[ergothus]

Give me a smartphone: "This is great, I don't need a watch!"

Give me a smart watch: "This is great, I don't need to pull my phone out!"

Predicting what people will/won't like seems like black magic to me, with after-the-fact efforts to diagnose why "obviously" people did/did not love something somehow only works in hindsight.

I'm not saying the idea of finding something useful and making money providing it is broken, only that pushing the boundaries is inherently unpredictable, because we aren't terribly logical (or at least have a lot of variables at play)

[gowld]

> Give me a smartphone: "This is great, I don't need a watch!"

Who ever said that, and why didn't those people carry pocketwatches?

[jacobolus]

> Who ever said that?

When I was a kid in the 90s, my impression was that most adults wore cheap quartz wristwatches. 25 years later, their kids have grown up but instead of wearing watches just carry phones around, because the smartphone is a good enough time-keeper.

Obviously many people still wear wristwatches, and the same type of people who wore watches as status-marking jewelry 20 years ago probably still do today. But wristwatches are no longer necessary for telling time, as pretty much everyone carries a smartphone everywhere they go. For most people the additional convenience of having the watch on the wrist isn’t worth carrying an extra device, at least not all of the time.

[ergothus]

I did. Digital watches were cool! But then then were bulky blocks of plastic on my wrist, and when I was carrying a phone anyway I did away with the watch.

Years later I got the original Pebble, and while it was great for seeing who was calling me or getting a quick text, or banishing phantom buzz...my primary use was to check the time.

[ghaff]

Lots of people did/do. Smartphones added enough functionality that they became worth carrying around. It's not that they wanted to carry something around but smartphones made it worth it. And, once you have a clock with you at all times, why do you need a watch?

(To be clear, I've always liked having a watch on my wrist but then I grew up with one.)