The Apple Watch is here. Kind of. It’s available for pre-order starting at £299 for the smaller Apple Watch Sport and goes up all the way to £13,500 for the Apple Watch Edition.
I pre-ordered mine on the first day possible and was still landed with a delivery window of sometime in June, so that gives me a lot of time to read reviews and worry that I’ve made a mistake and gone for the first iteration of a watch that is slow, needs a phone to do anything interesting and will undoubtedly get better with the following version (according to some of the first reviews I’ve read).
Besides the technical hiccups, reviews also point to the fact that our attention span, already under assault from our various smart devices, screens and phones will come under further pressure as they are pushed to our wrist. The consequence, argues @Tive, is that notifications are becoming a new form of marketing real estate:
But real estate is not space, not on such a small screen; real estate is attention — the amount of your time they command. That’s why we are seeing apps diversify and increase their notification capabilities. This list of interruptions isn’t limited to my phone or tablet: websites do it on PC’s and Macs too.
In his piece, @Tive makes the point that the Apple Watch, so hungry for your attention, will actually hinder you from living your life, from concentrating on the moment, from being present. I’m hoping that the Apple Watch’s notification settings can be tweaked to make them a help rather than an annoyance.
Useful info on my wrist when I need it? Err, yes please!
Now. If a notification reaches me at a time when it makes sense, when it fits in the context of what I am currently doing, then I don’t see it as an interruption. Bring that nugget of useful information to my wrist in a the moment that I need it, and you understand why I think the Apple Watch has such great potential for creating a seamless connection between the digital and real world.
- I arrive at the airport, bags everywhere – my boarding pass pops up on my wrist and I need but hold it to the scanner
- I am at the supermarket – I get my shopping list displayed on my wrist, and I can cross things off as I pick them off the shelves by telling my watch I’ve got it
- I’m cycling to work when my phone rings – I can deal with the situation quickly, without having to try and fumble my phone out of my pocket while falling off
- I’m back on my bike and heading to an external meeting I’ve never been to before – I’m given turn by turn directions via my wrist without constantly having to stop and checking my phone
Some more Apple Watch reviews:
- Stuff: The Apple Watch isn’t the first smartwatch, but it is the best smartwatch
- Loved this effort by The Verge: mainly for the fantastic use of Parallax Scrolling
- My favourite Apple Watch review though has to be this one written from the perspective of Patrick Bateman, everyone’s favourite self-obsessed, chain-saw-wielding killer from ‘American Psycho’.
Of course, it’s not a new Apple product without a spoof, and this one by Netflix for the Netflix Watch is excellent:
Bits and bytes
- An excellent piece by Buzzfeed about a company that you’ve never heard of of (Social Chain) that controls some of the UK’s most popular parody and joke Twitter accounts and can therefore make anything trend in the UK
- Pornhub sends man a new laptop after he smashes his when his mum was about to walk in
- 6 do’s and don’ts of blogger outreach
- LinkedIn’s new platform ‘Elevate‘ lets businesses share relevant content with its employees so they, in turn, can share it with their networks
- Snapchat can get you quite a bit of reach – if this stat from its CEO is to believed: Coachella story on Snapchat garnered over 40 million views
- This US-centric infographic shows how CEOs use social media
- Don’t like Twitter? In that case, you’ll love its new homepage
Videos of the week
Stephanie from Houston misses her astronaut father working at the International Space Station.
Hyundai decided to help her send a message to her dad (ever heard of Skype Steph?) and had 11 Hyundai Genesis write a message into the desert sand. Oh, and it’s made the Guinness Book of Records as “the largest tire track image”.
Vine superstar Zach King teamed up with Red Bull to show us how he makes his genius short films. Safe to say that I’m none the wiser…
Bits and Bytes 
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