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iPhone Killer: The Secret History of the Apple Watch

93 points by Libertatea 12y ago

smitherfield 12y ago
Also an iPhone killer: the Wired website, or at least that article.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  It's the website.
- smackfu 12y ago
  It also has those weird fixed full page photos. You need to scroll past them, but there's a point where you are moving the scroll wheel and literally nothing happens, and you need to keep scrolling. Very disconcerting.
  - speik 12y ago
    Poorly done parallax scrolling. You'd think they would have learned by now.
smackfu 12y ago
Wow, Apple is really working the press on the Apple Watch rollout. It's got to be tough for a journalist to write the kind of stories. Great access, but you are basically just repeating whatever talking points the company wants to put out.
- kmfrk 12y ago
  Welcome to Wired. :)
bsaul 12y ago
So the solution to be more "present with the people around you" is to have you look at your wrist every two seconds, rather than just keep your phone in your pocket and look at the messages in 15 minutes ? That's just bullshit. This will make people even less present, because they'll be even more tightly connected to the invisible communication happening while you're talking to them. Had my phone running out of batteries today for the first time in months, while i was waiting for someone, and so i ended up just looking at streets and nature around me, doing nothing. That is how you feel more present and aware of your surrounding. We all know trends are like pendulum. One day, one generation will be fed up with digital overcommunication, and will get back to less invasive technology. I'm looking forward to that day.
- TheBeardKing 12y ago
  >This will make people even less present, because they'll be even more tightly connected to the invisible communication happening while you're talking to them. This is an insightful prediction I hadn't considered. People oftentimes have their phones on silent because they don't want to be bothered at certain times, or can at least ignore some intermittent buzzing. The ease of checking your wrist at every buzz will make it more tempting to divert your attention to it. While it may save phone pulls, it will increase distraction from the task at hand. Now not only do I have a choice whether to check the notification, I now know what the notification is and have to decide whether to act on it or not. Surely that added multitasking will make it more difficult to concentrate. Just like studies they've done on emails, it's better to let them pile up for a period without notification than to quickly glance at each incoming email. People are just better at concentrating on one thing.
  - mercer 12y ago
    I suppose the different types of 'buzzes' might make it easy enough to ignore most notifications without looking, but it remains to be seen if this is how it actually works. I do think over time we'll learn to deal with these kinds of things. Already we're (slowly) developing etiquette about how we deal with phone notifications, but especially initially it seems people are slaves to the whims of new inventions. I've seen this pattern with 'regular' phones, for example. In holland I grew up with very clear etiquette of how to communicate by phone. Generally speaking, you pick up and say your name, then the other person says their name, and then you talk. You also don't generally call during dinner time, very early in the morning, or during the night. That this isn't 'natural' behavior became apparent to me when I lived in a country where phones were kind of novel. People would just call each other up at random times and start talking without introducing themselves, causing frequent miscommunication. Perhaps the apple watch will function in such a way that it 'coaxes' users into better behavior. I certainly hope so. Otherwise, it will just take time for society to develop a proper relationship with our attention-grabbing devices.
chiph 12y ago
>Along the way, the Apple team landed upon the Watch’s raison d’être. It came down to this: Your phone is ruining your life. Well, don't let it. But seriously, how do they think the watch is going to be any different? You get a tweet, you interrupt your conversation with the person next to you to look at your wrist. You've just disconnected from the world and been rude to someone.
- acomjean 12y ago
  I some ways it would be more rude. Looking at a watch while with someone traditionally sends a different message (I'm bored) then looking a phone which is just disrespectful.
jmkni 12y ago
The problem is that there is very little that you can do with a <=1" screen apart from check the time. I think the reason everybody is working so hard on smart watches is in case somebody else comes up with an actual use case for them, they want to be ready to implement it.
- KFW504 12y ago
  so true - but don't you think that it's only a matter of time? Some of the futuristic applications that we only imagine today are probably not that far away... but I think it is misguided to limit wearable focus to watches. Interesting article on the topic: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21646225-smartwatches-and-other-wearable-devices-become-mainstream-products-will-take-more http://www.economist.com/news/business/21646225-smartwatches...
  - duaneb 12y ago
    > but don't you think that it's only a matter of time? If there were a killer app for a watch, it would be out already. Most people just don't want a crippled computer strapped to their wrist except as a status symbol.
    - MCRed 12y ago
      All of these criticisms could have been made about the iPhone (and were-- regarding the keyboard being virtual) or the iPad (I personally couldn't figure out what the compelling app was for the iPad).... but once the platform is out there, you find out what it is. It turned out the iPhone's compelling app was the app itself. Previously people paid $4/month to carriers for crappy junk. For the iPad it was actually browsing, though a lot of other near computer type apps work great on it. Here's the thing-- whatever the compelling reason is, Apple kept the product in gestation long enough to figure out what it was before releasing it. All three of these products were in gestation for a long time. People lampooned the iPad before it was released with "why would anyone want a device just to brows the web while on the toilet???". I don't know what the compelling app is for the watch--- I suspect it's actually being notified by your phone without having to pull your phone out. But if there isn't a compelling app, then this would be a huge change from Apple. They've been pretty consistent in knowing the killer app, or category, before releasing the product-- even though it's often not obvious to us when we buy the first version.
