Why does a watch have to have a color display?

[MNealBarrett]

I'd like to have a serious discussion about that. Unless you are Shaquille O'Neal, there are limits to how big a watch can be and still fit on your wrist. So, the vast majority of the uses of a smartphone won't apply to a smartwatch. You won't be using it to play games, view pictures or do web browsing, for example. So why does it have to have a color display?

Apple isn't the only company getting this wrong, IMO. Samsung and Motorola also introduced color smartwatches, which have the same problems; no always-on display, no readability while wearing sunglasses, etc.

I would like to see Apple introduce a slightly less expensive version with most of the same features, but with an always-on B&W display.

 

[MNealBarrett]

Bumping.

 

[The Doctor11]

*Facepalm*
Have you seen the keynote? You can veiw pictures. There will be third party apps also. And it ****ing looks nice!!!!!

 

[mtmac]

Maybe just the red LED look from the 70's? The display cost on something like this has got to be so cheap, the little more for a full color display would appeal to so many more people. At some point, I would expect to see a kindle like display that is easier to read in the day. Look at the tablet market vs. the e-reader market. So while there may be a market for a monochrome smart watch, even the market for a color smart watch is too small already.

 

[ctdonath]

You need color precisely because it IS such a small display: one pixel can express more information via color than a B/W or gray pixel, increasing the data density. And by "more" I mean "a LOT more", and not just by straight count (2^24 > 2^8), but by human contextual association as well.