Sometimes it's the little things that make a big difference.
There's a setting on Apple Watches asks if you wear your watch on your LEFT WRIST or RIGHT WRIST. Now most wear it on their left, BUT, most left handed people wear it on their right wrist. Now already I've lost probably 90% of you who don't care cuz you're right handed and your watch sits on your left hand. But the other 10% of the world this would make a big difference. If you don't think it's a big deal, then try pretending to reach over your watch to press the Home or Back buttons for a full day on the opposite side of the watch and you'll see it's not a natural move.
Tizen recently updated to 3.0 with lots of great features, but one they REMOVED was the ability to swipe down to go back a screen. And doing so pushed 10% of it's users further away.
Now, as far as I know, the only way to "go back" is to hit the back button on the side. PROBLEM: these buttons are inconveniently located on the far side of the watch for that 10% (most of them anyway). Is this annoying? YES! So what had Apple done? They've included a simple setting on their watch that tells the watch what hand you're gonna wear the watch on so you can flip it around so the button/scroll wheel faces your opposite hand which is MUCH more convenient.
Simple, yet necessary. A quick reach over to the watch and the back and home buttons are right there facing your opposite hand. But NOT on the Samsung Gear S3 watches with Tizen 3.0 Perhaps no one at Samsung is left handed. Perhaps there's more left handed people at Apple. Either way, Samsung/Tizen could learn a thing or two from Apple here. Samsung already goes halfway there when you dock the watch as the screen flips 90 degrees. So how hard would it be to flip another 90 degress? While I believe Samsung is missing out on utilizing their 90 degree rotation when docked to give users the OPTION to have a customizable dock/bedside clock that's always-on, I believe allowing for an option for 100 out of every 1000 Samsung users should be categorized as important.
Allow us to flip the watch around on our right wrist so the buttons face the right way. I figured when the swipe down to go back feature went away (which was present in previous Gear watches as well) with this Tizen 3.0 update, that there would be another way to go back, but sadly there isn't...at least that I can find. Samsung needs to learn from Apple here.
One final UI note, for right wrist wearers, if you cross your arms in front of you and you're wearing your watch on your right wrist, it's often covered up by your left forearm, right? Well, for many it is. But if your watch shifts to awake mode and is being long pressed by your right forearm, guess what happens to the watch face? It says "oh you wanna swap me out for a different watch face?" and I look down at my watch and it's either changed accidentally to a different face or it's now in that mode where you go left or right to choose a face. Doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it's really annoying. There should be a OPTIONAL setting for us forgotten 10% that says "disable long press on watch face".
I love this watch. It's the best smartwatch I've ever owned and I've owned several, but I can't lie that I'm very disappointed that Tizen 3.0 not only doesn't address left handed users, but it actually managed to make the user experience, at least for us 10%, a little more unfriendly.
Apple = 1
Samsung = 0
And yeah, I'd be the first one to say that if we added EVERYTHING up that the Gear S3 would beat out the Apple watch, but for those left handers like me who wear watches on their right wrist, Samsung is going in the wrong direction.
There's a setting on Apple Watches asks if you wear your watch on your LEFT WRIST or RIGHT WRIST. Now most wear it on their left, BUT, most left handed people wear it on their right wrist. Now already I've lost probably 90% of you who don't care cuz you're right handed and your watch sits on your left hand. But the other 10% of the world this would make a big difference. If you don't think it's a big deal, then try pretending to reach over your watch to press the Home or Back buttons for a full day on the opposite side of the watch and you'll see it's not a natural move.
Tizen recently updated to 3.0 with lots of great features, but one they REMOVED was the ability to swipe down to go back a screen. And doing so pushed 10% of it's users further away.
Now, as far as I know, the only way to "go back" is to hit the back button on the side. PROBLEM: these buttons are inconveniently located on the far side of the watch for that 10% (most of them anyway). Is this annoying? YES! So what had Apple done? They've included a simple setting on their watch that tells the watch what hand you're gonna wear the watch on so you can flip it around so the button/scroll wheel faces your opposite hand which is MUCH more convenient.
Simple, yet necessary. A quick reach over to the watch and the back and home buttons are right there facing your opposite hand. But NOT on the Samsung Gear S3 watches with Tizen 3.0 Perhaps no one at Samsung is left handed. Perhaps there's more left handed people at Apple. Either way, Samsung/Tizen could learn a thing or two from Apple here. Samsung already goes halfway there when you dock the watch as the screen flips 90 degrees. So how hard would it be to flip another 90 degress? While I believe Samsung is missing out on utilizing their 90 degree rotation when docked to give users the OPTION to have a customizable dock/bedside clock that's always-on, I believe allowing for an option for 100 out of every 1000 Samsung users should be categorized as important.
Allow us to flip the watch around on our right wrist so the buttons face the right way. I figured when the swipe down to go back feature went away (which was present in previous Gear watches as well) with this Tizen 3.0 update, that there would be another way to go back, but sadly there isn't...at least that I can find. Samsung needs to learn from Apple here.
One final UI note, for right wrist wearers, if you cross your arms in front of you and you're wearing your watch on your right wrist, it's often covered up by your left forearm, right? Well, for many it is. But if your watch shifts to awake mode and is being long pressed by your right forearm, guess what happens to the watch face? It says "oh you wanna swap me out for a different watch face?" and I look down at my watch and it's either changed accidentally to a different face or it's now in that mode where you go left or right to choose a face. Doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it's really annoying. There should be a OPTIONAL setting for us forgotten 10% that says "disable long press on watch face".
I love this watch. It's the best smartwatch I've ever owned and I've owned several, but I can't lie that I'm very disappointed that Tizen 3.0 not only doesn't address left handed users, but it actually managed to make the user experience, at least for us 10%, a little more unfriendly.
Apple = 1
Samsung = 0
And yeah, I'd be the first one to say that if we added EVERYTHING up that the Gear S3 would beat out the Apple watch, but for those left handers like me who wear watches on their right wrist, Samsung is going in the wrong direction.
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