By Brian Maffitt
Before the luster wears off, I wanted to share some random, totally-uninformed thoughts on this week’s Apple Watch announcement.
In case you missed it, here is Jony Ive’s introduction to Apple’s intriguing new baby. It’s about two minutes long, so if you want to watch it before reading further, I’ll wait.
Concept
- It’s best to think of this device as an extension to your iPhone, rather than as a “watch”. I haven’t worn a watch in years, and wouldn’t look twice at this device if it was only a timepiece. However, its integration with the iPhone opens up tremendous potential, as I’ll discuss below.
- The new OS is beautiful. Watching the demo for the first time was like watching a scene from a sci-fi movie, it feels so smooth, sharp and futuristic. Of course, a year from now we will completely take it for granted, but Tuesday certainly conjured up some of that old Apple magic.
- As usual, Apple has shown obsessive attention to the user experience. The “Digital Crown” (the scroll wheel on the right side of the device by default) is a decent solution to allow input without blocking the screen. However, like the touch wheel on the first iPods, I imagine the wheel is a temporary solution if only because mechanical wheels and buttons are notorious “leak points”, perhaps preventing the device from being completely waterproof (even though other companies have solved this). In the future it is easy to imagine duplicating the wheel’s functions by, for example, sliding your finger along the edge of the bezel.
- Fortunately, early fears about anti-leftie bias (the location of the wheel on the right side of the watch appears to pose a problem for non-right-handed users) turns out to be a non-issue, since users will be able to choose “left-handed” during setup and simply rotate the watch 180 degrees so the wheel appears on the left; the screen pixels will flip accordingly. Sure, the left-handed wheel will be below the power button instead of above it… but this seems like a great compromise for now.
Potential
- The Watch’s symbiotic relationship with the iPhone should not be understated. CEO Tim Cook’s throwaway comment about using the watch as a viewfinder for the iPhone’s camera is a perfect example: If you are a photographer, you know how difficult it can sometimes be to frame a shot in an awkward position (holding the phone over your head for example) but having a live feed of your camera screen on your watch will open up a wealth of creative possibilities. And this is but a single example—the potential for creative support between apps and devices is nearly limitless.
- Haptic feedback (via a built-in vibration chip that Apple calls a “Taptic Engine”) will likely be huge, hinted at in the keynote by the integration with Apple Maps, where the watch tells you which way to turn by vibrating one way to “go left” and another way to “go right”. This is brilliant. Imagine trying to find your spouse at a crowded, noisy concert: With haptic feedback, your watch could pulse faster as you approach your partner, and slower as you get further away Combine this with visual directional hints on the watch face, and you can always find each other in an otherwise-difficult situation. The possibilities are certainly tantalizing.
- While I confess I am not in peak physical shape, I would certainly like to be. If the Apple Watch makes this prospect easy or even fun, I’m all for it. Thinking down the road a bit, the health care market should love this device. My friend Stephen asked me this morning “I wonder how long it will be before the watch detects a heart attack, auto-dials 911 and reports your medical condition and location? And perhaps sends a message to all nearby watch wearers who have signed up as a CPR volunteer?” The above scenario might be beyond the capability of the first-generation device, but it is certainly worth thinking about.
- An initial limiting factor for the Apple Watch is that you must own an iPhone to use it, thus the market will be restricted to a sub-set of the population. Fortunately for Apple, the iPhone has hundreds of millions of users, so the limitation won’t be TOO egregious, but one would expect Apple to support other phones in the years ahead… and of course we can expect third parties to unbrick the Watch, as they have with the iPhone.
Design
- The fit and finish appear to be first-rate, which one expects from Apple.
- The Watch itself is a bit thick and blobby, no doubt to accommodate the biggest battery they could jam in there (although nightly charging will apparently be required). I expect future versions will get markedly thinner. I have read mixed reviews about the design, with some people calling it ugly, and others proclaiming it “gorgeous”. Personally, I think the device looks suitably functional, and most people will focus on the contents of the screen anyway, so the appearance of the bezel will rapidly become “invisible”.
- In addition to three finishes, Apple is offering an impressive number of watchband designs at launch, and I expect to see a robust third-party market for cool, alternative accessories in the next year. I’d love a rigid band that doesn’t wrap all the way around the inside of the wrist, for example.
iMarketing
- One of the most common questions I’ve seen is “Why did Apple announce this now if it isn’t shipping until next year?” The simplest answer (which may or may not be correct) is that this six-month window will allow third parties to write apps and design accessories in time to complement the launch of the product.
- It’s nice to see Apple moving away from “iBranding”. Since the Cupertino giant couldn’t trademark the lower-case letter “i”, it makes sense to “bring the brand back home”. The two new names announced yesterday–Apple Watch and Apple Pay–both reflect this philosophy. I also appreciate that the words aren’t jammed together (i.e. “AppleWatch”), a practice that is starting to feel old-fashioned.
Those are just a few thoughts about this intriguing device. Obviously there will be a tremendous amount of scrutiny in the months to come, and the usual suspects will proclaim the Apple Watch DOA, as they did with the iPhone and the iPod before it. Platform wars can be as contentious as religious or political discussions, and I strive to avoid them. Ultimately the consumers will decide, and based on the optimistic conversations I’ve had with my developer friends, we’ve only seen a fraction of the potential for this new Apple ecosystem.
One way or another, it should be an interesting year ahead.
