Anthony Newman sees technology catch up with Dick Tracy - and thinks there's a lot of potential for the concept of watch phones, coolness factor aside.
Amidst the barrage of recent product announcements, there are two that have me particularly excited. The first is NTT DoCoMo's new watch phone, which made the geek in me truly salivate: Not only was it a phone in a watch, but it could even transform into a standard handset shape. It's not quite Optimus Prime, but by golly it gives Dick Tracy a run for his money. The Wristomo, as it has been dubbed, also quietly introduces another consumer first: it's waterproof, like most good watches. If you've ever tried using your PDA or expensive phone in the rain, you'll understand why this is an important step in making PDAs and phones - and their connectivity - "ubiquitous" like watches.
The second announcement drove me into a veritable apoplexy of gadget-lust. Coincidently, it was Samsung's own watch phone, which in its own way was much more exciting than NTT DoCoMo's. Firstly, it is GSM, so it will work outside of Japan, and indeed will be coming to us lucky Europeans this year. Secondly, it has a colour screen, and an OLED one at that, making it one of the most cutting-edge devices out there. Thirdly, it has voice dialling and a speakerphone, making it a pretty usable handset in its own right. Finally, and most importantly, it sports Bluetooth and GPRS for connectivity, which is what really got me going.
In rampant visionary mode I pictured a radical, modular, modus operandi - I could change PDA as I wished, from none at all when I go out in the evenings, through to the latest Pocket PC for day to day duties and even a laptop on the road if I so wished. Each of these could synchronize with my watch and use it as a gateway to the outside world, all without having to swap SIM cards or worry about all the hassle introduced by managing multiple phones. Furthermore, the modular approach makes upgrading to new devices easier and cheaper. I pictured using a tiny handheld, browsing the web unobtrusively using my wrist-watch's GPRS connection, and all done at a moment's notice over Bluetooth. Now that's connectivity. And with a tiny Bluetooth headset I could communicate totally handsfree, and look even more mad when I walk down the street appearing to talk to myself.
Of course, the other major appeal of these watch phones is the lure of being permanently in-touch and available, even more so than with our current batch of tiny handsets. With your phone strapped to your wrist, you never have to worry about leaving it behind. The downside is that which is currently faced by camera-phones: secure environments (hospitals, government installations, examinations) may ban your converged device, leaving you not only without a phone, but without a watch, too. For most of us that won't be a big issue, but having your watch ring in the cinema might be.
Samsung first announced a reasonably-sized watch phone some two years ago. Sure, it was bigger and had inferior features, but it didn't look bad. Nonetheless, it didn't make it to market, and watch phones remained the stuff of science fiction. Now, at last, it looks like they're becoming the stuff of reality.
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