Anthony Wing Kosner, Contributor
I explore the art and science of producing and consuming content.
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2/11/2013 @ 11:57AM |12,892 views
The iWatch: What Can Apple Do To Make Us Need One?
iWatch concept design by Kate Lawler from ABlogToWatch.com
Both The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal just came out with stories claiming that "Apple is experimenting with wristwatch-like devices made of curved glass," at its Cupertino HQ (NYT) and that, "the company has discussed such a device with its major manufacturing partner Hon Hai PrecisionIndustry Co.," aka Foxconn (WSJ). Quite intriguing is the notion expounded by theJournal's Jessica Lessin, that Foxconn "has been working to address the challenges of making displays more power-efficient and working with chip manufacturers to strip down their products. The technologies are aimed at multiple Foxconn customers." (itals mine.)
Is it possible that Foxconn could be forcing Apple's hand, as it were, into the smartwatch market? I know, this sounds like a plot right out of Netflix's new House of Cards, where Kevin Spacey's loyal Majority Whip, Frank Underwood, goes from servant to master through his intricate knowledge of getting things done in DC. Strange as this may sound, such intrigue may be the way the putative iWatch gets done. Consumers are not exactly clamoring for the thing. Could the prospect of this wearable device technology falling into the hands ofGoogle or Samsung (for instance) prompt Apple to expedite its own product development? Or, to put it another way, could the component supplier play its customers off against each other to make new product lines inevitable?
The question that most interests me, though, is what is the minimum viable product that could constitute an Apple smartwatch? I'm not talking about how the aluminum bezel would be chamfered, or other Jony Ive fetishisms. I'm not even talking about the rumored inclusion ofCorning bendable Willow glass that would make it more than a Nano with a strap. I mean what is the compelling idea for why I have to have one?
Accepting the fact that no one, the newspapers of record included, really know anything, there are many worthwhile speculations out there about what such a product might be. Here are three people's takes on the relevant issues:
Mike Elgan from Cult of Mac has been writing about the iWatch for more than two years. In his first post about it, in 2010, he laid out the three criteria that Apple needs to enter a new market:
- There are glaring problems or inadequacies among all major players in the market that can be solved by Apple's core competency of elegant design.
- The new market area enables Apple to control a new platform that supports an ecosystem of content, such as media or apps.
- Both the potential market and the marketplace for content must be huge, mainstream and central to how most people live.
He came to the conclusion that a stand-alone iWatch would fail all three. Then in 2011, he reconsidered after Nick Bilton of the NY Times Bits blog wrote about Apple considering wearable-computing devices including a "curved-glass iPod that would wrap around the wrist; people could communicate with the device using Siri." The lightbulb seemed to go on and he realized that an iWatch could be "a Siri-Based Remote-Control for iCloud."
Ariel Adams (also a Forbes.com contributor) wrote a month ago on A Blog To Watch about what an iWatch will be like, from the point of view of the high-end watch industry. He cites "rumors is that Apple will be working with Intel to produce a processor for a small, power efficient device," to support the idea that, "A powerful processor that also sips power could produce an iWatch device with huge potential." His truly unique insight is about how an Apple product in this category could learn from the luxury watch industry:
wrist watches are prime examples of wearable luxury and durability. In an article I wrote just after the iPhone 5 was released, I commented on how Apple seems to be learning from luxury watches. Apple should learn to use more steel versus aluminum for the case, and sapphire crystal or perhaps the new Gorilla Glass 3 for an iWatch screen. Wrist watch finishing standards are often much higher than electronics. By learning from the watch industry, Apple can create an iWatch that is extremely durable, and also much more visually appealing. Until now, most smartwatches look like toys. Apple can change that if they wish to.
I think he is right that users expect Apple to make devices more in line with luxury watches than gimmicky toys, but for Apple to be Apple, this wearable device will have to be oriented to a mass (but still affluent) audience.
And just last week, Bruce Tognazzini, Apple employee #66 and founder of its Human Interface Group, wrote a detailed post about the immediate prospects for an iWatch. Tognazzini, or "Tog" as he likes to be known, is now a principal, along with Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman, at the Nielsen Norman Group, the top-shelf "dream team" user interface consultants. As such, he is free to talk about Apple from an insider's perspective without professing any current inside knowledge of the iWatch project. He starts out his piece by making a big claim for Apple and then, quickly, expressing the current problem:
The iWatch will fill a gaping hole in the Apple ecosystem. It will facilitate and coordinate not only the activities of all the other computers and devices we use, but a wide array of devices to come. Like other breakthrough Apple products, its value will be underestimated at launch, then grow to have a profound impact on our lives and Apple's fortunes.… I've found a traditional smartwatch's extra functions neatly divide into those I don't need and those I can't find. I can live without a smartwatch."
So, Apple has a glaring hole, but users do not have a glaring need! Tognazzini then rattles off the "traditional drawbacks in smartwatch design": charging, clunky design and buttons/menu trees and what he considers to be the two "killer apps" for the device: passcodes and finding your phone. Down the road, he can see the potential for the iWatch as distributed data sensor that might allow Apple to fix its maps better, for instance.
