If I were Tim Cook right now , I would n’t be vex about Apple Watch sales agreement potential . Oh , it will sell . The newTV spotis inspiring , and the stainless blade cultivation on these watch attend fan - frigging - amazing . Add in Apple ’s trademark surprise - and - delight , and all sign steer to long line on launching day .
No , if I were Tim Cook , I ’d be more implicated about peopleusingthe Watch thanbuyingthe Watch . This thing is pack silly with features , and far too many of them have been take over from the catalog of smartwatch failures .
Does a smartwatch really need a full suite of fitness feature of speech ? sure as shooting not if they just add to the noise .
A troubling number of smartwatch owner finally toss their gadgets aside . The most elaborate data on this problem , aJuly 2014 Endeavor Partners contemplate , tells us that about a third of all smartwatch and fitness band owners abandon their wrist wearables after six months .
Poor battery liveliness certainly contributes to attrition rates . Aside from the Pebble , you call for to put nearly all smartwatches in their institutionalize cradles before you go to bed . block to do so once , and you blame yourself . Forget to do so doubly , and you blame the watch . blank out to do so thrice , and you begin lose pastime wholly .
The Apple Watch electric battery is rate for 18 hours , so users will want to be vigilant about recharging . Trust me : I ’ve been retrospect smartwatches since they became a thing , and once you run out of juice the first time , you ’re already on the course to giving up . It ’s a junior-grade gimmick . It ’s not essential like your phone . So giving up is easy .
But the Apple Watch face exposure to an even big problem : feature bloat . It ’s an issue that plaguedSamsung ’s Galaxy Gear , and now , inexplicably , Apple is follow Samsung down the same dangerous way of life .
Apple Pay ? Yes , please ! Apple should double down on its own proven success like this .
Just because youcanadd a feature does n’t mean youshouldadd a feature . Yet on MondayApple confirmedthat the Watch will allow voice call from your radiocarpal joint , just like Samsung ’s Gear , an ambitious but seriously flawed smartwatch pioneer . The Gear ’s utterer is too imperfect and tinny to trim down through wind and crowd together haphazardness . It ’s a charge - define parlour trick that breaks your inwardness .
Have Apple ’s engineers made good on Samsung ’s broken promise ? We ’ll know before long enough . But just copying Samsung ’s Dick Tracy shtick is alarming . The universe ’s cruel pundits do n’t really care about Samsung , and none of them will ever call up the Galaxy Gear . But if Apple ’s vocalisation calls fail us , you ’ll hear about it on the DailyMail , Saturday Night Live , and your local evening news .
Then there ’s the Apple Watch ’s warmheartedness pace glance , which shows your heart ’s beats - per - minute whenever you initiate a spot hitch . It ’s a omnipresent feature on all Samsung vigil , and you ’ll also incur it on every Android Wear sentinel . But it ’s also fundamentally useless , as none of these watches ’ heart pace sensors can provide precise material - fourth dimension readings during the jumping and jostling of physical practice .
I suspect about 98 percent of all Android user will assure you they never use their smartwatch ’s eye rate feature . For this reason alone , Apple has belittle its crucial brand promise by including this frivolous , me - too lineament as well . It ’s noise , not service program . It ’s bloat , not function . ( And , no , do n’t tell me that Apple will offer literal - clock time heart - rate data during workouts . It ’s an extremely unmanageable sensor trick to pull off , and if Apple offered it , it would already be a top - line of products hope . )
clothing like the Samsung Gear Fit only taught us that heart rate place hitch are a checklist item , and not much more .
I ’m cherry red - picking two very obvious emulator features , but the Apple Watch is carry with many more , from mail alarum to workout programs to mapping directions to even generous sustenance for third - party apps . Now , sure , you could argue that some smartwatch features are must - haves , that a smartwatch is n’t a smartwatch unless these feature of speech are present and accounted for . But here ’s the job : Smartwatches have not been a resounding success .
So why emulate averageness ? I think a much stronger Apple Watch would extend simple notification , Passbook with built - in Apple Pay , HomeKit desegregation , and a full suite of timekeeping and personal messaging functions . In other words : all Apple , all the metre . Addition via minus . Give user a relatively little set of exquisitely engineered and incontrovertibly useful features , and then drop the damn mic .
Of course , once you get your Apple Watch , you could opt to use just a brusk list of features , and ignore the single that do n’t attract to you . You may regain that a lookout that tells the prison term , pay for coffee , open doors , and sends haptic heartbeats to loved ones is all you ever need . Indeed , Apple ’s small , on the face of it fiddling surprisal - and - pleasure trick ( taps , sketches , stickers , and custom animated emojis ) might be all the Watch requires to be a reverberating success .
feature film like door unlocking are new and fresh , and offer a serious point of differentiation with the smartwatch yesteryear .
But there ’s still something psychologically deflate about a watch — or any ware — that ’s jam - packed with stuff you never use . You start to question whether you ’re getting your full money ’s deserving . It ’s like dropping $ 60 for a Las Vegas buffet , getting way too full on $ 20 of crab leg , and wondering what hell just happened .
We will never take for our computers and smartphones to the rigorous requirements we ask of smartwatches . Wehaveto have a computer and phone . But a smartwatch ? Probably not . So while you might corrupt the approaching Apple Watch , you may not buy its 2d - gen follow - up if you feel you did n’t get your money ’s deserving , or some borderline features just did n’t work . And that ’s not just forged news for Apple . It ’s defective newsworthiness for Samsung , LG , Motorola , and all the other mobile companies looking for salvation in an entirely new product category .
The Apple Watch is on deck of cards to formalize a struggling construct . Now we can only hold off until April 24 to see if it ’s solved all of its competition ’ problems , or outwit by playing its competitors ’ game .
