Still, my favorite thing to do with the Apple Watch (aside from seeing the time) is respond to text messages. I like getting the tactile tapping alert and seeing a new text message that I can immediately respond to. The experience reminds of me how little I want a unidirectional smartwatch which merely shows me information but doesn’t allow me to respond to it. I do like the pre-programmed responses, but even more I like the voice dictation that turns my statements into text messages. This is one of the small but impactful features that makes the Apple Watch more than just a screen for my phone.
A few days ago, I had a real “Apple Watch moment.” I was hiking with the watch near the end of the day, and I was looking at the sun setting wondering how long I still had sunlight for. Glancing at my Apple Watch, I immediately saw the sun set time since it was one of the widgets I had set for the screen. Of course, this isn’t the only device that offers this information, but it was useful in just the right and unplanned moment. I want to have more experiences like that, and I want others to see the value in not just having a device that offers data and information, but also a device that offers convenient and curated information. One area of smartwatch design that I feel isn’t talked enough about is the value of a very useful (and customizable) “home screen.”
Activity tracking is a big part of why many people wear the Apple Watch and other smartwatch products. I love the idea of activity tracking, but I am not sure how useful it is in its current state. For people who need reminders to be active then it is perfect, but I think research shows that after a few months of wearing an activity tracker its “nudging” becomes less effective. With that said, I feel that we are only touching the tip of the activity-tracking iceberg, and as technology and sensors improve so will our ability to rely on activity tracking.
For people to lose weight, they need to consume fewer calories – end of story. Exercise and activity is very important, but what is more important is eating less and making better nutritional choices. Smartwatches aren’t quite good at helping with that yet. For me, the future of activity tracking is less about exercise and more about overall health. Apple makes one of the best activity trackers on the market, but they are still limited by current technology. I like sometimes knowing how much I’ve walked on a busy day, but I don’t feel like, for at least myself, the Apple Watch has made me more active (though, I am naturally pretty active as it is). I nevertheless imagine a time in the future when your smartwatch is a health-monitoring tool.
I am talking about a device that tracks a range of variables using an array of sensors to help you and medical professionals know what is going on with your body. For me, the future of activity tracking is to help people know about otherwise hidden health issues, as well as to provide meta information about social behavior that academics and researchers can use to better understand how our modern lives effect us – and, ideally, make recommendations that can make us healthier. Imagine a time when wearing a smartwatch isn’t just about monitoring your own health, but contributing data to assist in larger goals meant to help societal health. Wearing a smartwatch might even be your civil duty in the future – privacy concerns and all.
Still Fledgling App Market
Unlike the iPhone that continues to benefit from a very healthy app market, I have yet to really engage with the Apple Watch app store. It is possible that I haven’t given it enough of a chance yet and that amazing apps are out there waiting for me, but as of now, my Apple Watch experience hasn’t been enhanced through interesting and useful third-party apps. Apple did open up a bit more of the Apple Watch’s core operating system to third-party apps, but my understanding is that application developers are still limited in the types of things they can do with the Apple Watch.
A lot of this is due to performance and battery life. The small size of a wristwatch makes it difficult to have a robust device. Apple is taxing the system’s resources as much as they can to ensure high performance and one day’s battery charge. Cool apps have the potential of dramatically reducing battery life as well as operating system reliability – and I think that is something Apple wishes to avoid. Apple really isn’t holding back on faster processors and higher-capacity batteries. While they have all the best tech available to them, this is still fledgling technology and requires a lot more time to further refine. As consumers, we’ve sort of been spoiled a bit over the last decade when it comes to wireless, connected technology, but we’ve more or less hit a wall at this point until battery technology gets better.
For those reasons, I believe that the third-party app experience for the Apple Watch is still limited, and it might continue that way for a while. The core functionality of the Apple Watch is still great, but I know for a fact that many consumers want more out of the device. Perhaps the future will offer that. One area that I think Apple has been too slow to develop is in offering additional watch faces.
The Android Wear app universe has countless watch faces that can be downloaded and used to customize the Android Wear user experience. Apple has, by comparison, a small handful of watch faces. They are cool faces, but they are limited in variety. In my opinion, for maximum enjoyment and watch personalization, Apple really needs to offer more cool watch faces. At first, Apple will need to tightly control the watch faces, and perhaps in the future they can allow third-party developers to come up with some of their own. I really did think that by now there would be the ability for users to download new watch faces to the Apple Watch, and when this functionality does arise, I think it will be a major shift in how people use and enjoy the Apple Watch as a “personal” device.
Mass Appeal Vs. Watch Lover Appeal
My experience with smartwatches is bittersweet because while I love technology and the benefits that come with it, I am also an avid lover of traditional timepieces. After a year of wearing the Apple Watch and other watches, I have yet to find a way of enjoying them both at the same time. I am forced to choose…
A long time ago, I said that Apple would have the most success with consumers who do not currently wear a watch or a watch that they are attached to. This represents a large percentage of the consumer demographic, so from a business perspective, watch lovers aren’t super important to Apple Watch market penetration. With that said, the Apple Watch was designed by real watch lovers, and its subtle details will only be immediately apparent to those people who as of now will not remove their traditional watches in favor of the Apple Watch. Why? Well, in short, because traditional watches still have more personality and a greater ability to communicate something about the wearer as compared to the Apple Watch – or any smartwatch, for that matter.