No more apples for you, I am afraid...

Q & A

How would you describe the September 10 (2013) Apple event?

Anticlimactic.

What about the iPhone 5S?

Anticlimactic.

Should i buy it?

Absolutely! Υou are a fanboy, aren't you?

If i am not a fanboy?

Go get the Galaxy Gear and a Galaxy S4.

The S4 is pig ugly. And plastic. I do not like it.

I know. I agree. Still, go get it if you want some real innovation on your wrist. (Charging twice a day may be mandatory, but you will be a pioneer!)

So what should i do?

I am not a shrink. Do whatever you want.

But my money is burning a hole in my pocket. What cellphone should i buy?

Go get the HTC One. Blue is great.

But i want a great camera. Can i have that on a smartphone?

Did you actually mean on a smartphone? If yes, the answer is yes. Go get the Sony DSC QX-100 lens and put it on your smartphone.

Uhmmmm, I actually meant in a smartphone. Is there something for me?

Yeap. It is called Nokia Lumia 1020. 41MP, Carl Zeiss, OIS, big hump in the back, you know the deal.

But it is a Windows Phone 8 phone. I don't really like the OS and where is Instagram?

I know. Can't have it all though.

But i want it all. iOS, great parameterisation options, best default tuning, slim body, great camera, fluid performance, affordable price, fingerprint sensor (NOT),...

Forget about it. Can't have that.

But i am following your blog so that you solve all my problems. Do something!

Ask Siri.

Didn't work.

There are 26 shrinks nearby. Do you want me to schedule an appointment with the one closest to your current location?

All i wanted was a great keynote and an iPhone 6 that would rock...

I know.  Me too.

So, i f i really must try hard enough to find the bright side of today's event, what is it?

Uhmmm. The iPhone 5C, actually. And the 64 bit A7 chip.

Is that all?

Yes.

I am unhappy/frustrated/in a bad shape.

Go get the Galaxy Gear.

Can i at least have an Apple?

Nuh, apples have gone bad.

Is that all?

Yes.

The watch is dead

The watch is dead.

The wristwatch is a burden

Okay people, i've never really been into (pseudo)macho bullshit related to the fact that "the only piece of jewellry a man is allowed to put on is his watch,  so it better be something good". If you ask me, i really do not give a damn if someone wears a Rolex or a Seiko or a Casio or a Vacheron Constantin or a cheap plastic little mermaid 2,99 euro worth toy watch or no watch at all. I for one, stopped wearing a wristwatch when i was 14 years old for two very simple reasons:

1) I really did not actually care what the time was at the time.

2) The God damned Casio i was wearing

was forcing me to look at it more than 20 times for every hour of class at school and this is by no means an exaggeration.

It was a conscious decision. I got rid of the watch and magically class sessions became shorter and more interesting.

So i stayed away from wristwatches mainly because i could not (and of course still cannot) justify the existence of a device that i am forced to carry on my wrist all the time that only (or at least basically) tells the time. If i want to see the time i can look on my computer screen or on my cellphone screen or on the wall where a clock is hanging or at the town square with the big clock tower or make a fuzzy estimation that cannot be too wrong or ask someone condemned to wear the burden (ala Frodo the ringbearer). Even worse, the more masculine a male watch the heavier the burden. Simple laws of the jungle. If you can carry that 200 gr slab on you all the time you can compete for the alpha male of your corporate subdivision (after begging -on all four- your female supervisor for a little strech of that deadline, that is). Yeap. 

This is a purely personal opinion, but i really cannot understand why someone would/should pay 200k USD for the deep space turbillon, aside  from the fact that he needs to have a way to feel special for worthing 20 bil USD.  (Second thoughts: Okay, that particular timepiece is God damned impressive in a geeky kind of way. I'll have one. Nah, better make it two to be on the safe side.) But even down to earth watches (within my mediocre financial grasp) are not appealing to me. Not at all. I can only forgive divers (maybe pilots and astronauts too) for wearing such a thing, although i suspect that even they don't wear their Citizen when they are in the deep blue sea but specialised equipment in the form of a wristwatch.

