SYLVIA MCKEOWN: Wearables companies finally getting an eye for style
First it was the watch, where Apple rules the roost, and now Huawei is bringing us slick and smart spectacles
Remember Google Glass? The doubled-up, thick glass curling in front of an already nerdy design became the ugly face of the future, the harbinger of cyborgesque wearables. Everyone was convinced — for a whole minute — that we had finally hit the moment where our world would magically transform into the sci-fi movies we were promised in the 1970s. Instead, the overtly pretentious eyewear infected humankind with an almost allergic reaction to the possibility of wearables, crowning the wearers with the moniker “glassholes”. Since that rocky start wearables have arrived, but nowhere near movie counterculture predictions. People have only really bought into smart-watches in the last few years. Specifically, the Apple watch, which in the fourth quarter of 2017 sold more than the entire Swiss watch industry combined — Rolex and Swatch included. In 2018 the Apple watch was the best-selling wearable, with 4.7-million units of version three being bought in the second quarter alone, capturing 1...
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