logn 12y ago
I'm glad Apple was so thoughtful with their UX. However, I think the appeal of quality watches is their timelessness and endurance. They could conceivably work just as well centuries from now. The iWatch can't work more than a day without intervention (charging).
- Swizec 12y ago
  And because it's a slave device, will it still work with my iPhone23? Or am I expected to buy a new watch every three years?
  - camhenlin 12y ago
    Apple does have pretty long term support for some of its more expensive gadgets. For example, the original iPod still works with a brand new Mac, using iTunes (assuming you have a firewire adapter). Also, it sounds like the iPhone itself is doing most of the processing for the watch, so it's reasonable to think that even the gen1 device should remain useful for several years. Hopefully it isn't an iPad 1 though.
  - q7 12y ago
    iTunes 10.7 user here (the last version before that crappy redesign). iTunes 10.7 is now 2.5 years old. Since yesterday I cannot access my iTunes account details anymore. App just keeps asking for my password again and again. Don't expect your watch to have support for more than 2 years.
    - tdkl 12y ago
      What if you update it ? Software sometimes requires some crucial back-end changes and can't be supported to infinity.
- therealwill 12y ago
  Apple is going for a paradigm shift with how we view watches; similar to what they did with the iPhone. It is best not to think of the iWatch as a watch but rather as a 2nd screen for the iPhone with sensors and haptic feedback.
WhitneyLand 12y ago
The best approach here is to keep an open mind. Yes it's hard to imagine this being a must have device, but it was hard to understand what Apple was onto with the iPhone until you held it in your hand and lived with it. Significantly new/different products or services often surprise once they are actually used and can easily be better, or worse, that what they seem on paper. I have been running Watch apps in the simulator and still don't feel enough of the experience to form a final opinion.
- tsunamifury 12y ago
  No it was obvious the iPhone would be useful, just questions about price and network bandwidth. Blackberry had already validated the significant use case of being able to send emails and browse the web on your phone.
- aetherson 12y ago
  It absolutely was not hard to understand the iPhone until you held it in your hand. I mean, obviously you didn't get the full experience until you... got the full experience. But my experience was that everyone I met was like, "Oh, yeah, obviously that would be a great phone to have." They may have followed up with, "But I can't cope with AT&T," or "But it's too expensive for me," or "But I want a physical keyboard," but nobody doubted that there was a fundamental value proposition there.
  - mercer 12y ago
    Much as this is also just anecdotal, my experience was the opposite. Most people thought the iPhone looked 'kinda cool' but 1) thought it was too expensive, and 2) didn't see any reason to switch away from their dumb- or feature phone. I even remember being a bit embarrassed pulling out my iPhone (which was already the 3GS at that point) in public because it felt a bit 'geeky'. And then over night everyone was using them in public.
  - WhitneyLand 12y ago
    I can think of a fair number of execs who did not understand the implications. One of the classics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U
jccalhoun 12y ago
That is a weird headline. So a device that is an accessory to an iphone and needs an iphone for full functionality is an iphone killer?
- KFW504 12y ago
  I think they are suggesting that it's a step toward independence from the smartphone ecosystem
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Not implausible -- the first iPods & iPhones were accessories to desktop computers that needed desktop computers for full functionality, but now they and their descendants are independent and displacing desktops.
aetherson 12y ago
I take the core of the article to be (paraphrased): "Your phone is ruining your life. You're subject to the tyranny of its notifications. You want a less obtrusive way to check your notifications." A few problems with that: 1. Understand that Jonny Ive and the movers and shakers at Apple probably get an order of magnitude more notifications than most people do. They are, after all, important people with lots of scheduling and lots of communication. My phone isn't ruining my life. I don't get a notification every few minutes. 2. Android Wear is a notification device. We've seen how people like Android Wear: they think, eh, it's okay. What is going to make Apple Watch different? The people I know with Android smartwatches aren't saying, "Oh, god, I almost love this but if only the watch were prettier," or "If only the UI were a little more polished." They're saying, "It's nice to be able to get notifications on my wrist, but it's not a life-changer and it isn't worth hundreds of dollars." 3. And part of the reason for #2 is that if you're really getting lots of meaningful notifications, you're going to want to act on some of them, and the watch form factor is just fundamentally bad for acting on anything. As long as smartwatches are just notification devices, they're inessential peripherals that probably won't get truly popular until they're sub-$100. If there is a killer app suited to the watch form factor, it hasn't made itself known yet, and it may not exist. Or it might exist and just be hard to find. I think there are surprisingly few really killer apps on the smartphone form factor -- the only one that I think genuinely fits the bill is Uber and its competitors. EDIT: As several people have pointed out, the browser, messaging, navigation, and camera of the smartphones are definitely killer apps, and are what made the smartphones obviously useful from day one. I agree with that and just left that context out. My comments about Uber are more to do with "new things that you can only do on a smartphone that weren't there on day one, that are also genuinely useful." There are remarkably few apps like that on the smartphone. I think that smartwatches are in trouble because the stuff that's there on day one isn't very compelling (look at notifications), and evidence suggests that it's very hard to create all-new highly compelling apps that aren't obvious on day one.
