Cool watch app? Wait, actually that would be cooler and more usable on a big screen...
Haptic feedback? Agreed, awesome idea, but no reason it can't be on my phone and buzz my leg instead of my wrist.
It's frequently lost upon this crowd (I'm guilty of this myself) that half of the population in the West frequently wears clothes which lack pockets.
From Wikipedia:
"It is not etymologically related to the word male, but in the late 14th century the spelling was altered in English to parallel the spelling of male."
I honestly don't understand how "female" is any worse then "woman" honest question I'm easily the least sexist person you could run into (ask my wife) but sometimes it seems like no mater what you're still going to offend someone. :(
It would be the same as calling someone a "human" rather than a "person". Like aliens do in the movies. Maybe you don't feel that's dehumanizing, but I think a lot of people would.
(Classicist pet peeve: A word's etymology has nothing to do with its modern denotation and connotation.)
Edit: Nevermind. I Googled it. Star Trek alien.
It's clear that they spent a large amount of time and effort with the haptic feedback and the crown.
But functionality wise... well I completely agree with you.
I can't see anything a smartphone cannot do, better and more efficiently, with the exception of the heart rate sensor.
Some functions in particular seem very awkward to me: I cannot see a reasonable way of using it as a phone or an audio player, in public, without bluetooth earphones.
With mobile phones, mp3 players and smartphones the value proposition was clear, but what is the killer application for smartwatches ?
That said, I would be far from surprised if they sell like hotcakes.
There's a much higher density of tactile nerve endings in your wrist than in your thigh; even if you can reliably feel your phone vibrating in your pocket (I can't!), that's no guarantee you'd be able to discriminate finely enough for haptic feedback to be of use, especially since the phone's orientation in your pocket is not guaranteed.
I'm forever feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket when it isn't vibrating... and still manage not to notice when it does vibrate.
Perhaps I would perceive the signal more accurately if it was on my wrist instead of my thigh.