Rebuttal: Why Android Wear Is Not the Beginning of the Wearable Devices Era

Molly Wood, writing for the New York Times, thinks that Android Wear is the beginning of the wearable devices era.

I doubt that.

The Line Of Reasoning

This is Woods’ argument in a nutshell:

1) Nascent technology needs a platform to be successful.

2) Android Wear gives wearables that platform.

3) The availability of an operating system for wearables will lead to an almost immediate boom in device development.

4) The hardest thing about creating a platform is creating the software.

5) By offloading the development of the platform to Google, the smart watch makers can get down to making devices people actually want to wear.

6) The mockups are hot…

7) Ecosystems matter and Android is currently the most popular ecosystem in the world.

8) Android Wear will jump-start the wearables industry in a meaningful way.

9) Apple just fell a little farther behind.

There are, in my opinion, lots of holes in Woods’ argument, but let’s just focus on two: First To Market and the Job To Be Done.

First To Market

First, let’s address the ludicrous argument that “Apple just fell a little farther behind.”

It’s not who’s “first” that matters, it’s who gets it right first that matters. Microsoft was ten years ahead of Apple with their tablet solution but none of that mattered because the iPad was the first to get it right. Smartphones were years ahead of Apple’s iPhone but, again, it meant nothing because they were on the wrong path. Their supposed “lead” in smartphones evaporated seemingly overnight as first Palm, then Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, then Nokia’s Symbian and finally RIM’s Blackberry rode off into the sunset.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. ~ Groucho Marx

I mean, seriously, why are we still having this sort of discussion? The press is so damn anxious to see who’s first, they never seem to bother to ask themselves: “First at what?” And that reminds me of a joke:

    A shark comes home covered in fresh blood. Pretty soon all the other sharks smell the blood and begin to hassle him about where he’s been hunting. He told them to go away and let him get some sleep but they persisted until finally he gave in. “OK, follow me” he said and swam out with hundreds of sharks behind him. Farther and farther and farther they swam. Finally the bloody shark slowed down and all the other sharks excitedly milled around him. “Now, do you see that boat over there?” he asked. “Yes”, they all responded as one. “And do you see that propeller on the other side of the boat?” “Yes, Yes, Yes!” the sharks all screamed in a frenzy. “Good” said the bloody shark, “Because I sure as hell didn’t!”

MORAL: Being first is not always best. If you smell blood in the water, it may be your own.

Questions

[pullquote]Confound those who have made our comments before us. ~ Aelius Donatus[/pullquote]

At this point I was going to ask a bunch of questions, but the inimitable Jean-Louis Gassée beat me to it with his Monday Note entitled: “Wearables Fever.”

As Monsieur Gassée so aptly put it:

    “Smartwatches and other wearables produce more pageviews than profits.”

So let’s turn our attention away from the many questions that dog wearables and focus instead on the one question that really matters:

What Job Are Wearables Being Hired To Do?

Let’s return to my summary of Molly Woods’ argument:

    “5) By offloading the development of the platform to Google, the smart watch makers can get down to making devices people actually want to wear.”

That sounds very, very backwards to me — a problem seeking a solution.

Do you remember Google TV? Well neither does anyone else. Google TV was supposed to revolutionize TV viewing. Google made the software and its partners made the hardware. It was perfect except for the fact that no one in their right mind wanted it or needed it.

largePundits get so caught up in technology, that they forget that the technology has to serve a purpose and that the purpose is defined by the user — not the creator — of the technology. The dog at right is standing on a “platform.” It’s an amazing trick. But so what? It’s just a trick, not a sustainable platform. Amazing is not enough. Amazing is a novelty, soon to wear thin. For a product to be successful, it has to be both useful and desirable.

Steve Jobs reminds us of what matters:

The technology isn’t the hard part. The hard part is, what’s the product? Or, who’s the customer? ~ Steve Jobs

So again: “What job is the wearable being hired to do?”

Vendors want to sell features, but customers want to buy benefits. For example, hardware stores try to sell us drills, while we, the potential customers, are trying to buy holes. We don’t care about a products features, we only care about its benefits.

