Proctele apps in the App Store

Proctele apps in the App Store
Click the picture to see Proctele apps in Apple's App Store

Thursday, August 22, 2013

About Smartwatches

A smartwatch is a wrist-watch that can do more than telling the time or measuring time. I would count such early attempts as memory watches or calculator watches as smartwatches.
Current smartwatches either are complete smartphones or connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth. The Burg smartwatch is a complete smartphone, the Sony Smartwatch is of the latter type.
It's easier to describe a watch that is a complete smartphone, than a watch that connects to a smartphone. Let's look at the latter.
First of all, the Sony Smartwatch can't make calls! However you can read your SMS, Email and calendar on it. You can follow Twitter and Facebook and you can reject a call and send a predefined SMS. This is not the type of device Michael Knight in the famous TV-series used. It's only a limited user interface for your phone. In one sense it is really a smartwatch: it looks smart! The new Sony Smartwatch2 is slightly improved. It has a 1.6" screen with 220 x 176 pixels, but not much else.
The Pebble E-Paper Watch can connect via Bluetooth to iPhone and Android smartphones. It got its name from having an e-paper screen. It contains a GPS receiver. Unconnected it can show a speedometer and an odometer, and it can record your route. Later when you connect to your smartphone, you can see the route on a map. The Pebble is similar to what the Sony Smartwatch should have been, if you ask me.

To a smartwatch designer I would say the following. The wrist-watch is now an old concept. Customers are very familiar with it, so more than half the marketing is for free. Do something with the fact that it's worn close to the body, it's worn mostly on the pulse, has its own bracelet, can always be with you without being held i.e. occupying one of the hands, can be made water-proof, can be attractively designed, that women wear clothes without pockets, can have more than just a screen. This means it can benefit from having a built-in GPS, a heartrate monitor, a phone. Remember James Bond. What would Q have done?

By the way, Proctele's SmarterNote app has been updated again. The new version is v1.4. See all Proctele apps at http://proctele.se

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Updated Apps

Two Proctele apps have been updated recently. The new versions will be for sale within a week. The updated apps are:

  • SmarterNote
  • SMS-Fast
Both updates add a bit of functionality.