Bloomberg reports that a team of "about 100 product designers are working on a wristwatch-like device that may perform some of the tasks now handled by the iPhone and iPad."

  • Stooge

    iShackles!

  • Steven B

    You know, with enough improvements to Siri, I can see this working as a sort of PDA. Games and web surfing, not so much. But as digital wallet technology improves, a person could go sans pockets/wallet/purse in a lot of situations with one of those. That’d be nice

    • vonbobo

      remote control for my A/V systems! :)

      I like using my android phone for a Roku and DVD remote (TV if I had connectivity), but being on my wrist would be even better.

      Too bad I don’t ever see myself wearing a watch!

  • TheKaz1969

    “may perform some of the tasks now handled by the iPhone and iPad”

    Like telling you what time it is..?

    • vonbobo

      or compulsive consumerism?

  • http://arib.livejournal.com Ari B.

    For those of us who are too lazy to reach into our pockets and actually look at our phones…

    • zieroh

      Your snarkiness is misplaced, I think. Keep in mind that in our not-so-distant past, a large number of people voted with their wallets in favor of a very visible timepiece (wrist watches) over a timepiece in their pockets (pocket watches).

      Pocket watches are merely an anachronism now.

      • TheKaz1969

        ooo! Can I get a chain to run from my vest button to my smartphone?

        • Antinous / Moderator

          Why so modest? How about from your Prince Albert to your smartphone?

      • Steve Miller

        The wrist watch can into popular use during WWI, Trenches and all that, ya know.

    • Lupus_Yonderboy

      You know, I used to have a teacher who carried a pocketwatch who said exactly the same thing about wristwatches – “If I don’t have time to reach into my pocket to find out I probably don’t need to know what time it is that badly”.

  • http://narrowstreetsla.blogspot.com David Yoon

    I used to think the Wristomo was the shiz back in the day.

  • vonbobo

    “The iWatch will fill a gaping hole in the Apple ecosystem”

    That’s what she said!

  • Lupus_Yonderboy

    Personally, I like what Pebble and Metawatch/Strata are doing – the watch as a secondary device to the phone.  I’m thinking about getting one of them for when I’m jogging and I want to skip a song without stopping to mess with my phone, or to see who’s calling/texting when my phone is in my pocket.  I don’t need a stand-alone device for hundreds of dollars that needs a separate wireless contract, I personally want something in the $100-$200 range that works in tandem with what I already own.

    • vonbobo

      yeah, that is what I was thinking too… another computer for me to manage? More synching? But I also wonder how much functionality it will really have without being tethered to a phone… we may be stuck in the middle of marketers and companies and news agencies trying to define a tech without actually being able to show the product.

      But many folks don’t need to know much more than they need to buy it, and they wont know/ wont care that there are other options out there.

      • Lupus_Yonderboy

        Yeah, I have my phone on me most of the time, so the only things that I really need it to do when it’s not tethered to a phone are a) tell me it’s not tethered to my phone, so I know that I’m forgetting my phone somewhere (there are actually a lot of inexpensive bluetooth watches that do this already) and b) function as a watch (show time, date, etc.).  Anything else (keep my calendar appointments in internal memory, for instance) I think is just gravy.

        • vonbobo

          I don’t carry my phone when I’m at the gym- a stand alone, all in one fitness/media device would be nice (So that means it is also waterproof! sweeeet!)

          Maybe the watch will be 100% cloud for processing and storage?

    • TheKaz1969

      this sounds like maybe what they are proposing for the “iWatch”..?

      • vonbobo

        I think the problem is that they are describing it as a computer to replace functionality of other computers. While the watch will surely extend an iphone screen, how much stand alone processing power will it have is a bit bigger question.

        Will it do GPS without a tethered phone? Will it only stream music from your phone, or will it have it’s own player and storage?

        Unfortunately, we have zero details in this news story- it’s more about building hype to compete with Google Glass, and to relax investor anxiety.

        • Lupus_Yonderboy

          As to the GPS I’m pretty sure it won’t have it’s own unit – GPS is expensive, both in money and in battery power, you don’t want something both raising the cost of the unit 50% and taking its battery life to nothing.

          i’m also *assuming* that it probably won’t have any music functionality.  I mean, it might, the Nano that people were wearing as a watch certainly did, but having a cable running from your wrist to you ears strikes me as…very un-Apple.

          And yeah, this is about either Google Glass or Pebble finally shipping – someone is getting nervous that Apple is going to “get left behind” or some such.

          • jimkirk

            Something like this…
            http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/903141699/leikr-the-new-danish-designed-gps-sports-watch

            Battery life is expected to be 24 hours, reminiscent of winding your watch every day.

          • Lupus_Yonderboy

            Yeah, the big question is whether people can deal with recharging – that’s one of the reasons the Pebble has an ePaper screen (one of the stated ones, at least), they were trying for ~7 days charge so you’d only have to deal with it once a week or so.  People have, of course, gotten a lot more used to charging their tech every day since smartphones got to be more prevalent, my wife used to brag how her dumbphone went days at a time between charges but she charges her iPhone every night now.

      • Lupus_Yonderboy

        That would be the sensible thing for them to do (i.e. you don’t want “buy this instead of that”, you want “buy this AND that”), my assumption is that whoever is reporting on this based solely on rumor is just, well, basing it solely on rumor and incorrect about what it’s finally going to be.

  • DataPacRat

    I’ve just started looking for a wristwatch-type accessory for my phone – one that can sense the wearer’s pulse, and if the heart stops or stutters, that can send a text to a specified emergency contact. Anyone know if there’s a COTS solution, or a group of makers who’d be interested in helping me put something together?

  • timquinn

    Makes checking text messages much more discreet. This alone will sell it.

    • vonbobo

      Those products are already being sold… today!

      The brand name is what is special about this particular product.

  • Halloween_Jack

    No one else thought of the Pip-Boy 3000 from the Fallout videogames? I haz a sad. Seriously, I’ve wanted something like this for ages, and the closest I’ve seen to it so far was the Palm OS watch, which was… unsatisfactory. (I’m waiting for my Pebble; that may fit the ticket.)