Apple’s Mistake - The Future Of Wearables Is Simple.

Another Apple event, another Apple Watch, faster, brighter, swimproof, added GPS, but what if doing less would actually add more? 

In a world of smartphones, Smart Watches, the only tech to adorn our bodies, have one key job and it’s not telling the time, it’s telling the world who we are. Discounting the gold variant, moving towards sports and away from Luxury, Apple seem to be honing it on it being a more functional device with more activity based use cases, but it’s still not adding up.

The failure of wearables to ignite the public imagination quite how device makers wanted them to, is in huge part because of how excellent smart phones are. We’ve entered a phase were our phones have become the central way to do everything. At a time when car makers want us to order pizza from our cars or use them as wallets, and fridges become places to make phone calls, maybe we should just accept that phones become the primary screen for virtually everything around us. 

Maybe it’s time to consider wearables in the context of other devices we own, to focus on optimizing for things smartphones can’t do, to design for items that complement each other, I think of this as the idea of personal device ecosystems. Not what watches do, but how our TV’s, Tablets, Laptops, Phones and perhaps even a connected speaker can work together as a system, and how software, hardware and services can work across them. How the system can become far greater than it’s parts, not riddled with redundancy and compromises.

To best understand this shift we need to look back at how electronics have developed, four phases; analogue expansion, digital convergence, digital optimization and next, integrated systems.

Analogue Expansion

Prior to the digitization of media around the end of the 20th century electronic devices were very different to today. Media was all physical and named after the physical device we needed to consume the media on. 

Around 1995 ( thanks to working part time in a electrical retailer) I owned a TV, a VHS player, a Walkman, Discman, a Cordless Phone, Desktop Computer, a CD player, A Radio, a HiFi and more. Every new year would bring some new technology and some new additive way to be entertained, 1997 it was a minidisc player, 1998 a laserdisc, 2000 a DVD player. We entered a phase of peak device. Record stores often forced to sell several physical formats of the same album at the same time.

Digital Convergence

Digitization changed all that, we moved an age where physical media only got more simple. My iPod replaced 3 music devices, before my Nokia N95 and then my iPhone allowed me to throw away bucketloads of items, not least a vast physical music collection. Old folk of today may moan about a throwaway generation or the excess of a $1000 smartphone, but the value they’ve replaced is far greater and we’ve never hoarded less stuff. People can now play computer games, access TV, navigate the world with no need to own anything. My Lonely Planet guidebook collection in my parents house is a rare glimpse into the legacy of an expensive, bulky pre-digital age.

Digital Optimization

From the Nokia 770, to the iPad and the tablets that followed or even the NetBook movement of 2008, we saw a slow shift away from convergence and the intrinsic compromised nature of one device that did it all, to a shift to optimization and specialization.

Device makers found spaces. What about phones perfected for entertainment? or Laptops optimized for media consumption, not media creation? We saw categories of devices created for the very real need state for media on the go. 

What we’ve seen since then is device makers looking to find other gaps, to find products specific enough to quench an exact underserved need state, but not so small as to be niche. 

We’ve seen devices like the Google ChromeCast make TV far better, we’ve seen connected scales to weight us and tell us the weather, or Phillips Hue lightening and the Sonos Soundbar, all wonderful examples of items perfected to suit the needs of "today's demanding consumer". And this is where Smartwatches have played.

Yet if you look at each and every Smartphone on the market, the use cases remain slight. With few exceptions these watches have large bright colored screens, requiring large batteries, forcing large cases and demanding frequent recharging. They use relatively heavy operating systems requiring yet more power, and armed with this powerful foundation they offer an array of complex and impressive uses, that few people want. It’s a process where use cases seem to follow what’s possible on a device, not what normal people want. Is video calling from the wrist a great way to connect, do I want to view images from my 2 inch screen, I can order a Burito from an app so long as I press 12 minute buttons perfectly and I do have a mouth which does that job fine.

If we were to rethink the smartwatch we’d first start with people, and we’d think of the world in which they live, which is increasingly one of items as systems.

Personal Digital Systems.

While I’m no fan of the Apple brand or their products, Apple have me caught up in their “system”, my Apple TV works well with my iPhone and my work and home MacBooks play nicely with each other. I know between the apps, music and films I have on their platform migration would be a pain, but a leap I’m increasingly willing to take. 

We see increasingly devices become “relatively” dumb and simple, they’ve moving to become access points to the intelligence and storage of the cloud. We’ve all laughed at the apocryphal quote from Thomas Watson that he saw only a market for 5 computers in the world, but he was onto something. Increasingly the processing, the storage, the intelligence is in the cloud, devices merely becoming access points to that. 

Companies now realize that our experience of products is about access to this system, rather the delight of each machine alone and increasingly functionality is less a question of hardware but of partnerships and software, what makes Apple pay valuable is that you can use it in so many places. We’ve even now new breeds of devices, items like the Amazon Echo which is as item little more than a cheap speaker, but is effectively a right to access the smartness of a system Amazon has built in the cloud and partnerships it’s formed with companies to provide value from that. There is no greater example of an additive product, that’s entirely about an ecosystem. 

If we were to remake a Smartwatch today it would be along the principles of systems. It would be about fitting in with everything else we own and looking to duplicate nothing. 

What should the smartwatch become?

The smartwatch should become three things, a small screen to give you glancable nudges and notifications to reduce phone use, a data input device to allow you track your movements and behavior & lastly an external interface with the modern world. 

Our starting point would be that it needs to be small and have a tiny screen, it would be designed to work in primarily in partnership with a phone. It would instantly likely need less charging, and have more elements to it that could modular and different. This would be a device that allowed people to express themselves. While it would tell the time, it would be easier to think of this as a smart-band, not watch. 

1) The screen would be such that it would be optimized for not for reading but glanceability. It should be designed only to show simple messages, a nudge to tell you to turn right, a buzz to tell to change direction, the first 20 words of a text message, the time, your next appointment, key contextual information that would bubble up. We don't need to see photos, to have complex apps, that lives far better in the uncompromised world of the phone.

2) Data capture would be the second use, like any fitbit or the Microsoft band or the Huawei watch, the device should record heart rates, steps, and the usual array of health data, that you’d access on your smart phone. This super personal information would be access on the phone, the device merely serving as the measurer of key intimate data.

3) The final and as yet unleashed aspect would be the interface with the modern world. This would be more like a pay and security band. The maker would work with hotels to allow the device to open hotel doors, work with Android or Apple pay to allow it to pay for things. Work with IOT companies for it to unlock car doors, deactivate home security. It should turn your wifi on your phone on as you come home, change light settings as you enter rooms, load up favorite radio stations as you sit in the car. Display boarding barcodes for flights.

It would become everything in your wallet in a band, from office security passes, to credit cards and loyalty cards, the next-gen smart watch needs reduce the need for both phones and wallets and ID cards.

And this is where the most work is to be done. We keep thinking advancements come from hardware, from better cameras, thinner devices, better waterproofing. Some think it's software and hardware, better image processing, smarter nudges, better apps.

I think real advancements come from systems. It's hardware, software, systems and companies coming together. Why can't I see all my receipts for purchases on my phone? Why can't I use my iPhone to enter the subway and be charged for the routes I take? Why can't my gym store all workout information for me and give me personalized health plans? Why can't Siri control my Sonos? Why won't the Apple TV and the Phone let me buy things from TV ads with TouchID?

It's the joining up where the work is to be done and the progress is to be made, and the Apple watch or other wearables could be a tiny huge part of this.

Cheers, Happy Reading

Gagan Malhotra