As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the release of the iPhone, the category it blew up is starting to feel familiar. By now, an American who purchased a smartphone on contract in 2009 has not just bought but discarded at least three devices, and as smartphones mature, that is the reality of their use: to improve is to disappear just a little more. Aren’t we all just emailing and Instagramming and Facebooking and Snapchatting and WhatsApping and Angry-Birdsing anyway?
Not everyone needs an iPhone, but everyone needs a smartphone. The future of computing for most people is going to be inexpensive, commodity hardware, and we’re getting close to having commodity hardware that’s almost as good as the top-of-the-line in terms of experience. If I wasn’t so tied to iOS, I might give a shitphone a try.
I’m not proud of it, but I have an Instagram account. I had one before Facebook bought them, rage-deleted the account after the acquisition, and came crawling back when I realized none of my friends were seeing the cool pictures I posted on competing services. I’m not proud, but I want to be loved.
Lately, Instagram has been bugging me to turn on notifications, so that I’ll know if someone likes, comments, tags, or sends me an Instagram Direct message. It’s bugged me when I launch the app, and it’s bugger me on the activity screen. The latter was particularly egregious, as it had a teeny-tiny dismissal button, 1/4th the size of any reasonable tap target on an iPhone. It took me ten tries to make it go away, and I came very close to hitting the large, green, Fitts’s Law compliant button to turn notifications on.
There’s a frustrating trend among too many apps to let them have access to me at all times. Push notifications are a useful way to get people to open your app and do things, but too many apps abuse the privilege. As we move towards a context-based model of computing, and possibly to getting notifications on our wrists, control over what demands our limited attention is only going to become more important. I think about Google Now, and its model of the “right notification” at the “right time” makes sense, even though it’s failed to work for me as advertised. Google Now isn’t perfect, and the out-of-the box setup has too many irrelevant options that benefit their advertisers, instead of me, but they’re still light years ahead of anyone else in this space.
But, Instagram notifications aren’t contextually relevant. Facebook just wants my eyeballs to see more content, more ads, get more info about what I like, and sell that info to advertisers. That they need to be so aggressive and needy with their push notification… push… tells me that they’re having trouble getting the numbers they want. If they want to suck up more of my time, they should fix their broken content feed, get better at dealing with spambots, and stop forcing workarounds for sharing URLs in comments. Make the platform better, not more needy, and the eyeballs will come… though perhaps they ran the numbers and think push notifications are more effective. In which case, I’ll grumble and deal with it.
I get enough out of Instagram to suck it up and fight to use the app in peace. I don’t get enough out of most other apps that needfully beg for the opportunity to interrupt. I’m sure I’m not the only frustrated one. It’s easier to turn notifications off on a per-app basis in iOS 8, but I’ve long maintained that changing settings is a power user move. Instead, an overwhelmed and frustrated user is going to delete your needy app… and once you’ve lost them, they’re not coming back.
On the eve of Apple’s watch event, the eyes of the technology world are gazing upon Apple with the intensity of a fiery sun. There are so many questions we hope to have answered: how much will the different models of Apple Watch cost? What new features will it have? How’s the battery life? Who the hell needs a goddamned Apple Watch anyway, you elitist bastards?! Can’t you do something better with your money?!
I’m confident we’ll get answers to all of these tomorrow. Including those last two. Of course, there’s plenty of people out there for whom no answer to these questions will be sufficient. For them, no matter how Apple spins it, Apple Watch is just a useless gimmick, a fashion accessory for the clueless, the wealthy, and the clueless wealthy. The more charitable of the curmudgeons think that Apple will sell millions, despite it, but plenty are convinced it’ll go over like an 18k Rose Gold alloy balloon.
Fine. Only one way to find out, I suppose, and that’s to wait.
I’m cautiously bullish. After my experience using a Pebble smartwatch for a few weeks, I feel that the smartwatch is a viable form factor, and a potentially powerful new way to think about our day-to-day relationship to technology. More importantly, I feel like Apple Watch is the best expression of that potential I’ve seen yet. [1] The integration on the hardware and software that Apple can bring to a smartwatch, even if the first version isn’t all the way there, it’ll be closer than anyone has gotten. If anyone can get this right, it’s probably Apple.
That said, a smartwatch isn’t for everyone. I don’t mean that in a financial, Veblen Good sense, either. Smartwatches aren’t necessary for how a lot of people relate to their technology. They might get some benefit, but it also might not be enough to justify the cost. If someone doesn’t see the need, well, nobody’s holding a gun to their head and forcing them to buy an Apple Watch. There are no blue t-shirted thugs demanding that mothers choose between food for their children and Apple Watches, ripping the Casios, Timexes, Rolexes, and Bullovas off people’s wrists, slapping a fluoroelastomer band on like a handcuff, and charging their credit card for the privilege.
