NSFW is a weekly op-ed column in which I talk about whatever's on my mind. Sometimes it'll have something to do with the technology we cover here on iMore; sometimes it'll be whatever pops into my head. Your questions, comments and observations are welcome.
I've been running on fewer cylinders than usual this week. A week ago last Thursday I had an operation that I've been planning for a while (gastric bypass surgery, for the curious), so I've spent most of this week recuperating. And by "recuperating," I mean stewing in a Vicodin-induced stupor. So if I'm having trouble mustering the requisite rage for one of my weekly curmudgeon rants, I apologize. This week I'm ruminating on the Apple Watch.
The big news on the Apple front this week is that WatchKit is in the hands of developers. WatchKit is the API Apple's developed for its forthcoming Apple Watch, which will be released some time in early 2015. "Early," of course, is open to interpretation — does that mean some time in the first quarter or the first half of the year? Time will tell.
As it stands now, the Apple Watch is still enough of an abstraction that I'm having trouble imagining that I'm going to want to get one the day it comes out. I haven't worn a watch in nigh on a decade, ever since I started using a laptop computer as my main computer. Wearing a watch was physically uncomfortable, because the band kept pressing against my wrist, but more to the point, it scratched the surface of the laptop. Once I got a cell phone it became even less of an issue, because almost all cell phones have a clock built into them too.
So far I haven't seen a "killer app" from Apple that tells me the Apple Watch is something I absolutely have to get: The idea of customizing it with different watch faces and drawing penises to troll my other Apple Watch-wearing friends simply isn't enough of a draw, as far as I'm concerned.
But now that WatchKit is in the hands of developers, the interesting stuff starts. It's third-party developers that are ultimately going to determine whether this thing lives or dies. It's third-party developers that are going to create the apps we can't live without.
To that end, I think my ambivalence to date about the Apple Watch has a lot less to do with what it actually is than a deficit of my imagination. I'm not a developer, and I don't pretend to be imbued with new ideas for how technology can work that will make life better either for myself or for others. That I leave in the hands of the millions of talented individuals who create products for the App Store.
Over the coming months, we're going to hear a lot about the Apple Watch from third party developers. And I'm sure that much of it is going to be fluff; stuff we can safely ignore, silly stuff that's going to waste time. But every once in a while we're going to hear about something truly revolutionary and really interesting.
And that's where the Apple Watch may lead to another sea change in the way we use technology.
I, for one, can't wait to see where that goes.
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