The Dumb Problem With Smart Watches

I remember as a kid my dad had some ancient Dick Tracy Wrist Radio toys. I always thought they were the coolest thing and eagerly awaited the day when these were more widestream. Even as a kid I knew wearable tech was going to be the future one day.

Well fast forward to 2013 and the legacy those toys left behind are starting to breach in to mainstream culture and every day life. Google Glass and smart watches (specifically the Pebble and Galaxy Gear) are the modern interpretations of that vision. The fact these things exist are simply amazing on a technical and practical level. So why am I not excited?

From how I see it, smart watches are aiming to be an accessory to accommodate the technology you already own. Google glass carries the same ambitions at the moment but I can see Google want's to push it forward to completely replace smartphones as we know it. With this in mind, I will ignore the shortcomings of Glass at the moment and move on to smart watches. Their intent is clear, and I honestly feel like they're failing.

I don't quite know what I was expecting out of the Galaxy Gear. Samsung has a history of cramming gimmicky features and a terrible UI on top of high specs and I kind of anticipated the same thing. The product they presented did not disappoint. Color screen, cameras, and apps made this thing the closest thing to a dumbphone they've made in recent years.

So this might seem pretty great to most people but I was incredibly disappointed. Like I said, I feel the intention of a smart watch is to be more of an accessory to the devices we already own. They should provide at a glance information and just generally stay out of the way. I think Pebble and metawatch do "Smart" better than the Galaxy Gear.

The watches that got it "right" have common e-ink and low power characteristics along with a simple UI and setup procedure. They show you when you get an email and whatnot without you having to lug that 6 inch Galaxy note out of your pocket. Aside from that, they show the time and make it a point to not obstruct your day to day activities.

Since the Gear does the same why am I upset? The gear seems like it tries to overtake the phone. Why snap pics with your phone when you have a camera on your wrist? Why do anything with the phone? Why bother getting the phone? Oh wait, because you HAVE to pair with the phone. The Gear is a more expensive, more distracting smart watch that still needs an expensive phone as it's base. Whats the point?

The most important thing about unobtrusive wearable tech is the battery life and the Gear just fails completely. While the e-ink cousins do a better job at not dying that easy, they still don't last as long as you would hope. Bluetooth is intensive. Charging the gear once a day or the pebble once a week, the fact that you have to consciously remember to charge it alongside the phone is an annoyance.

My vision for the future of wearable tech is kind of a black and white one to be honest. Either rely solely on the wearable tech or use it as a luxury. Glass has the potential to replace the smartphone one day. It can comfortably emulate the main features of a smartphone without any additional tech. Smart watches would still need a bluetooth headset for calls typically. Smart watches really should take the foundation laid by pebble and the like, and build on it. Longer lasting batteries, more efficient pairing technology, and a UI that is simple and pleasant to use. Just show me if I have notifications and let the phone handle the rest. Most of the time I should forget it's there at all.

Then again,  for prices like the present ones for these types of devices, you probably don't want to forget about it. That's another issue that should be addressed but one step at a time I suppose.

Fragmentation is Evolution, Deal with it.

There has been a lot of talk about Android's "fragmentation" problem since the inception of the OS all those years ago. Initially it was just a negative buzzword used by certain fruit based companies to demerit Android in the eyes of consumers, and was later taken seriously by tech bloggers for the clickbait it provided.

Poor BugDroid

I'm a nerd, and a great big Android fanboy. Putting my loyalties aside, I can honestly say this fragmentation problem does exist, but it's not the consumer adverse malicious marketing tactic that the blogosphere is making it out to be. Instead, it ties right in to the technological evolution that has existed for hundreds of years. Crying about how it sucks is just people being entitled.

Lets clear up some of the background before moving on. Android is an open source mobile operating system produced by Google Inc. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) such as HTC and Samsung are encouraged to take the Android source code and modify it to their liking (to a degree) for their own devices. Google encourages each OEM to be unique and innovative with their phone to promote beneficial competition in to the market. These phones are sold to the end users alongside a two year phone service contract in the United States.

So Google encourages companies to make their own unique versions of Android phones (software and hardware) with an effective shelf life of two years.

