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Noodoe: The Opposite Of Apple Watch?

Noodoe: The Opposite Of Apple Watch?

April 17, 2015

Ralph Jennings, Forbes:

To hear company founder John Wang tell it, the watch developed by his firm Noodoe ticks along at the polar opposite of Apple on a spectrum of wireless-enabled time-telling devices. Apple gives you everything, from golden hardware to apps, interface design and corresponding iPhone software. Noodoe, a company launched last year in Taiwan, will sell blank watches for users to customize, leaving other brands somewhere in between, the former HTC chief marketing officer says. “The idea is the exact opposite of the Apple Watch,” he says. “Your idea is the movie star and the Noodoe watch is only an empty stage. There could be millions of ideas that people come up with.”

The headline of Jennings’ piece is “Will This Taiwanese Brand Kill The Apple Watch?” Just like my headline above, the query follows Betteridge’s law, and the answer is “No.” Whatever this soon-to-be-maybe-funded Noodoe thing is (and your guess is as good as mine), it’s not the opposite of Apple Watch because that doesn’t even mean anything. Unless, of course, you buy into the small benign corporation’s “big evil corporation” nonsense. Seriously, here’s how they present their product:

Our ability to create is one of the most profound aspects of what makes us human.

I agree.

But today, intoxicated by the culture of instant gratification, we are slowly relinquishing our human drive to think, to dream, and to create new things using our own ideas.

More people and more companies are making more new things right now than at any other time in human history. “Instant gratification” is a desire often driven by necessity, and necessity is the mother of invention. If something I need to be done can be done sooner rather than later, I’ll pick sooner every time. And so will almost everyone else.

At Noodoe, we want to reverse that course — starting with the watch.

That’s an awfully stupid place to start.

The watch is the most personal item we put on our wrist.

And a shoe is the most personal item we put on our foot.

But, do we really have to wear only what big companies tell us to?

Only if we want reliable manufacturer support and third-party development of tens of thousands of high-grade, capable apps and hardware compatibility with various global communications technology standards.

Is it right, that the choice to express our individuality, our likes, our quests, and our feelings is limited to only what we can choose from soulless commercial entities?

Who expresses all that with a watch? Furthermore, is a “soulless commercial entity” any more opprobrious than some two-bit, massively cynical, coattail-riding one? Is the Noodoe Watch going to be free for all its backers on Indiegogo?

It doesn’t have to be that way — not for independent thinkers. Step out from the crowd. Join other independent thinkers like you. Let’s nudge the world to think a little more, to dream a little bigger, and to create brilliant things using our own ideas. Join the independent thinkers’ movement. Join the Noodoe revolution.

You are an independent thinker, aren’t you? I mean, it’s not like us “creators” can get an Apple developer’s license and make way more robust, creative, impactful stuff for a platform with hundreds of millions of potential users and a sensor array and software suite capable of making our visions come to life in ways Noodoe can’t even imagine or anything. Obviously, the only solution for all us individualistic individuals is to draw pictures and scrolling-text scripts for a low-volume, crowdfunded plastic bracelet.

Noodoe?

No dice.