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Apple Watch Still Waiting On App Developers
An anonymous reader writes: It's been almost three months since the Apple Watch launched, and the tiny device hasn't taken people's wrists by storm. That's not to say it's a failure — experts estimate Apple has sold between three and five million of them, and we may get more detailed sales information during their earnings call, tomorrow. But many major app developers are still missing from the Watch's catalog, and Apple doesn't have a good way of roping them into the new section of its ecosystem. "I don't know if we could get it all in there in a way that feels good and works well," said a Facebook executive. "Why would you look at a small picture when you can look at a large one on your phone?" said Snapchat's CEO. The app rush that hit phones and tablets is dampened for the Watch. For now, all Apple can do is improve their development toolkit and hope coders can figure out useful new wrist-based interactions.
Apple Watch is still a solution in search of a problem.
"wrist-based interactions"
The battery has gone flat :P
Summation 2
It comes down to one key business problem: these companies can't monetize a wearable. No one wants to see ads on their wrist. Facebook fears the Apple Watch. This could hit their top and bottom line.
It's been almost three months since the Apple Watch launched, and the tiny device hasn't taken people's wrists by storm. That's not to say it's a failure
Whether it is a failure or not depends upon Apple's expectations for the device.
If Apple Watch is selling at a rate of only one-tenth of what Apple expected, then it is indeed a failure.
This might bet the point at which Apple without Jobs falters.
You can't introduce the "revolutionary" new product and not have the killer use-case for it. You can't release "teh smartwatch" and have no idea of WTF people will use it for.
Wow, the ability to see my text messages without looking at my phone? Nope, not compelling.
The smartwatch has always felt like a gimmick with little utility for most people.
And this got cemented when they were selling the gold plated "gee but I'm a rich asshole" version. I'm pretty sure I've never heard a single person who could finish the sentence "I want a smart watch because ..." with anything substantive.
Android or Apple, I don't see any value in splashing out for something which they still are hoping someone will create the thing which makes it useful.
Sorry, no. Increasingly mobile consumer electronics are just vehicles for ads, analytics, and giving up my privacy ... and any app which makes use of this is more of the same. Some of us are moving to less digital crap in our lives, and not more.
This falls firmly in the camp of no defined purpose, no benefit, and not getting my money.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
On the other hand, you could have a watch loaded with a lot of mediocre apps that cause its power use to spike a lot, draining the battery and leaving you to charge it a few times a day. So either you end up taking the watch off once or twice a day or you end up with a cable linking your phone to your laptop or a wall charger.
Sounds like great options that are sure to drive adoption of the core product.
As a developer I hear people complain the watch does everything the phone is already used for, and that aside from aesthetic perfection of Yet Another Apple Device on ones person, there are a half-dozen android competitors that are easier to code for and arent tethered to apples comparatively draconian app store. Have other devs written anything interesting for it?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Meanwhile, my Pebble Time, which was recently released, has a ton of apps on it. And it lasts for 7 days, is 30m water proof, has an accelerometer for fitness or sleep tracking, and a microphone for text responding or other features. Oh, and a color display.
It connects to Android AND Apple devices. I can control music from it, read texts, check my calendar, and something else too, I can't quite remember, I think it has to do with a clock.. Oh well.
Why would I want an Apple Watch for more than twice the cost again?
1) Buy the Apple Watch
2) Spend days or weeks of work developing an app
3) Cross your fingers to hope it goes in Apple's store
4) See your app listed with dozens of others just like it including about a dozen free options
5) ???
6) Profit!
Why, a smaller screen, a wrist strap, and a device you have no idea what to do with but which you can try to brag to your friends about.
My guess is for a VERY large majority of people the smartwatch doesn't offer much of anything other than bragging rights.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Obligatory XKCD
I'll go out of my way to not buy a smart watch. It's uncomfortable to have something around your wrist, especially while typing. What the heck are you doing all day that you constantly need to know what time it is, or what the stock prices are, or what the weather is? A smartphone is accessed just as quickly as a pocket watch and will notify you when your appointments are coming up. Telling me what time it is before I need to know just makes me worry about what's coming up instead of focusing on what's going on right now.
Nuts to that. Less is more. Even once we have augmented reality, it shouldn't be popping up useless numbers and text - it should be seamless and unobtrusive, with the "killer apps" removing useless information like billboards from the world.
Background
- I'm a developer on iOS.
- My apps seem like good fits for apple watch (VLC Remote and VLC Streamer).
- I wear an apple watch.
Data:
Approximately nobody uses my apple watch app.
I don't use any apple watch apps.
My thoughts:
Having bought the watch, I can see why. It just isn't useful for quick interactions.
The default setting on the watch is that when you drop your wrist, it resets to the watch face, so every time you lift your wrist, you need to go to the launcher, find the app, launch it (wait some seconds) and then interact with the small screen.
There is an option to make the watch return to the point you left in the app - but in most cases, that isn't what you want for your watch. You do want it to show you the time when you lift your wrist 10 mins after you last used it.
On top of this, the things that could be useful like siri interaction are weak. Siri just doesn't work nearly as well as google now.
I keep wearing the watch because I like the activity monitor, but I don't even use my own apple watch apps.
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
The Apple Watch is useful for quick interactions - in the context of a longer activity, where it makes sense to lock in the screen on raise to the current app.
Going forward your own remote app will make more sense when you can tie into a complication, so the user can just raise the wrist, tap on the complication showing current play time and then open the app to control. It's really easy to set up multiple watch faces you switch between so I see where users would set up task specific faces that would let them jump to things relevant to that task.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Battery life is not a problem if you charge it each night.
And how do you propose I do that if I'm using it for sleep tracking?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
And like *I* said in the post you responded to, if you do forget you charge it while in the shower and that's enough to last the day easily.
In my experience 15 minutes of charging doesn't get it through the day, it isn't a magical battery that only need a few minutes charge a day.
But since all they do is track fitness they are inherently a niche market. There are many, many people who don't want to wear something that ONLY tracks fitness.
Actually most do more than that.
What's it's "killer app"?
You are someone who cannot see the forest for the trees. The killer app is metaphorically the forest.
No I'm just asking what you think its "killer app" is and you're trying to spin it off as a "the killer app is whatever you think it is" to avoid the question.
Or think of it this way - what is the "killer app" for the Computer?
In the business case it was spreadsheets, for the home user it was mostly web browsing and email.
The Smartphone?
Predominantly mobile web browsing and social networking. But the early ones it was mobile email.
So my point is the Apple Watch has no killer feature, it's a poor fitness tracker (heart-rate is often way off when I've compared it at the gym, sometimes it's pretty close though), step count is about as accurate as any other wrist-based pedometer (which is to say, not very) and aside from that the benefits are mostly around just not having to take the phone - that you have to have with you anyway - out of your pocket.
You don't have to justify yourself, if you like it then great. But I'm trying to work out what people are using it for that think it's so fantastic, having not spent money for mine I'm not subject to that bias of justifying it. It was a neat gimmick at first with the notifications and the extremely sappy "heartbeat sharing" but it doesn't seem to be particularly useful.