Apple Waits as App Developers Study Who’s Buying Its Watch
nytimes.com
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The watch is all about quick access to small, self-contained nuggets of information and simple actions. Previously, these have been limited to "what's the time?", "what's the date?", etc. With smart watches we can now have "what's next on my calendar?", "what's the weather like today?", "pay for this coffee", etc. They sound simple but they can quickly become habits. Developers will eventually work out which of these work, but this is a genuinely new platform - it will take time and iteration.
Additionally, any comparison to the iPad launch is unfair. The iPad, in terms of how it is used, really is just a big iPhone.
I think the watch will, in the long term, be a flop. Apple needs to find a real killer app for it or it is toast. I already have a $500 iPhone in my pocket or on my desk and a $5,000 computer on my desk. They are going to have to pull off a really interesting trick to justify a $500 watch that is redundant. Yes, they are selling bunches of them, but I fail to see this as a long term product unless they pull a rabbit out of a hat.
How many of you developed iPhone apps? Us? Over a dozen. How many of you are developing Apple Watch apps. Us? Zero. No interest in working for Apple for free.
Down-vote away. I know the truth hurts.
This exact argument also applied to smartphones, yet we've seen what can happen if you put a computer in people's pockets and let people figure things out.
I'm not suggesting the watch will displace the phone (the way the phone can displace laptops for many users) but I believe there's huge scope for augmenting it.
> "Yes, they are selling bunches of them, but I fail to see this as a long term product unless they pull a rabbit out of a hat."
Selling bunches of them is enough to indicate that something will happen in this space (i.e. people are already spending their money on it). Whether this iteration or the next will be the one that nails it remains to be seen. For example, the upcoming changes to allow native watch apps (as opposed to only having the UI there) should allow developers a bit more freedom.
> Selling bunches of them is enough to indicate that something will happen in this space
I don't disagree. I am saying that THIS Apple Watch feels like a flop in the long run. They could come out with Apple Watch 2 and knock it out of the park. Or, some other company could do it.
Even owned a Casio Databank.
So I don't get this first world problem of paying $500 for the convenience of not taking the phone out of the pocket.
Besides there are zero features it offers besides a mobile phone.
If I what to show off how rich I might be I'll get myself a Rolex.
Besides, if price is your argument, you should look beyond Apple anyway. Their devices mostly sell by branding. There are already smartwatches that are significantly cheaper than what Apple offer, and over time, the price difference between regular watches and smart watches is going to shrink further.
I've been to Basel World before, and the "I'm rich watches" start at around 40K CHF. And they aren't even very good watches given their mechanical movements, it has nothing at all to do with functionality or features.
Sure, watches don't last forever, but let's assume you buy a new one every ~2 years on average. Well $30/ month * 24 months = 720$ every 2 years.
There already are killer apps. Fitness is one. The question isn't if wearables are going to be a success (they already are), but just how smart and connected we need them to be: do you choose the Fitbit or the Apple Watch? etc. It seems that most objections to smart watches are due to price and size/aesthetics, both of which are hopefully only temporary issues, rather than absolute functionality. A bit of imagination is all that's needed.
> Down-vote away. I know the truth hurts.
If you get down votes, it'll be for the attitude, not the opinion...
This leads to hardware sales and non-usage.
Which makes it really hard for others to work on such a plattform.
I don't lack will power (when my wearables run out of battery I still run).
So your comment sounds way off base to me. Just to give you a perspective you may not have seen.
You have a whole industry built on wearables and fitness with millions of miles run/ridden/hiked/whatevered... That's hardly "non-usage".
Did you forget the point you were making?
If you need further convincing, look at the higher end of wearables, with Garmin, Polar, etc making specialised wearable devices, for specific sports and making a killing. Consumer-ising that space is surely a winning ticket. I mean that's essentially GoPros business model isn't it?
But yes, comments on the internet are "one person think". Good luck with the self-rationalisation you got going there.
