Will The Apple Watch Be The Last Truly 'Apple' Product?

The Apple Watch's operating system looks so alien that I almost don't like it, and that's a good thing.
|
Open Image Modal
ASSOCIATED PRESS

If you've somehow been locked inside a stationary cupboard for the last 24 hours then you might have missed Apple's quarterly earnings call.

Even if you were locked in a cupboard it's hard to imagine that you didn't in some way sense the disturbance in the air produced as a result of thousands of shareholders gleefully rubbing their hands together.

In the last three months Apple has made more money than any public company in history and it's almost all thanks to the iPhone 6.

Now while you might think that's a good thing for Apple it actually puts them in rather a sticky situation. Selling over 74 million iPhones is a tremendous achievement in anyone's books and while the numbers can be heavily attributed to increased market share in China, the fact is more and more people are buying iPhones.

They're also buying them for the first time. Apple's earnings call revealed some interesting numbers which show that more people than ever were moving from Android or rival operating systems.

But then the iPhone 6 wasn't a game changer, it was a solution to a problem: How do we compete with the bigger screens on Android?

Having answered that problem, the masses promptly flocked over.

This is great for Apple but actually pretty bad for us the consumer. Apple doesn't innovate any more, it sits back, watches and then perfects. Carefully picking and choosing features and then honing them until they're almost unbeatable.

It is why the Apple Watch actually came as such a surprise to me. Of course we were all expecting Apple to launch a smartwatch but I certainly wasn't expecting it to look as radically different as that.

The Apple Watch's operating system looks so alien that I almost don't like it, and that's a good thing. The digital crown might have a ridiculous name but it's a new way to interact with a smartwatch. Apple knows people still aren't keen on talking to their phones so instead they've provided an alternative and more importantly, an alternative that no-one else has.

I'll be really interested to see how both myself and the rest of the technology world reacts to the Apple Watch. I'll be even more interested to see how you, the consumer reacts to it. So far general pub chat has resulted in a Marmite response with some hailing it as the smartwatch all smartwatches should be, others think it looks childish.

In a way, I almost want the Apple Watch to do well. If nothing else to show Apple that it can still try something new -- even if the arena it's entering is already well-established.

If it doesn't do well then that's worrying. It'll almost certainly reinforce Apple's now constrained reliance on the iPhone which could in turn result in even less innovation appearing on a product that practically kickstarted the smartphone era.

It's important to note that I'm not saying Apple are the be all and end all when it comes to tech innovation, they just happen to be the company facing this particular problem. Of course there are other tech companies making great strides in new areas and each one has their own battle to face when it comes to innovation versus profit.

So no, I'm not looking for a repeat of the first iPhone, no one should expect that. What I would like to see though are new products in new avenues, risk taking. Even if I'm unsure of the Apple Watch, it's just the kind of product I want to see more of.