So basically yes, i do hate wristwatches. The tech behind them is essentially 145 years old and they are still more or less doing the same thing, which is uhmmm telling the time. I do not need them and i do not like them. I cannot understand people who love them and collect them, but i have no problem with that. Case closed.

I must now confess that 13 years (of wrist freedom) after the second grade of junior high school i bit the bullet and bought a watch to adorn my tiny wrist. It was the unforgettable Fossil Abacus (Fossil Abacus), which could very well be the ugliest watch ever. Uhmm scratch that, maybe the ugliest thing ever created/conceived by man. Period. But it was not just a little time ticking box on a strap. It was one of the first ever (horribly flawed) attempts at a smartwatch. Yeap you had it right, if i did wear this monstrosity in public (any kind of intimate interaction with women was totally ruled out at the time, of course - no sane woman would offer me the benefit of doubt after glancing at my watch) then i am a total fanboy for smartwatches. My next steps, as well as the final one in this particular tech saga are already known to you dear readers of this fine (notjust)hitech blog.

Welcome to the future

And then came the 4th of Spetember 2013 and Samsung presented to the world the Galaxy Gear smartwatch. Welcome to the future ladies and gentlemen. That's what Mr. Pranav Mistry said and you know what? I believe this guy. Yeap Sammy was there first. I totally expect Apple to present a more polished product in the next six months, but it's like the space rally of the 50s. The Americans landed (if you are not into conspiracy theories) on the Moon first, but the Russians are the ones who first made it to space. So if you want to be a Russian pioneer you have to fork out the 300 USD and go get yourself the first smartwatch from a BIG player out there. Otherwise you can be an American and wait for Apple's iWatch. You'll be late of course but the Moon will be yours. 

Samsung Galaxy Gear

Enough with the space race. The Gear is big news and it is excellent news (mostly). Expect another post on this one, but wearable computing is the next big thing to take off and the Gear is truly the first big caliber weapon in this battle. 

There are two schools in the smartwatch making fine art:

1) The Pebble school. Small, light, grayscale, screen always on, (comparatively) long battery life. These watches provide a "second screen" for notifications as well as 2-way communication with the phone that enables functionality such as remote music player, camera and fitness trackers control, alarm if the connection between the devices is lost, canned sms replies as well as http requests, call answering/rejecting and such.

2) The Galaxy Gear school. Not that small, heavy, color (OLED mainly), screen not always on, short battery life, These watches can do what the above can do, but also can make a phonecall as well. This means they have a speaker and mic. (Which rendered them 100% NOT waterproof in the past - see my i'm watch experience for some gruesome (better leave kids out of it) details on this epic fail proportions miserable attempt of an early bite at the smarwatch pie.)

Before the Gear came onto stage i would strongly advise anyone even remotely interested not to look at category 2. But times have changed. The Gear is supposed to be completely waterproof, it features a camera (BSI with autofocus for Christ's sake) and boasts a whole day battery life. Which means that you will have to charge your watch every night as well as your smartphone. No big hassle for me (as long as it can endure a full day's worth of heavy usage), but i know people who would not like that at all. The speaker and dual mic are on the strap and you can talk by lifting your watch to your ear without being a complete total propellerhead/dork shouting above a tiny loudspeaker. You are supposed to talk like you do on a normal phone. Or at least i think/hope so after viewing the presentation. The camera is placed on the strap also, facing outwards, which is a pretty good thing for capturing those "basic instinct" moments. Nah, just kidding. Even if you want to do that you can forget about it because the shutter sound cannot be deavtivated and that is a good thing for your privacy. And mine. And everybody else's. The watch comes in several colors ranging from "wannabe CEO" to "funky is my middle name". The build quality looks great, after all it is made of steel and weighs a ton. One unique, almost "magical" feature i noticed was that when you look at a notification (let's say an email one) on the watch and then take your phone out of your pocket then the same email is there waiting for you!!! The s-voice is also very interesting (that is an understatement -  it is actually a big step on the road to geek Heaven).