Nobody's going to jump me on my morning run to steal my FitBit, but they damn well are gonna jump me for my Apple Watch. I'm not going to wear my Apple Watch doing something like Crossfit where it could easily get broken but I'll happily wear my Jawbone UP because I know it can handle it. Also, fitness wearables are simply more comfortable to wear while exercising compared to the Apple Watch because the watch is bigger with a much bigger band and watchface for sweat to get trapped behind plus it has to be worn tight to the skin to capture heart rate which greatly limits range of motion.
If you're the type that doesn't have their phone on you all the time, it's better done by a lightweight, lower-cost Fitbit which start at about 60 bucks as opposed to the $350/$400 starting point of the Apple Watch.
> If you get down votes, it'll be for the attitude, not the opinion...
You missed the joke I guess. On HN almost anything negative about Apple gets you a virtual hanging more often than not. I was being sarcastic. There are a lot of people that are invested in the Apple cult to the point of being hurt by the truth. Down-voting is a way to close their eyes to pretend reality isn't there. In that world Apple's shit don't stink, even when there's plenty of it to go around.
Yes pulling your pocket out is an inconvenience if every time you do so it's to find out that an email or text message is spam or unimportant. Likewise seeing what meeting you have next (and where it is) is a second on the watch. About 30 seconds on the phone.
Who cares if you are going to make an Apple Watch app or not. Most developers aren't. Nor should they. Not every phone app will work on the watch and vice versa. The Watch like the iPad requires a unique experience. I look at apps like IFFT and Workflow as the style of apps that are are the future of Apple Watch.
I like my Moto 360, but I disabled notification vibrations (I have it in silent mode all the time). It is terribly annoying when you are working or are having family time and something on your wrist vibrates all the time.
About 30 seconds on the phone.
Get a phone with active display (e.g. [1]).
[1] https://www.motorola.com/us/Moto-X-Features-Active-Display/m...
First. Do you own one?
Beyond that. Seriously. Please. Think about what you are saying a little bit. Is the technology owning you here?
If you need to take your phone out of your pocket so often that it is a nuisance...leave it on your desk.
If you get too many notifications you are not using them correctly.
Finally, I have thirty years as CEO of multiple tech companies and have conducted business across the US and internationally. I can't remember a single instance of having a schedule so complex that it required being leashed to an electronic device to the point that taking it out of my pocket became a nuisance.
Please, let's not exaggerate reality for the love of technology. I love technology and the Apple Watch is a marvel of what can be accomplished today. That is not being disputed here.
This is about a business case for this particular device, in it's present incarnation. I don't think it exists in the long run. I think they got a lot of sales because of the love for Apple and the idea of what could be. Now that it's been out there for a while people are probably not jumping on it at a rate that will sustain it as a business as it exists today. They might be able to come up with a new design that changes things, but I think the writing is on the wall for this one.
Of course, I could be wrong.
That said, it's obvious that the majority of watches sold will be smartwatches sooner or later. After all, if you've already made up your mind on having a watch - and yes, there are applications outside of fashion and jewelry - then why not get a smartwatch? Outside of the Apple bubble, the difference in price will be negligible.
There are two open questions in this context: First, will the Apple Watch come to dominate that market? Most likely, it will go the way of the smartphone market in the medium term: small number of units sold with comparatively high profits purely for brand reasons.
Second, will there be a land rush of application development comparable to when smartphones and tablets really came into their prime? Most likely not, or to a much lesser extent, for a combination of the reasons that you mentioned and that smartwatches will basically be appendixes to smartphones, where that land rush has already happened.
- price. It is still going to be more expensive than a cheap dumb watch
- lifespan. Electronics generally won't live more than 3-5 years on average. A good watch can outlive you and your children.
- too much feature. The same way some people still buy dumb phones because they just want to phone and text, some people only want time out of their watch (recent threads about iPod sells explain that pretty well, albeit for a different product).
