Samsung may have beaten Apple to the smartwatch punch, but poor reviews across the board have quickly dampened consumer enthusiasm for the $299 product. ArsTechnica, for example, noted the device “has sacrificed substance for the sake of timing”. That’s not stopping Samsung from advertising the Galaxy Gear as its next big thing, however.
Three Gear television commercials attempt to educate consumers on the benefits of using the product, with one particular ad seemingly drawing inspiration from Apple’s iPhone teaser spot aired during the Oscars in 2007, have a look below…
Here’s the first Gear ad where they introduce the product on the streets of NYC.
I like the “We’re in the future, guys” line.
And another one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3qeJKax2CU
For comparison, here’s Apple’s iPhone teaser ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHA3mg_xuM4
And this is the latest ‘eighty years in the making’ Gear commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2AjPfHTIS4
Samsung is clearly trying to hit all the right spots in order to convince the general public that the Gear is the Dick Tracy wrist watch and the Star Trek communicator for the 21st century. The ad also makes references to The Jetsons, Knight Rider and more.
It remains to be seen whether smartwatches catch on with average users.
Last year, smartwatch makers shipped a meager 330,000 units. Research firm Canalys pegged 2013 smartwatch shipments at half a million units, still a far cry from what would constitute a mass market appeal.
Canalys, however, estimates smartwatch shipments to grow tenfold in 2014 to become “the most important new product category in consumer electronics since the iPad defined the market for tablets.”
Much of the excitement revolves around Apple’s rumored wearable project, the elusive iWatch. People in the know told Bloomberg that a wearable iOS device includes a pedometer for counting steps and sensors for monitoring health-related data, such as heart rates, in addition to such features as making calls, checking map coordinates and seeing incoming notifications.
According to Apple’s boss, although “wearables is incredibly interesting” and could “be a profound area” for the company, it will take a lot of convincing before folks slip app watches on their wrist en masse.
There are lots of gadgets in the space. I would say that the ones that are doing more than one thing, there’s nothing great out there that I’ve seen. Nothing that’s going to convince a kid that’s never worn glasses or a band or a watch or whatever to wear one. At least I haven’t seen it. So there’s lots of things to solve in this space.
Apple’s made a number of high-profile hirings pointing to some sort of wearable product possibly cooking up in Jony Ive’s labs. DigiTimes recently asserted that the iWatch is expected to release in the second half of 2014, costing between $149 and $229.
Last week, word came out about Apple’s acquisition of the personal assistant app Cue for more than $50 million. The startup specializes in grabbing cloud data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Dropbox, Evernote, Tumblr, email, contacts, calendar and other locations.
Apple is allegedly looking to bake those Google Now-like features into Siri but the acquisition could easily matter a great deal from the iWatch standpoint.