
iPhone Killer: The Secret History of the Apple Watch - Libertatea
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/the-apple-watch/
======
clarky07
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.

~~~
spacehome
For you, perhaps.

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.

~~~
gdubs
The key element here is that the short glance allows the wearer to decide
whether or not to act upon a notification.

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.

~~~
tsunamifury
Chopping up the interruptions and making them shorter does not reduce the
context change and mental swapping load.

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.

~~~
gdubs
Fair point.

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.

------
aaronbrethorst
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
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
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)

------
smackfu
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
Welcome to Wired. :)

------
aetherson
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.

~~~
_yosefk
For me, and I hate all sorts of smart objects with a passion, a smartphone's
killer apps (that is, what makes me own the hateful thing) are:

* 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.)

~~~
aetherson
Sorry, I was too concise for my own good. I agree with you, all those things
are essential on a smartphone. What I was trying to say, and this was unclear,
was: if you look at stuff that wasn't on the phone from day one, that
genuinely came as a third-party app, the one that I think is a killer app for,
say, greater than 30% of everyone is Uber or Uber-alikes.

Messaging, navigation, and camera are all great to have. We knew that from day
one.

~~~
_yosefk
Agreed, to an extent, though you underestimate the hateful parking app :-)

------
jmkni
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.

~~~
roc
I'm surprised at everyone's insistence that smartwatches ape the physical
sizes and shapes of traditional watches. It strikes me not unlike past
insistence that smartphones needed to have physical keyboards and removable
batteries.

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.

~~~
ohitsdom
Great point. Current smart watches have zero appeal to me. But, if they
started to move towards a curved, wider forearm band (similar to a QB arm band
playbook), a lot of possibilities open up. It'd probably be a tough sell
initially from a fashion standpoint though. I did see some mockups that took
this approach when the Apple rumors first started flying.

~~~
philwelch
At that point you could just strap your smartphone to your arm.

------
bsaul
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
>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
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.

------
morganvachon
> "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
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
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...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/04/like-all-mobile-wallets-
before-it-apple-pay-struggles-with-retailers/)

------
logn
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
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?

~~~
q7
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
What if you update it ? Software sometimes requires some crucial back-end
changes and can't be supported to infinity.

------
chiph
>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
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.

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

~~~
smackfu
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
Poorly done parallax scrolling. You'd think they would have learned by now.

------
jccalhoun
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?

~~~
dragonwriter
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.

------
smanuel
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
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
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
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.

~~~
smanuel
Exactly my point. The technology is there (e.g. [1]) but not in watch form
factor. It doesn't need to be, and nobody wants a med lab on his wrist. That's
why the Watch is not a health device and saying it's the first step/attempt is
just blah blah marketing.

[1] [http://acceldx.com/](http://acceldx.com/)

------
WhitneyLand
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.

~~~
aetherson
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
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.

------
jgv
That's not how drop caps work.

------
datsun
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
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.

------
verisimilitude
"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
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?

------
Fastidious
The whole page is very difficult to navigate.

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

------
borgia
"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.

