Thoughts on Apple Watch
I wear a Pebble. I’m part of the Smartwatch Revolution™, as it were. I find my Pebble really useful for a few things: not missing phone calls when my phone is on silent and in my bag; receiving certain notifications (SMS and Facebook Messenger, but never email) on my wrist; sometimes controlling my music. I plan to use some fitness features (mainly tracking work done at the gym) in the future. I don’t actually use many of its features, but not missing phone calls is almost worth it in itself.
Compared to other smart watches, I love how the Pebble only requires charging once a week or less. However, there are things I dislike. It manages to partially disconnect from my phone quite often, so that phone calls still come through, but notifications don’t. That’s annoying, and it doesn’t warn you when it’s happened. Also, I wish there were an easy way to do outgoing communications on it: possibly selecting from a few pre-defined messages (maybe emoji) or some other simple interface.
You’d think the Apple Watch suits my needs. Surely Apple will not have Bluetooth issues like Pebble. They showed off some very good outgoing communication modes (even if I think the animated emoji are really cheesy). There are things I don’t like: battery life, and the fact that the screen turns off when not in use — my Pebble is always on for a glance at the time. But I could probably live with the limitations.
There’s a bigger problem though. John Gruber referred to Apple’s September event as “nearly flawless” (apart from the U2 segment). I disagree. The iPhone 6 and Apple Pay parts were, but the introduction to the watch was lacking. The thing it was lacking was something telling us “Here’s why you need Apple Watch”. There was a big list of things the watch could do, but nowhere did they tell us how much better our life would be for being able to do those things. I bought the Pebble (which was less than half the price of the lowest end Apple Watch) because I was interested in what the future might bring for smart watches. Do I buy the Apple Watch for the same reason, or do they have a unique selling point yet?
I’m nervous about the more expensive editions of the watch too. If the gold watch is a four figure sum as is rumoured, how is that reconcilable with the fact that the technology will go out of date? Even aside from the issue of tying your watch to your preferred brand of phone, there will be better Apple watches out in the future. Will the first generation Apple watch even be supported by the iPhone 9? If not, what happens to your $5k investment? In other words, are Apple suggesting that expensive watches should be replaced every few years (i.e. changing what a watch is), or are they suggesting that their consumer tech device will last longer than the rest of the market (i.e. changing what a consumer tech device is)? The latter could be accomplished by making them upgradable, but that doesn’t seem very Apple-like.
When the iPod came out, it was a device that did one thing really well. When the iPhone came out, it did three things really well. Both of those devices gained more functionality later, but their starting point fixed the tone for the product. The watch seems to do loads of things, some of them fairly well (e.g. fitness), some of them less well than dedicated devices (music, messaging, maps, photos). Is the selling point the fact that you don’t need dedicated devices, and can therefore put up with poorer usability? But then, most features require you to carry a phone, and it will always do certain things better than a watch. I doubt anyone will show photos on their watch screen, because a phone screen is just better at doing that.
I think the biggest advantage of the Apple Watch might be third party apps. Not dedicated watch apps, but developers of iPhone apps. Since the Apple Watch will have a higher adoption rate than any other smart watch for Apple users, more apps will integrate with it. Suddenly it’ll be an additional screen that works with your existing apps, which is more valuable than (e.g.) the Pebble, which has apps of its own but most iOS apps don’t integrate with it.
I’ll wait and see. If I get one, it’ll be a cheap model.