After steeping in all of this, I see a consensus on a list of features (similar to what Adams is proposing) that makes sense to me:
- Curved Screen
- Voice Control
- Bluetooth
- OLED Screen
- Motion & Light Sensor
- Seamless Integration
- Password Access
- Wrist Convenience
- Content Ecosystem
A curved, and even flexible, screen will enable the iWatch to be sleek and fit a wider variety of users' wrists. Voice control would seem to be a natural, but I question talking to your wrist, Dick Tracy-style, as the primary means of input. Bluetooth makes sense because of the low power consumption and small size of the radio required to link to other, more powerful devices. OLED screens are known both for their brightness and power efficiency and can now be "printed" on to flexible surfaces. Motion and light sensors would enable the device to respond to gestural and environmental clues about what the user requires, reducing the need to touch (or talk to) your iWatch. (You could "page" through selections by rotating your wrist either towards or away from yourself, for instance.) Absolutely essential is that the iWatch integrate seamlessly with as many other kinds of devices as possible. iOS devices, for sure, but Android and other Bluetooth emitters, as well, would be a plus. And wouldn't it be nice if wearing such a device automatically logged you in (as you) to any iOS device you encountered (and have permission to use)? When Adams says "wrist convenience," he means that everything the device does has to work at wrist scale without requiring the users to contort their daily habits too much to access its functionality.
The most important feature, and the one that Elgan and Bilton point too emphatically, is that the one constant in all of Apple's successful devices has been the content ecosystem that was available from day one. In terms of the iPod, it was music and eventually games and movies. The iPhone ushered in apps and the iPad is perhaps the best device for consuming all of these, even if it hasn't yet brought much of its own unique content to the table.
This is where I diverge and, I hope, make my own unique contribution to this discussion. The scale of a screen that fits comfortably on the average wrist is too small for virtually everything in the App Store. And the power and size restrictions on the design of an iWatch preclude it for being a means of directly consuming content. In terms of the existing offerings of the Apple content stores, it will, at best, function as a remote control (as Elgan suggests.)
But what can a smartwatch actually consume and display? Little bits of contextually relevant information. It could be the name of the person calling on your iPhone. It could be the title of the song you are listening to. It could be the time or location of your next appointment. Or the nearest sushi bar at lunch time. Or the best price on Pampers. Really, anything.
But just like a mobile app is not just a scaled down website with some of the "cruft" removed, an iWatch "micro-app" is not just a mobile app cut in half. It is its own, very simple, animal. Now I've got some good news for open web advocates and, perhaps, some bad news for Apple. This could be very easy to implement based on the evolving best practices of web applications.
The iWatch (or Google Watch, or open source smartwatch of the future) does not need to be a "lite" version of an iOS (or Android or Firefox OS) device. It can be a device that is merely capable of executing client-side JavaScript and accepting JSON content feeds via Bluetooth. Creating such "micro-apps" is incredibly easy and getting easier, such that individuals and small businesses could craft or commission their own apps for very targeted purposes and make them discoverable from any web-connected device. In answer to Adams' point about the possible Intel chip for the iWatch, I ask whether power efficiency combined with a "minimum viable processor" that can execute client-side JavaScript isn't a better way to create a device that addresses one key user concern by not needing to be charged often.
Although an Apple iWatch would undoubtably function as a "second screen" (or third or fourth!) for ones iPhone or other iOS device(s), I think the real "killer app" is the ability for ones wrist to be a portal into the emerging "micro-web" where all the little bits of information that we need on a daily basis "magnetize" themselves to us just as we need them. This is a little bit like Yale computer science professor David Gelertner's concept of the "tuple space," where we are able to find just the bits we need in a dynamic environment. (Also see this recent story from Wired about "lifestreams.") This is a more radical idea than kost of what the iWatch has been described as doing and, in many ways, it is more in line with what Google is already moving towards with Google Now and its new search result cards for various types of information.
This raises the issue as to whether Apple can execute this "killer app" on the content side as well as it (most certainly can) on the hardware (and marketing) side. In my ideal, alternate universe, the two companies would collaborate on hardware and software standards in order to create the best user experience for the most users in the shortest amount of time, and then open source it all. I realize that this will not happen! But isn't it an interesting though experiment to consider?
One thought on the naming, though. I wonder if iBand might be better than iWatch, because where an iPhone is still very much a phone, an Apple device worn on the wrist would only notionally be an actual watch. Its potential functionality is so much more than the fact of displaying the time. In the continuum of skeumorphic names, iWatch falls on the strong side with the iPhone and iBand would fall on the weak side with iPod. (iPad falls somewhere in the middle!)
Tognazinni asks, at the end of his story, when Apple will release this iWatch that he has ben describing. "We may have to wait until next year," he complains, "or around 7500 pass code/password entries from now. Please, Apple, get a move on!" The question is, for what Apple is actually contemplating, do enough users feel the same way?
Sent from Mailbox for iPhone
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