Is the Gear the perfect gear?

Is it perfect then? Nope, it is not. My main gripes are:

1) Battery life. Even it makes it through the whole day, it SHOULD be better. I am not saying it could, but is should. A week is the minimum for normal people.

2) No GPS included. This is a major flaw for all fitness tracking enthusiasts who will still be forced to carry their phones as well while running/cycling/etc.

3) No front camera. It is not a very big deal, but it would be nice to have a shooter (even a crap VGA one would suffice) up front, provided it could make videocalls. I bet that the iWatch will have that one.

4) Extremely limited (how does just two at the moment sound?) number of smartphones it can work with. Basically it works with Samsung Galaxy things with BLE AND Android 4.3 only. Galaxy S 4 and 3 as well as Note 2 are going to be supported soon. I suspect that it could work with all Android 4.3 BLE equiped smartphones regardless of the manufacturer but my guess is that Samsung is trying to force people into it's own ecosystem, like Apple has been doing for the past 23 million years. The power of developers out there (XDA comes to mind) is rather unstoppable though, so i imagine things may change, without Sammy's consent, that is. Of course the Gear will never work with an iPhone, i believe.

Should you get one?

If you (like me) are a gadget addict, then most definetely yes. It is your personal ticket to the future and you have had a burning desire for it from the first second you laid your eyes on it. (The song "baby don't go" suddenly popped to my mind especially that part of the lyrics which claimed that: "Got the feeling that i can't resist you, from the moment that i laid my eyes on you".) If you are not completely sold on the whole concept and don't feel like volunteering for an early adopter, maybe you should wait for it's next iteration or for Apple's proposition which may not be that far down the line. If you need to have a smartwatch right now and you don't want to buy a top range Galaxy phone then the Pebble is the only way.

I am definetely going to buy this, even if that means i have to trade in my HTC One for an S4 (which i particularly despise because of it's design and materials) or even a Note 3. Even if that means that i will have to skip the iPhone 5S (or whatever it is called) for now. Unless the next iPhone has something truly groundbreaking which i sincerely doubt but cannot completely rule out. Thank God, September 10 is just around the corner. I am checking the time left every half an hour or so i can't possibly miss that presentation, can I?

The Pebble watch

The Pebble watch

Intro

Summer eventually came (and went). The weather remains sunny and hot (as it should always be - if am to be asked) and people still go to the beach. And what can you see there? Well apart from water (obviously) and maybe sand, you may also see pebbles. The Pebble watch is what i am going to present to you today. And just like that, the worst ever intro in the history of (notjust) hi tech blogs was concluded.Okay people, you (most probably) may (not) have already read my first post ever that summarized my smartwatch adventures. In that particular post i have written about the Pebble watch: "Let here dully be noted that I would have bought a Pebble (Pebble) if there was one to buy, but come on people: Who wants to wait for six months in order to get one? Since it does nothing more than the Strata, to the best of my knowledge. Apart from the obvious hype, of course.  And okay it is infinitely more presentable / less embarrassing . One little comment here to Pebble's PR people: Please do not confuse people into thinking they are getting an e-ink screen. Thank you."First of all i did find a Pebble on ebay and bought it. The price was not a steal, but the seller was not asking for my kidney either. Or for a way to make enough money for a trip to the moon and back just by selling watches (that he had had the insight to back on kickstarter for the sole purpose of reselling at a later time with a premium price) on ebay. First class trip, that is. What i mean is there are a lot of ebay  UK listings for Pebbles that are asking for amounts of 250 EUR and above for an item that costs 150 USD if you could find one to buy. Which leads my train of thought to the fact that the Pebble kickstarter phenomenon (10 mil USD in backing while all they were asking for was a paltry 200 k if i am not mistaken) was a good thing, but also a bad thing. A good thing  for the company and the whole industry (too much hype is most times a big asset), but also a bad thing for the tens of thousands of backers and pre orderers (early adopters in general) who are queued and patiently (or not so much) waiting for their Pebble to be manufactured and then sent over.

