Microsoft brings back Windows watch after Apple seeks 'flexible' bod
Wrap THIS round your appendage, Cupertino
Microsoft is working on a touch-enabled watch despite calling time last year on its earlier efforts. The revelation comes hot on the heels of rumours that rival Apple is working on an iWatch - which were further fuelled by Cupertino's posting of a job ad for a flexible display expert.
The Wall St Journal reports that Microsoft is working on device designs and has asked component suppliers in Asia to supply the requisite pieces. The paper said an unnamed exec had claimed to have met with Microsoft's research and development team in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft declined to comment to the WSJ.
The news comes just over a year after Microsoft pulled the plug on its Small Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) watches, launched by Bill Gates in 2003.
Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, the watches sported black-and-white screens and gave real-time news, weather, stocks updates and text messages. Data was funneled using Microsoft's own network - the MSN Direct Network - running over FM.
SPOT watches didn't sell in big enough numbers despite some sterling and polished support like this from Bill Gates, temporarily famous The OC actress Mischa Barton and Swatch CEO Nick Hayek. Sales for watches were eventually discontinued in 2008 and the MSN Direct service was turned off by Microsoft in January 2012, rendering useless any SPOT watches actually out there.
A year on, however, Apple has started to lend the smart-watch space some Cupertino-style cred. The WSJ reported in February that Apple's iPhone and iPad manufacturing partner Foxconn was working on a spate of technologies that could be used in "wearable devices" such as the rumored iWatch. The New York Times reported that the iWatch itself is an iOS-based device, constructed of curved glass that wraps around a user's wrist.
The expectation is Apple could do for watches what it did for smartphones and tablets.
An Apple smart watch would be a bitter pill for Microsoft to swallow, marking the second time Apple had swiped the baton from Redmond on an idea championed by Gates.
In 2001, Gates unveiled Windows XP Tablet PC Edition claiming the Microsoft Tablet PC would become the most popular form of PC within five years. Tablets, though, would remain nothing more than niche computing devices used in vertical sectors such as transport and logistics, while Windows XP Tablet edition dropped off Microsoft's development and support radar.
But it was Apple's iPad in 2010 that was the tablet game-changer, breaking into the consumer mainstream and prompting what seems to be a fundamental shift in people's PC buying habits, as PC sales tumble. Microsoft has since been forced to follow with Windows 8 touch for PC makers' tabs as well as its own Surface fondleslabs. ®
COMMENTS
Re: meh....
Why would you want a watch and a phone? My phone's in my pocket. The time is conveniently displayed on my wrist watch, which I can see even when both hands are busy. If I'm washing-up, I can check the time, without getting wet hands on my phone. Also when I used to swim every morning, it was good to be able to tell the time while in the water, and not only did I not have a waterproof phone, I was a bit lacking in the pockets department as well...
I do agree with your second point. I don't see the future being a proliferation of different personal computers in different formats. The way I suspect things will go, is that you'll have the one personal computer (which will probably be a smartphone), and then various peripheral bits of kit that connect to it. I doubt the old Pocket PC could cope with running a phone, the logical thing to do with a watch now, is to use it as a secondary display for the phone in your pocket. Very useful when having your hands full, or if you want sat-nav when you're walking, or just to control your music with phone in pocket.
That's surely the logical model for techy-glasses as well. One data package, all the controls can be on the phone, with a reasonable sized screen. A tablet might just be a screen and a Bluetooth/WiFi connection to the phone too. Most people could almost get away with dumping their current PC, and having a docking station run off their phone. Modern phones are already powerful enough, and most people's home computing needs are pretty light. That's the way I see things going in 10 years.
Re: Just as Eadon predicted - iWatch COPY CAT FAIL
Actually Eadon, half the time MS have put out a comparable device before Apple... the failing hasn't been in being a copycat, but trying to bring it to market before the technology allows it to be really mass-market. Windows XP Table Edition came out well before the iPad, and has been widely used by professionals in certain fields - my mechanic has used it for years on Tough-book clones for using various engine diagnostic software, for example. Just because you haven't seen it in a trendy coffee-shop doesn't mean it was a failure.
And again, MS have made and sold a 'smartwatch' before, so I can't work out that is copying Apple.
Microsoft stop trying to be Apple and come up with something original.
mark12, stop being an idiot and actually read the fucking article.
Apple, original? Maybe when Satan snowboards to work.
Re: Just as Eadon predicted - iWatch COPY CAT FAIL
Gee, this looks like fun, can I play?
Xerox Alto -> Mac
Diamond Rio (among others) -> iPod
Rand Tablet -> iPad
Digital River (among others) -> Apple App Store
Seiko RC-20 -> iWatch
Re: meh....
I remember when "Skipping" a track you didn't like meant fast forwarding the cassette!
