I think its really cool. This is how wearable computing finally creeps up on us. "Wearable computers" in the past were a non-starter because, lets face it, they were dorky looking.
This has style enough to be worn without seeming too moronic and really does put a lot of power on the wrist. Better battery, tight "PAN" integration with the iphone and ipad... can awesome cyborg-ery be far behind?
Isn’t wearable computing all about being able to carry around a capable computer with you at all times without even noticing?
An Android phone or an iPhone certainly fit that bill. Those are not really wearable or they are at least not what you would have imagined ten or twenty years ago when thinking about wearable computing but they are just as useful. I would even argue that they are more useful. You get all the benefits without the downsides. We could have made all those gadgets much more durable and waterproof and we could have even mated them with clothing – that doesn’t seem technologically infeasible – but why should we? A small lightweight slab of glass we can just slip in our pocket seems much more practical.
As for watches, I'm not sure what’s going to happen to them. I know many people who just ditched their watch altogether because all their gadgets have clocks, but the wrist is certainly attractive real estate for technology or fashion or both. The problem is size, I think. There is no space for a 3.5" or larger touchscreen on the wrist, even the 1.5" screen of the nano is a stretch. That 1.5" screen doesn’t allow for rich interaction, it can at most be used for very basic things (like in the case of the nano) or as a conveniently located remote for a larger interaction surface somewhere else.
I think, however, that it’s very questionable whether a setup with a watch as a remote is very convenient or practical. Why would you want to take care of two gadgets (charge them, be careful so that they don’t break and so on) when you can just pull your smartphone out of the pocket with about the same ease as looking at your watch?
This has style enough to be worn without seeming too moronic and really does put a lot of power on the wrist. Better battery, tight "PAN" integration with the iphone and ipad... can awesome cyborg-ery be far behind?