Last Updated on September 13, 2024
I am going to get this out of the way first and foremost.
The smartwatch is a stupid product. Seriously stupid.
I have thought so since day one. Back before Apple announced their fancy Watch.
When Samsung and other companies thought Android would be well suited for a tiny screen on your wrist. And Apple’s keynote and the subsequent hands on articles I have read about their product have done nothing to deter me of this thought process.
If anything, I see it as a sign further telling me that innovation in the mobile market has died. I mean it. It’s like these tech giants took innovation out behind the barn and shot it in the back of the head.
In fact, it is incredibly ironic, considering the last major innovation came from Apple way back in 2007.
But now?
Now all I see are gimmicks and add-ons that offer almost zero value for a huge cost – and now that Apple is in the mix consumers are probably going to eat it up like sweet delicious candy. Or something else you, the reader, love to eat.
Cake maybe?
They tell time AND I can read Facebook messages from Grandma? What’s not to love??
Tech Industry Runs Wild
Now I know what you might be thinking. You are just another Apple hater Aly, and this whole article is a way to crap all over a company you want to rag on because you think they are terrible.
Either that or you are thinking…..yes, crap on them, crap on Apple hard! But honestly, this isn’t really about Apple at all.
I mean, yes coincidentally they talked about their new Apple Watch a lot, which then spurred me to rant on and on, but this isn’t directly about them.
It is about tech giants in general, running wild and making stupid gimmicky products that offer nothing to enhance your lives or experience.
Apple is far from the only guilty party. They are just likely the most popular one and that’s mostly because they tend to be at the forefront of a consumers mind through the power of their marketing really.
In fact, right now smartwatch sales are not all that high – the industry seems to be specifically waiting to see if Apple will make it or break it. But regardless of the manufacturer, the smartwatch in general is an accessory people.
No matter who you buy from, none of them operate fully functional as a standalone product. The Apple Watch specifically needs an iPhone 5 with the latest version of IOS or newer to operate. Other manufacturers have similar requirements as well.
Again, this isn’t entirely about Apple. Either way, this isn’t a product that innovates your life, it’s a stupid looking accessory that does everything your phone can already do, except worse.
“We are all equally terrible!”
That is what really scares me. I am young, but I have been working with technology for years. Specifically, I was in mobile sales for 3 years, and I was around to see huge shifts in the mobile landscape. 2007 specifically marked the last great innovation of the mobile market – the Apple iPhone. Sure, it wasn’t a perfect product by any means.
But with that product Apple ushered in major change to the mobile world that other companies took years to catch up to.
They designed a product that was easy to use, had a different form of interface that was exciting, and was accessible to literally everybody. And everybody wanted it. And most importantly, it worked.
Everyone wanted one so badly that we saw crazy things start to happen after it launched. Data plans became affordable by the average consumer.
In Canada, Bell and Telus joined together just to build a huge cellular network capable of supporting the iPhone, since initially they couldn’t.
Google developed Android, a whole new mobile operating system, and saturated the market with phones just to compete in the market, because again, that is what consumers wanted.
Data and access to it at your fingertips and fancy touchscreen devices. This was all started by Apple’s innovation. I don’t care how much you hate them, it’s true, and you can’t deny it. And now, that same innovation is dead – companies seem to think consumers want toys. Software that controls millions of apps, most of which no one uses. Health add ons and pulse monitors that barely function.
Curved screens? On a phone?
No one cares about that. They are useless in televisions, why are they so great for phones?
No one knows.
And yet no copy and paste. Garbage.
And now watches. Smartwatches that run mini versions of these apps and do the exact same thing your phone does.
Except less, because apps need to be specifically designed for the watch – and there aren’t many available for either platform. And guess what?
Both your phone and your smartwatch need to be charged every day. Because that is what I need in my life, a second piece of technology that I have to plug in every night. Awesome. The only thing worse will be the upcoming and even more useless “curved smartwatch”. Oh….wait…..ugh.
Do I know what the next big innovation is?
No, sadly I don’t.
I am just some random techie guy who sees that it certainly won’t be in a gimmick or an accessory that costs almost as much as the thing it’s supposed to compliment.
Or, if you are Apple, almost twice as much if you want one that doesn’t look like complete garbage. Seriously, over $1200 for one with a metal band?
And it has the EXACT functionality of your $349 base watch? What? No, just no.
OK, sorry, I started crapping on them a little.
But back on track – I am definitely not smart enough to piece something innovative and awesome together. I am not a software engineer or any sort.
I am far from a certified industry expert, if that even means anything.
Maybe that just makes me a huge hater and complainer.
Or maybe it just makes me smart enough to see that all these silly gimmicks we seem to fall for are driving us backwards and not forwards. And isn’t that the opposite of what innovation is supposed to do for us?
The bottom line, don’t buy a smartwatch kids. Save your money for something nice. Like maybe a new car? That’s silly though, they aren’t comparable. Am I Right?