- fashion, as you said. Some people want to look good, and a smartwatch with a digital screen (gasp!) may be against their sense of aesthetics
Not having to charge it every day. Charging a smartphone every day is annoying enough. Charging a watch every day just isn't worth the hassle.
I think this is the best point you’ve made. If we throw every other argument out, we’re left with the simple fact that the watch follows the phone, and the market for phone software has already commoditized itself into the toilet.
iOS is a dog’s breakfast. So what’s the lure for writing watch software? That the first players in have the least zeroth chance of becoming the next unicorn, one of the few apps actually turning into a sustainable business?
There will be exceptions, but I feel safe in predicting that most successful watch apps will be free or nearly fee accessories for some other business model, like ride sharing.
“Commoditize your complements.”—Joel Spolsky
Apple is the watch. Your software is the complementary product they will inexorably commoditize.
Probably so. Many of the developers who will reject what I am saying are not, at the same time, devoting life and treasure to the development of apps for the watch. The iPhone was very different. It was a gold rush. Many made millions selling fart apps. Most --the vast majority-- lost their shirts. And, having learned their lessons they remain cautious or completely uninterested when it comes to the watch.
One of the huge angles is that of the leash to the iPhone. This is the same reason I just bought my son a stand alone GPS for his car. Google and Apple maps and nav require network connectivity. Amazingly enough I've been in places not too far from home where we can't raise WiFi or a cell connection. Your great phone-based navigation software breaks down very quickly when you can't "phone home" for map updates.
One thing I noticed today is that now when I consider any app for purchase, I check for wether it has support for the watch and wether this support makes sense (e.g. today I was looking for a pomodoro timer app).
None of what I write above I would have guessed from the product description and the advertisements. Whether it is useful to you or not will depend on the apps that exist and your lifestyle. It's hard to predict and expensive to test. YMMV
Heck the Mac is still growing long after the PC market matured and even while it's declining. That is what the end game for iPhone will be in my opinion. When the global smartphone market finally becomes saturated, the iPhone can still grow at the expense of Android from switchers (that's when being the highly differentiated product will help the most).
But the iPhone does seem to lose differentiation. Android apps have recently become well designed using material design, there's an app saturation, and 90% of the time people spend in phones is inside apps anyway,so it's harder to differentiate on the OS.
But the app does not run within isolation, the OS impacts a lot on the app experience. e.g. iOS Share Sheets/Android Intents. How a tweet is shared from the Twitter app is dictated by the OS
Currently it seems that apple is taking the battle to curation. I'm not sure it has the advantage there - but than again, content quality is very subjective and hard to compare,and than it becomes a marketing game - and Apple is much stronger in marketing.
This I think is its problem. It is probably the first Apple Device that has been released without a sharp use case. I mean it is cool that I can answer phone calls from my wrist (A candidate who I interviewed for an hour could not tell I was talking from my Apple Watch). But it is not a necessity.
This is in essence the problem with wearables. To quote an article from the Economist : "One measure of a wearable device's success is whether you would turn around for it if you were halfway to work—as you would for a smartphone. Yet market research suggests that consumers are not willing to make an about-face and fetch their fitness trackers"
Ref: An year old. http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21613925-...
The thing that smartwatches bring that fitness trackers didn't is a multi-function device. Each feature is incremental and by itself might not be compelling enough to care about long term, but add enough of them together and maybe then it can jump the chasm into everyday use (e.g. telling the time + fitness tracking + alerts + payments + quick comms + ???).
It happened to the Iphone, it took at least a year and a half(it had no apps at launch!!) to start being useful for something and it happened to the Ipad: people did stare at it and say "it's cool, but I don't know what I could use this for", There is a video of a news reported asking this to people about the Ipad.
Selling millions of devices is the best feedback they could have. People always find crazy uses for any new tech.
