The Bluboo Xwatch from China is mighty full of possibility. It might run Android Wear. It might cost less than $100. It might look like the picture on Bluboo’s blog. It might be available this month. Then again, maybe not; reliable details are a little hard to get. The possible specs include a 1.2GHz processor with 4GB of storage and a 1.3-inch, 360x360 pixel display. It … [Read more...]
Samsung Great S2 Round Smartwatch Goes on Sale Friday
We've written before about the round Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch. The company announced today that the watch will go on sale October 2, but it may be a little hard to find. Although you'll be able to get it at Samsung's own site and Amazon, if you want to get hands on at launch, you'll have to make the a pilgrimage to your local Best Buy or to Macy's main store in Herald Square, … [Read more...]
Google Glass’s Enterprise Edition Makes Perfect Sense
There was a bunch of buzz over the US holiday weekend that Google has filed with the FCC information about an enterprise version of Google Glass, possibly called the GG1. It makes perfect sense. Most of the activity in smart headwear over the last few quarters has been in the enterprise space, not the consumer market. Google and Intel both have development deals with optics … [Read more...]
CES Day 0: Is Android in Trouble at Home? (Updated)
Monday was Press Day at CES: the day that most companies spend setting up their booths and the big boys corral the press at a hotel miles away from the show floors. Press Day is when companies like Samsung, LG and Sony sum up their successes, bury their mistakes, and set their agendas for the year ahead. Wearables, for companies like that, are barely rounding error. As sexy … [Read more...]
Google Ships Google Fit App
We wrote in August about Google's publishing an SDK to keep track of health and data; the company announced today that a Google Fit app is now available. Android only, of course, although there'll be a web interface that's not quite working as of this writing. The Google Fit app consolidates all your health tracking data into a single place associated with your e-mail … [Read more...]
Omate Announces Omate X, a Notifications Smartwatch
Omate was one of the first companies (and possibly the very first) to make an untethered smartwatch -- one that had its own SIM card and didn't need a phone to connect to the outside world. The Omate Truesmart represented hard engineering, and most of the rest of the world went the easier route and put the communications intelligence in the phone and not the watch. The company … [Read more...]
Marketers say iOS Users Prefer Health, but Android Users Like Fitness
Let's say you're an app developer, and you're trying to decide whether to position your product as a health app or a fitness app. A marketing study indicates that it depends whether you're building for iOS or Android. From Marketing Daily: After evaluating 500 million monthly ad impressions on more than 400 of its mobile ad platforms and apps, Opera Mediaworks says iPhone … [Read more...]
No Rush Here, But Nike Finally Releases Android FuelBand App
Nike's been on the market with the FuelBand for about two years -- long enough to make a big splash with it and then more or less climb out of the pool. For all that time, the FuelBand has worked only with iOS devices. You use Android? You're not using Nike. Now that Nike has apparently stopped developing the hardware (while sticking with software and ramping up … [Read more...]
Samsung Backs Away from Android; Will Ship Android Wear Watches This Year Anyway
When you're as big and aggressive as Samsung, you can afford to place big bets on several different things (although that strategy didn't work out so well for Nokia, did it?). Yoon Han-kil, the senior vice president of Samsung's product strategy team, told Reuters that his company will ship wristwear based on the Android Wear operating system later this year -- even though … [Read more...]
Google Enters the Real-World Wearables Market with Android Wear
Now we know for sure: Google Glass was a toy. Google announced today its entry into the practical world of wearables, with Android Wear. This version of the Android operating system will essentially expand on notification devices like the Pebble watch or the Samsung Gear. Where those devices drive information from a phone to a wearable device like a wristwatch, Android Wear … [Read more...]