i'm Watch smartwatch aims to merge the Nano and Live View
"i'm Watch" is the name of a new accessory for smartphones. Where they come up with these names, I honestly don't know, but the i'm Watch can best be described as Sony Ericsson Live View functionality merged with an iPod Nano with a watch kit. It's a watch that looks very much like an iPod Nano in a watch kit, but when you start looking at the menus you will see a lot more features that you'd expect to see on smartphones rather than a watch – or a Nano. The i'm Watch runs a very custom version of Android 1.6 on a 240 x 240 pixel display, has 4GB of storage, and connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth. Through that connection it gets both an internet connection and a phone connection, allowing it to be "smart."
Features of the i'm Watch include a music player, access to things like Twitter and Facebook, and the ability to see the address book on the watch and call contacts from it, read messages, and naturally see a weather forecast (can never have enough of those widgets). The watch will be shown off at CES in January and not ship until the end of that month – meaning that a lot of details are still unknown. The iPhone is for instance listed as compatible, but good luck getting things like messages out of that thing with Bluetooth. It's probably more compatible with some phones than others.
It's a nice accessory, and what I always wanted the iPod Nano to be. It does however have some very obvious flaws right there in the specs sheet. 24 hours of battery life in standby with Bluetooth on isn't much. Not their fault, really, as you can only fit so much into a case that small. The €250 price, which is even €50 off normal, is also not exactly in the impulse buy range. With models going all the way to €9999 (no that's not a typo) they're obviously targeting people with a lot of money as well as people with a lot of money, but that might hurt consumer adoption. Still, I would very much like one as I love the concept. As I mentioned above I don't think my iPhone will be able to do much with it (though providing it with an internet connection might be enough), but my Android tablet certainly could.
[i'm Watch]
