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Apple Watch truly is the most personal device Apple has ever made

By Alvin Soon - on 18 Sep 2014, 5:15pm

For the past week I’ve been thinking about why the Apple Watch exists. Who is it for? What is it for? Which problems does it solve?

Last night I wondered if I was going about this the wrong way; trying to project from now into the future. What if I tried looking from the future backward to today?

From that perspective, several things about Apple Watch become clearer.

One day soon, people are going to look back at today and wonder how we could live with so many dumb devices in our lives. Of course nearly everything should be smart and connected. Of course your front door should open automatically the moment you walk in. Of course your TV should know what you were just watching on your PC and continue where you left off. Of course you should be able to order groceries from your fridge. Of course you should be able to just walk through the train station’s gate by waving your smartwatch over the turnstile.

When you look at it that way, it doesn’t matter that Apple Watch does so little for now. It’ll only be one in a multitude of accessories which will eventually become smart devices. The Watch, or any of the currently ‘dumb’ objects in your life, doesn’t have to do everything your smartphone does. It just has to do two things well as a smart accessory: embed itself in your life, and do a few key things more conveniently than other devices.

When you think about it that way, besides telling the time, communicating and tracking your physical activity, there are three things that Apple Watch can do well: it will know you are who you are, it can tell others where you are, and it will always be on you.

 

1. Apple Watch knows who you are

The Watch knows who you are because of Apple Pay. Announced during the same keynote as Apple Watch, Apple Pay is Apple’s own NFC-based wireless payment system, which will be rolling out in the US in over 220,000 retail stores.

Whenever you put your Watch on, you’ll need to key in a personal PIN to verify that it’s you. Then, as long as you don’t take the Watch off — the Watch monitors continuous skin contact via its sensors — it’ll know that it’s still you using the Watch.

When you have your credit cards stored in Apple’s Passbook iOS app on your iPhone, you can then pay for items at stores with wireless payment, using your paired Apple Watch. Tap the button below the digital crown, hold it close to the NFC payment terminal and you’re done.

Apple’s privacy and security model is sophisticated, and beyond the scope of this post. But Apple Pay is potentially safer than existing plastic cards which have your card number and security code printed in the open. And when you use Apple Pay, Apple won’t even know what you bought, where you bought it from and how much you paid for it.

Apple taking privacy seriously is good news, if your Watch is ever used as an identifier beyond just using your credit cards. In the near future, your Watch could be used as a way to tell other devices that you are indeed you, without anyone keeping track of the fact afterwards.

 

2. Apple Watch knows where you are

In mid-2013, Apple introduced iBeacon, a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology which lets devices (beacons) sense when iPhones are nearby and send push notifications to them.

Here’s an example: if you have a store’s app installed on your iPhone and you allow it to use your location, when you walk into a store with beacons installed they can sense your iPhone, and send notifications to it for things like special offers.

iBeacon technology has already been deployed in the United States. Major League Baseball installed beacons in 28 MLB ballparks across the US last year, and Macy’s has announced plans to install more than 4,000 beacons in its stores across the US.

When you think of Apple Watch as a way to send and receive message notifications like SMS, it seems remarkably limited: after all, how many people really want to read and reply to messages on a small screen?

But with iBeacon, Apple Watch might usher in a new kind of notification: the location-specific, micro-notification. When you walk into a store, you might be annoyed after pulling out your iPhone from your bag, only to discover that you’d just received a notification from the store instead of from a friend.

With Apple Watch however, being able to simply glance at your wrist as you stroll down the mall reduces the friction of such micro-notifications, and increases the chances that you’ll see a notice you’ll actually want to act on.

 

3. Apple Watch will always be on you

Today, it seems that the one electronic device that’s always on us is our phone — but is it really? There are times when we leave it aside, perhaps it’s in the bedroom when we’re cooking in the kitchen, or maybe it’s on our office desk charging as we get some water.

A watch, however, is nearly always on you. Once you put it on for the day, it’s unlikely that you’ll take it off until you go to sleep. Today’s Apple Watch is a limited device: you’ll probably need to take it off every night and charge it as a necessity.

But we’re looking back at today from the future, remember? It’s inevitable that as computers become smaller and batteries stronger, we’ll start wearing more and more connected gadgets on our bodies (if you’ve seen the movie Her, it provides a good idea of how this could eventually happen).

The wrist is a good place as any to start, and it’s not impossible that a future Apple Watch may be a long-lasting, durable band, which you hardly need to take off, and is with you more often than an iPhone.

 

The magical Watch from the future

When I put these three elements together and push myself into the future, I imagine something like this:

One day soon, you’ll wear an Apple Watch around your wrist. You only take it off occasionally; as it’s comfortable, durable, and the battery lasts a long time. It even tracks your sleep patterns for you, so you just wear it to sleep.

Once Watch senses you’re awake, it tells your smartlights to switch on, and puts your smartkettle to boil. After your shower, you walk into the living room, and your smartTV automatically switches on to show you the daily news. You don’t feel like watching the news today, so you tell Watch to start playing this new album you just bought, using the TV’s sound system.

After breakfast, you leave the house, and when your devices sense that your Watch has left, they all switch off. Your car senses that your Watch is approaching, so it unlocks the car and starts the engine. Watch tells the car that you were listening to a song when you left the house, and it starts streaming the same song as you drive.

At work, as you wait for your iMac to boot up, you start composing an email on your iPhone. Once your iMac’s email app is open, you put down your iPhone and continue writing the same email right where you left off.

On the way home from work, Watch senses that you’re near the supermarket, and pings you a reminder to buy shampoo. As you browse through the supermarket, Watch shows you a list of special offers sent by the store. You aren’t really interested and leave, tapping your Watch to the NFC terminal to pay.

As you walk by the pet store however, you receive a notification that the treats you always buy for your dog are on sale. You decide to pop in and grab a couple of bags. As you prepare to leave, Watch tells you that your good friend’s Watch is also in the same building, so you call her on Watch and ask if she wants to grab dinner.

That night, Watch tells you that you only reached 80% of your daily walking goals that day, so you make it a point to get off your chair more tomorrow. At around 10 PM, Watch reminds you that you should go to sleep early tonight to make up for the late night you pulled yesterday. You think that’s a good idea, so you lie down and tell Watch to switch off all the smartlights in your house. You go to sleep, and dream of a time when watches, lights and kettles used to be just dumb devices.

 

The future is already here

I realise my daydream sounds far-fetched, and it may be years before it happens, if it even does. Plus, it’s all speculation based on the little we know about Apple Watch today.

But what strikes me about this hypothetical future is how Apple already has the building blocks in place to make this future a reality, with Watch, Apple Pay, iBeacon, and a host of other technologies, like HomeKit, HealthKit, and Continuity.

And that’s why Apple Watch both does and doesn’t have to be a big deal. In the future, it’ll simply be another one of several smart devices we use day in and day out. Watch doesn’t have to be the next iPhone, just like how the iPad didn’t have to be the next MacBook. It just has to do a few key things more conveniently, and to become a regular part of our lives.

The magic of the Watch won’t lie in its smartphone-like functions, but in the ways it isn’t like the smartphone. And I believe the magic will lie in the way that it knows who you are, it can tell others who you are, and will always be with you. In this sense, Apple Watch will truly be the most personal device that Apple has ever made.

Alvin Soon

Alvin Soon / Former Deputy Editor

I like coffee and cameras, but not together.

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