iPhone Killer: The Secret History of the Apple Watch
wired.com
wired.com
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.
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.
For me, I feel like I need fewer notifications in my life. The more I can batch tasks together the more time I can spend in deep, interrupted though. The trend towards being more connected more often has benefits but drawbacks as well.
I open my phone to do one thing, and end up doing something else -- for twenty minutes. I'm looking forward to the watch as a way to minimize my phone usage and simplify my interactions.
This is the basic HCI problem everyone is ignoring about watches. It doesn't make the problem better -- it may even make it worse.
The key to managing your notifications better is... wait for it... not looking at your phone constantly.
I think when it comes to getting side-tracked, it's partly to do with the current 'pull' model of going into the phone for information, vs a 'push' model of the information coming to you. Though, as you point out, either is distracting and self-discipline is the real answer to staying focused.
The critical thing there will be managing what notifications you get, and which you silence. This is why iOS 8 made such a big change in the way notification permissions are handled.
Considering this, my gut says the real value of a wrist-bound device will be in the development of context & task-specific micro-utilities (rather than simply reducing the need to remove a phone from your pocket to check notifications).
So - maybe there won't be a 'killer app'; there will be a constellation of 'killer apps' that demonstrate value through the collective impact of their very small contributions to your life.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
* GPS navigation (when I drive - or walk somewhere abroad)
* Camera
* WhatsApp (glorified SMSes, yeah, with the drawback of those damned groups - but, well, it works much better for messaging)
* Email (occasionally, not happy occasions since it sucks for email)
* Web (same reservations as email)
* The hateful parking app that still beats pushing coins into parking ticket machines
That's a lot of stuff for someone not really liking these things.
Since a smart watch is too small to do all these things and a tablet does nothing I really need on top of these things, and none of these things sufficiently better to justify its larger size, I hope there won't be a compelling reason to own either. A phone however has just the right form factor because I can now not have all those other things (a camera, a GPS navigator, a tablet/laptop, small change for bloody parking machines, etc.) without having to carry a bag with some device (and I used to walk around with a small bag but things get stolen from such bags unfortunately; so now I walk around with a wallet in one pocket and a smartphone in another like an idiot.)
Messaging, navigation, and camera are all great to have. We knew that from day one.
In theory, glancable notification might have been addictive, but after trying it it appears that it isn't for most people. But it's not to say we won't have killer apps for the watch.
The thing that i find most damning for the watch is that we lack even visions of killer apps for the watch, while we certainly did have visions about the phone before it appeared - people did want to browse on the go.
The only interesting and realistic vision of the watch i've read is that it would be an identity device(easier payments, opening doors, etc) and a UI for our home automation devices plus a notification device.
It's not a very interesting vision, it's just buys people a little bit of extra comfort and isn't really useful unless in very specific context(like running). But who knows, maybe that combined with the fashion, being a status symbol and apple's involvement will sell well.
I agree with you entirely about the vision of killer apps on the watch.
Yes! I've had a pebble for quite some time now and while they've significantly upgraded their API and device functionality they most recently added the ability to reply on your watch, which IMO is absolutely useless. Why anyone would want to fiddle on their watch for a minute or more when they can send the same message in a fraction of the time on their phone is beyond me.
The only "killer" feature I could see a smartwatch offering is way down the line when smart cars are around i.e. being able to lock/unlock your car from your wrist, locate it in a carpark easily with your wrist, get notifications if it's being stolen direct to your wrist or, being able to start/stop the ignition from your wrist, etc.
That would be convenient. No more keys and you wouldn't have to pull out your phone to carry out these basic operations. Further down the line, I can see something like being able to tap your wrist and your self-driving car starts itself, unparks itself and comes to your location being a super use for it.
But these are quite a way off and even then the cars with these technologies will be far too expensive for the average person currently eyeing up a smartwatch.
http://www.landrover.co.uk/ownership/incontrol-and-bluetooth...
