When Steve Jobs announced the iPad, he began by arguing that in order to justify a new product category that fell between the iPhone and a laptop, it has to do things better than either of them. The rest of the presentation was focused around selling that idea.
Overall, I was not sold that the Apple watch does things any better than the iPhone. In fact, I think it does a lot of things worse than the iPhone; it has functions that I would much rather use a smartphone for.
1) Home screen
I'm not sold that I want dozens of apps on a smart watch for which I must pan and zoom around on a home screen to launch. This paradigm is a lot more appropriate for sustained interaction with a device. If I'm going to do that - to find and launch an app, presumably to use some some of it's functions to do something - I would rather just take out my phone and have the benefit of a much better screen and experience. Glances are much more suitable for how I want to use a watch, which is to glance at it! To get some information casually with brief interactions. The type of scenario in which it's annoying to have to take out your phone, such as simply checking the time.
The home screen is better on the phone, both in terms of navigating to apps and the purpose of doing such - to interact with their functionality.
2) Messaging
Responding to messages is only better on the watch via voice dictation. Obviously, you can't type out messages, the emoji is novelty, and quick word is too contextually specific to be generally reliable. The problem is that I don't see anyone ever using dictation today. There's a number of reasons (accuracy, privacy) but they don't really matter. Until voice message takes off, messaging on the watch is not very useful.
The largest Achilles heel of dictation on the watch, however, is correcting the inevitable mistakes. There's no easy way to do it from the watch. Overall, the poor experience of attempting to reply to messages from the watch will drive users to simply revert to taking out their phone by default.
3) Apps (photos, maps)
While Apple demonstrated how to use a few apps, what they didn't explain is why I would want to. They didn't sell the idea to me about how using maps or photos is a better on the watch than it is on the phone. For example, in maps you can pan, zoom, search, and get directions. Just like you can on the iPhone; just like you can on the iPad. It was sold as a better experience on the iPad due to the larger screen. By the same logic, is it then a worse experience on a smaller screen? As they demonstrated the apps (and when Tim talked about Apple team members using the watch as a TV remote, etc.) all I could think of was, "Ok I guess you could, but...why?"
Overall, my impression of the Apple watch is comparable to a calculator watch. It seems exciting at first, but once the novelty wears off you realize that you'd much rather just use a regular calculator instead. At first it's, "maps... on my watch!", but after awhile, it's more like "where's my phone...".
I feel like Apple has crammed too much functionality into the device instead of focusing its functionality on what it can do better than the phone, such as the glances. The result is a mostly a redundant device which does a lot of things that your phone does (except worse), instead of a true companion device that just does a few things better than your phone does.
Overall, I was not sold that the Apple watch does things any better than the iPhone. In fact, I think it does a lot of things worse than the iPhone; it has functions that I would much rather use a smartphone for.
1) Home screen
I'm not sold that I want dozens of apps on a smart watch for which I must pan and zoom around on a home screen to launch. This paradigm is a lot more appropriate for sustained interaction with a device. If I'm going to do that - to find and launch an app, presumably to use some some of it's functions to do something - I would rather just take out my phone and have the benefit of a much better screen and experience. Glances are much more suitable for how I want to use a watch, which is to glance at it! To get some information casually with brief interactions. The type of scenario in which it's annoying to have to take out your phone, such as simply checking the time.
The home screen is better on the phone, both in terms of navigating to apps and the purpose of doing such - to interact with their functionality.
2) Messaging
Responding to messages is only better on the watch via voice dictation. Obviously, you can't type out messages, the emoji is novelty, and quick word is too contextually specific to be generally reliable. The problem is that I don't see anyone ever using dictation today. There's a number of reasons (accuracy, privacy) but they don't really matter. Until voice message takes off, messaging on the watch is not very useful.
The largest Achilles heel of dictation on the watch, however, is correcting the inevitable mistakes. There's no easy way to do it from the watch. Overall, the poor experience of attempting to reply to messages from the watch will drive users to simply revert to taking out their phone by default.
3) Apps (photos, maps)
While Apple demonstrated how to use a few apps, what they didn't explain is why I would want to. They didn't sell the idea to me about how using maps or photos is a better on the watch than it is on the phone. For example, in maps you can pan, zoom, search, and get directions. Just like you can on the iPhone; just like you can on the iPad. It was sold as a better experience on the iPad due to the larger screen. By the same logic, is it then a worse experience on a smaller screen? As they demonstrated the apps (and when Tim talked about Apple team members using the watch as a TV remote, etc.) all I could think of was, "Ok I guess you could, but...why?"
Overall, my impression of the Apple watch is comparable to a calculator watch. It seems exciting at first, but once the novelty wears off you realize that you'd much rather just use a regular calculator instead. At first it's, "maps... on my watch!", but after awhile, it's more like "where's my phone...".
I feel like Apple has crammed too much functionality into the device instead of focusing its functionality on what it can do better than the phone, such as the glances. The result is a mostly a redundant device which does a lot of things that your phone does (except worse), instead of a true companion device that just does a few things better than your phone does.
