Wearable Computing for the First World Lazy

My phone rings but I don't want to take the call, so I swipe left on my watch and off to voicemail it goes.  I have a meeting in an hour so I look at the notification on my ring while it painfully displays a tiny message from right to left like a tiny stock ticker.  I'm on the subway and want to fast forward the current song on Pandora so I tap my watch or ring a few times.

These are the wearable computer scenarios companies are trying to sell that come right out of a science fiction novel.  From Dick Tracy to KnightRider, it sounds interesting until I pick up my iPhone and realize the notifications on the lock screen has all these controls and a much easier to read interface.  Why do companies think we need a watch, ring, or any piece of jewelry that only delivers tiny screens with notifications served by Bluetooth linking to our phone?  In each of these scenarios, I still need one thing, my phone.

The phone part is required and severely limits the desirability of a smaller and inferior device.  In terms of watches, Samsung shows exactly what not to do with their Galaxy Gear.  For the not so cheap price of $300, you get bad fitting, non existent app ecosystem, and the option to only link with other Samsung devices.  For that much money, I think I'll stick to a elegant Seiko watch and keep pulling my phone out of my pocket to get things done.

Qualcomm released the toq watch to pair with Android devices as well, so don't forgot to keep you phone close by.  Once again it hits the not so cheap price of $350 and makes some improvements over the Galaxy Gear with longer battery life and a better looking screen, but it's still just mini output for relaying phone information and controlling how fast I move to my next song on Pandora.

From watches to rings, Smarty Ring met its funding goal and promises first deliveries in April of 2014.  For an estimated price of $275, you get three buttons and a tiny display. The promise of a ready to ship product in just over four months when there are only artists concept drawings on their page makes this a very wobbly investment.  Even if they deliver, what exactly does a watch bring besides a tiny screen to my fingers?  Which way do I wear the ring to read the information on it?

The idea that any of these products makes any sense at the moment is almost completely ridiculous.  Everything links through your smart phone making it an absurd expensive extension, and not much more.

For any wearable device to work there are some mandatory requirements yet to be met.  First, no more than a single physical button.  Ideally, motion would be all you need to get the watch from standby mode to ready to go.  There also needs to be a curved glass design that accepts touch input and displays on the same screen so it more comfortably fits the contours of the human appendage.

Second, voice.  The device needs to accept voice commands and relay those into your smart phone.  As odd as some people will look talking into their wrist placing an order for take out food, tweeting about their favorite restaurant, or just making a reminder, it's quick and easy enough to make it an actual useful addition.

Last, price.  When the wearable computing device costs more than a smart phone on contract and only provides these basic additions, it's still not worth buying.

Somewhere, someone is working hard to make wearable computing a main stream reality.  To turn this from a gullible tech nerd's desire and into a real usable product, work is nowhere near completed.

When Apps Go Wrong

I love how good onions bring me to tears.  Sadly, there are bland onions as well and The Onion's iPhone mobile app falls into that category.  You can get your daily laugh riot on an iPhone with their superb writing from the main website, the mobile website, using Apple's Reader, or through their personal mobile app.

Loading up the app, I get a 1990's style animated gif ad on the bottom of the screen which does a great job of grabbing my attention and pissing me off with a quasi real message.

Hey I have a new message!  Wait a min ...

This is not how I want to read their stories so I thought I would try other ways of accessing their content.  Let's hit up the website, which automatically forwards me to their mobile version.

Much better!  Got rid of that horrible ad on the bottom.  In fact, there are only two ads on the page, one above the main image and another at the very bottom.  It's a clean layout with a good choice of fonts, thumbs up.

I clicked on Apple's Reader tab, and the main article's image is removed, but the other image inside the article is still present.  Not perfect but the font is even better for reading and the story in my opinion becomes easier and quicker to access.

In terms of readability, this is the best.

Lastly, I opened the main site to see how that was handled on my smaller screen.

Damn good? Do they sell just ok gifts to?

Ads, ads everywhere.  This is how The Onion makes its money so I'm not going to cry a river.  On the plus side, with the ads formatted outside the main body of text, it becomes an easy double tap on the screen to get this,

The font is a little smaller, but it comes close to the mobile app in terms of usability.

The question I asked myself here is, "When do you really need a mobile app?"  In this case if you're only reading through articles on The Onion's website, it's just a waste.  I could read, scroll, and share just as easily, if not better at times, with the online mobile website compared to the app.

If I was going to do an app for The Onion, I think we can go a much better route.  Like Al-Jazeera's iPad app, open up to a video to get the user's attention.  There could be a pile of fun just waiting to happen with some simple ad-lib programing for their stories or even incorporate fake places on a map overview.  Something, anything, is better than reserving your main website's stories again with poor real estate and bad ads.