On: Apple Watch Is and Isn’t

[bane]

But I think that's kind of the point isn't it? Out of the box, the watch will more or less do all the thing anybody really wants it to do. It's going to be very hard to build a large viable app ecosystem for these things. At best I think Smartwatch apps will just be secondary notification displays for apps you're already buying and putting on your phone.

[madeofpalk → bane]

Isn't that how it is though? Anyone expecting anything more is going to be sorely disappointed.

I don't recall Apple pitching this as something you watch to play around with for a couple of hours at an airport with.

[bane → madeofpalk]

> I don't recall Apple pitching this as something you watch to play around with for a couple of hours at an airport with.

You're right, they didn't. But I'm hard pressed to figure out a great deal of apps for the watch other than what's pretty much going to be shipping with it. reddit mail notification? point to my car?

I dunno. It seems like there's a very limited ecosystem (read:business) to spending lots of effort making Apple Watch apps for exactly the reason you're stating.

[aaronbrethorst → bane]

    At best I think Smartwatch apps will
    just be secondary notification displays
    for apps you're already buying and
    putting on your phone.

My expectation is that the only way an app will get on your Apple Watch is if it comes bundled inside of an app you have installed on your iPhone, a la iOS 8 extensions.

[cromwellian → aaronbrethorst]

Which is how Android Wear apps work.

But this is not the kind of story presented at the keynote. What they presented was intensive interaction with apps: dragging, panning, zooming, etc.

I think any usable watch app is going to have to be pretty simple and lightweight on the interactivity side.

[aaronbrethorst → cromwellian]

I think you may be responding to a different point than the one I was making. I was speaking only to the deployment mechanism for Apple Watch apps.