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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.
The battery has gone flat :P
Summation 2
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.
No one wants to see ads on their wrist.
No one wants to see ads anywhere, ever.
Doesn't seem to stop the advertisers, though.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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!
You can't introduce the "revolutionary" new product and not have the killer use-case for it.
Of course you can. VisiCalc didn't come along until 2 years after the Apple II debuted. PageMaker didn't come along until a year after the Apple Mac. And those were the killer apps for those computers.
I'm not sure what would count as the killer app for the PC. Maybe Microsoft Word? That was probably the most used app before the internet came along. Well the first version of Microsoft Word came along 2 years after the first IBM PC.
The smartwatch has always felt like a gimmick with little utility for most people.
I think that's fair. The question is: is the minority that does one big enough to make it a worthwhile product. And failing that, will there be a killer app that comes along later that does make the majority want one.
We'll know the answer to the first question tomorrow. Might take a couple of years for the second.
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.
"I'm not sure what would count as the killer app for the PC"
Spreadsheets. (Lotus Notes, Excel etc).
As far as word processing is concerned, in my time something called WordPerfect was the market leader.
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