Sure. But the problem is for every 1 meaningful notification we are getting 10 that just deserve a glance and 10 that could be answered with just a "I'll call you back", "Yes/No", "Sounds good" type response. Just look at your phone's notifications how many actually required a thoughtful response ?
2/3. Isn't acting quickly on notifications exactly what Apple has been working on?
If you're in a place where these things can be, or are, true, you can change the settings on your phone and be done with it.
Let's set aside whether you or I want to live that way, or if we think it's rude. It's their reality. A smart watch might be really useful for those folks if it works well.
That's the key--if it works well. The first iPhone didn't do much that any other smart phone did. It just did those things way better. Same with iPod and MP3 players. It seems at least possible to me that a similar jump is possible with smart watches.
(As far as notifications go, iOS already allows you to respond to a phone call with a selection of canned text messages. I find them useful when I can't talk and I could see this type of reply being useful for a non-trivial subset of notifications.)
As I see it, there are three main features of the Apple Watch:
1. Notification & quick reply device 2. Fitness tracking 3. Payment device (ApplePay)
Are those three features (and/or the myriad of smaller features) enough? We'll have to wait for people to actually use it to find out :-)
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.
Interesting article on the topic: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21646225-smartwatches...
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.
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.
The only question why did nobody release something before them. Could have been luck. Could have been that they worked on a tablet long before.Could have been Apple's amazing supply chain Could have been some other business reason. But i think it was just a matter of time till someone releasing a tablet.
And btw ,nokia had a device similar to the tablet a few years before the ipad(and even before the iphone), but they didn't made a product of it.
Another factor might be timing. The iPhone, and by extension other smartphones, laid the groundwork for making it socially more acceptable to use these kinds of devices. I vividly recall being a bit embarrassed to pull out my geeky 'PDA' in the dumbphone days, and I felt much less of that when I got the iPad (while none of the people around me had one).
Apps came later, as a differentiating point against other smartphones, not as the value prop of the smartphone as a platform.
Tablets: I think that the doubters have been proven right by history. Sales are way, way down on tablets -- largely because they just aren't that useful.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Tablet-Users-Surpass-1-Bill...
That's hardly a sign of non-usefulness.
But of my computing devices (smartphone, tablet, laptop), it's the least essential of my devices, and the one I've paid the least for. It has the narrowest use case. If I had to replace my tablet usage with smartphone usage, well, I wouldn't be perfectly happy, but I'd live.
That is, I think, the story of tablets. Apple convinced a lot of people to try tablets. And, you know, it's not like tablets go out and kill your dog. They're fine. If you've got one, you'll use it every once in a while. They also don't spontaneously combust after one year, so it's hardly a surprise that the total number of "people who own a tablet" is increasing.
But sales are falling because they aren't that useful. They aren't massively more portable than laptops, they aren't massively more useful than smartphones. There is no single thing that they do really, really well that's highly useful to a large share of the population.
I think this is a really illustrative example for what's going to happen with the Apple Watch and the smart watch in general. Apple has a deservedly strong brand, they will get a lot of people to buy the Apple Watch at first. And, you know, having a watch, people will say, "Sure, I use it." But instead of picking up momentum onstoppably, as smartphones did, they'll sort of... languish. There's undeniably a use case for smartwatches, just as there's undeniably a use case for tablets.
It's just not that useful.
Reading anything of length will blow on a phone or laptop.
Perhaps more importantly, I don't think that 80%+ of the population reads in long-form commonly enough to make this a big deal. You can deal with a slightly inconvenient long-form reading experience if you only read long-form four times a year, say.
Finally: e-ink dedicated readers deliver a superior value for a big chunk of the long-form reading out there (not all of it), thus further-narrowing this use-case.
Using the term 'languish' just seems a bit too negative to describe this particular outcome. Tablets are finding (or found) their market, and are doing okay. Smartwatches will probably be a similar kind of thing. Setting the bar for 'success' at smartphone levels seems a bit too high to me.