The box

The box is minimalistic, absolutely compatible with the Apple way of environmental thinking (reducing cost, that is). The paper zipper is a good idea that provides a rather intimate moment with your beloved gadget. It actually offers a way to bond with the watch before you even have it in your hands. Kind of like unzipping the dress of your singificant other half. Please bear in mind that the Pebble zip if unzipped cannot be zipped back. Get it? All the box contains is the watch itself and the charging/sync cable, minus charger of course. Oh and a sign that tells you to log onto the website. Simple as that.

The watch

The watch is small, thin and light by smartwatch standards. You really cannot appreciate this if you have not tried to put up with the i'mwatch on your wrist for a whole working day (after that you would most probably have to recharge...). Trust me on this one. It feels a little cheap on the eye (the black one, at least) but manages to maintain a fairly good build quality. Considering the fact that the company did not manufacture anything before the successful kickstarter campaign, this means a lot. We can only hope for the best for the next Pebble iteration. The (ala Macbok) magnetic charging clip is a wonderful idea. If Pebble team ever reads this, please congratulate the person who thought about it. It adds a touch of class, as well as providing added value. A practical and simultaneously elegant solution!

The screen

The Pebble team used to call the screen an e-paper screen which confused people into thinking it was of the e-ink variety. It is not. It is an LCD which is perfectly readable in the brightest sunlight (you should visit the greek islands and especially the cyclades if you really need to redefine sunlight) and it also boasts a backlight which is cool and practical. The resolution is 144 by 168 pixels and it is enough for the 1.26 inch screen. Of course it is grayscale and of course it is always on (if you have used the i'm watch you may know what i am talking about...).

The strap

The strap is an interchangeable one with a widh of exactly 22mm. The most common width if am not mistaken. The key word here is interchangeable. The default provided strap certainly is uninspiring for lack of a better word. Let's just say that the strap is quite possibly the single most average (average has a negative meaning here) uhhmmm strap ever created. It is just a strap. Nothing more, nothing less. No wonder there is a whole bunch of people desperately seeking alternatives (just look at the size of this thread!). I can live with it though, at least for the time being.

Functionality

I have the pleasure to inform you that this smartwatch works quite well with both iOS and android smartphones. The basic functionality is there in both cases. CLI, SMS, notifications, runkeeper integration is there. Did imention it shows the time? Well, it does. In fact it can do just that in about every conceivable way through watchfaces. Watchfaces (official or not) change the way the watch performs it's primary (that was a joke) objective which is of course showing the time. (You may laugh now.)

Watchfaces - Watchapps

Okay the good things start here. You want simple and elegant, you got it. You want real watch replicas, you got it. You want "get through with your phd before you even start trying deciphering the time", you got it. You want to create your own watchface on your PC or your Android phone, even featuring your own face, you got it. You want some added value on your smartwatch, you certainly got it. There are tons of watchfaces and watchapps that support 2-way communication with the phone, providing a quick and easy way to have vital info regarding your unread SMS/Calls/Emails/Battery status (among other things) available at a glance. You want to control the music player and see the album artwork on the tiny watch screen, you got it. You want the watch to vibrate half a minute after you forgot your 700 euro smartphone in the back seat of the cab that just achieved warp speed 9.6, you got it. You want to press a watch button to wirelessly release the shutter of your iPhone camera and even see the photo it took (Android only) in glorious grainy Black & White, you got it. You want to control your home lights, you got it.  You want boobs (shaking, that is), you GOT it!!!