And i'm sure if you've asked in a place like HN at the time - they would have talked about some killer app ideas and a marketplace.
And let's not forget - we've already had android wear for some time(and the pebble before) ,and yet no great ideas, even just as prototypes or discussions.
On a related note, a quote from the article:
> The lack of support from Facebook — and from other popular app makers like Snapchat and Google, which also do not have apps for Apple Watch — [...]
I get why it would make some sense to have a Watch app for Facebook, although it's still a challenge to design a great UX on such a tiny space, but Snapchat and Google? I can't even imagine how that would work on the watch. You certainly can't take photos on the watch, and I wouldn't want to try and view an ephemeral photo on the watch because it's so small. And similarly, what would Google offer? The article mentioned Google Mail, but you can already get your Google Mail on your watch by using the built-in Mail app.
If someone wants it they'll find a way of getting it shipped or brought by someone that is traveling to a country where it is available
I'm in Ireland, ordered mine from the UK on a Sunday night, had it by Thursday. Supply seems to be stable by now and I imagine they'll start shipping further afield soon.
It's hard to understand the value of this unless you use one. I frequently used to miss text messages, or even phone calls because I wouldn't feel my iPhone vibrating in my pocket. With the Pebble, I have the phone on "Do Not Disturb" at all times, and never miss any notification of importance. It's gotten to the point that the idea of having a device in your pocket broadcasting a loud noise to the entire surrounding seems like the stone age.. A little vibration on the wrist, and I know something happened. Then I can choose to take out my phone to react on it, or just postpone that.
I actually found that this increases the battery life on my phone (despite Bluetooth being turned on). Since I used to miss notifications (and would look at the time..), I would frequently take out my phone, unnecessarily lighting up the screen. No more!
So my idea of the perfect smartwatch is one that can provide decent notifications, and has a long battery life. I'd appreciate it if it looked good.. :)
This is connected with the way people discover personal uses for new tech in ways they didn't foresee beforehand.
I'm a firm believer that wearable smart devices will eventually go mainstream. A bit like mobile phones did. In 5 years everyone will wear a smart device and there will be a choice of different platforms.
Drop the whole concept of a smart watch. Work on getting that iPhone small enough, so it can be strapped to a wrist.
If they insist on keeping this product; get the price down, and do a complete redesign.
(I know they don't want to canabilize iPhone sales, but that would be years away? I would actually strap a 1 x 3 inch devise to my forearm--if I could make calls, and access the Internet. That's something I might buy?)
One another note, to mechanical watch enthusiasts; I found a vintage IWC cal. 89 in a box of old broken watches. It is so old the paint on the face was worn away. I only noticed a fish on the crown. I don't think the watch has ever been servised? It's probally from the 50's. I'm in the process of getting its history from IWC. I literally thought it was a old, cheap Timex. I was bored one night, and wound it. It wound rather smoothly? "No--it must be a cheap watch, with a fish on the crown? A Horologist tossed it in the spare parts bin years ago?". Well, a day later, it was keeping perfect time? I was shocked? I timed it on a Viborgraph, and it was keeping time with an error rate of 1 min/day. They built this movement for longevity? IWC still has parts for this movement. I could pass along this watch to my nephew, and he could wear it another 70 years? (Dillon--you don't know me, and I'm sorry. Me and your father had a falling out. You seem like a great kid! This watch is yours when I pass, which may be soon?). Apple--this is why some of us love our watches. This actually happened last week. Sorry about using HN as a diary? I don't have anyone to talk to anymore.
I doubt that Apple are doing the wrong thing, I suspect that people will buy into it because they are high tech, wealthy, innovators and some will buy it because they already have invested several thousand dollars in the company via all the devices and others will buy it for status reasons.
But it will be a good thing in the end, it will change things, like the iPod and the iPhone - cheaper and better alternatives will be created, perhaps even devices that are designed for use in developing countries where length of life and hardiness are the main features.