I'm going to ignore the bad assumptions based on the author never having used an Apple Watch, and address the heart of the matter: are smart watches "the next b

I'm going to ignore the bad assumptions based on the author never having used an Apple Watch, and address the heart of the matter: are smart watches "the next big thing"? By the standards people use for Apple where the 2007 release of the iPhone, of course not. Very few products can completely rebuild the largest tech market in their image overnight. No other Apple product has done it—that's why so many pundits were disappointed with the iPad's performance as a new product even though it was orders of magnitude more successful than any previous tablet and made the category relevant in a way people had been trying for almost a decade prior. The Apple Watch just can't pack that much punch, because it's basically just an extension of your smart phone, not a new category. Frankly, I was the opposite of the author, I haven't warn a watch since I was a kid, and I didn't see the appeal of any of it. However after receiving one as a gift, I have to say that I am subtly impressed with it. I don't think it's a life-changing device the way a smart phone is, but it can definitely has unique utility. The first thing the author gets wrong is the idea that it's all his phone apps and notifications shrunk down onto his wrist. Yes, a lot of apps rushed to release Watch functionality for launch day, but frankly, you don't want to look at most things on your watch. What you want is to show only the most essential notifications, and the apps which have something you might want to glance at. If you're receiving email notifications on your Apple Watch god help you, that is the path to a new level of distraction (I'd argue you don't want those on your phone either, do you really want to give the world more opportunity to distract you?). My advice on setting up the watch is to first turn off everything and then add the pieces you want one by one. In the end I've found quite a few small but practical conveniences which are going to keep me wearing the watch for a while: taking a phone call from my wrist when I'm sitting the car and don't want to fish into my pocket; telling siri something on the fly; responding to a text message with boilerplate responses; haptic feedback for turn-by-turn directions when cycling; having an "urgent" level of notification so that I can pay less attention to my phone without completely shutting off a given lower-priority notification; reminder to stand up and walk around once an hour; and last but not least, checking the time is actually more convenient when you don't have to pull a phone out regardless of how adept we have all gotten at that maneuver.