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- Gear S
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- G Watch R
Just a few hours after yet another report emerged claiming that Apple would be taking the wraps off of its new wearable at an event next month, both LG and Samsung have announced new wearable devices tonight.
LG has officially unveiled the G Watch R this evening, which features a 1.3-inch Plastic OLED display that is a full 360 degrees, unlike the Moto 360, which has an area of dead space at the bottom of the display. Motorola claims that the reason for the dead space on its watch is for the ambient light sensor and other display drivers. It’s unclear how LG managed to avoid having a dead area with its circular watch.
The G Watch R packs a 410mAh batter, a minuscule 10 mAh better than the original G Watch, which was not praised for its battery life by any stretch of the imagination. Other specs for the G Watch R are nearly identical to the square-faced G Watch. The device is packing a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, and interchangeable 22mm straps. It’s also rated IP67 for water resistance. Two notable changes with the G Watch R over the original G Watch is that it features both a heart rate monitor underneath and a power button on the side of the device.
LG says the G Watch R will go on sale in early Q4 of this year. The company did not share details on pricing, except that it will “vary by market.”
Samsung also announced the Gear S smartwatch this evening, powered by Tizen. The Gear S features a 2-inch Super AMOLED display and 3G connectivity. Having 3G connectivity means that the watch is device-independent and can function when not paired to a smartphone or tablet. The device features a dual-core 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and a 300mAh battery, which should give two days of “typical usage,” according to Samsung.
The Gear S will be available through Samsung’s retail channels and carrier partners beginning in October.
Evidence for Apple’s wearable device has been mounting for over a year now, and with the flood of wearables from other manufacturers recently, it only seems fitting that we’re finally nearing an announcement from Apple itself. In July 2013, Apple began making a number of key hires for a wearable device. In February 2014 Apple continued hiring for a wearables team and we extensively profiled many of the new hires. Additions at that point ranged from leadership to health and fitness to fashion. We also reported that Apple is teaming up with a number of professional sports athletes for testing the fitness capabilities of its wearable product. Last month, we discovered even more wearable and fitness related additions to Apple.
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Here is what’s gonna happen:
* No new announcement except a new iPhone 6 with larger screen
* A new iPad with finger print home button
* No iWatch
* Tim Cook will say. We are not sitting on our a$$es doing nothing, more innovations are coming soon. He’s been saying this since he took over. Nothing new except natural and catching up stuff.
That’s all. Don’t get your hopes up
now come on … do you really believe that?
Except you’re wrong in that the iWatch is undoubtably coming very soon.
You make it sound like your in the know, but you don’t seem to know that the iPads are typically announced at a separate event in October? So what do you really know?
Nothing probably.
Mac Pro.
Half Life 3
Manned mission to Mars
The (and I am very excited) new Mac Mini!
Samsung’s is dreadfully hideous. You have to feel bad for Samsung really.
How did Samsung manage to curve that iPhone onto their watch band? Seriously right? Even their watch looks like an iPhone.
You can expect whatever Apple has in store will not look anything like an iPhone. And I doubt it will have a power button on the side like LG’s throwback.
Yep, no chance Apple will put a power button on the side. I think the display itself may depress or the lower half, to turn on and off the display. I also think you’ll only turn the display off when going to sleep at night, all other times the display will remain showing a clock face and a tap on that will dissolve it into the home screen. I think it might use ECG recognition to remain constantly authenticated while on your wrist, and constantly locked when off your wrist. In doing this, you’ll be able to simply approach all of your Apple devices or smart devices like door locks to unlock them, without physically doing anything. Imagine walking to your car or house door and it unlocks before you touch the door handle, and locks the same way, when the distance is reached.
I think there will be a hard reset pinhole button on the back, and no other physical buttons. I think the display will have curved sides and flat top and bottom, unlike anything we’ve seen yet. I think it will also be fully wirelessly charged, and no headphone port of course. Waterproof, and use Liquidmetal for the body and obviously sapphire for the screen.
Second thought, the display may depress on the top and bottom, pressing it down on the top will turn off the display, holding it down can turn off the device. Pressing the bottom of the display will act as the home button maybe.
I like these ideas Smoothie! My thoughts were also that it may not even be permanently attached to the actual strap…so should you need to power the device at night, you don’t need to undo the strap, just pop off the face and put it in a wireless charging dock. While you sleep the strap itself could still be monitoring your sleep, heart etc while you are actually sleeping. The strap itself would not require a lot of power to keep a few sensors running and once you pop the face back into it in the morning, the charge from the face keeps a charge on the strap. It’s just up to Apple to work out a genius way to make it easily detachable. They have plenty of patents stating they have considered this, although I’m aware many patents are never used, so who knows, right?
Samsung has fun flinging shit at a fan. What is this now their 6th smartwatch?
Yeah they’re hopeless until they copy Apple. The thing about this product is, it’ll be hard to copy I think.
