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Comment by phaus | Hacker News Reader

There isn't anything about any smart-watch that would have me wanting to get one. Apple's is going to be equally useless.

The ridiculous part is the price-point. People who spend $300 on a watch, want something that looks nice. They don't want to spend $300 to strap a smart-phone to their wrist, when they already have one in their pockets.

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I'm glad I wasn't the only feeling this. It seems almost a foregone conclusion to tech "pundits" that watches are going to be the salvation for Apple's iPhone fatigue. I just don't get it, the biggest use case is usually "your smart phone is in your pocket, now you won't have to get it out". The only time my smartphone is't already visible is when I am walking or eating dinner (and most of my friends continue to put their smartphones out on the table when eating out).

Until some wearable device can actually replace a smartphone instead of complement it, I think you're right. Not many people want to carry yet another device, so you've got to have a pretty awesome and broadly appealing use case to convince them to do so. I just don't see it with the Gear (or the Glass for that matter).

I don't think that Apple will release a wrist device until there is a good use case for it and curved glass is inexpensive enough to produce in large quantities.

Here's the problem though, a smartphone is a computer, there simply isn't anything that you can't program it to do, so at best, the smart-watch is going to replicate the functionality of a device that we already own.

Function follows form, or vice versa. I'm not saying I know what need a wrist computer would solve that a smartphone doesn't, but these needs could exist. Arm motion tracking? Pocket free computing?

I could be wrong; Apple might have a surprise in store for us. On the other hand I could be right, and the iWatch could become a billion-dollar in spite of that. Only time will tell for sure.

And that's why tablets never took off.

Tablets took off because the screen size is so much better for consuming content and getting certain types of work done.

The usefulness of tablets seemed obvious to me and many others before they became popular. I don't see an obvious use-case for smart-watches, unless they are extremely affordable. $300 is more than twice what I would pay for a fully-featured watch, and that's if there is a killer feature that justifies their existence.

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