Bites for your attention now eyeing your wrist

Harysh Menon

HYDERABAD, INDIA: As phone updates get more incremental with mere spec-bumps and tweaks becoming the norm, companies are moving to new frontiers in the battle for your attention- your wrist. In the past two months, with Apple and Google both announcing their own smart-watches, 2015 seems to be poised to be the year of the smartwatch.

The initial devices to replace the watch on your wrists were activity trackers like the Nike+ Fuel Band, the Fitbit Flex and the Jawbone Up. They provided you with an immense stream of information, and as the need to do more and more with these devices grew, it gave rise to the smartwatch.

The first real smartwatch product was undoubtedly the Pebble. It started out as a Kickstarter project raising $10.3 million, which was the most successful Kickstarter funding at the time. The major drawback of the device was its styling, it did not have the kind of design that would interest the general consumer. The watch, while practical, still lacked the appeal of a mass-market device with its black and white screen and limited processing capabilities.

The primary issue with smartwatches that followed was the software they were running. And that’s where Android Wear comes in. Google launched a version of Android, that catered specifically to smartwatches, running on the LG-G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live at Google I/O in July 2014. Android Wear was an extension of Google Now that promises to deliver the same experience of the information you want when you want it, except that this time it’s on your wrist.

The first real head-turner for smartwatches came with the Moto 360 by Motorola. The device had a round form factor, which while not new to watches in general, was not seen before in smartwatches. Up until this point, smartwatches had been rather blocky square pieces that were mostly attractive for its technology rather than its looks. Moto 360 was the first device to change that paradigm.

Of course in all this, it would be hard to deny that smartwatches really started gaining steam with the rumor of Apple getting into the game. And at its September event, Apple launched its own watch, simply called the Apple Watch. Apple touts its excellent build quality and the watch comes in Steel, Aluminum and Gold-based variants. The watch runs a proprietary iOS based operating system and has many of the features that Android Wear sports.

Although, for all its high-tech qualities, Apple went remarkably low-tech when it came to interacting with the device, with a dial called the Digital Crown. While Apple may call it as a revolutionary concept,it’s undeniable that it looks like something that had to be added in to deal with Apple’s hive-like home screen that uses zoom, to move in and out of apps. The device is also not remarkable in its form factor, going with the more traditional square interface. But, there is one thing that Apple did get right with its watch, and that is the need for multiple sizes.

Unlike phones, watches are devices that you wear, not carry. At the end of the day, it is an accessory that is on display to the world and by being so, has greater emphasis on design and style than phones. Apple was the first real manufacturer to recognize this fact by offering the device in a smaller form factor and in a large variety of easy to swap straps that can appeal to men and women alike. Up until this point with the size and shape of smartwatches, women were a demographic that was entirely sidelined.

Apple’s series of high profile hires from the design industry, including Yves Saint Laurent’s Paul Deneve, Nike’s Ben Shaffer, Burberry’s Angela Ahrendtsand Marc Newson also show Apple’s focus on design and style.

But for all the talk of the war for your wrist, one thing stands out, none of these devices work independently; all of them rely heavily on your phone. And if that’s the case, then where is the question of choice? If you have an iPhone you can only have an Apple Watch and if you have an Android, you can only have something that runs Android Wear.

So does it make sense to talk about competition in smartwatches at all? Well for the various Android manufactures, yes. But for Apple and Google,it’s more than just which smartwatch.To Apple and Google, smartwatches present an extension of their ecosystem, an ecosystem that they can use to try and gain consumers from one camp to the other.How they go about doing that is what will make the coming years more interesting.

(The author is Harysh Menon from the Indian School of Business (ISB) who is also a writer, Technology enthusiast and a software engineer, and has worked with Cisco Systems in areas like security and autonomous next generation network technologies. The views expressed here are his own and CyberMedia does not necessarily endorse the same)