Not true. The browser was the obvious killer app for the phone, and it would suck dick on a watch.
Why was Blackberry only popular among businessmen then?
Every declared and hypothetical use for a smartwatch would be better-served with a larger screen. Something this side of a pip-boy, to be sure, but at least twice as wide as the display on the Apple Watch. (Increased internal volume for battery would more than make up for increased screen size.)
If everyone was still wearing watches, trying to slide in on familiarity might make some sense. But watches have been on the decline since even basic cell phones began to spread. I understand you have to make something people are willing to wear. But making it familiar, at a cost to its ability to do everything people might want it for, is a short-sighted mistake.
The biggest benefit for me to get an Apple Watch is so that I don't have to check my phone during meetings, lunches etc when I get a phone call or email. In fact I can see myself using my phone a lot less.
Throw in other benefits e.g. tracking fitness, playing music wirelessly whilst running, opening my car door, navigating whilst in the car (and having it display maps on my head unit using AirPlay), being able to make payments etc and it's definitely useful.
It just plays in well with this notifications based world we live in. It means you can very quickly check a notification and be done with it. With your phone it's a lot more effort and often you can miss the notification anywhere.
Not to get too superior, but these two are MAJOR reasons for wearing a smart watch, and they are completely lost on a HUGE chunk of the crowd here....
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.
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.
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.
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.
Will that be enough to make these kind of devices more popular? I'm not sure, I'm interested to see what happens.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/like-all-mobile-wallets...
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.
This was a number of years before the iPad came out, and the MS conception of the tablet was quite different from what the iPad ended up being. It relied on a stylus and handwriting recognition to interact with a desktop-style interface, often with a keyboard folded underneath as a backup.
It had largely fizzled, though, but to some extent that was true in the MP3 space and smart phone space as well. The product categories existed, some big players had products out, but consumer demand hadn't really blown up yet. And Apple's entrance changed consumer expectations.
> And Apple's entrance changed consumer expectations.
Exactly, that's the point I've been trying to make. Except in this case: With the smartwatch, everything Apple is being lauded for bringing to the platform has already been here for years, with the exception of Apple Pay. That feature alone is what sets the Apple Watch apart from Android Wear, the new Pebble watches, and the new Sony watch; everything else is available whether you have an iPhone (Pebble, Microsoft Band), Android (pretty much any smartwatch), or Windows Phone (Microsoft Band). And so far Apple Pay itself has been a non-starter.
Many people didn't see the point of the iPhone when it came out. And I'd argue that especially the tech 'community' did not have a clue which exact features of the phone made it such a huge success: touch-based input with a UI built around the concept and, eventually, apps.
It's quite possible that the emphasis on new varieties of 'buzzing' for notifications, perhaps coupled with the fact that they're on your wrist, turns out to be a key feature that others overlooked.
Or perhaps the 'new' forms of communication - drawing, heartbeats, customized smileys - will appeal to people more than we think it does.
Or maybe just the UI as a whole will be enough to set this watch apart from the ones that exist.
I'm not as sure about the watch as I was about the iPhone when it was unveiled (and later the apps), but so far Apple has had an impressive amount of successes where the main reasons for this success was only apparent to many of us in hindsight.
So whatever Apple is building, it's definitely not an "also-ran" because the category doesn't exist yet. Whatever wins this category will look and feel markedly different from a smartphone, just like how the first real smartphones looked and felt different from their predecessor "smart"phones like the razr and blackberry.
Whether Apple can bring a viable product to the market remains to be seen.
The original Sony Smartwatch and Smartwatch 2 can't do any of that. They are simple notification devices with limited controls similar to Bluetooth stereos.
> predecessor "smart"phones like the razr and blackberry
In what universe was the original Moto Razr a smartphone? It was a feature phone at best, a fashion accessory version of a standard Moto flip phone.
Don't expect your watch to have support for more than 2 years.
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
And then over night everyone was using them in public.
Would it work to wear one around the ankle?
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.