We spent a couple of hours in the company of Galaxy Gear , but not enough to give you a true judgment. To fully understand this product you have to use it in everyday life, but here is my first impressions, some of which we are certain we will emphasize in our full test. First of all, a great lack is obviously the absence of GPS. Samsung presents him as the companion of Note 3, but it is hard to imagine an athlete wearing Gear and goes below the 3 notes for the functions of geolocation. Especially now that the company has confirmed the quality of resistance against water and dust, the basis for a sports product. Into
We carried out a test call and used the Gear to answer. The situations in which you can use in this mode are really few. Probably in the car, while driving and alone. Because if you are in the midst of people, it’s really uncomfortable for both the boom ear to approach the microphone, and also you are always hands-free, with no respect for privacy. The speaker quality is that of a hands-free just enough.
The design is not that bad, very minimalist and clean, and one can wear well on a thin wrist . The battery life we ??are almost certain not exceed the day. It’s a problem for you to put it on charge every day? Not for those who have tried, but certainly some of you will not go down. The major limitation, however, the price of 299 euro well, but even more limited compatibility with only 3 notes for now, although it is said that, later, will be open to the universe Android. While waiting for our test, here is a new video presentation. Into Parallel to the quick test of Gear we also addressed some questions to the guys at
Atooma , Italian startup that has developed an application (Atooma fact) pre-installed on the Samsung smartwatch. Below here is the question and answer session with Cialdea Fabrizio, who oversaw the entire integration.
Tom’s Hardware: Atooma was honored at the Mobile World Congress as the most innovative application, and has gotten much media hype. What has happened since then? Have you received funding, greater attention by the manufacturers? Have you hired staff? I mean, can you explain the evolution of Atooma and your startup?
Fabrizio Cialdea: The MWC was certainly the most important event in terms of boost that the media has brought with it. Following the MWC we were contacted by several companies interested in our technology. At that time we met Mike Chen, Business Developer @ RocketSpace based in San Francisco. He is now one of our Advisor and with his help we have significantly expanded our network. Afterwards we continued to develop our product as well as the partnership with Samsung. Fundraising and research staff have always gone hand in hand, and it is something that in a perspective of how our agile development must always be “ongoing.”
TH: From the smartphone smartwatch Galaxy Gear, moreover, as a preinstalled application. How did you manage it?
FC: Six months of meetings between Europe and the United States. Corporation as Samsung can take your life in trying to understand who you need to talk, or who makes the decisions whether and how to address a meeting. The Eastern approach is totally based on R & D (research and development, ed), marketing comes later, and this having already collaborated spent in my work experience with companies such as Huawei and LG helped me a lot to engage the their R & D and make it interesting to our platform.
TH: How much and what it takes to bring an app on a smartwatch? We intend terms of time and efforts. What are the technical challenges you faced in order to adapt to the Galaxy Atooma Gear, with a smaller screen? And what does Atooma in practice to improve the product of Samsung?
FC: Samsung as other big company make life easier for developers, meaning that as soon as the device will be available, documentation, SDKs and support for Q & A will be there. In our case, as early developers everything was more difficult as our development went hand in hand with them. We had in our hands a hardware development as well as the SW very unstable so the challenge more than technique itself was “organizational” to try to decrease our development in their procedures and proceed with their own time. Atooma can and could expand the potential of very wearable, currently limits also for “technical” of the device (for example, only supports BT connection) use cases are more limited. Through Atooma you can create rules that involve the camera and the accelerometer of the smartwatch or create rules that do as notifications on the screen according to any condition which is already available on the app today. Into
TH: What is the future plan for the smartwatch? Become mass such as smartphones or are intended to affect a niche of people? You have already set its sights on the Google Glass
FC: It all depends on marketing. Often the penetration of certain products is more related to aspects such as fashion and costume that the technological benefits they bring. Because of the small screen size of such an object is still and always considered a “kit” of the smartphone. Regarding Glass, certainly are in roadmap, Atooma is a horizontal platform capable of dialoguing and control any connected device. Atooma dialogue with Smart TV, wearable devices, appliances, etc. … there are no limits.
TH: Atooma is only available on Android. We will see the application on other platforms? What do you think of the new iOS and Windows Phone 7? Are operating systems that are studying carefully and maybe you disembark, except with Atooma with other applications?
FC: Less than ad hoc customization of some of our
use case desired by partners working on operating systems like Windows or iOS, the Our goal is to continue on Android. The forecast and the penetration of Android is devastating and the operating system allows us to move easily between all the features of the smartphone thing we can not even imagine on other platforms. Also Android has now landed on digital cameras, cars, TV and so that’s what we need to achieve our vision of Horizontal Context Aware Intelligent Platform.