The One Really Important Apple Watch Thing

While the cellphone, with its constantly updated and
accurate clock, nearly killed the wristwatch, the Apple
Watch gizmo actually will revive it. In fact, I think the
attention that the Apple Watch will bring to our wrists will
spark sales of traditional watches.
Why?
I believe there is a latent desire to have a wristwatch --
to have the convenience of the time on your wrist without
the need to pull out your smartphone and ignore the world
around you. I think -- hope -- that the Apple Watch
actually will lead people to slow down the movement of
hand to pocket and pocket to face.
Look Who's Here
Right now, we're constantly engaging with people around
the world through screens , but utterly ignoring those next
us -- even our families. We check our weather apps
before we think to look at the sky.
Walk through a college campus, a park, a school -- and
the dominant posture is of a human looking at a smartphone.
A wristwatch, though, is somehow more rooted in the here
and now, as well as in the past -- was it a gift? Yet
watches also speak to the future. A sense of when . A
reminder about when you'll be doing your next thing.
The clock on a smartphone doesn't command this same
effect. Maybe this is too subtle for a generation of kids, but
I'm not so sure. Watches are part style, part talisman, part
getting dressed for the day and having a broader awareness
of what you're doing -- not what you're messing with on a
bright and shiny screen.
I am certain that some men, for instance, will look at the
soft and gentle curves of the Apple Watch, at the bouncy
emoticons, at the gentle bands, and instead will turn to a
more traditional watch. They will choose a watch that is
not smart -- one that is utterly utilitarian. They will
choose one that has been crafted and created to exist as a
watch and nothing more.
Personally, I'm a huge Apple fan, and I'm already on the
lookout for a watch that is not an Apple Watch. I'll know
it when I see it.
Surges vs. Throbs
Meanwhile, something else is going on with the Apple
Watch, and I'll end up buying one because of my job.
Sure, I might have to replace the softly pretty bands with
one that I have to hand-forge from barbed wire, but I'll
buy one -- and I'll attempt to use it in all of its high-
maintenance gotta-charge-it-every night way.
That's because it's the real beginning of something radically
new. So what is radically new? What is the innovation
that truly matters?
It's not Apple Pay through a watch. It's not tickets and
passes through a watch. It's not maps on your wrist with
turn-by-turn vibration directions. The most important thing
doesn't have anything to do with HealthKit or the Health
app or how many stairs you climb in a day. It won't even
be the ability to monitor blood sugar, or access health or
sickness indicators through your skin.
The most important catalyst to come out of Cupertino will
be communication. It has to do with bringing humans
closer together through touch -- Apple's so-called Taptic
Engine will be key.
The Taptic Engine produces haptic feedback through taps
and vibrations. The duration and strength of taps and
vibrations will produce different kinds of recognizable
sensations for different kinds of activities. If you press down
on the display, you can feel the Apple Watch react. If you
turn the Digital Crown in a particular app, you can feel
something aligned with the action you're performing on the
screen in an app.
Apple has combined different kinds of engagement with subtle
audio cues, too. It's this sort of haptic engagement that
might keep a good many people from ditching their exercise
efforts, for instance.
Today, many people who buy fitness bands abandon them
within weeks. If your fitness apps communicate through
touch and vibrant sound, the Apple Watch has the potential
to create sustainable habits. Think Pavlov's dogs for humans
or Charles Duhigg and The Power of Habit.
It has danger, of course, because walking by a Starbucks
could produce a special little tickle and result in a surprising
price on a new seasonal cup of coffee that then rewards you
with a blast of sugar and caffeine. Pretty soon your coffee
habit is even more powerfully connected to your life.
Still, where there is darkness, there also is light.
Communication.
Apple is trying hard to turn the Apple Watch into a device
people use to communicate with in intimate ways. The
ability to send your throbbing heartbeat to a loved one is a
good example of that -- at once cheesy and stupid... until
your wife is laying in bed in a hospital far away while
you're back at home taking children to soccer and struggling
to keep the kids engaged with homework.
This sense of remote touch has the power to connect us far
more intimately than FaceTime, far more intimately than
text and multimedia messages.
Apple's little drawings that you can send to another Apple
Watch user are silly right now, but what about in a few
years, when you might be able to run your finger over the
wrist band and send the feeling to your spouse while you're
working late at night yet again? What if you could squeeze
your wrist so your son could feel it before a big event
while you're traveling on business?
We are so far apart these days, and the Apple Watch will
be a catalyst to bring us closer together.
Love and Then Some
Enough with the love, right -- there's far more at play
with communication than simply missing someone.
Imagine how Apple's Taptic Engine could be used to create
sensations at a concert. You already can feel the energy in
the air and sometimes the music itself, but what if you could
feel the beat more directly, in tune with your eyes and
ears?
What if you go to a NASCAR race and can feel the
thrum of your favorite driver's engine as the car dives into
corners and throttles out to pass?
What if your favorite hockey player's stick sent tactile
feedback to thousands of fans as it tapped and controlled the
puck before a powerful goal shot? Tap tap tap, the defense
is raging, and BAM -- the goal shot.
The Apple Watch is the start of feeling what fans are
already seeing.
This sort of immersive communication is far from the masses
right now, but the Apple Watch will become the most
important catalyst. At some point, a scary movie is going to
reach out and touch viewers -- even in the comfort of
their own homes -- to ratchet up the suspense.
The key isn't retrofitting entire stadiums or movie theaters
with vibrating chairs. It'll come from developers and the
Apple app ecosystem, and the size of the Apple Watch
market will become the least common denominator that will
drive the experience and potential for profit.
Communication through the Apple Watch will start out
small and intimate -- and then it will percolate into mass
communication.
This is why I believe the Apple Watch is such a game
changer. Fashion? It's just a speed bump on the journey to
something else entirely.

Source:TechNewsWorld.com