I did something the other day I hadn’t done for probably a year.
While sitting across a desk, doing an interview, I slyly turned my wrist and cast a glance. Remarkably, I then knew what time it was.
This was odd, because for the past several years I have relied on my iPhone as my personal timepiece. This eliminated carrying a secondary device, like a watch, which also has the ability to tell time. However, fishing a smartphone out of your pants pocket then pushing a button to turn it on is socially awkward in the extreme. It broadcasts the message, “I’m really not interested in you, but rather what time it is so I can leave.”
About the only thing worse is then proceeding to text someone else.
Over the years I have accumulated a number of watches. I hadn’t realized how many until I finally dug through my desk junk drawer and found six non-functional watches. There were six, all dead for various reasons, but the primary one being the battery. Surely, I must be able to salvage something out of this collection.
So off to the jeweler I went, dropping them off for servicing. They were able to resurrect four of the six for all of $32.
One was rather telling in its age. The Timex thought it was 1996.
This watch was rather unique, a Timex Data-Link Ironman Triathlon. It was one of the first “smartwatches.”
With an optical sensor on the watch face, you could hold it in front of your cathode ray tube computer monitor as a sequence flashed on the screen. This would transfer appointments and phone numbers to the watch. Versions of this watch were worn by astronauts on the space shuttle. There was even a special optical adapter to use with LCD-equipped laptop computers.
Pretty spanky stuff for the mid-1990s, especially since next week we should see the new Apple watch released, just 19 years after my Timex. Apparently it can store phone numbers, too, and maybe even a few alarms.
The modern smartphone can do so many things it really has eliminated the need for secondary devices. It may not be perfect, but it’s often good enough. Those devices include a dumb-phone, pager, camera, video camera, e-book reader, GPS, laptop, watch, flashlight, pedometer, day planner, mobile DVD player, Gameboy, address book, notepad, Walkman, radio… you get the point. But it has not fixed the issue of its awkwardness. Thus, I am wearing a watch again.
I wonder how the new Apple watch will change this paradigm. First of all, it needs to be charged daily. I wonder if it will be able to make a full day of heavy usage. If an iPhone is any indication, the answer will be no.
It will replace some, but not all, of the functionality of the smartphone, which itself has replaced some, but not all, of all those other devices.
What it will do is deposit a pile of money into Apple’s coffers. It won’t be as successful as the iPhone/iPad/iPod, but it will take off.
It’s taken nearly 20 years to go from the Timex Datalink to the Apple Watch. Apple just has to make something good enough to convince people to wear watches again.
— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
