If you're in the smartwatch business and were hoping that Android Wear 2 was going to turn around your lagging fortunes, first reviews indicate that you ought to be dusting off your Plan B. The point of Android Wear, of course, is to provide a near turnkey operating system for hardware makers, freeing them up to do what they're supposedly best at. The downside is that the … [Read more...]
LG’s New Android Wear 2.0 Watches Are Rumored
We're starting to see detailed reports about the imminence of the next generation of Android Wear watches. Android Police and TechnoBuffalo are running sneak photos of two versions of the LG Watch Style. (Seriously, can some smart branding person please whack LG upside the head?) There are two versions being tipped: a standard Android Wear 2.0 watch at $249, and an LTE … [Read more...]
Smartwatch Sales Plunge, says IDC, and It’s All Apple’s Fault
IDC is out with its latest quarterly numbers for the smartwatch industry, and it shows a whiplash kind of decline. Overall, shipments fell 32 percent in the second quarter of 2016 compared to a year previous, with Apple's sales dropping by 55 percent. Even at "only" 1.6 million watches shipped, Apple remains far and away the market leader, with 47 percent of the market. … [Read more...]
Canalys Predicts 7.5M Cellular Smartwatches This Year; 54M by 2020
The market research house Canalys is projecting that 53.6 million cellular smartwatches -- ones that don't need to be tethered to phones -- will be sold in the the year 2020. At first blush, that looks like a pretty enthusiastic prediction, particularly in light of the company's wildly optimistic count of 7.5 million being sold this year. The underlying logic, though, … [Read more...]
LG’s Untethered Android Wear Smart Watch is Pretty Rough, Says The Verge
The road to market for LG Watch Urbane Second Edition LTE has been as long and rocky as the product's name itself. The first Android Wear watch to be able to operate untethered from a mobile phone, it was supposed to ship at the end of last year but was held back for unspecfied technical problems. Now that it's out, The Verge has a review, and it's less than wildly … [Read more...]
LG Kills the Urbane LTE, Citing Hardware Problem
LG today reportedly took the highly unusual step of canceling the launch of a product that was well into the preview window, citing unspecified hardware problems. The Urbane LTE was to have been the first untethered Android Wear watch, using a microSIM to connect to the Internet without the need for an intermediary smart phone. (There have been several other LTE … [Read more...]
Android Wear Now Supports Cellular Data
Most connected watches require a smartphone to communicate with the outside world. There are some exceptions -- Omate's watches have long included a microSIM that connects them directly to cell networks -- but that route is expensive and complicated, and required custom software Expect to see watches like that, though. Google announced yesterday that its Android Wear watch … [Read more...]
LG Urbane Smartwatch: Huge, But Easy to Fix
There were a couple of interesting articles over the weekend about the LG Watch Urbane, the first watch to run the newest version of Android Wear. The Verge liked the software, but as for the watch itself: The consensus is that this is a cheap-looking watch trying to pretend that it’s an expensive watch. It’s not fake-Rolex levels of low-brow ostentation, but it’s in the … [Read more...]
LG Urbane Smart Watch Hits the US Market for $349
LG first showed its Urbane smart watch at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. A nice, solid, piece of Android Wear kit, you can now buy the Urbane through Google, Verizon, and AT&T for $349. There are a couple of notable things about the Urbane. First of all, it feels like a watch -- stainless steel with a leather band. It also has a fully round face, without the … [Read more...]
New Android Wear Functions Coming Soon
Google is talking officially about an upcoming update to Android Wear, an update that will include several interesting improvements to the UI. Several of the improvements are designed to trim the number of times that using your watch becomes a two-handed operation. You'll soon be able to move your way through screens by flicking your wrist instead of touching the screen. … [Read more...]