- jfernandez 12y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with point #3, I think that remains to be seen based on the creativity of not only Apple but the entire community. I totally agree though making digestible and actionable content is hard on a small device. Maybe it's a shallow example but canned text responses are something that was a great adaptation of the thought: 'well we don't have the affordance to provide a keyboard to the user'. I expect to see other things like this get iterated on. Bottom line I think we'll just have to wait and see how this thing matures, if it does at all.
jgv 12y ago
That's not how drop caps work.
smanuel 12y ago
So much marketing, so little time for people to get reasonable answers to questions such as: Why exactly do I need an overpriced watch that I need to charge every day and replace every few years? A watch which does much less than my phone. To send taps and heartbeats? Seriously? Call me a whiner but I really think there are much bigger problems to solve and it's kinda sad to watch Apple do something... because growth and expectations. Anyway, I hope they find the problem for their solution.
- threeseed 12y ago
  Apple hasn't stopped everything they are doing to make the Apple Watch. They are a very large company with significant resources. Is trying to tackle payments (Apple Pay), home automation (HomeKit), computing (OSX/Macs), mobile (iOS/iPhones/iPad), music (Beats), video (AppleTV) etc not big enough problems ? And Tim Cook has made it clear that he sees health as one of the defining issues of our generation and the Apple Watch is his first attempt at it. You really want to argue with that ?
  - smanuel 12y ago
    You missed HealthKit. HealthKit is something that solves a real problem. Having all your health data stored in one place, that's something that makes sense. Apple Watch is Not a health device and I fall short of imagination seeing it as a health device. The first attempt? If they really wanted to create a health device, they would have certainly done so, it's not like they don't have the resources. If they really wanted to create a health device they would have created a device which measures blood pressure, body temperature, does blood count tests, etc. Not a watch that counts steps and sends taps and heartbeats.
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      Apparently Apple tried to make Watch a better health device with some of those features. But the technology just isn't there yet - at least not in a watch form factor. Obviously a med-lab on your wrist would be a killer device. Unfortunately Watch isn't it.
borgia 12y ago
"Your phone is ruining your life"...so here's a gadget you can wear on your wrist that will connect to it and deliver you the same notifications your phone does, only on your wrist. No, phones aren't ruining people's lives. People are ruining people's lives. Companies demanding that employees be accessible all day every day, inside and outside of the office, is ruining some people's lives. Their phones are merely a tool for some people to ruin other people's lives with and that issue is not resolved by moving the notification delivery to one's wrist. I am an average person, I'm not bombarded with notifications. I get messages from my girlfriend fairly regularly, some texts from friends, and email that is at best not urgent, and worst just junk packaged up in a more pretty manner that I've somehow not unsubscribed from. I can't help but see smartwatches as a fad gadget with no longevity and I'm struggling to see a real use case for them. The big focus is on "Health". Omg, you can track how many steps you've taken today?! Or your heartbeat?! Wow, that's going to make me turn around and get my life in order, right?! Well, the (presumably) massive amount of Fitbits and other wearable fitness trackers abandoned on people's shelves would indicate otherwise. Ok, a small percentage of people will actually use these things regularly, but for most they're a fad that will inevitably sit on a shelf gathering dust as is what happens with the vast majority of sports equipment bought by non-sportspeople. I don't need to be able to access the weather forecast at a moment's notice, I can look out the window and get a good idea, or I can check out accuweather in the morning and see what they reckon is coming our way for the day. Maybe I'm just becoming more cynical as I'm getting older (and I'm not old, I'm only approaching 30), but mainstream technology seems to be delivering very little substance these days and a whole lot of trendy, heavily marketed nonsense. Do I need email on my wrist? No. Whatsapp messages? No. The weather forecast? No. Facebook notifications? Absolutely not. My fitness tracked? No, not really and I'm not going to delude myself into thinking strapping something to my wrist will drastically change my habits. So what do I want on my wrist? Something that will tell me the time instantly without having to fish out my phone, that will look well as a style accessory and that won't run out of battery within a day if I decide to look at the time more frequently and none of these smartwatches deliver any of that without making large tradeoffs on looks or battery life. Iphone killer? Certainly not. Even if an Apple Watch could work totally independently, the screen/the medium is not conductive to actually doing anything on it like sending a message or an email. Let's call it what it is - a fad gadget whose sales will be a testament to its marketing and not due to the value it delivers its users.
verisimilitude 12y ago
"Also, it hurt. Seriously: Try holding up your arm as if you’re looking at your watch. Now count to 30." My analysis of the muscles involved in holding up a watch here: http://tumbledry.org/2015/01/08/apple_watchs_wrist_position http://tumbledry.org/2015/01/08/apple_watchs_wrist_position
damon_c 12y ago
I find myself wanting one just for the health monitoring aspects but I don't really have any interest in wearing a watch on my wrist and am even less interested in it as a fashion statement. Would it work to wear one around the ankle?
hajile 12y ago
Forget the watch form factor; I want one in the shape of an arm bracer. At least the size will be useful.
clarky07 12y ago
Everyone is so negative here. It sounds to me like a lot of people are making judgements without personal experience. I'll admit, I thought some of the same things before I got a pebble (which I originally bought just for development). Having notifications on your wrist is actually really great. Being able to decide if that buzz is important now or not is actually useful, and it absolutely isn't more detrimental to being with people and having conversations. Perhaps you don't get your phone out for every buzz, but you probably do at least check it most of the time when someone is calling you. Seeing who it is on your wrist and deciding if it can wait is much faster, more seamless, and less of an intrusion. It may not be worth as much as this costs, certainly for a lot of people, but it absolutely is a great feature. The Apple Watch is also far more powerful than the pebble, and it looks much better too (to be fair the steel pebbles don't look bad, the original though...). It will be interesting to see if there is ANOTHER killer app in addition to the notifications that the more power enables.