The term fragmentation comes from the fact that new phones and versions of the OS come out on a yearly basis or quicker. The new phones and OS versions come with new features and older models don't always get the newer version of the OS. People are rightfully upset when their phone that is barely a year old is "obsolete" after 6 months. It can get the majority of applications but because it lacks the newest of the new, it is considered obsolete. Journalists use this to throw a hissy fit online to attract more traffic.

This is stupid.

Consider the auto market. Ford releases a Fiesta. Months later they release a new Mustang. Were the Fiesta owner to complain about his car being overshadowed by the Mustang, he would be laughed at. Lets go further though. The next year a new fiesta is released with a new stereo system and a new engine technology boosting gas mileage. If the owner goes in to his dealer and demands that the new features be crammed in to his year old model for free, he would be laughed at. Also, he finds out that his fiesta doesn't have as good gas mileage as a Toyota Prius of the same year. He also can't get more than 120 horsepower out of his engine and he wants to race, so he yells at the dealer. Stupid right?

Look at all that fragmentation. 

A better example is the PC market. Microsoft releases a new version of Windows to many different manufacturers. The OEMs use that windows and install it on different computers with different specifications and different features, few of which are interchangeable past the OS level. If someone buys a low end computer, it might not be compatible with the next version of windows coming out in 4 years. All these different form factors and sizes make web development and game development a pain. Blame fragmentation right?

FRAGMENTATION! BURN IT WITH FIRE!

Here's the point for all the fragmented crybabies out there. You have choices provided by Android. You can buy a phone like a Nexus with a long upgrade path or you can take your chances with the other phones. You can buy a high end phone with a big standard screen size that will probably get an update, or you can buy a cheap no name brand with a weird screen size that will probably never see an update. THE CHOICE IS YOURS! The consequences of your purchase are also yours. As with anything, do your homework before making a purchase.

The Fragmentation complaint is people being completely entitled with their expectations. I DESERVE THIS THING WHICH WILL CAUSE A TON OF WORK FOR NO PROFIT. Companies like Samsung and HTC are only in the market to make a profit. They get no profit from upgrading your phone. They make money from selling devices. 

Crying makes no difference, because they don't care. Heck, most normal non-nerdy people don't even care. They just want to play angry birds on the toilet. It's the app developers responsibility to support the devices they want to support. It's the OEMs responsibility to make a phone with an OS. It's Google's responsibility to update their base OS for the market. It's the Carriers who keep you locked to one phone for 2 years.

Fragmentation is a sign that phones are getting better in hardware and software. If you don't like that, then don't buy in to it. iPhones, Windows Phones, and Blackberry phones have lower degrees of fragmentation, but it still exists. Buy one of those if you don't want to be obsolete soon. They're all very good choices and will offer you some of the same content from Android without the quick paced product life cycle. If you choose to buy in to Android, be prepared for the consequences.

TL;DR -  With great power comes great responsibility. Quit acting like an entitled child.

Hardware Concept - One Stop Dock

Portable computing has come a long way in recent years. Where 6 years ago, our only option for portable computing was a heavy laptop computer, now we have devices that fit in our pockets that can do everything we need on the road.

However, this abundance of devices poses a possible problem. There's too many of them! I'll give an anecdote to explain further:

When I left for college, my family bought me a laptop computer, coincidentally the one I am still using today. Later during the HP fire sale, I bought a HP TouchPad tablet and flashed Android on it. I also have an Android smartphone.

Back home, I had a mid range desktop PC. While the specs are a bit dated, it still outperforms my laptop when it comes to things like 3D gaming or video editing. However, since my life at school needed portability, all of my programs, settings, and files were set up ideally on my laptop. When I came home, even in the presence of my more powerful gaming computer with the larger screen, I was still on my laptop most of the time. I only reluctantly turned my desktop on when I wanted to play a game. Talk about first world problems.

Now I propose a solution to this. One device with all settings, that can be "upgraded" at will. Basically you have your tablet or laptop computer with it's limited specs. However, since it's portable you have all of your settings on there. Sure, cloud helps to bridge this gap but it's still not really enough.

Now imagine you have the option to dock this in a setup with much higher specifications. When docked, the system would ignore the onboard specs (or combine them a la SLI or something) and gives you the full scale performance you expect from a larger more permanent computer. That would be amazing!