In other words, chill.
If you think Apple Watch is useless, don’t buy it.
If you think Apple Watch is too expensive, don’t buy it.
If you think Apple Watch is ugly, don’t buy it.
If you think Apple Watch is an elitist fashion accessory, don’t buy it.
But don’t go around judging the people who do buy an Apple Watch, or would buy one if they had the money to blow. Whatever the reason, someone buying an Apple Watch has one, and it’s no less valid than your reason not to. Whether they’re spending $349, or $19,999, it’s their money, their choice, and you don’t have to do the same if you don’t want to.
On Sunday, I took my Pebble off my wrist, put it on its charging cable, and forgot about it after three straight weeks of constant use. It’s been a week of going back to my Casio for daily wear, and… I don’t miss the Pebble. This is not how I expected the Great Smartwatch Experiment of 2015 to end.
Actually, it’s entirely how I expected it to end. What I didn’t expect was for my opinion on wearables and smartwatches to perform a complete 180, and to drop wearing my Pebble like a bad habit.
Part of the problem is that the Pebble, at least when paired up with iOS, can only do so little. It works great for informational notifications on my phone: the morning weather forecast, subway delays, meeting and task reminders. It’s useless for anything that requires action: like Due.app timers, and messaging. Guess which of these I do more of on my phone. Here’s a hint: I turned off a lot of “informational” notifications a while ago.
If the watch shows you a notification that is important, you need to act on that notification. In fact, that need to act is what makes the message important in the first place! …
And here in lies the paradox. In order to respond, you need to take out the phone. But when you take out the phone, the value promise is again broken!
A combination of iOS limitations, Pebble OS limitations, and hardware limitations breaks this value promise over, and over, and over again. The new Pebble Time and OS has potential to be a new interpretation of what a smartwatch can be, but they’re moving their focus more towards Android, which doesn’t help me. I hold out some small, almost microscopic hope that Apple will expose more functionality in iOS 8.2 for other smartwatches, but it’s not likely.
It’s a shame, because I like my Pebble. The novelty hasn’t worn off, I suppose. I think it’s a good-looking piece of gear, though my standards are hardly universal. [1] When it’s doing something useful, and letting me keep my phone in my pocket, it’s great. The limitations mentioned above, however, make this a rare occurrence. I’m certain to give the new Pebble 3.0 OS a try once it’s released for the original Pebble, that is unless I’m lucky enough, or crazy enough, to get an Apple Watch before then. The timeline UI looks like an exciting new way of thinking about what a smartwatch is for, and it excites me in a way Apple Watch doesn’t.
The thing about smartwatches is that they haven’t become their own thing quite yet. The first devices we could call a smartwatch were just glorified, wrist-mounted Personal Digital Assistants. Even Palm got in on the action with a Palm Pilot watch in the early 2000s. The next idea, pre-Android Wear and Pebble, was just a smartphone on your wrist. We’re finally getting somewhere close to a defined idea of what a smartwatch is, and perhaps after Apple’s event on March 9th, we’ll almost be there. I don’t know, however.
What I do know is that the value of a smartwatch is extraordinarily hard to communicate. For ages, I viewed them as little more than a “second screen” for a smartphone. It’s a dismissive idea, and it took putting my money where my mouth is, and trying one, to dismiss my skepticism. I’m now cautiously bullish on the smartwatch as an idea, even if I can’t articulate exactly why. I still maintain that the fashion-focused pre-marketing of Apple Watch is a result of the difficulty in explaining why a normal person—let alone a technology person—would want a computer on their wrist. That’s also why it’s annoying the nerds. They don’t care about fashion, only utility.
I want to be clear. There is a utility to a smartwatch. Even if the Pebble doesn’t have all of that utility, it had enough to make the scales fall from my eyes. I can even see an evolution of the smartwatch as a context-aware device, showing relevant and timely information at a glance. Imagine this: you have your work schedule on your calendar. It’s almost time to wrap up for the day, you check your watch, and see that it knows it’s quitting time, that there’s road construction on your usual route home, and not only tells you it’ll take you longer to get home, but offers to find an alternate route and text your partner that you’ll be home late. That would be incredible.