- ocfx 12y ago
  Not really, it's pretty obvious they are checking their watch to see if they have a notification. To me it's exactly the same as pulling your phone out since people have been using phones as watches for some time. It interrupts the conversation and it is rude.
  - teh_klev 12y ago
    Also it gives off the same negative signals as checking a regular watch when with company. In the same way that if you're sitting there having a conversation with someone and you're checking your (normal) watch it's telling me you're not paying attention and you have somewhere else to be.
- msabalau 12y ago
  I own three smart watches, notifications are fine. And because Apple is Apple, millions more people will line up and get to see how somewhat useful they are. It does seem in this case that a large amount of the value Apple is delivering with this product is on the "Apple as a lifestyle brand" side, not from a technological or design insight, or even (subjective, I know) from a fashion perspective. I suspect that a lot of what will be going on is: "I'm an upper middle class or above person who likes/can afford an Apple talisman" tribal thing. Kind of like buying $5 coffee and sitting browsing the web on a MacBook Air. (Not casting shade: I have been know to do that) But it'll be really cool if this new large pool of wearable users leads to the discovery of more killer apps.
datsun 12y ago
I don't think a watch will solve the problem that Apple's trying to solve with it. If anything, notifications on your wrist will probably be even more distracting than a phone in your pocket.
- jbrooksuk 12y ago
  From my own experience - owning a Pebble - I find that the notifications aren't actually distracting. I'm able to completely put my phone away, which means I'm less tempted to Twitter/Facebook/HN apps, but comforted in that I'm able to see if anyone has called/texted me for an emergency.
aaronbrethorst 12y ago
As an aside, the user experience on this page is absolutely atrocious: 1. The title font is nigh-unreadable. 2. It took me several seconds to figure out that my browser hadn't frozen when I encountered the first big image in between 'chapters.' 3. Every time a pull quote starts animating in, my scrolling stutters. Seriously, Wired, you have one job: show me content (and ads, admittedly, which is arguably what I'm reading), and then get out of my way. No browser stutters, no illegible headlines, no confusing 1920x1080px images. Just content.
- Excluse 12y ago
  I actually thoroughly enjoyed the entire reading experience. 1. Opinion. I had no problem, but to each his own. 2. I will admit that the full-size images hung around for a little too long. 3. Did not encounter this issue. In my opinion, the methods of presentation (including the lack of ads) complemented the pleasure of my reading experience.
  - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
    Regarding fonts: true, but I'm clearly not the only person who holds this opinion, as evinced by https://twitter.com/search?q=Wired%20font%20-google&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=Wired%20font%20-google&src=typd
- Zelphyr 12y ago
  > ads, admittedly, which is arguably what I'm reading I got this feeling too. Strongly. Its an interesting article but it clearly isn't all that objective. That aside; there is something to be said for displaying the content in an appealing way. Wired has failed at this, obviously, but I don't think we really want them to just be giving us bare content.
Fastidious 12y ago
The whole page is very difficult to navigate.
morganvachon 12y ago
> "Lynch is leaning forward in his chair, telling me about his kids: about how grateful he is to be able to simply glance at his Watch, realize that the latest text message isn’t immediately important, and then go right back to family time; about how that doesn’t feel disruptive to him—or them." I'm sorry, but how in the world is this any different than the Pebble, Sony, and Android Wear smartwatches that came before it? I mean, I get that the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone; I had a Treo 650 when the iPhone was released, and while I still miss the Treo to this day, I can readily admit the iPhone took the concept in new and better directions. But the Apple Watch doesn't bring anything new to the table. Yes, it's a hybrid Fitbit/Smartwatch...but so is the Microsoft Band. Which, by the way, works with all three major phone OSes; the Apple Watch works with the iPhone only, because of course it does. I guess I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Yes, the iPod was a revolutionary device, the iPhone even more so, and the iPad can be thanked for all the great (and not so great) Android and Windows tablets out there now. But in this case it's the Apple Watch that is the also-ran, the follower...not the innovator.
- MBCook 12y ago
  It's integrated with iOS at a level no other device will ever be because Apple makes it. If you are interested in a smart watch and have an iPhone there is a very strong argument for the Apple Watch over everything else. Will that be enough to make these kind of devices more popular? I'm not sure, I'm interested to see what happens.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    I think Apple sees the differentiation (besides the fashion options) in offering Apple Pay. But, last I read there were some real world issues with it that plague all the other mobile payment options out there: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/like-all-mobile-wallets-before-it-apple-pay-struggles-with-retailers/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/like-all-mobile-wallets...
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  The iPod, iPhone, and iPad all entered markets well after they were established and against well-financed competitors with a good track record (including some of the companies you mention by name). Yet, the Apple products took off. In retrospect we can look back and identify reasons that they took off over existing competitors. But at the time they were announced, there was quite a bit of doubt that they could or would succeed. This doesn't mean that the Apple watch will do the same thing--it could certainly flop. It just means that based on history, it's hard to know in advance, based just on the keynote and ads, whether or why an Apple product will beat existing competitors.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

