A smartwatch, maybe

Jared Newman has a Time article about a new watch, maybe:

Instead of letting the rumor mill do the talking, a Samsung executive has come right out and said it: the company is building its own smartwatch to compete with whatever Apple might be working on. “We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, told Bloomberg. “We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.” Lee didn’t offer any specifics on the actual product, its price, or a release date. We can only assume that it’ll behave  like other existing smartwatches, allowing users to glance at notifications and other bits of information.
Although we don’t know much about Samsung’s plans, there’s still plenty to think about based on what we do know about the company. Here’s what Samsung could bring to the table for smartwatches:

Samsung Owns Some Cool Display Tech. The company has its own flexible OLED display technology, called Youm, that it’s been showing off on the trade show circuit. A curved display could come in handy for a watch, since it could maximize screen area by bending around the wrist instead of sticking straight out. Rumor has it that Apple is considering curved displays for a smartwatch of its own, so Samsung could very well be doing the same.
Better Galaxy Phone Integration Is a Given. A common gripe with Pebble’s smartwatch is that its interaction with Android phones seems a bit like a hack. You have to enable accessibility services on the phone to make it work, and Pebble must add support for any app that wants to send notifications to the watch. Samsung, being in control of its own software, could have these notifications built right in, with no setup required.
Samsung Is the Anti-Apple. If Apple does build a smartwatch that’s deeply integrated with the iPhone, it may be of limited use to Android phone owners. Samsung could easily step in and be the anti-Apple alternative, just as it’s done with its Galaxy phones. The company outspent Apple on marketing last year, and it’ll likely keep on spending to puff up the Galaxy brand and sell more products to existing customers, including smartwatches.
Of course, Samsung faces some challenges as well:
Samsung Has No App Store of Its Own. If Apple were to make a smartwatch, you could imagine how easy it would be for users to find supported apps. Apple could simply add an iWatch category to its App Store, and watch its huge community of app developers flock to it. Samsung doesn’t have the luxury of its own app store, as it relies on the Google Play Store for Android apps. The company will have to convince developers that there’s still a big market for its own smartwatch apps, even if there’s no easy way to find them in Google Play. This isn’t impossible— Samsung’s S Pen stylus on the Galaxy Note has decent third-party app support— but it’s more of an uphill battle.
S Voice Is No Siri. Let’s just assume for a moment that voice control would be a big part of any watch from Apple or Samsung. Right now, there’s no contest between Apple’s Siri and Samsung’s S Voice. Siri is much more solid in execution, and it’s also more functional, with the ability to hook into other services like OpenTable, Yelp, and Fandango. Would Samsung tie its own smartwatch into Google Now and Google Search instead? It’s unlikely, as all signs point to Samsung distancing itself from Android and building out its own services, even ones that are currently inferior.
It’s Not Clear if Samsung Can Lead in a New Category. Samsung doesn’t have much of a track record for reinventing product categories, as Apple did with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Instead, Samsung’s strategy has been to go where Apple won’t— such as bigger phones, smaller tablets, and stylus-driven software— while borrowing (stealing, arguably) the ideas that made its rival so successful. Apple’s critics like to say the company’s ideas are obvious, but, as some pundits have noted, those very ideas once seemed unimaginable. The smartwatch will be a great test for that theory. It’ll be interesting to see if Samsung can strike first in a nascent category and still rival Apple’s work.

