I'm hardly a luddite. I have a 24TB RAID server on a managed switch. There are seven computers in this house, one of which exists solely to tune my motorcycle. I use seven email addresses regularly and maintain a couple dozen more for special purposes. And I'm deeply entrenched in Apple's ecosystem: five of those computers are OEM Apple, one of them is a Hackintosh and one of them exists solely to tune my motorcycle. We've been on iPhones since 2008. My wife has an iPad. And up in the recesses where hard drives go, I have a Gen 1 iPod, Firewire port and all (but more on that in a minute).
And I like watches. Not a crazy amount - but when I was five I got one for my birthday (a date I share with the iPod, incidentally). That and the Swiss Army Knife i got at Christmas were my first two harbingers of adulthood. I haven't been without a watch since.
And the watches I like aren't exactly conventional.
I own two of these - an original World Watch and a Zulu in titanium and rose gold. They're fiddly. They have two batteries. I have to send them down to Bjorn, the company's sole proprietor, every year or so for tune-ups. And they're digital, which means real watch collectors look down their noses at them. But it tells me things I like to know and people often ask me about my watch. I once had a 15-minute conversation with Cee-Lo Green about watches, and he was wearing an Arctica.
So I kinda feel like I'm missing something on this Apple Watch.
But hey - I remember when the iPod came out. It was f'ing insane that anybody would pay double the price of an Archos Jukebox for half the storage. And "iTunes Music Store?" How clunky was that? Who the hell would pay for MP3s? My little Gen1 iPod was a gift from the same guy who gave me my Archos. He'd jettisoned the 10GB Jukebox for a 5GB iPod and then the 5GB iPod for a 10GB iPod and couldn't get enough of the stupid thing. I didn't really "get" the iPod until I'd used it for a day or so. And there are a whole bunch of people just going batshit over the Watch.
There are a whole bunch of people shitting all over it, too. Pando has been pointing out for several months now that the total market penetration of the wearables market is less than 3%, whatever that means. But then, Pando shits all over everything anyway. I think it's their mission statement. There were people who shit all over the iPod. There were people who shit all over the iPhone. There were people who shit all over the iPad.
So this isn't a "I want to shit all over the Watch" post. This isn't a "I want to jizz all over the Watch" post, either. This is a
Hey, we've got a lot of clever kids on here that are a lot hipper than me, maybe they can explain the allure of this device
post.
'cuz here's my perspective: I read about the Watch all day and it has me surfing eBay for vintage Omega Speedmasters. I read about Pay and it's got me realizing I need a new wallet (the leather kind). I look down at my wrist and feel naked 'cuz Bjorn has my Zulu and my dad has my Worldwatch and I'm waiting for it to get here so I can send 'em both in at once. And I realize that all that wonderful data that the Watch can give me... just isn't something I need.
And I run. Every day. And I've got seven email accounts on my phone. And I maintain 5 different Google calendars. But I just don't see why I need to spend $350 on a watch I have to charge every night just so I can send smudgy pictograms to my wife.
Do you?
That gesture thing might be damn handy if your native language is ideogrammatic. Maybe the Watch is for the Chinese. Getting a notification every time you get a friend request on Facebook might be awesome if you give a shit about Facebook. Maybe you really... want to browse your iPhoto library on your wrist?
See, I see all the solutions the Watch presents. I just don't see the problems they solve. But I wasn't into the iPod and I wasn't into the iPad (and still aren't). The iPhone? Oh fuck that one I was into. I'd been running Windows smartphones for 3 years at that point and knew exactly what bullshit they were. So I'm willing to recognize that:
- I'm probably an old fart
- that's set in his ways
- and am missing the obvious implications of this revolutionary device
- if only I'd put down the buggywhip for a minute.
So, gentle Hubskiers of less advanced age - what am I missing? 'cuz y'all are the future. This thing was created for you, not for me. Why do you want one? What's the killer app? 'cuz Apple hasn't really airballed in a major way since the iPod Hi Fi (and that thing is fuckin' dope - I've bought my mother-in-law two of them).
Everything has a place. Help me figure out where the Watch belongs.