Cupertino's Sinister Plans For Apple Watch
Wondering how you’d exchange info between smartwatches when their displays are so small? Apple thinks it has an easy answer: make the same gestures you already use to greet your friends. The tech firm has applied for a patent on a system that exchanges data between wearables (presumably Apple Watches) whenever both people make a similar greeting gesture, such as a handshake, bow or fist bump.
While other methods of greeting are accounted for, this patent seems primarily interested in handshakes. For Scouts and Millennials, I suppose it might work, but most people are right handed, and most of them wear their Apple Watches on their left wrists. In the business world of old (and in most of the rest of the world besides), southpaw handshakes are a big no-no. In some cultures, it might cost you that good job or big promotion. In others, it might cost you a whole lot more. This mechanism could be useful for swapping business cards, but again, most cases would require a pretty distinct faux pas to get that done. The Devil’s in the details.
Still, kudos to Apple for trying to make us lefties feel a little less left out.
Now, about the tech behind the filing itself: Proximity-based NFC and Bluetooth file-sharing is by no means a new concept. Smartphones have been doing this for years, and as an extension of AirDrop, this seems hardly worth patenting. Of course, everything’s worth patenting if you can actually get the patent, and Apple’s one of the biggest players at the USPTO.
As far as the convenience factor, however, I dont see this being a better solution than those already existing on handhelds. To share a file like this, you’ve first got to launch the requisite app, pick the file in question, and then set to bumping uglies.
How on Earth Apple might make this procedure smarter (i.e. faster and more convenient) is anyone’s guess, but the context of person-to-person file-sharing is so subjective and dynamic — even between the same two people day after day after day — that any kind of pattern-based, automated system seems unlikely to yield much more than a headache for its users. That’s why it’s not done all that much already in the real world.
A 3DS StreetPass-esque app where random passersby might send you Digital Touch messages could be amusing if sandboxed properly, but for actual file sharing — Heck, what files can you even store on Apple Watch worth sharing in the first place? And if all this is just another iPhone controller, there seems to be too much inherent setup to make the extra step worth anyone’s while. If you’re already assigning files, rules, and parameters on iPhone, just let your iPhone handle the whole shebang.
Parlor tricks and novelties aren’t going to sell Apple Watch.
Nobody cares about sending out their heartbeat.