Re:Despite sizable sales, Apple Watch has challenges to over...
by TheOtherHobbes on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @08:58AM
(#11571410)
You could/can do all of the above with a phone.
In fact with Watch you are doing them with your phone, but using a wrist terminal as an accessory.
That's not a bad thing - harder to steal - etc, but it's not quite a must-have USP.
When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, he first teased that he was releasing 3 devices:
- A widescreen iPod with touch controls (huge applause)
- A revolutionary mobile phone (HUGE raucous applause)
- A breakthrough Internet communications device (tepid, confused applause)
But what drives iPhone growth and usage today? It's the third one, BY FAR. Heck the whole concept of "an iPod" has been taken over by streaming music services, which fit firmly into bucket #3.
So it's possible--I would say likely--that the true value of a smartwatch is not yet fully understood by us today.
Based on where Apple is teasing their efforts, I would guess it's some combination of:
- Personal health monitoring, and eventual connection to your doctors and specialists and researchers.
- Authentication, configuration, and activation of ambient computing. Basically--the key and control panel to everything around you. You get in a car and it sets the seat, drive controls, thermostat, etc. to your preferences--which are stored in your smartwatch. Same thing at home. You sit down at your computer and it unlocks and decrypts. You tap your watch on a register to pay. You tap your watch on the subway gate to get on. Etc.