93 points by Libertatea 12y ago

smitherfield 12y ago

Also an iPhone killer: the Wired website, or at least that article.

joezydeco 12y ago
It's the website.
smackfu 12y ago
It also has those weird fixed full page photos. You need to scroll past them, but there's a point where you are moving the scroll wheel and literally nothing happens, and you need to keep scrolling. Very disconcerting.
- speik 12y ago
  Poorly done parallax scrolling. You'd think they would have learned by now.

smackfu 12y ago

Wow, Apple is really working the press on the Apple Watch rollout. It's got to be tough for a journalist to write the kind of stories. Great access, but you are basically just repeating whatever talking points the company wants to put out.

kmfrk 12y ago
Welcome to Wired. :)

bsaul 12y ago

So the solution to be more "present with the people around you" is to have you look at your wrist every two seconds, rather than just keep your phone in your pocket and look at the messages in 15 minutes ? That's just bullshit. This will make people even less present, because they'll be even more tightly connected to the invisible communication happening while you're talking to them. Had my phone running out of batteries today for the first time in months, while i was waiting for someone, and so i ended up just looking at streets and nature around me, doing nothing. That is how you feel more present and aware of your surrounding. We all know trends are like pendulum. One day, one generation will be fed up with digital overcommunication, and will get back to less invasive technology. I'm looking forward to that day.

TheBeardKing 12y ago
>This will make people even less present, because they'll be even more tightly connected to the invisible communication happening while you're talking to them. This is an insightful prediction I hadn't considered. People oftentimes have their phones on silent because they don't want to be bothered at certain times, or can at least ignore some intermittent buzzing. The ease of checking your wrist at every buzz will make it more tempting to divert your attention to it. While it may save phone pulls, it will increase distraction from the task at hand. Now not only do I have a choice whether to check the notification, I now know what the notification is and have to decide whether to act on it or not. Surely that added multitasking will make it more difficult to concentrate. Just like studies they've done on emails, it's better to let them pile up for a period without notification than to quickly glance at each incoming email. People are just better at concentrating on one thing.
- mercer 12y ago
  I suppose the different types of 'buzzes' might make it easy enough to ignore most notifications without looking, but it remains to be seen if this is how it actually works. I do think over time we'll learn to deal with these kinds of things. Already we're (slowly) developing etiquette about how we deal with phone notifications, but especially initially it seems people are slaves to the whims of new inventions. I've seen this pattern with 'regular' phones, for example. In holland I grew up with very clear etiquette of how to communicate by phone. Generally speaking, you pick up and say your name, then the other person says their name, and then you talk. You also don't generally call during dinner time, very early in the morning, or during the night. That this isn't 'natural' behavior became apparent to me when I lived in a country where phones were kind of novel. People would just call each other up at random times and start talking without introducing themselves, causing frequent miscommunication. Perhaps the apple watch will function in such a way that it 'coaxes' users into better behavior. I certainly hope so. Otherwise, it will just take time for society to develop a proper relationship with our attention-grabbing devices.

chiph 12y ago

>Along the way, the Apple team landed upon the Watch’s raison d’être. It came down to this: Your phone is ruining your life. Well, don't let it. But seriously, how do they think the watch is going to be any different? You get a tweet, you interrupt your conversation with the person next to you to look at your wrist. You've just disconnected from the world and been rude to someone.

acomjean 12y ago
I some ways it would be more rude. Looking at a watch while with someone traditionally sends a different message (I'm bored) then looking a phone which is just disrespectful.

jmkni 12y ago

The problem is that there is very little that you can do with a <=1" screen apart from check the time. I think the reason everybody is working so hard on smart watches is in case somebody else comes up with an actual use case for them, they want to be ready to implement it.

KFW504 12y ago
so true - but don't you think that it's only a matter of time? Some of the futuristic applications that we only imagine today are probably not that far away... but I think it is misguided to limit wearable focus to watches. Interesting article on the topic: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21646225-smartwatches-and-other-wearable-devices-become-mainstream-products-will-take-more http://www.economist.com/news/business/21646225-smartwatches...
- duaneb 12y ago
  > but don't you think that it's only a matter of time? If there were a killer app for a watch, it would be out already. Most people just don't want a crippled computer strapped to their wrist except as a status symbol.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    All of these criticisms could have been made about the iPhone (and were-- regarding the keyboard being virtual) or the iPad (I personally couldn't figure out what the compelling app was for the iPad).... but once the platform is out there, you find out what it is. It turned out the iPhone's compelling app was the app itself. Previously people paid $4/month to carriers for crappy junk. For the iPad it was actually browsing, though a lot of other near computer type apps work great on it. Here's the thing-- whatever the compelling reason is, Apple kept the product in gestation long enough to figure out what it was before releasing it. All three of these products were in gestation for a long time. People lampooned the iPad before it was released with "why would anyone want a device just to brows the web while on the toilet???". I don't know what the compelling app is for the watch--- I suspect it's actually being notified by your phone without having to pull your phone out. But if there isn't a compelling app, then this would be a huge change from Apple. They've been pretty consistent in knowing the killer app, or category, before releasing the product-- even though it's often not obvious to us when we buy the first version.

logn 12y ago

I'm glad Apple was so thoughtful with their UX. However, I think the appeal of quality watches is their timelessness and endurance. They could conceivably work just as well centuries from now. The iWatch can't work more than a day without intervention (charging).

