Mote is a junior French major from Indianapolis.
In the same September 9th event that we saw the iPhone 6 and 6+ announced, Apple also revealed its newest endeavor in human integration with technology: the Apple Watch.
The watch, paired with Healthbook on your iPhone, can track the data of your life. Similar to the UP by Jawbone and the FitBit Flex, the Apple Watch can track your heart rate and physical activity such as running and walking distance.
After you work out, head over to the Healthbook app to see the data from your activity. It is displayed in interactive graphs that you can sort by day, week, month and year. By seeng this data laid out plainly in front of your eyes, you can better analyze and adapt your fitness schedule and routine to your specific needs.
The Apple Watch fits a niche market of digital health-related products that has already been developing over the past couple of years. By Apple’s integration of this functionality into their devices, we will see the market of digital health-related products expand even further through Apple’s vast consumer base and popularity.
Developers of iOS applications will have the ability to use the data from the Apple Watch to further integrate the functionality of their own apps into the watch. I’m sure that we will see many applications adopt the functionality of the Apple Watch to fit the needs of their users.
With an entire computer architecture on a single miniscule “S1” chip, the Apple Watch is sure to pack a punch of processing power.
In an Apple Press Release, CEO Tim Cook said that “Apple introduced the world to several category-defining products, the Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad, and once again Apple is poised to captivate the world with a revolutionary product that can enrich people’s lives. It’s the most personal product we’ve ever made.”
By insisting that the Apple Watch is the most personal product that the company has ever made, Cook has set high expectations, in my mind, of the quality and technological implications of this product and the market of the product itself.
Swiss watch makers were very quick to dismiss the idea that the Apple Watch would impact the sale or popularity of Swiss watches, suggesting that the watch would not enter into the luxury watch market. However, Vontobel watch industry analyst Rene Weber told Reuters: “(Apple Watch) is the first convincing smartwatch, and we believe it will impact the entire watch industry, but mainly at the low-/mid-end price level.”
In some capacity, it seems that watch makers should be worried.
Although UP and FitBit are in the business of health data, they lack the overall functionality of a watch. The Apple Watch will bridge the gap between the technology of UP/FitBit devices and the ease of use of iPhone. The Apple Watch will show us what the future of mobile personal devices are.
When the iPhone displaced Nokia as the top smartphone, it was called the ’Nokia moment’.
When the Apple Watch is released in early 2015, we’ll see whether this is the ‘Swatch moment’.