The question then is, what “hole” in our lives does Android Wear seek fill? Again, Steve Jobs gives us a clue:

It’s really great when you show somebody something and you don’t have to convince them they have a problem this solves. They know they have a problem, you can show them something, they go, “oh, my God, I need this.” ~ Steve Jobs

If you can tell me what job Android Wear Is going to be hired to do and by whom it is going to be hired to do it, then I may well change my tune. But if Android Wear is Google’s answer to wearables, then I think Google may need to change their question.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. ~ Naguib

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John Kirk

John R. Kirk is a recovering attorney. He has also worked as a financial advisor and a business coach. His love affair with computing started with his purchase of the original Mac in 1985. His primary interest is the field of personal computing (which includes phones, tablets, notebooks and desktops) and his primary focus is on long-term business strategies: What makes a company unique; How do those unique qualities aid or inhibit the success of the company; and why don’t (or can’t) other companies adopt the successful attributes of their competitors?

14 thoughts on “Rebuttal: Why Android Wear Is Not the Beginning of the Wearable Devices Era”

  1. Good article, though I do lean toward Molly Wood’s reasoning. I wholeheartedly agree with you though that the first to get it right is what matters. This is what Apple is very good at. Design.

    I do find myself paradoxically attracted to the Moto360, for all the wrong reasons. Vanity. The paradox is that I normally criticize Apple for that. But I don’t see a path to “my watch is better than your watch” wars, and I don’t care if the hypothetical iWatch only keeps “Cupertino Time”.

    Maybe this is indeed a sign that Google is becoming better at what Apple is good at faster than Apple is becoming better at what Google is good at, after all. There are fundamental reasons for that, one company can’t do it all. Open wins.

      1. As a user, not shareholder, supplier, employee, or fan, all I care about (beyond human factors) is whether they will be around for the lifetime of my device.

        1. Even as a user you need a company to come up with SOMETHING to buy. Google hasn’t even done that.

          “one company can’t do it all.”

          There is a major difference between not being able to do it all and not being able to come up with anything to do. If Google could have at least come up with one reason for a wearable and left expansion to developers, as Apple does with iOS, smartphones and tablets, then you would have a point.

          “all I care about (beyond human factors) is whether they will be around for the lifetime of my device”

          And this concern is only answerable by a company being able to make money with the product or service you buy or use.

          Joe

          1. I do expect companies will come up with something to buy. As is Motorola, Fossil, and other’s have announced products. I reasonably expect them to be profitable, but not too profitable (granted, that’s subjective) since the profits come from me, and we are at opposing ends of a buy/sell relationship.

    1. What Apple is good at is comprehensive and decisive design. That’s batching functions and benefits in a way that forces competitors to try to follow suit: the Mac GUI, the Mac and iMac AiOs, the iPod, iPhone, App Store, iPad, iTunes (Quicktime). Call it industry innovation as opposed to product innovation.

  2. I also read Wired’s article on Google supposedly being in the best position to make killer wearables because of Wear. The problem I saw in the article and the related video ads/pr Google is running is nothing the wearables do is unique to it being a wearable. They are all essentially and functionally smartphone accessories or extensions. I don’t think that will be enough for wearables to make a consumer wave except among geeks. There is nothing compelling about needing to wear one. At least with a fashion watch, it only has to do two things as my reason for wearing it—look good and tell time. I don’t need my smartphone or a network connection for it to be functional.

    Joe

  3. “Microsoft was ten years ahead of Apple with their tablet solution but none of that mattered because the iPad was the first to get it right. Smartphones were years ahead of Apple’s iPhone but, again, it meant nothing because they were on the wrong path. ”

    Don’t forget to add music players to that list. There were many MP3 players for awhile on the market before the iPod came along but it was the iPod, with tight integration with iTunes, that executed the idea of the digital music player, done right.

    1. Agreed. Historically (Mac, notebook computers, iPod, iPhone, iPad) Apple has preferred to re-invent markets rather than initialize them. From where I sit, I don’t think a viable wearables market even exists yet.

      In any case, its WAY too premature to declare Android Wear the beginning of the wearable devices era.

      1. That Android Wear video that I’ve seen a few places with the round watch concept, isn’t that a simulation? Or is that an actual shipping product?

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