Apple’s new Watch software, watchOS 3, isn’t just new software, it’s an admission that Apple had it all wrong when it came to interactions on the first-generation Apple Watch. It’s less of a revamp and more of a rescue of the Watch, an attempt to deconstruct the old software and to focus on the stuff that people actually care about.
It’s rare for Apple to be this forward.
watchOS 3 is just iterative design. Its what Apple always does.
Version one of most Apple products, especially software, and especially new platfrom software, is usually prettyy basic, missing features, full of (what is revealed in practice to be) clumsy design. Its the first best guess of how things should work.
Then based on real world use, user feedback and the time to do more work, Apple iterates, and polishes and embellishes. Sometimes it does a major reset and changes products very deeply.
Calling iterative design improvement an admission of failure is just silly clcik bait. Who gets everything, or even most things, right on the first go?
Its like saying version 15 of Photoshop is an admission that Adobe got version 1 wrong.
Nobody really knows what the potential of computers on the wrist are. I cant believe that one day fairly soon wearable computers (and the wrist seems a good place to wear them) wont be important. Whether the Apple watch will be a big player in the mainstreaming of wrist computing is not clear but they seem to have got off to a pretty strong start so are well postioned to be a big player. Lost to still play for here.
You got that right.
Exactly. Apple’s history is of taking a product category that already existed such as smart phones, tablets and PCs (although the PC only existed in the most embryonic form back in 1976) and then creating an Apple product that becomes the defining consumer product for that category. Apple then builds on that category defining design, as do almost all other companies in the product category, through iterative design. Usually if Apple introduces a product or design paradigm shift then pretty much all products in that category look like Apple’s within a few years.
“Apple’s history is of taking a product category that already existed…”
On keeping with their expertize, should wait for the IoT watch to come into existence, if at all…
Already ‘accompanied’ by IoT phones. Do we really need the Internet to be more invasive?
Calling a complete and utter ground-up rework of the entire user interface “iterative design improvement” is just silly Apple apologetics.
It reminds me somewhat of the first iPhone with its decision of only Web apps. I’m sure at the time it made sense, and was forward-thinking. The only problem was that it sucked big time. Shortly afterwards they brought native apps to the device. I think something similar is going on with the Apple Watch. At least they learn from their mistakes.
Eh, Apple fans have tended to tell a different story: Apple got the important parts — the UX — right at the first try. Support for third party apps wasn’t ready at all (it really lacked any security), but wasn’t needed for creating a desire for the device.
True. But trying to drive the watch concept -as understood globally- into an IoT appendix [Apple IoT] is still at this third iteration not click, but joke-bait.
The kind of IoT appendices privacy NGO are warning against.
As an Apple Watch owner since release, I really don’t think these changes are enough to make this device a valuable piece of technology. The changes will certainly make it better, but I don’t think they will move it over the must-have threshold.
I’m hoping that when they refresh the hardware new features will be unveiled. Personally, I’d like to see additional sensors that can be used for health and fitness features. GPS is essential for a watch that claims to be useful in the fitness realm. While not a very “dressy” watch, this Garmin is far, far more useful than an Apple Watch (for me, at least), and it comes without all the hyperbolic claims:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Forerunner-Running-Elevate-Notificat…
I guess that this is totally normal way of creating a new product category.
First do something that somewhat works, then gather user feedback and usage data and then recreate a product that makes sense and meets users expectations. So far the exception has been iPhone that was seemingly “right from the beginning” in a sense of general approach to the problem if smartphone.
“I guess that this is totally normal way of creating a new product category. ”
Yes, because no one had thought of making a Smart Watch before. Oh, wait…
wigry,
From the beginning…
You may not realize that the iphone was a web-only device. Initially, it was third party hackers who added the capability to download new apps from a repository. After this apple shifted gears a bit and created it’s own iphone app store about a year later.
Yeah, a lot of people seem to forget this. Limited capabilities aside however, there’s no denying that even the first generation iPhone set the trend for the way we’d interact with our smartphones. Capacitive screens rather than the crappy resistive/stylus combinations in previous Windows Mobile phones, if nothing else, shaped the entire future market and interaction model. They weren’t the first to do it, but they were the first to bring it to the mainstream market.
I live in a fairly affluent suburb close to a major university in Australia. I think I’ve seen one iWatch and a couple of Samsung watches being worn so far. I suspect 99% are gathering dust in drawers somewhere,
In this office of about 40 people 6 of us have iWatches and 1 person has the Garmin watch ( paired with an iPhone ). These are the ones being worn, no idea how many actually own them but not use them.
Someone had a gear at some point but they gave that up.
I personally very much like my Apple Watch though I agree that the apps are mostly too slow and much too difficult to use – mine is very helpful for notifications, fitness, navigation, apple pay and checking in at the airport.
The only smart watches I see out and about are moto 360’s and pebbles.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen an apple watch in person on person and not just in a display.
By far I see Pebbles the most.
The ‘Smart’ Watch is a solution that is looking for a problem.
When Apple puts its name on it, it gets a bit more of a honeymoon but it won’t help much in the long run.