Why I'm not getting a watch
March 17, 2015
No Apple Watch for me. At least not yet. Partly that decision's due to my still painfully recent experience of breaking my iPhone. Partly it's that I've enjoyed not having to wear a watch these last few years. Partly it's because I'm uncomfortable with the obscene display of wealth the strangely named Edition edition represents. But mostly, mostly it's because I don't think anyone's worked out exactly what it is you're meant to do with an Apple Watch, let alone how.
People have called the interface confusing, but it's more than that for me. Apple have resisted attempts by developers to make notifications useful. No calculators, no buttons… unless the complaints are loud enough. As far as I can tell from the promos, apart from telling the time all you're meant to use your watch for is to get tinier versions of what are already pretty annoying notifications.
You've got mail! Meh, I've always got mail. A text! Only you'll need to get your phone out to reply, unless you're a spider with creepy spider fingers.(Are you? We should talk.)
Maybe it'll all work itself out. Maybe there's a killer app & a clear use case I haven't seen. I doubt those will appear with version one, which seems a remarkably uncompelling product to me, but they might. I'm not really anti-watch, I just haven't been sold on it. I'm willing to come around.
I don't suppose it'll matter either way. Apple will sell a metric bazillion of them. They'll be a hit because of course they will be. But what then? What's next? Because it feels a bit like Apple have run out of feature phones & Walkmans to revolutionise, and have started down the iPennyFarthing route. I hope I'm wrong about that.