Motorola may not have any major new products to launch at Mobile World Congress this week, but the company is promising a few big items in the coming months. Motorola plans to launch a new smartwatch soon, and the company is also going to expand availability of its Moto Maker phone customization service to Europe and Mexico.
Moto Maker is the web app that folks in the US can use to customize the appearance of a Moto X smartphone before placing an order. It’ll take its first steps outside of the United States in the second quarter of 2014.
As for the upcoming smartwatch, Motorola says the devices that are currently available aren’t products people actually want to wear. The company wants to make a stylish product that feels more like jewelry, and which solves “real user problems.”
That’s horribly non-specific, but it sounds like Motorola’s new watch won’t be a device aimed specifically at the fitness market like the ill-fated Moto ACTV.
My biggest complaint about most current smartwatches is that they’re a little too much like jewelry — since the screens remain off until you press a button to turn them on. A big part of what makes a watch more useful than a phone that you have to pull out of your pocket is the ability to view information at a glance… and not having to press a button to see the time is a big part of that. It’s something E Ink watches like the Pebble already offer, but something that the latest smartwatches from Sony and Samsung lack.
via CNET, Engadget, and /r/android
Moto lost me after the xoom fiasco.
Just saying, might be wrong but iirc sony’s smartwatch 2 with its transflective screen should be on all the time though the backlight may turn off so it relies on sunlight. If it actually turns off due to software choices I will be very upset and remove it from the to-buy list.