Samsung’s new Galaxy Ring will hopefully make an Apple Ring inevitable
When I heard that the Samsung Galaxy ring was real, my first thought was, “What took so long?” I’ve seen the Oura ring, but there is very little competition in this category, even though it makes so much sense. I’m surprised Samsung didn’t land on this concept much sooner. It’s such a clear victory that a Apple ring feels inevitable. Oh yeah. Apple doesn’t copy Samsung. Certainly.
We should have gotten a ring before we looked. We should already have an Apple Ring, instead of one Apple Watch Ultra. We can SCUBA dive with the Apple Watch, but there is no Apple Ring. Something is going backwards here.
A ring makes much more sense than a watch. First of all, I have a nice, chic watch that I wear occasionally. I inherited it from my father, who is still alive, so I like to wear it around him every now and then to show it off. I like it more than he did when it was his. But I still wear my Apple Watch mainly. I can’t lose a day of closed rings.
A large portion of Apple’s iPhone owners undoubtedly own a watch that they occasionally prefer to wear over an Apple Watch. It’s a prosperous group. Watches are still cool, even though we usually tell the time by looking at our phones. A watch is not only a great fashion accessory, but also useful. That means I might need more than one watch for different occasions. I need accessories.
If I had an Apple Ring instead of an Apple Watch, I wouldn’t mind wearing it all the time. It wouldn’t stop me from wearing other accessories, unlike the Apple Watch.
A ring will be cheaper if I need a new one every few years
Secondly, we know that this accessory, be it a ring or a watch, will one day become obsolete, probably within the next two to three years. I’m going to trade it in, throw it away or maybe just leave it in a drawer. That’s not so easy with an Apple Watch that costs more than any other watch I’ve bought. A watch should not become outdated. Before the Apple Watch, a watch couldn’t become outdated.
An Apple Ring would be more fun to lose if I needed something new. A ring is less personal than a watch. It has no face. I can also imagine that an Apple Ring would be cheaper than an Apple Watch. There is more miniaturization involved, and that makes production and parts expensive. But there are also far fewer parts and no moving parts like the digital crown.
Having to replace a $200 Apple Ring every two years irritates me, but it’s not as bad as realizing that my $600 stainless steel Apple Watch doesn’t have the features I need and needs to be replaced.
Now that wearables are for health, a ring makes more sense
Why didn’t there come an Apple Ring, or the Galaxy Ring, before the Apple Watch, launched in 2015, or the original Samsung Galaxy Gear wearable, from 2013? Because the original smartwatch makers had no idea what a wearable was good for.
The wearable Galaxy Gear had a crazy camera. For video calls? Maybe, but it came with an app that could scan wine bottle labels and recommend food pairings. Tell me that at the time, Samsung had an idea of what wearables were for.
Don’t laugh, Apple fans. The original Apple Watch had a feature that recorded your heart rate and sent it to another Apple Watch owner to sense themselves. That has some creepy Facebook Poke vibes there. Oh, Apple also sold a gold version for $10,000, and that model is no longer officially supported. I can’t name another gold watch that expires in 10 years.
An expired Apple Watch is no longer even a piece of jewelry. It’s worthless. If Apple sells a gold Apple Ring for a thousand dollars and no longer supports the ring, at least it’s still a gold ring.
It took a while for smartwatch makers to realize that health was enough of a reason to own a wearable. Everything else is gravy. Notifications are really nice, especially if you work in a field where you can never look at a phone screen. Yet it is the health functions that sell smartwatches. No one buys a Galaxy Watch to use it as a viewfinder for their phone’s camera, although that can be a neat trick every now and then.
Now that we’ve talked about health, we have to admit that a ring makes more sense than a watch. It is easier to wear a ring while exercising, especially if you practice contact sports. A ring is more comfortable and easier to ignore than a watch, especially if your wrists swell and shrink, like mine, depending on hydration. I don’t track my sleep with my watch because it’s not comfortable to wear while sleeping, but I could easily fall asleep if I wore a ring.
After Apple Vision Pro, there should be an Apple Ring
I haven’t even gotten to how an Apple Ring might interact with the Apple Vision Pro, as it seems like Apple is focusing entirely on the hands for input, but eventually I think we’ll see the wearables and phones become more involved in spatial planning. computing, and not just for taking cool spatial photos and videos.
Apple needs to make an Apple Ring, and fast. I know Apple never copies Samsung; it’s Samsung’s job to do the copying. At least, that’s how Apple fans see it. Forget that Apple only made big phones after Samsung made big phones. Forget that Apple only made the iPhone water resistant after Samsung did. And multiple cameras. Wireless charging. I’ll stop, I’ve made my point.