The dock could be configurable like a standard desktop. You would have all the ports and features you dont get from a smaller tablet or laptop. You could even do things like install stand alone drives in the computer that back up the entire OS using the built in hardware, while you use the dock's hardware to do your work / gaming.

Click to embiggen and read my musings.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine that dock now becomes a home mainframe device. You access content on your portable device from the living room TV via wifi or something. Suddenly you only need one device and some (hopefully standardized) accessories.

I know this gets kinda sketchy but, now lets go to the maximum of extravagance and wastefulness that makes America awesome. Imagine you take that main tablet with you and dock it when you get home. But WAIT! you want to watch movies on the couch and browse with it but you want to keep the tablet docked to charge / backup / someone else is using it/ etc.

There's a type of computer called a zero client device. Basically its a barebones computer that relies on a mainframe to run it's OS. Take that, apply it to a tablet (bare bones, low specs, basically running from the dock / main device combo). Now you can browse on the couch and not mess with anything else. The best part - these devices could come extremely cheap because they will be used for light activity and don't need onboard storage.

Anyways, this is what I see as the future of personal computing. It's not really Post-PC, but rather PC+. Because you know what? I LIKE a tactile keyboard and high power, and I won't be giving that up anytime soon.

Phone Concept #1 - Element-Proof Cell Phone

First, an anecdote. My father is a entrepreneur in the construction industry. He owns his own business and runs it himself with very little help. As a result, he ends up giving potential clients his cell phone number, as it is more convenient for them to reach him.

Being the all around worker he is, he takes his phone with him everywhere. When he is doing construction type work, the phone is in perpetual danger. When I was much younger, he owned a Nokia 3310 cell phone. I watched him drop it off a 3rd story balcony, drop it in toilets, drop it in buckets of glue, etc. The thing that made the phone perfect for him was the fact that IT WAS A TANK. The only thing that usually broke was the faceplate, and that was easily replaceable. It didn't even seem to be phased when you dropped it in water. It was the best phone for a man on the job.

Today's phones just are NOT for him. They're far to fragile, unless you buy a 50 dollar otterbox defender case.  Even if you do that, the phone becomes bulkier than that old 3310 cell phone.

These days, technology has progressed to the point where it's possible to make the indestructible cell phone. NFC, Inductive charging, and stronger composites can make it possible. I think I know how to make it.

The phone phone body will be mostly comprised of a think kevlar coated plastic (as seen with the Droid Razr). The front and back of the phone will be divided by an aluminum frame covered in rubber. The rubber will be fused to both sheets of kevlar, sealing off any openings. Underneath this rubber coating will be the volume rocker on the left side of the phone and the power button centered on the top. There are no ports. Data transfer will be done through induction or NFC, and charging will be done through induction

The front of the phone will also have a gorilla glass (or similar) sheet of glass covering the screen. It will be flush with the surface of the phone where there are NO gaps between the phone and the screen (think Nokia N9). Under this glass will be a centered Front facing camera / light sensor combo piece at the top, a 720P or higher display, and a tri-color LED at the bottom (think Galaxy Nexus). When the screen is off, this entire area will be a uniform shade of black so that you cannot tell where the glass ends and the screen begins. At the top, underneath the Kevlar will be a speaker with Adjustable volume. In calls, it will be at a lower volume and when speakerphone mode is enabled, it will get louder (think iPod Touch). At the bottom of the phone right under the screen will be a TINY pinhole. This is where the main microphone will reside. The hole should be waterproofed somehow.

The back should be covered entirely with kevlar. There should be a 8mpx or higher camera in the top-middle of the phone. The camera should be optimized for low lighting and capable of shooting 1080p video in low light. There will be an LED flash located directly under the camera. The components should sit flush with the back of the phone. Their small section should be covered by a single section of gorilla glass, which then should be fused to the rest of the kevlar back. There would be another tiny hole on the back acting as the secondary, noise cancelling microphone. Again, it should be waterproofed somehow.

Again, there are no openings on this phone (aside from the pinholes for the mics) so theoretically this phone should be waterproof and dustproof. The hard rubber surrounding the edge should give it a layer of shock protection if dropped. The heavy duty composites for the housing should also help prevent damage. Inside the phone would be high end components and your typical array of sensors and electrical components available in every other smartphone out today.

I'd appreciate feedback on this. Hopefully a company picks up this idea and gives me a free one =D.

-Joel