Swizec 12y ago
And because it's a slave device, will it still work with my iPhone23? Or am I expected to buy a new watch every three years?
- camhenlin 12y ago
  Apple does have pretty long term support for some of its more expensive gadgets. For example, the original iPod still works with a brand new Mac, using iTunes (assuming you have a firewire adapter). Also, it sounds like the iPhone itself is doing most of the processing for the watch, so it's reasonable to think that even the gen1 device should remain useful for several years. Hopefully it isn't an iPad 1 though.
- q7 12y ago
  iTunes 10.7 user here (the last version before that crappy redesign). iTunes 10.7 is now 2.5 years old. Since yesterday I cannot access my iTunes account details anymore. App just keeps asking for my password again and again. Don't expect your watch to have support for more than 2 years.
  - tdkl 12y ago
    What if you update it ? Software sometimes requires some crucial back-end changes and can't be supported to infinity.
therealwill 12y ago
Apple is going for a paradigm shift with how we view watches; similar to what they did with the iPhone. It is best not to think of the iWatch as a watch but rather as a 2nd screen for the iPhone with sensors and haptic feedback.

WhitneyLand 12y ago

The best approach here is to keep an open mind. Yes it's hard to imagine this being a must have device, but it was hard to understand what Apple was onto with the iPhone until you held it in your hand and lived with it. Significantly new/different products or services often surprise once they are actually used and can easily be better, or worse, that what they seem on paper. I have been running Watch apps in the simulator and still don't feel enough of the experience to form a final opinion.

tsunamifury 12y ago
No it was obvious the iPhone would be useful, just questions about price and network bandwidth. Blackberry had already validated the significant use case of being able to send emails and browse the web on your phone.
aetherson 12y ago
It absolutely was not hard to understand the iPhone until you held it in your hand. I mean, obviously you didn't get the full experience until you... got the full experience. But my experience was that everyone I met was like, "Oh, yeah, obviously that would be a great phone to have." They may have followed up with, "But I can't cope with AT&T," or "But it's too expensive for me," or "But I want a physical keyboard," but nobody doubted that there was a fundamental value proposition there.
- mercer 12y ago
  Much as this is also just anecdotal, my experience was the opposite. Most people thought the iPhone looked 'kinda cool' but 1) thought it was too expensive, and 2) didn't see any reason to switch away from their dumb- or feature phone. I even remember being a bit embarrassed pulling out my iPhone (which was already the 3GS at that point) in public because it felt a bit 'geeky'. And then over night everyone was using them in public.
- WhitneyLand 12y ago
  I can think of a fair number of execs who did not understand the implications. One of the classics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

jccalhoun 12y ago

That is a weird headline. So a device that is an accessory to an iphone and needs an iphone for full functionality is an iphone killer?

KFW504 12y ago
I think they are suggesting that it's a step toward independence from the smartphone ecosystem
dragonwriter 12y ago
Not implausible -- the first iPods & iPhones were accessories to desktop computers that needed desktop computers for full functionality, but now they and their descendants are independent and displacing desktops.

aetherson 12y ago

I take the core of the article to be (paraphrased): "Your phone is ruining your life. You're subject to the tyranny of its notifications. You want a less obtrusive way to check your notifications." A few problems with that: 1. Understand that Jonny Ive and the movers and shakers at Apple probably get an order of magnitude more notifications than most people do. They are, after all, important people with lots of scheduling and lots of communication. My phone isn't ruining my life. I don't get a notification every few minutes. 2. Android Wear is a notification device. We've seen how people like Android Wear: they think, eh, it's okay. What is going to make Apple Watch different? The people I know with Android smartwatches aren't saying, "Oh, god, I almost love this but if only the watch were prettier," or "If only the UI were a little more polished." They're saying, "It's nice to be able to get notifications on my wrist, but it's not a life-changer and it isn't worth hundreds of dollars." 3. And part of the reason for #2 is that if you're really getting lots of meaningful notifications, you're going to want to act on some of them, and the watch form factor is just fundamentally bad for acting on anything. As long as smartwatches are just notification devices, they're inessential peripherals that probably won't get truly popular until they're sub-$100. If there is a killer app suited to the watch form factor, it hasn't made itself known yet, and it may not exist. Or it might exist and just be hard to find. I think there are surprisingly few really killer apps on the smartphone form factor -- the only one that I think genuinely fits the bill is Uber and its competitors. EDIT: As several people have pointed out, the browser, messaging, navigation, and camera of the smartphones are definitely killer apps, and are what made the smartphones obviously useful from day one. I agree with that and just left that context out. My comments about Uber are more to do with "new things that you can only do on a smartphone that weren't there on day one, that are also genuinely useful." There are remarkably few apps like that on the smartphone. I think that smartwatches are in trouble because the stuff that's there on day one isn't very compelling (look at notifications), and evidence suggests that it's very hard to create all-new highly compelling apps that aren't obvious on day one.

jfernandez 12y ago
I'm not sure I agree with point #3, I think that remains to be seen based on the creativity of not only Apple but the entire community. I totally agree though making digestible and actionable content is hard on a small device. Maybe it's a shallow example but canned text responses are something that was a great adaptation of the thought: 'well we don't have the affordance to provide a keyboard to the user'. I expect to see other things like this get iterated on. Bottom line I think we'll just have to wait and see how this thing matures, if it does at all.

