Introducing The Apple Watch(es): Apple’s Move Into Customizable Wearables

Apple Watches

Today, Apple pulled back the veil on a plethora of new products at their annual September event. Typically, the showpiece of these events is the new iPhone; the company’s crown jewel, and primary money-maker.

This event was a little different.

Sure, the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were talked about, but they were almost rushed over; you could almost feel a palpable tension that these two iPhones were a mere appetizer, a precursor to a much larger main course.

In the end, the Apple Watch was that main course.

Described as “their most personal product ever”, the Apple Watch is a companion to the iPhone that serves up a mixture of time functions, health and fitness tracking features, notifications, messaging, and mobile payments.

Digital Crown on the Apple Watch

Apple also introduced an interesting new way to control their newly-announced watch, with a combination of touch (both traditional swipes/taps and a firmer ‘force touch’), with motion sensors, and by rotating a watch crown mounted on the right side of the device.

They’re calling this a ‘Digital Crown’, and it’s used to zoom through the interface, whiz through lists and menus (a bit like the iPod’s click wheel) and much more. It also doubles as a home button. Finally, there’s also a sleep/wake-esque button which gives you instant access to your favourite contacts.

Inside, Apple have included a vibrating motor to deliver notification buzzes, though they claimed they are ‘very subtle, like someone tapping you on the wrist’. The underside of the watch is also packed with 4 sensors which can pick up on your heartbeat, to provide heath info. The backside is also where the watch will be charged, using a magsafe-like magnetised contact.

The watch itself will come in two sizes (38mm and 42mm in height), and is also available in 3 variants Apple is calling a ‘collection’. Eschewing Apple’s previous tendency to create a ‘one-size-fits-most’ product, the Apple Watch comes with a huge variety of options to choose from.

One of the 'spensive ones

Let’s talk about options — Apple has split this product into 3 distinctive collections.

  • Apple Watch (the vanilla version). Made from polished stainless steel. Looks like the one you’d pick for an everyday wear.
  • Apple Watch Sport. Lighter, and made of anodized aluminium. Pick this one if you’re a runner, athlete or are really stoked on the health/fitness features.
  • Apple Watch Edition. Made from 18-karat gold. This is the formal, or fancy-looking (and presumably expensive) one.

There’s also 6 bands to choose from, including 3 leather bands, a Milanese-style loop, a stainless steel link bracelet-style band, and a rubber sport band in 5 colours (they’re calling it fluoroelastomer, because fancy).

Those poor bastards at the Apple Store are going to have SKUs out the wazoo.

Price-wise, they’ve only made one announcement; they start at US$349. We don’t know much more than that. We also don’t know how long the battery will last, which presumably means it’s not very impressive.

And what about features? Well, obviously timekeeping is a biggie. That will be covered by 11 watch faces, which you can tailor to your liking.

Apple Watch Messages

There’s also a bunch of messaging features, like smart reply to messages, dictation to Siri, and custom emoji. You can also ‘tap’ somone a custom message, draw them a doodle, or even send them your heartbeat. You can also do walkie-talkies! That’s cool.

Obviously, there’s a ton of health features, a lot of which tie back into the new iOS 8 Health app.

Also very interesting is the mobile payments stuff with Apple Pay, so if you still want to do NFC payments, but don’t want to pony up for a new iPhone, this might be a way to do that. Details are still a bit light on with this stuff however, and it’s not entirely clear how you’d authenticate a payment with no Touch ID on the watch itself.

Finally, Apple also announced WatchKit, a new SDK so developers can start building apps for this new platform. This may be one of the features of the Apple Watch with the largest ramifications into the future. Apps are important, yo.

So, is this Apple Watch going to be Apple’s next unstoppable money-making juggernaut? I don’t think so; at least not in the short term. This is a product that works as an accessory to the iPhone, not a stand-alone product. All told, it’ll be another feature of the iOS ecosystem, and probably help sell a boatload more iPhones, which might be exactly what Apple want.

It’s a solid start into an increasingly-crowded wearable market, and where it goes in the future? Only time will tell.

Only time will tell. Time. You know, cos it’s a watch. Haaaaa. I’ll see myself out.

God, I’m tired.