OK, so I took the 2 hours to watch the whole keynote. Here’s my takeaway, specifically with regards to the Apple Watch. iPhone 6, 6 Plus, not too much to comment on. It’s a larger more round iPhone. I wouldn’t expect much change in iPhone…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Apple typically introduces industry leading and convention breaking products to big fanfare, but also a lot of misunderstanding. Original iPod was “too big, cost too much, was the same as others already on the market, etc.”.
Apple brings out new product/product categories often at the time when they know it will be only for early adopters, and often without a complete feature set and use case scenario. Apple if anything is great at building a user base and then supplying the ecosystem to support it that then tips it to mainstream use and function.
iPod came out with the only way to get music on it was by burning CDs in iTunes (very slowly). It wasn’t even on PC until later. iTunes store later filled the void and made the iPod make sense.
Original iPhone came out with no ability to add 3rd party apps. That wasn’t until later.
First AppleTV had to be connected to a computer and had no ability to purchase or rent directly from iTunes. It later could directly connect to the iTunes store and had 3rd party content like Netflix.
What links all these products is Apple finding a way to get more control and share of the $ in the consumers purchasing and connection with media. Nobody buys CDs anymore, or rents DVDs.
I see Apple Watch (and the only new feature on iPhone) with Apple Pay the secret killer app that will make Apple rich and open a new future where they are involved in all transactions, not just renting movies and buying music. The watch is just an enabler of this.
That said, I personally am not interested. And I’m the usual early adopter. Bought the very first iMac, iPod when it came out, the first iPhone, the first iPad… Maybe I’m just old, but I still see a choice of watch as very personal, and point of self-expression and that “function” trumps a few limited ways to interact with a watch that a digital watch provides. I don’t think it will be that great for real fitness tracking (and I wouldn’t want to wear a rubber watch daily, and the stainless band wouldn’t be so great to run with). I have no problems checking messages on my phone. I don’t need to see it instantly on my watch (i’m not a doctor where seconds are life or death). I don’t have anyone I want to share my heartbeat or draw pictures of stick figures with. And the home screen circles are ugly. Not vomit inducing, just childish.
For me, I could almost get behind the watch if it did less. An awesome digital watch (I really like the graphics for the faces), with the NFC payment + a higher build quality that made it more unique and expensive. Maybe some additional sort of smart feature that was GPS based to control my NEST or lighting or door locks.
R