Horological Meandering

gadgety
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So, so - ephemeral, time bound, fashion accessory with multiple roles to fulfil

I'm not particularly impressed by the design, although the materials and execution look nice, as in well made, well put together. It looks dated from the outset. A square screen with rounded edges.

The quick disconnect straps enable the fashion accessory role of the Apple Watch as in buying several wrist bands, and several watches, mixing and matching.

That said, these watches are indeed consumables. They are ephemeral, use and throw, and, since tech marches on, OS changes, screens get better, etc while batteries are not changeable and will give up within a few years usage, they are more time bound than any mechanical watch. It's interesting to have a consumable made out of 18K gold. There's some tension in that, which intrigues me. It gives off the perception of lasting value, but it will definitely not last.

I find the Moto360 a far more interesting object to behold, just because of its large circular screen, and razor thin bezel. The 360 creates even more tension, in a good way, in the reinterpretation of the classic wrist watch.

These "smart wearable" will open up a lot of vistas. In exchange for convenience and services, the smartwatch, just like the phone, will collect a lot of info about its user and feed that back into the commercial system, health system, possibly the insurance system. A device producing a data mining treasure.  In time, these wrist based devices will become more stand alone, so the user doesn't need to carry a phone on them for the wrist device to serve their purpose. Samsung already has taken a step in that direction with the Gear S. I find it interesting that I automatically find myself thinking of the person with a smartwatch to be a user, as opposed to a wearer, or owner. A user of services, of features, way, way beyond time keeping.

It's also interesting to see the pull the Apple brand has. I don't think there are any threads here on the Android based devices. Are there?

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