On Apple Watch
Up to this point I haven’t been sold (personally) on Apple Watch. The main drawbacks as I saw them were:
- Price. And it’s a recurring price since you know you’ll have to upgrade every year.
- Size. I have small wrists and I don’t like large watches. I don’t even always wear a watch. I don’t want to wear a huge piece of jewelry on my wrist.
- Battery. I don’t want to charge something every night, especially when it would otherwise have utility (sleep tracking).
- Utility. What in the world is the Apple Watch (or any smart watch) going to do for me that I care about?
However, having listened to quite a few podcasts on the topic and read even more posts, I’m convinced now that (at least at some point) I’m going to want one.
- I’ll get over the price. And if the main SDK components remain the same then there isn’t that much computation being done on the watch itself. The year-over-year upgrade may not turn out to be so compelling. And if your band can last more than 2 years, you’d only have to upgrade the watch, not the band.
- I’ll get over the size. Everyone will have one. It won’t be so weird.
- I’ll get over the battery. Because there will be so much utility. Which leads me to…
- Utility. I’m now convinced of enough positive use cases that I think it would really be a helpful device.
A few use cases for Apple Watch:
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When there’s motion on my front porch my wrist can tap and I can see a picture from my porch camera to see who/what is there. Same with other household security notifications.
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When I get home I can open the garage door via the app I wrote to control my garage door remotely. Why would you want to do this? Because your watch knows that you are you, and theives like to steal garage door openers and use them to get into your stuff. It’d be safer to not even carry one.
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When driving and I get a text message I can easily glance at my wrist, see that it’s something I care about (or not), and respond via Siri, without having to find my phone and get it out.
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My wife can find her phone in the house when she loses it.
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Easier interface to Siri.
Since my watch can know that it’s me, and therefore verify that I am, in fact, me, then it can be a presence notifier on my behalf. This leads to some pretty great conclusions:
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My car can unlock the doors as I walk up, and let me start the car without another key. And I don’t need a massive fob in my pocket to let me do this.
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Same with my front door (though I’m unsure I’d ever opt for a lock like this).
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Turning off the lights when we leave the house and otherwise left them on.
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Allowing me to verify myself as other services support such features. Things like Apple Pay are already there, but other sorts of checkin, registration, and verification could all be linked as well.
I’m not currently planning on getting one immediately, but I think I am far more likely to purchase one than I was a few months ago.