Jared Newman has another Time article on the same subject:

Although Apple has a reputation for revolutionary products, they don’t appear out of thin air. Usually, when the company enters a new market, it first looks at all the competition and figures out why it hasn’t become popular. Only then does Apple make a big leap forward, as it did with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
We may see this happen again with smartwatches, a still-nascent category of gadgets that can do a lot more than tell time. By connecting with our phones, smartwatches can alert us to incoming messages, tell us the weather, give us a glimpse at news headlines or act as remote controls, all without ever making us reach into our pockets. According to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Apple is now testing a smartwatch of its own.
It’s not clear when an Apple smartwatch would materialize, if ever, and both reports are hazy on what its capabilities might be. But you can learn a lot just by looking at the competition (photo above) and evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a look at other attempts at the smartwatch, both past and present:

Allerta Pebble
Key features: connects with the iPhone or Android phones to display incoming calls, emails, text messages, calendar alerts, weather alerts, alarms, and social network notifications. Third-party apps (such as fitness trackers) extend functionality. It has a 1.3-inch ePaper screen for week-long battery life, and is waterproof.
Price and availability: $150, up for pre-order now (and shipping to Kickstarter backers)
What reviewers say: They generally enjoyed the Pebble— especially being able to glance at notifications without taking out your phone— but are hoping for more functionality and polish from the software. The Verge notes that Pebble’s iPhone support is a bit messy, while Android is limited to whatever app support Pebble builds in on its own. In other words, neither operating system is really designed to support a smartwatch right now.

Sony SmartWatch
Key features: 1.5-inch color OLED touch screen. Pairs with Android phones to display email, messages, calendar notifications and social network updates. Additional apps available through Google Play.
Price and availability: $130, and is available now.
What reviewers say: the Sony SmartWatch earned some praise for its looks and its unique app selection, but got dinged for its finicky software and the fact that it barely functions when it’s not paired to a phone. Gizmodo, amusingly, called it “maybe the worst thing Sony has ever made”.

MetaWatch
Key features: LCD display can be customized with “widgets” for weather, stocks and calendar, and can show notifications for email, text messages, and incoming calls, with support for iPhone and Android. Built-in apps include a running and cycling monitor, music control and an alarm. The phone is waterproof and lasts for five to seven days on a charge.
Price and availability: $179 and up, available now.
What reviewers say: AppleInsider thinks the Metawatch has real potential, though the platform has some bugs to squash and unfinished features to implement. Droid Life seems happy with the watch but hasn’t rendered a final verdict yet.

i’m Watch
Key features: 1.5-inch color touch screen, four gigabytes of built-in storage, built-in speaker, aluminum design. Has its own Android-based operating system and app store, and relies on Bluetooth Internet tethering to pull in data.
Price and availability: officially $449, but the price is down to $399 until the end of February.
What reviewers say: Laptop Mag and Trusted Reviews both praised the design and the generous amount of built-in storage, but complained about wonky Bluetooth pairing, weak battery life, and a deeply-flawed speakerphone function. The need for a Bluetooth tethering smartphone plan was also a letdown, especially since the watch is already much pricier than the competition.

WIMM One
Key features: 1.4-inch color touch screen with grayscale mode to save battery life. Pairs with Android phones to show text messages and voice calls. Third-party apps extend functionality and allow users to toggle phone settings, such as volume. Watch module detaches, allowing for replacement wrist bands or other uses.
Price and availability: a “Developer Preview” previously cost $199, but is no longer available. WIMM’s website now shows an intriguing message: “During the summer of 2012, WIMM Labs entered into an exclusive, confidential relationship for our technology and ceased sales of the Developer Preview Kit."
What reviewers say: I reviewed the WIMM One and thought that, while the concept showed promise, the shortage of apps and chunkiness of the hardware made it tough to recommend. 

What’s missingThere’s a common thread running through the reviews for these devices: not enough features, and not enough polish. Also, all of these smartwatches look a bit clunky, even the ones with slick designs.
So it’s not hard to see how Apple could step in and make a hit product. Apple is known for slick software, and it can offer tighter integration between watch and iPhone than any existing product. Also, the one solid detail in the Times’ report was the supposed use of curved glass, which would allow for a thinner, more durable piece of hardware. Just like Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player, smartphone, or tablet, it clearly hasn’t invented the smartwatch. But there’s still plenty of room to get it right, and that’s exactly what the company is good at.

Rico says you can buy the Samsung POS watch, or any of these others, if you want; he'll wait for the one from Apple...