So the Apple watch will soon be available in stores. I’m sure Apple aficionados will wait in line overnight to get their hands on one of these, or rather, one of these on their hands. But I’m still trying to figure out what this product is. Watches went out of fashion when phones became ubiquitous. So the company that dominates the smartphone business now wants you to buy a watch?
Watches switched from being a necessity to an accessory. Now Apple’s watches come in some 17 models that range from $349 (₹21, 638) to $17,000 ( ₹10, 54, 000) for you to decide what kind of a statement you want to make.
The price varies by size and type of wristband. That is unusual positioning, since Apple always made a statement with what the product could do and gave you limited choice of models We were prepared to pay a premium for the design and features, not because it came in a gold casing.
Since the watch will sell primarily to the existing iPhone user base, the product will now make a distinction between the plebeian Apple consumer and the one who drives up in a Porsche from the manor to stand in line outside the store. (You could always ask your butler to hold your place.)
Apple has hired executives from Yves Saint Laurent and Burberry, which are high fashion brands and they must know something I don’t. But as a luxury fashion item, for $17,000 I can buy myself one of those expensive Swiss watches that are advertised that you don’t really own it but look after it for the future generations — your successors who will inherit it.
I doubt if my grandchildren will be looking forward to a watch whose operating system may have changed and whose chips may not be compatible with the apps of their time.
Sure, it’s not just a watch. It is a convenient means of accessing a lot of help and information without reaching into the bag or pocket to get the phone out. But it doesn’t work without the iPhone nearby, so you need to carry that other thing anyway.
The phone has several features. It can remind you of an appointment. You can pay with the watch, provided you subscribe to Apple’s pay system, and the shopkeeper does too. It can receive messages, but you cannot reply with another text; you can talk through it and hope the person who sent you the message is not sitting in a meeting and sneaked a message to you.
Will it tick?Apple has now shrunk the screen so you need to figure out a lot of tap and swipe instructions to get it to respond. If you have fat fingers, do not worry. The watch acts to help you get healthy; you can slim down by measuring the number of steps you take.
It is also supposed to be a platform for new software and apps. But it has only 18 hours of battery life so here is one more thing you will have to remember — re-charge.
The disappointment many Apple watchers face is that the watch only incorporates a lot of stuff already available in other wearables or on smartphones. There is no innovation that jumps out and drags you to the store.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, works under this cloud, first cast by his iconic predecessor, Steve Jobs, that he is not a product man. He is an operations man.
Here is his chance to prove that he can come up with products too, but Jobs created products that people did not know they wanted till they saw them. So Cook has put a whole lot of stuff into the watch, hoping something will click.
The writer is a professor at Suffolk University, Boston, and Jindal Global Business School, Delhi NCR