 720,000 units, or 15.6% of smartwatches shipped in 2014. However, in addition to Apple Watch who arrives in the Apple Store, Google will have to deal with another giant potential: Pebble Time. The successor of the popular Pebble became the most sustained project on Kickstarter last month, earning more than $ 20 million from 78,471 backers.
However, the wealth of Android Wear offers is its major asset. Various price ranges for smartwatches are available, while being much cheaper than the Apple Watch, and comparable to the price of Pebble Time. And as for the design, the options are much more varied than of every platform customization options.
The obvious obstacle is whether Apple will allow Google to run this application on iOS , given the launch of the Apple Watch. But for now, neither Google nor Apple seem to want to talk about the possibility of Android and iOS Wear discuss together, so for now all we can do is speculate.
The Apple Watch is the company's first new product category since the iPad and the first new product since Steve Jobs died. Photo / AP
I'm in a meeting with 14 people, in mid-sentence, when I feel a tap-tap-tap on my wrist. I stop to see the source of the agitation. A second later, the small screen on my new Apple Watch beams to life with a very important message: "Twitter has suggestions for people I should follow."
A version of this happens dozens of times throughout the day-for messages, emails, activity achievements, tweets, etc. Wait - isn't the promise of the Apple Watch to help me stay in the moment, undisturbed by the mesmerising void of my iPhone?
release. It's the company's first new product category since the iPad and the first new product since Steve Jobs died. It was created almost entirely under the guidance of Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, and it's the first device from Apple that was designed - hardware and software - by Jony Ive.
Apple has sunk money into new retail experiences and positioned the device, which starts at $349 and climbs above $10,000, as both the latest must-have gadget and a bona fide luxury item. To say it's a major moment for Apple would be an understatement.
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No one is questioning Apple's ability to mint money with its gadgets and services, but the ambitions of the watch speak to Apple's broader ambitions. With a possible entry into the auto market on the horizon, Apple's success at getting into - and winning - a whole new category is a big deal.
Apple faces two huge challenges with the watch. It has to make a beautiful gadget that hews to the company's history of groundbreaking design and technology. And because it's a brand-new product category, the company has to make a case for the very existence of not just its watch, but any watch. It has to persuade people they need technology on their wrists.
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As to looks, the watch's hardware is beautiful in a surgical way. The little cube of metal and glass is very much an Apple product: clean, sleek, remarkably solid. But as a piece of jewelry, it's similar to other digital and smartwatches. The design doesn't compete with Rolex or Breitling for sheer style, but the more I wore the inconspicuous thing, the more I liked it on my wrist.
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Apple's new smart watch
It's loaded with cutting- edge technology. The tiny Retina display has a new form of pressure sensitivity Apple calls Force Touch, which responds to not only where but how hard you touch the screen. The watch notifies you with extremely nuanced vibrations via its Taptic Engine, which can produce strikingly realistic sensations, almost like a bell tapping on your wrist. Perhaps most important, the watch's "digital crown" helps you navigate long menus, set options, and zoom in and out of maps and photos.
The speedy software and motion tracking is controlled by the company's new S1 processor, which packs multiple components on a single chip. I have no doubt the Apple Watch is the most advanced piece of wearable technology available today.
The Apple Watch does function as a watch, with literally millions of different dial combinations. Its timekeeping is so precise, it's within 50 milliseconds of the global Coordinated Universal Time. Apple has had some fun with this: If you're in a room full of Mickey Mouse faces, Mickey will tap his foot in perfect sync on every watch. It's incredibly cool.
Apple allows you customise the watch face, with not only Mickey and other designs but widgets it's calling Complications. These items dotting the edges of the display can tell the temperature, signal your next calendar appointment, show the phases of the moon, and so on, offering information that elevates the device beyond a simple timepiece.
Still, it is a timepiece, and one problem makes it somewhat inferior to a conventional wristwatch: It activates its screen only when it thinks you're looking at it. Sometimes a subtle twist of your wrist will do, but I often had to swing my wrist in an exaggerated upward motion to bring the display to life. Even so, sometimes the screen doesn't turn on. Sometimes you tap it and nothing happens. For all Apple's touting of its remarkable time-telling device, I found it lacking for this reason alone.
Perhaps one of the most difficult things to wrap your head around is the way the watch extends-and often replicates-your phone's functions. You can receive and send text messages, for instance, but doing so on the small screen with your hand cocked in the appropriate position isn't ideal if you're working on something longer than a one-line reply.
If you're in a room full of Mickey Mouse faces, Mickey will tap his foot in perfect sync on every watch. Photo / AP
And although it connects deeply with the phone, the watch has a completely new way of doing things. Because navigation is split between swipes of your finger, scrolling with the crown, and taps of varying pressure, it takes a while to get oriented.
The notification scheme is a little maddening at first. Apple sends a push notification every time you get a corporate email, personal email, direct message on Twitter, message on Facebook, and interactions in countless other services. Each notification pings the watch with a sound, vibration or both (which can be muted).
This quickly gets overwhelming. I found myself turning off notifications from entire apps, which seems to defeat the watch's purpose. Mercifully, Apple included a way to clear all those notifications: Just Force Touch on the list.
The watch is not life-changing. It is, however, excellent. It is more seamless and simple than any of its counterparts in the marketplace. It is, without question, the best smartwatch in the world.
Getting the watch to work for you requires work. I pruned a list of VIP contacts in my mail app to make email notifications more tolerable; I killed several app notifications that were consistently interruptive; and I streamlined my applications to the truly vital.
In many ways, the watch functions much like a small iPhone. Though there are new ways of getting to your apps and interacting with them, much of the phone's model interface has carried over. So often you end up not only having to take action but deciding where to take action.
