Samsung's Position On Tizen May Hurt Developer Recruitment 93
CowboyRobot sends in an article about how Samsung's constantly shifting plans for its smartwatches are making it hard for developers to commit to building apps. Quoting:
"Samsung's first smartwatch, released in October last year, ran a modified version of Google's Android platform. The device had access to about 80 apps at launch, all of which were managed by a central smartphone app. Samsung offered developers an SDK for the Galaxy Gear so they could create more apps. Developers obliged. Then Samsung changed direction. Samsung announced a new series of smartwatches in February: the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, and Gear Fit. Unlike the first device, these three run Samsung’s Tizen platform. ... This week, Samsung made things even more interesting. Speaking to Reuters, Yoon Han-kil, senior vice president of Samsung’s product strategy team, said the company is working on a watch that will use Google’s Android Wear platform. In other words, Samsung will bring three different watches to market with three different operating systems in under a year."
So ... (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically they're just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks? I suppose that's one way to avoid choosing the wrong platform ...
Re:So ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that makes "wearables" die out faster is good in my book. Keep releasing different models all running different OSes and all doing different versions of nothing useful. Manufactured product pushes are like diarrhea. The sooner all the products exit the pipeline, the sooner corporate sees that marketing was blowing smoke up their ass when they told them "wearables" were going to be hot, the sooner I don't have to hear about them and, hopefully, the sooner that marketing dipshit is fired.
The same goes for the asshole who decided that Wendy's, Carl's Jr/Hardees, and Sonic all had to jump on the non-existent pretzel bun bandwagon. Oh wait, nobody actually wanted those? Better jump on the ciabatta bandwagon! That failed too?! Well what about brioche? Still no boost in sales? Revert back to our "classic" buns to save money and leverage our brand!
Sometimes the product vision is right but the timing or state of technology is wrong. I think wearables might fall into that category but it's too soon to tell. Groundwork and thought leadership today could reap rewards later. Apple's first tablet was such a colossal failure that many, including me, predicted the same for their second attempt. I was definitely wrong.
One thing not pointed out (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of Android Wear, if a developer targets that platform, they won't be limited to *just* Samsung.
This doesn't surprise me. While Android Wear likely won't compete much with the "mostly dumb" smartwatches that consist of only a display and UI for the phone they're tethered to (Sony Smartwatch, Pebble - both of these are able to achieve hardware cost reductions and battery life that Android Wear will never be able to match, putting AW consistently in a different price/functionality market segment than SW and Pebble), Android Wear was a DIRECT competitor for Galaxy Gear - both are in the "High standalone functionality" category. At least by hardware design, that is - a watch running Android should be able to operate almost entirely standalone, using a phone only as a data connection in a manner similar to Google Glass. Unfortunately Samsung totally fucked up Gear and while its hardware capabilities should have made it MORE capable of standalone operation than any other smartwatch out there, Gear wound up the LEAST capable of standalone operation instead - being the ONLY smartwatch which required one of a few specific models of phone as opposed to "any Android phone" (Sony) or "any Android phone or iOS" (Pebble)
By virtue of being in direct competition with Gear (e.g. identical market segment) AND the fact that it's superior, Wear is going to *crush* Gear. (Wear won't likely crush Pebble or Sony Smartwatch since they have the capability to play in a much lower-cost market segment than Wear will be able to due to having significantly lower hardware requirements.)
Re:So ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Wearable" isn't something bad by definition. It's just that the approach they take to it could not be worse.
Everything that runs towards "wearable" today is basically a reskinned, retooled and reshaped smartphone. That's not really what wearable computing can or even should be. A wristwatch that is essentially a smartphone has nothing to do with wearable. It's a smartphone in a different format. Where is the "wearable" benefit?
If you want to create a wearable, create something where we actually benefit from "wearing" it rather than sticking it in a pocket. The least I'd expect from a wearable is having my hands free and either a HMD or a output interface that doesn't require me to take my eyes off whatever I'm busy with. Else there is exactly zero need to "wear" the gadget, I can as well take it into a hand.
Re:"too hard for developers" (sniff) (Score:3, Insightful)