Apple Watch: Addition Without Subtraction?
Since the Apple Watch concept was loosely launched last year with great fanfare, it has occurred to me that this particular product is wildly different from any other Apple product before it. Something counter to everything I thought Apple stood for. And something that may present Apple with a rare uphill battle. That is, Apple Watch is the first Apple product that asks users to add a new device without subtracting anything else.
Burns is quick to point out that he doesn’t think Apple Watch will flop. He merely notes that iMac phased out bulky add-ons and peripherals, that iPod trashed CDs and vinyl, that iPhone replaced nearly everything, that iPad went so far as to eliminate the sacrosanct printed page, and that — in these terms — the Apple Watch value proposition is fundamentally different than that offered by Cupertino’s previous high-profile launch devices.
But it’s not.
The product that Apple Watch is “subtracting” this time is wasted time. The product is distraction. The product is clutter. The product is friction. In most essential ways, it’s the same as the examples Burns cites above. The only difference here is that the public’s immediate recognition of the issue is hampered by their reliance on and addiction to its root cause: those supercomputers in their pockets. Apple Watch is intervention via intermediary.
Apple Watch is the tether that untethers.