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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

Yep, this could not in any way be used for something else, such as the already announced iOS in the Car [1] program.

I get the feeling that the iWatch will be the next "Apple will make a full sized television." Maybe it will happen, but only after 5 or 6+ years of analysts saying it will come out at the next Apple event.

Look at Samsung's watch. It's big, it's ugly, it requires a high end cell phone, it's battery is only good enough for about a day, and it's $300. Maybe Apple can do better, there is a long way to go for something that fancy. If you go to something simpler like a Pebble, there is less room to stand out.

Besides, does anyone think Apple can resurrect the watch industry? I'm sure they'd sell tons, but nothing compared to the tablet or phone markets.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_in_the_Car

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Yep, nothing in this diagram implies that a smart watch would be the Notification Consumer.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreBl...

Wow, nice catch

Well crud.

bah, its obviously a cv joint! /s

A smart watch like, say, the Pebble? It would be foolish to design something like this without acknowledging that there already exist smart watches.

Besides, does anyone think Apple can resurrect the watch industry?

No but I do think they can make a huge splash in wearable computers. The type you happen to strap on your wrist. I don't think they'll market it as a watch. They'll probably market it as a wearable iPod that gains a ton of extra functionality when paired with an iPhone. It definitely won't be as big as the iPhone/iPad and will probably be somewhat of a hobby project for the first 2-3 generations. From there I could see it being a very profitable product for Apple.

I think after a while all technology tends to get passé to people. I think that's starting to happen with SmartPhones. People who are glued to their phones are starting to look lame, rude, detached. I bet in 2-3 years people will look at a wearable wrist computer as a far more elegant way to interact with their SmartPhone for most tasks. Less intrusive, more practical than taking your phone in/out of your pocket 50 times a day, less likely to hit the pavement and crack, easier to sneak a peak at in social situations, etc.

I would move that motion processor, a heartbeat detector, a glucose detector, and the user keychain into the 'watch'.

That way users carry all information about themselves on the watch. That frees the pod/tablet/tv part from being anything more than a 'sync with cloud and display stuff' part.

The 'watch' part could show the essentials like unread email count. I would use something low-power like e-paper there so that the watch's battery lasts for a week (hm, is it coincidental that Apple went very flat with iOS 7? I think screens like the notification screen would translate reasonably well to a four-color display)

In other words: the display can easily be shared between users. If I pick up your tablet, it shows my desktop.

Maybe, I would even leave the production of displays to third parties, and keep the 'watch' and 'sync to cloud' stuff to myself (Apple would have a long way to go to get there, though)

Will that happen overnight? No. For one thing, I doubt internet connectivity is fast enough too make a device change from displaying your content to showing mine.

I never said they'd make a watch. I said it's curious that they're so obviously aiming it at a very resources-constrained device (or optimizing out the wazoo for energy efficiency) for which they don't have a client of their own or an announced third-party client. You'll note that they didn't announce "iOS in the Nebulous Theoretical Arbitrary People Transporter" and hope people take it from there.

With iOS in the Car, whatever they're using - probably AirPlay or something riding the various MFi (made-for-iWhatever) protocols - is already transmitting screen images. If they have a notification protocol like ANCS, they will probably not reinvent it, but iOS in the Car already involves several of their own protocols, so why use yet another connection - and if they do, why invent a new protocol and publicly document it for this use case?

Maybe it's about roaming notifications to OS X Mavericks, but there are no (revealed) commands for getting i.e. app icons.

Actually, whether they make a watch or not, it's very curious to see them introduce a new binary protocol in the open. If this is a turn towards being more open, I welcome it. It's far from enough, but it's a start.

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