jgv 12y ago

That's not how drop caps work.

smanuel 12y ago

So much marketing, so little time for people to get reasonable answers to questions such as: Why exactly do I need an overpriced watch that I need to charge every day and replace every few years? A watch which does much less than my phone. To send taps and heartbeats? Seriously? Call me a whiner but I really think there are much bigger problems to solve and it's kinda sad to watch Apple do something... because growth and expectations. Anyway, I hope they find the problem for their solution.

threeseed 12y ago
Apple hasn't stopped everything they are doing to make the Apple Watch. They are a very large company with significant resources. Is trying to tackle payments (Apple Pay), home automation (HomeKit), computing (OSX/Macs), mobile (iOS/iPhones/iPad), music (Beats), video (AppleTV) etc not big enough problems ? And Tim Cook has made it clear that he sees health as one of the defining issues of our generation and the Apple Watch is his first attempt at it. You really want to argue with that ?
- smanuel 12y ago
  You missed HealthKit. HealthKit is something that solves a real problem. Having all your health data stored in one place, that's something that makes sense. Apple Watch is Not a health device and I fall short of imagination seeing it as a health device. The first attempt? If they really wanted to create a health device, they would have certainly done so, it's not like they don't have the resources. If they really wanted to create a health device they would have created a device which measures blood pressure, body temperature, does blood count tests, etc. Not a watch that counts steps and sends taps and heartbeats.
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    Apparently Apple tried to make Watch a better health device with some of those features. But the technology just isn't there yet - at least not in a watch form factor. Obviously a med-lab on your wrist would be a killer device. Unfortunately Watch isn't it.

borgia 12y ago

"Your phone is ruining your life"...so here's a gadget you can wear on your wrist that will connect to it and deliver you the same notifications your phone does, only on your wrist. No, phones aren't ruining people's lives. People are ruining people's lives. Companies demanding that employees be accessible all day every day, inside and outside of the office, is ruining some people's lives. Their phones are merely a tool for some people to ruin other people's lives with and that issue is not resolved by moving the notification delivery to one's wrist. I am an average person, I'm not bombarded with notifications. I get messages from my girlfriend fairly regularly, some texts from friends, and email that is at best not urgent, and worst just junk packaged up in a more pretty manner that I've somehow not unsubscribed from. I can't help but see smartwatches as a fad gadget with no longevity and I'm struggling to see a real use case for them. The big focus is on "Health". Omg, you can track how many steps you've taken today?! Or your heartbeat?! Wow, that's going to make me turn around and get my life in order, right?! Well, the (presumably) massive amount of Fitbits and other wearable fitness trackers abandoned on people's shelves would indicate otherwise. Ok, a small percentage of people will actually use these things regularly, but for most they're a fad that will inevitably sit on a shelf gathering dust as is what happens with the vast majority of sports equipment bought by non-sportspeople. I don't need to be able to access the weather forecast at a moment's notice, I can look out the window and get a good idea, or I can check out accuweather in the morning and see what they reckon is coming our way for the day. Maybe I'm just becoming more cynical as I'm getting older (and I'm not old, I'm only approaching 30), but mainstream technology seems to be delivering very little substance these days and a whole lot of trendy, heavily marketed nonsense. Do I need email on my wrist? No. Whatsapp messages? No. The weather forecast? No. Facebook notifications? Absolutely not. My fitness tracked? No, not really and I'm not going to delude myself into thinking strapping something to my wrist will drastically change my habits. So what do I want on my wrist? Something that will tell me the time instantly without having to fish out my phone, that will look well as a style accessory and that won't run out of battery within a day if I decide to look at the time more frequently and none of these smartwatches deliver any of that without making large tradeoffs on looks or battery life. Iphone killer? Certainly not. Even if an Apple Watch could work totally independently, the screen/the medium is not conductive to actually doing anything on it like sending a message or an email. Let's call it what it is - a fad gadget whose sales will be a testament to its marketing and not due to the value it delivers its users.

verisimilitude 12y ago

"Also, it hurt. Seriously: Try holding up your arm as if you’re looking at your watch. Now count to 30." My analysis of the muscles involved in holding up a watch here: http://tumbledry.org/2015/01/08/apple_watchs_wrist_position http://tumbledry.org/2015/01/08/apple_watchs_wrist_position

damon_c 12y ago

I find myself wanting one just for the health monitoring aspects but I don't really have any interest in wearing a watch on my wrist and am even less interested in it as a fashion statement. Would it work to wear one around the ankle?

hajile 12y ago

Forget the watch form factor; I want one in the shape of an arm bracer. At least the size will be useful.

clarky07 12y ago

Everyone is so negative here. It sounds to me like a lot of people are making judgements without personal experience. I'll admit, I thought some of the same things before I got a pebble (which I originally bought just for development). Having notifications on your wrist is actually really great. Being able to decide if that buzz is important now or not is actually useful, and it absolutely isn't more detrimental to being with people and having conversations. Perhaps you don't get your phone out for every buzz, but you probably do at least check it most of the time when someone is calling you. Seeing who it is on your wrist and deciding if it can wait is much faster, more seamless, and less of an intrusion. It may not be worth as much as this costs, certainly for a lot of people, but it absolutely is a great feature. The Apple Watch is also far more powerful than the pebble, and it looks much better too (to be fair the steel pebbles don't look bad, the original though...). It will be interesting to see if there is ANOTHER killer app in addition to the notifications that the more power enables.