Still, I found some balance between the two devices. Checking text messages and emails by quickly glancing at the watch saved time and was helpful when I was deeply engaged in an important activity.
The Apple Watch was created almost entirely under the guidance of Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. Photo / AP
Within Apple's new suite of functions, I found both hits and misses.
On the plus side is Apple's new Activity app, which presents three basic sets of achievements to hit every day and makes hitting them almost frictionless. One metric watches how many calories you burn; a second is for exercise that elevates your heart rate; and a third is a notification for standing, to ensure you get up at least once an hour.
Setting these up was painless, and I immediately started seeing the results of being made so aware of my activity levels. I have no idea if this will have any lasting impact on my health, but Apple's frictionless approach to teaching people about exercise habits is a leap in the right direction.
There are rough spots. Apple hopes to reinvent how we communicate with friends and family by adding three new methods of messaging. The first allows you to essentially "sample" your heartbeat and send it off, but the novelty wears off quickly. The second, Sketch, allows you to draw or tap some symbols and send them to another Apple Watch user, but you don't have much space you have to work with.
The third new message concept is 3D, animated emojis. That sounds great until you realise the emojis are really more like neutered, animated GIFs from the late '90s Internet. We already have emojis, and Snapchat, Instagram, Periscope, GroupMe, Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, and on and on. There's something forced and inauthentic about Apple in this space.
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I'm split on one feature Apple includes on the watch: Glances act like little cards hiding underneath your watch that give you a glimpse of information from first - and third - party apps. Twitter will display the latest tweet in your timeline, there's a controller for your music app, or you can see a detailed description of your next calendar appointment.
In theory, these screens should be wildly useful for quick access to information. In practice, the watch must pull information from the phone, leaving you with a spinning wheel that indicates data loading, rather than a quick hit of info.
The watch is not life-changing. It is, however, excellent. It is more seamless and simple than any of its counterparts in the marketplace. It is, without question, the best smartwatch in the world.
So Apple has succeeded in its first big task with its watch. It made something that lives up to the company's reputation as an innovator and raised the bar for a whole new class of devices.
Its second task - making me feel I need this on my wrist every day - is not quite there yet. It's still another screen, another distraction, another way to disconnect, as much as it is the opposite. The Apple Watch is cool, it's beautiful, it's powerful, and it's easy to use. But it's not essential. Not yet.
Apple co-founder and acquaintance of the late Steve Jobs، Steve Wozniak doubts about the outrageously expensive Apple smartwatches، says cars more fitting for Apple future and humanity maybe at a colossal threat of being run over by super computers in a possible dystopian future.
Wozniak statement on Apple Watch
According to co-founder of Apple، although he likes the idea of a smartwatch that is able to give you fitness tracker updates، reminders and notifications، he is not so appeased with ridiculous price-tag on it، as he disses a 17K price on a watch when the same price can get you a Macbook pro along with your choice of iPhone and accessories.
He doubts if the most expensive versions of the gadget will be welcomed by large number of consumers or not.
“If you buy the really high-priced ones، the jewelry ones، then you’re not buying a smartwatch that has a bunch of app،” according to Review، quoting Wozniak.
“Like a Rolex watch، you’re buying if for prestige and a label and a symbol of who you are. The fact is the difference between a $10،000 watch and a $17،000 watch is only the brand، and for an engineer like me I don’t live in that world، that’s not my world.”
This news from an experienced and veteran engineer، more importantly co-founder of Apple would be heeded by consumers of the product.
“I’m just not going to buy it for jewelry’s sake until I know it’s something I’m going to want around me and on me and use every single day continually as a permanent part of my life” adding، “Then maybe I’d consider looking into getting the nicer jewelry version.”
Co-founder’s word on Apple’s iCar or the apparent self-driving electric car
Woz showed his excitement and was appealed by the concept and idea of the Cupertino company’s jump into automotive arena.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
According to him، the company needs to seek new and large markets to expand and stay afloat without hassle، and states automobiles could just be Apple’s “Next Big Thing”.
“I don’t know if Apple’s doing that، or if they’re just working on their CarPlay apps for the dashboard of your car، but it seems like they might be hiring a lot of people who could really build a vehicle”، Woz said.
His opinion on the “Computer will overrun mankind” theory
Woz is somewhat certain that with the given pace at which computers and electronics are replacing humans at various levels، be it labor or productivity، humans will be run down by super computers conceived by us.
“Computers are going to take over from humans، no question” certainty-filled Wozniak speaks about the most adverse effect technology can impose on mankind.
Though he had first not been amused or had given consideration to the Kurzweillian idea of machines reaching “singularity”، a point from where they starts to self-think and produce better، faster and more powerful computer breed to replace men from labor and other tasks where work efficiency lacking due to humans may be boosted by computers.
“Like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted، I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people. If we build these devices to take care of everything for us، eventually they’ll think faster than us and they’ll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently”
This idea or concept had been discussed widely in pop-culture، with a lot of sci-fi movies tackling with the subject of super computers، robotics or machinery replacing mankind، sometimes with dire consequences and sometimes with a lot more for humans to lose other than their jobs and profession.
Some of the famous movies depict how men are made slaves or worse، killed or exterminated to create a more powerful and superior race on Earth. Movies like The Matrix: trilogy، I Robot and Terminator franchise discusses these ideas.
Though the outcome in the real world may not be as dreadful and gruesome as depicted in some these movies، it is more anticipated or rooted for idea that mankind would become inferior to machines، on the very long run.
Hollywood movies have often tried to depict dystopian futures where mankind are near extinction by the hands of machines. Movie Still from Terminator Salvation
