Apple has always been an innovator.
They’re the tech giant that brought us the user-friendly Mac brand of computers, spawning pithy commercials and forcing people to choose sides and declare whether they were “Macs” or “PCs”. I’ve always used both – Mac for work and PC for gaming – so I’m kind of like Switzerland in that tech war… minus the ability to create chocolate and multi-use pocketknives.
Apple’s iPod changed the way we listen to music, and iTunes altered how we buy those songs. They revolutionized the smartphone industry with the iPhone, and kick started the tablet industry with the iPad and its various iterations.
That’s why it’s kind of disappointing that the company has come so late to the smartwatch party. But whether they’re going to be the life of that particular niche party – as they have with all their other gadgets – still remains to be seen.
Last month, they finally revealed their plans for the long-anticipated Apple Watch and entered the world of wearables. They also unexpectedly broke with their long-standing naming convention and mysteriously dropped the “i” for the upcoming product. Maybe they left it in the cab on the way to that smartwatch party. I lost a wallet that way once.
But is the Apple iWatch, er sorry “Watch” all everyone hoped it would be?
It’s really hard to say, actually. I’ve never seen one in the flesh (it’s only going to be available in early 2015) and when they had their launch of the product in September they only let reviewers handle demonstration models that weren’t even running the full operating system. So, it’s kind of like trying to judge how good a cake tastes by looking at its picture on the front of the box.
But Apple CEO Tim Cook called the product a “breakthrough,” and “the most personal device we’ve ever created.” Of course, he’s the company’s head honcho and has to say nice things about Apple’s products. It’s not like he’s going to say, “Meh, it’s just like every other smartwatch on the market... but we still want you to buy one.”
But the Apple Watch has indeed improved upon the designs and features being offered currently by its rivals from Samsung, LG, Motorola and the like – at least according to what they told people at the launch.
The device’s watch face is highly customizable, and the gizmo not only comes in three different styles, but also both a regular and a smaller size for those of us who don’t have Heracles-sized wrists.
It’s a music player like an iPod, a fitness tracker with heart-rate measurements, a communications device that will send and receive messages, calls and audio recordings, and a hand-held portal to other apps, as well. It may also replace your wallet and acts as a remote for connected smart home devices.
But it also suffers from all the same faults as other similar offerings, such as having to be paired with your phone (draining the battery with a Bluetooth connection).
However Apple, who also wasn’t first to market with a digital music player, smartphone, or tablet, has a chance to do exactly what it’s done in the past: namely crib the good bits from its competitors and add its own compelling features and design improvements to create a must-have device. And they still could dramatically alter the Watch’s design and features before it hits store shelves, as they’ve done before with other products after launch.
So it still remains to be seen if this will be the device that brings the smartwatch to the masses and gets the wearable revolution, er, revolving… but unfortunately we’ll have to wait until next year to actually see one in person and judge for ourselves.