Notifications

If you use it with an Android phone you can have all types of notifications on the watch, as well as manual control over what you see and what you don’t. The same can be done on a jailbroken iphone (the person who created and freely offered BTNotificationEnabler Cydia app should be nominated Sir - long live Mr. Conrad Kramer). It also seems that iOS 7 (even without JB) will indeed push all notifications over BT as well. 

STATEMENT: Do you believe in miracles? If no, THEN GOTO STATEMENT. (If you just got stuck in an infinite loop, do yourself a favor and skip to the next paragraph or start believing.)

Sports apps

A dream has come true ladies and gents. You can use your smartphone to track your run and see vital real-time info on the watch. You cannot select what to see for the time being, but still it is a great feature for fitness buffs. Runkeeper integration is offered out of the box, but other solutions also exist, for runners as well as golfers and cyclists. This truly is the way to go. Since most people already carry their phones (while desperately trying to avoid a heart attack at a later –possibly more proper/convenient–  time by forcing themselves perform in the heart attack red zone) in order to listen to their year old (best case scenario) playlist they have grown sick off but never had had the time and appropriate mentality to actually decide to renew (cannot but justify their behavior though – who among us actually wants to battle the (iTunes) beast?) it, why not have their current speed available at a glance on their wrist? It is already being recorded, after all. My humble opinion is that the sports app dimension is something to be pursued by smartwatch manufacturers if they really want the whole wearable computing concept to eventually take off.

Water resistance/Endurance

The Pebble is so good you may even mistake it with a dumbwatch. It is 100% water resistant (this does not mean scuba diving of course – but you can swim in it or take a shower) as long as you do not press the buttons under water and that is the way all smartwatches in the future should be (hear that Samsung Galaxy Gear?).  Who needs a (hopefully) curved OLED screen when you have to take the watch off your hand every single time you wash your hands or the gods of rain send some uhhhhm rain? Regarding it’s endurance I cannot say it is rock solid, but “pebble solid” is still quite adequate. Okay, it is not a G-Schock that can withstand World Wars 3 and 4, but it can take some regular wear and tear without breaking apart. And that is good enough for me.

Battery life

The battery life tops out at about 15 days for me, but i do turn the watch off at night and when i am not wearing it. But i am heavy user since a lot of notifications are coming on the watch. I think it is safe to assume that a week of operation can be expected if you have it on your wrist (BT enabled) 24 7. One week happens to be the absolute minimum for a smartwatch before it crosses the line between "It's Sunday and i have nothing to do. Why not charge my smartwatch?" and "What do you mean your watch doesn't tell the time? Is it out of battery? AGAIN? WTF?".

The bad news

There is only one big issue with the Pebble watch. It does not support unicode character set, so bye bye notifications if your mother language is not English. Which is my case. There is a workaround for android phones but still the Pebble team HAVE TO solve that problem which severely handicaps the Pebble's functionality. 

Should you buy it?

This is a tough one to answer. My initial gut feeling is “Yes. Go ahead and buy it.” The problem is you still can’t find one to buy. The bestbuy stock was sold out before you could say “I desperately want to buy a Pebble and I am willing to drive for three hours in the wild in order to visit the most remote bestbuy store where the locals will hopefully not recognize it for what it is and buy the whole batch in order to resell at a premium on ebay…” Original backers may have received (I am not sure though) but the tens of thousands of preorders are not shipping yet. I for once have preordered on January 2013 and have still not had any news on this one! (UPDATE: According to this if i had preordered a black Pebble it should be on it's way but of course it was a white one...)So let’s assume you actually can lay your hands on the precious. Should you still go ahead and buy it? I am not that sure, folks. The Galaxy Gear release is imminent (IFA, September 4) and you must see it before you fork out the money for a new smartwatch. The iWatch still resides in rumorland but I have a hunch it is coming soon, real soon. My advice is that you wait at least until after the Apple event of September 10 (or whenever it will take place) so that to reach a decision after seeing the big picture.