14 DAY TRIAL // Creating a compelling smartwatch that’s both complex yet easy to handle is a daunting task. Apple took its time to make sure it delivers something along these lines in 2015, while Samsung took the hasty approach of being first to the market with a half-baked solution.
Seeing how the Galaxy Gear failed to impress, Samsung went back to the drawing board and started anew. Sources say they’re currently working on a round smartwatch (currently dubbed Orbis internally).
According to details leaked by people who are close to the project, the Korean company is going out of its way to make something completely different from the Apple watch.
Rotary bezel / dial
For its own smartwatch, Apple has chosen two distinct input methods: touch controls and traditional buttons. In a smart move, Apple enabled a third subset of input actions via Force Touch, which allows the screen to feel hard presses to enable additional functionality. Much like the reachability function was needed on the well-proportioned iPhone 6 Plus, Force Touch was required on the watch because of its reduced size.
Samsung has realized that it too needs multiple input methods to offer customers the extensive array of functions needed to make a smartwatch relevant. However, the Korean company has taken a very different approach, by implementing a rotary dial around the screen.
People who are familiar with the device have revealed the control scheme for the Samsung watch. Controlling it will be a nightmare, going by the description offered by SamMobile. Some highlights:
• Swiping down from the top offers access to a drop-down menu containing things like brightness, bluetooth, battery, do not disturb. • Swiping up from the bottom displays recent apps. • A slow rotation of the dial to the right will show one app at a time. • A rapid rotation will show three apps at the same time. • Pressing the crown (which doubles as the power button) will close the recent apps menu. • On the home screen, rotating the ring to the right displays widgets in use. • On the home screen: rotating the dial to the left after reaching a particular widget will show the content of that widget. • (It is unclear where exactly in the watch) rotating the ring to the left will display notifications, with the ability to cycle through them.
Phone calls and music player
The sources were not able to confirm whether or not the watch would actually allow users to take calls, but they did say users would be able to reject calls by rotating the ring to the right, or decline the call with a message by rotating it to the left.
It might be obvious by now that the rotary dial has an alarmingly high number of uses depending on context. It remains to be seen if users will actually be able to remember the entire control scheme. To end calls in progress, users will simply press the crown.
For music playback, the ring works as expected: turn it to the right to skip, turn it to the left to go back. Swiping upwards displays your playlists, which can be browsed (again) using the round bezel.
Other uses for the ring will include alarm, time, find my device, and weather. Adding insult to injury, according to the people responsible for this leak, “this is just the tip of the iceberg [...] there are a lot of other functions on the watch itself.”