We’re not there yet, and, yes, that could just be an alert on your smartphone. But an alert is an external interruption. It requires not only pulling out your phone, but also shifting into a different mode of thinking. A glance at the watch is natural, and doesn’t pull you out of what you’re doing. It’s ambient, contextual and timely information that you can see on demand. There’s a huge difference, and until you have even the slightest experience of it, it’s hard to grasp just how useful it could be.
So, to wrench this back around to my Pebble. The goal of my experiment was to see if my skepticism on smartwatches was justified. That such a limited device was enough to prove me wrong is success enough. It’s a shame the Pebble doesn’t succeed for me as an iOS user, but that’s the risk I took. At least I’m only out $99, and have a device that will at least give me a chance to try something new and interesting in a couple of months when Pebble releases their new OS. For now, I’ll stick with my dumbwatch, and wait.
The Apple Watch I’d get, even if money were no object, is a 38mm Space Gray Aluminum Apple Watch Sport with a Milanese Loop band. Failing that, I’d get a black leather band. I prefer the matte finish of the Apple Watch Sport to the stainless steel models. I wouldn’t wear a gold watch, even if I could afford it. Just not my style. ↩
I’m writing this while short of breath and in a bit of pain. I just finished a brief, intense, workout using FitStar.I bought the app back in August of 2014, and then forgot about it, but after reading Federico Viticci’s amazing piece on using his iPhone to get back in shape after cancer treatments, I was inspired to give it another try. I’m hoping it sticks this time. After all, if Federico can get back into shape, if not into better shape, after beating cancer, by using apps on an iPhone, surely an out-of-shape, overweight, but otherwise healthy 31-year old guy can, too. What do I have to lose by trying?
I found Federico’s piece inspiring, but I was also intrigued by the symbiotic relationship between Federico and ordinary consumer technology for bettering his life. It’s true that you don’t need an iPhone, a fitness track or a smartwatch, and a suite of apps just to get into shape. You need willpower, and a plan of action. This is true for so many things, but it sells short the power and potential of these tools to change our lives. Federico notes early on in his essay:
In the back of my mind, I always knew that I was the kind of person who would be interested in a daily exercise routine and healthier lifestyle with kind encouragement and the ability to visualize data and progress. That was the perfect motivation to get into the world of fitness tracking and lifestyle apps that was flourishing around the iPhone and the App Store.
It’s one thing to know what you need to do to get in shape. It’s another to know how. Awareness of the ecosystem of apps and services around fitness on the iPhone offers the potential for direction. As someone who’s struggled with fitness and being overweight his entire life, I can sympathize with Federico’s motivation. A few days ago, I was looking up exercise programs—not apps—and thinking about enrolling in a gym again. After reading up on several programs, ostensibly for beginners, my eyes glazed over and I began to smell burnt toast. The last fitness program I followed to completion was Couch to 5k, and only because the instructions were simple: run for a while, walk for a while, repeat, and eventually reduce the amount of time spent walking. [1]
The problem with getting into shape for a lot of people is that building habits, especially ones around physical fitness, is hard work. It often takes a huge amount of effort just to get started. Technology can help us clear the initial hurdles, and give us the first (and second, and third) push to get moving. There’s no shortage of ways in which we can use the tools we use daily to change how we live and our habits. Part of the sales pitch for Apple Watch is its role as a fitness tracker that tries to instill good habits, including spending less time seated. Since I already use a fitness tracker, having the tools I use to build a fitness habit coach me and adapt to what I’m doing (or not doing) would be insanely useful.
Of course, this goes far beyond just physical fitness. I’ve been trying to find for the technology I use each day to help me build other habits. Taking inspiration from Sean Korzdorfer’s explanation of how he uses Due.app, I’ve started using gentle reminders in Due to nudge me to do things I know I should to, from taking out the trash every few days, to brushing my teeth at night. My system isn’t a tenth as involved as Sean’s, but we all have different needs, and respond differently. There’s a million apps and tools that can help us accomplish what we want to accomplish, if only we take the time to find them and use them.
All too often, we take a passive role in our relationships with technology we use every day. Our devices are going to beep and buzz, and we are going to be at their command, while still thinking we’re in charge. This leaves so much untapped potential that only comes when we take the time to think about the raw power in our pockets can be used to help us do the things we really want, or need, to do. Fitness and habit building are one way in which we can have a truly symbiotic relationship with our devices. Encouragement of seeing the numbers go up, or down, guidance in what to do next, or avoid, and the full picture of what we’re trying to change for the better—these are things that become that much easier with the tools so many of us already have on our person. The potential is there for amazing things, we just need the first push.