What if there is no watch…just a pair or iSocks.
They’ll make great presents, and the timing is great.
Impeccable
I’m starting to think that the iWatch won’t even have a screen per se. I’m thinking that the Apple patent with the “slap bracelet” picture is going to be closer to what we’ll get.
The screen on any iWatch is always going to be too small and finicky to really do anything with, so the interface will be mostly gestural & oral/aural.
The entire thing will be a flexible screen but just for notifications and other visual effects. When you want to do something with it, you will talk to it.
I don’t think they’ll ask people to talk to it a lot, they know people aren’t going to do that much. I don’t think any intelligent person is going to expect many people to lift their watch to their face and talk to it. A phone is different, most people wouldn’t be caught dead raising their watch to their face to talk to it.
You’re right though, it will be largely gesture input. The device will largely be information consumption, very little input. You’ll be able to swipe to dismiss a notification or send a preprogrammed message, but there is no reason to do much more than that with your phone in your pocket. You certainly won’t be making any phone calls with it, or typing out texts. It’s simply not a smartphone replacement (as it shouldn’t be), it’s a device which tracks biometrics and gives you notifications.
Forgot to mention it’ll also track movement, location, and act as a home automation type device for homekit.
It’s funny reading your criticisms of these designs. These are quite close to the actual designs Apple is working on.
Oh I’m glad we have your input since you’re working closely with Mr. Ive. Oh that’s right, you have absolutely zero knowledge about the device. What’s funny is your comment, it’s quite funny indeed. If you think Apple’s will look as bad as either, especially Samsung’s then I’m wondering how much you know about Apple design.
Frankly the LG doesn’t look too bad, I don’t think Apple’s will have a round display, but that’s just me. Samsung’s is tragically bad looking though. The LG is the best smartwatch design yet. It makes the Moto 360 look embarrassingly bad actually. In turn the Moto 360 makes that Samsung look embarrassingly bad.
And how do you know what designs Apple is working on since there hasn’t been one “iWatch” hardware leak.
Well, here’s what I’d be happy to see:
– it won’t have a speaker and mic
– the screen probably won’t be touch-enabled
– it’ll have a rotatable ring and a couple of physical buttons for back/forward (like the original iPod). Makes sense as it keeps the fingers out of the small screen and provides a more energy-efficient way to navigate
– the display and battery will be such that they allow the device to live for a few days between charges, with all sensors functioning
Surprised Sammy is going for a ‘phone watch’, that extra connectivity will kill an already dire battery life in the Gear line. LG have smartly killed the Moto 360 PR machine that took far too long to deliver.
The pressure’s all on the iWatch now to be something better, which it might just achieve by simply being very different. It’s great to have genuine excitement flying around an Apple event again after the incredibly well done WWDC keynote.
My hope is that they do the iPhone duo release, and Tim Cook thanks everyone for coming and turns to leave, room goes dark, ‘One more thing’ appears appears on the stage, enter the iWatch :-) That’ll teach those thieving Xiaomi execs. That line isn’t just a Steve thing, it’s an Apple thing, time for Tim to reclaim it :-)
So Samsung is trying to predict what iWatch will have and be ahead of it. Hoping to sue Apple.
Don’t matter Apple has patents proving they been working on said project for awhile (goes for any product being explored)
Well you have to at least admit that the latest iterations are better than those before it, maybe not what the mass market wants, but it will go a long way to show the world their not just copiers of other products.
There will not be a mass market until Apple comes in with a design and functionality that people are willing to give a try. Its not going to launch without heavy criticism, if you push the design envelope that people are comfortable with then your definitely going to get a lot of pushback. But in time, what might have seemed a bit radical becomes more mainstream and so it goes.
I really hope Apple gets way out of the box and pushes wearables in a direction we least expect.
As long as Apple holding on to release the iWatch, Samsung will keep on releasing new one. Their profit will be -ve and -ve and ……… unit they strike lottery or go to drain. Apple will win without fight.
So there are rumors of Apple’s work (yet no corporate announcement) and Samsung officially announces a product AND YOU SHEEP SAY SAMSUNG IS COPY ING crAPPLE?
Do you all realize that buying Apple’s humdrum products you are encouraging the same old thing and discouraging innovation?
The features you clamor for are already available on other devices. You could be using them rather than speculating about them.
Geeze, you really missed the turn off to 9to5Google didn’t you? EVERY SINGLE POST you make here is a feeble attempt at trolling Apple, insulting it’s users / owners, degrading us, and being a downright asshole.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again, GTFO you worthless piece of trolling trash!
That’s laughable. Nothing about Samsung’s or any current iWatch does what Apple’s is intended to do, which is biometric tracking and home automation control. You are soooooooo smart! Hahah can’t say that and keep a straight face. Have fun being sad in a few weeks when you know what the iWatch looks like and does :)