ocfx 12y ago
Not really, it's pretty obvious they are checking their watch to see if they have a notification. To me it's exactly the same as pulling your phone out since people have been using phones as watches for some time. It interrupts the conversation and it is rude.
- teh_klev 12y ago
  Also it gives off the same negative signals as checking a regular watch when with company. In the same way that if you're sitting there having a conversation with someone and you're checking your (normal) watch it's telling me you're not paying attention and you have somewhere else to be.
msabalau 12y ago
I own three smart watches, notifications are fine. And because Apple is Apple, millions more people will line up and get to see how somewhat useful they are. It does seem in this case that a large amount of the value Apple is delivering with this product is on the "Apple as a lifestyle brand" side, not from a technological or design insight, or even (subjective, I know) from a fashion perspective. I suspect that a lot of what will be going on is: "I'm an upper middle class or above person who likes/can afford an Apple talisman" tribal thing. Kind of like buying $5 coffee and sitting browsing the web on a MacBook Air. (Not casting shade: I have been know to do that) But it'll be really cool if this new large pool of wearable users leads to the discovery of more killer apps.

datsun 12y ago

I don't think a watch will solve the problem that Apple's trying to solve with it. If anything, notifications on your wrist will probably be even more distracting than a phone in your pocket.

jbrooksuk 12y ago
From my own experience - owning a Pebble - I find that the notifications aren't actually distracting. I'm able to completely put my phone away, which means I'm less tempted to Twitter/Facebook/HN apps, but comforted in that I'm able to see if anyone has called/texted me for an emergency.

aaronbrethorst 12y ago

As an aside, the user experience on this page is absolutely atrocious: 1. The title font is nigh-unreadable. 2. It took me several seconds to figure out that my browser hadn't frozen when I encountered the first big image in between 'chapters.' 3. Every time a pull quote starts animating in, my scrolling stutters. Seriously, Wired, you have one job: show me content (and ads, admittedly, which is arguably what I'm reading), and then get out of my way. No browser stutters, no illegible headlines, no confusing 1920x1080px images. Just content.

Excluse 12y ago
I actually thoroughly enjoyed the entire reading experience. 1. Opinion. I had no problem, but to each his own. 2. I will admit that the full-size images hung around for a little too long. 3. Did not encounter this issue. In my opinion, the methods of presentation (including the lack of ads) complemented the pleasure of my reading experience.
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  Regarding fonts: true, but I'm clearly not the only person who holds this opinion, as evinced by https://twitter.com/search?q=Wired%20font%20-google&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=Wired%20font%20-google&src=typd
Zelphyr 12y ago
> ads, admittedly, which is arguably what I'm reading I got this feeling too. Strongly. Its an interesting article but it clearly isn't all that objective. That aside; there is something to be said for displaying the content in an appealing way. Wired has failed at this, obviously, but I don't think we really want them to just be giving us bare content.

Fastidious 12y ago

The whole page is very difficult to navigate.

morganvachon 12y ago

> "Lynch is leaning forward in his chair, telling me about his kids: about how grateful he is to be able to simply glance at his Watch, realize that the latest text message isn’t immediately important, and then go right back to family time; about how that doesn’t feel disruptive to him—or them." I'm sorry, but how in the world is this any different than the Pebble, Sony, and Android Wear smartwatches that came before it? I mean, I get that the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone; I had a Treo 650 when the iPhone was released, and while I still miss the Treo to this day, I can readily admit the iPhone took the concept in new and better directions. But the Apple Watch doesn't bring anything new to the table. Yes, it's a hybrid Fitbit/Smartwatch...but so is the Microsoft Band. Which, by the way, works with all three major phone OSes; the Apple Watch works with the iPhone only, because of course it does. I guess I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Yes, the iPod was a revolutionary device, the iPhone even more so, and the iPad can be thanked for all the great (and not so great) Android and Windows tablets out there now. But in this case it's the Apple Watch that is the also-ran, the follower...not the innovator.

MBCook 12y ago
It's integrated with iOS at a level no other device will ever be because Apple makes it. If you are interested in a smart watch and have an iPhone there is a very strong argument for the Apple Watch over everything else. Will that be enough to make these kind of devices more popular? I'm not sure, I'm interested to see what happens.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  I think Apple sees the differentiation (besides the fashion options) in offering Apple Pay. But, last I read there were some real world issues with it that plague all the other mobile payment options out there: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/like-all-mobile-wallets-before-it-apple-pay-struggles-with-retailers/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/like-all-mobile-wallets...
snowwrestler 12y ago
The iPod, iPhone, and iPad all entered markets well after they were established and against well-financed competitors with a good track record (including some of the companies you mention by name). Yet, the Apple products took off. In retrospect we can look back and identify reasons that they took off over existing competitors. But at the time they were announced, there was quite a bit of doubt that they could or would succeed. This doesn't mean that the Apple watch will do the same thing--it could certainly flop. It just means that based on history, it's hard to know in advance, based just on the keynote and ads, whether or why an Apple product will beat existing competitors.

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