“There was never any doubt that I would buy an Apple Watch on the day it was released. I’m a White House correspondent for The New York Times, but I’m also that early-adopter guy,” Michael D. Shear writes for The New York Times. “Buying the watch has led to the inevitable questions from friends and family: ‘What do you think? Should I get one of those?'”
“My search for an answer reminds me of a similar period nearly a decade ago, in the months after I stood in line for several hours at an Apple Store in Arlington, Va., to be among the first to spend $599 on the original iPhone. The Apple employees cheered as I emerged with the phone,” Shear writes. “The next day, I was on a Southwest flight to New Hampshire to cover Fred Thompson, the late actor and senator, who was then running for president. As I sat in my aisle seat, playing with the phone, a crowd formed. First the flight attendants. Then passengers. They all wanted to see the crazy new device in action. But back then, it was hard to recommend to my fellow reporters on the campaign trail that they ditch their BlackBerrys. The iPhone’s on-screen keyboard made typing a clunky business. The phone couldn’t connect with most workplace email systems. Cell service (limited to AT&T) was slow and flaky at best. Battery life was short. There was no App Store. The iPhone didn’t even have a ‘cut and paste’ feature.”
“There was just a sense — largely unrealized at the time — that somehow this device was the future, while using my thumb to scroll through a black-and-white list of emails on my BlackBerry was the past. Surfing the web, reading email, listening to music, checking the weather and stocks — all on one device. It was revolutionary,” Shear writes. “The watch feels as if it is at a similar place… After eight months, I’m convinced that people will eventually view a smartwatch as an essential purchase. And waiting endlessly for the ‘next great thing’ means missing out on all the small ways that the watch already can improve your life. So unless you want to be one of those people who hang on to their BlackBerrys forever, go ahead and get one. You won’t regret it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No, we did not write this article (but we could have).
One of umpteen examples:
Apple Watch is currently in the same situation as iPhone was in 2007, saddled with 2G speed and prior to the iPhone OS SDK (March 6, 2008) and the resultant App Store (July 10, 2008). A few of us had iPhones for that year while the rest of the world looked at them as a curiosity, but we knew.
We wouldn’t trade that early iPhone or this early Apple Watch experience for anything.
You can have our Apple Watches when you pry them off our cold, dead wrists. — MacDailyNews, December 1, 2015
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Three bonus Apple Watch Take recaps for the New Year’s holiday:
Already, we feel naked without our Apple Watches on our wrists. Already we notice people staring at their iPhones (real and pretend) everywhere and understand that Apple is going to change the world again. It’s like driving a car while everyone else is being pulled in buggies by horses. We hardly look at our iPhones compared to our pre-Apple Watch days, plus we’re saving so much time! — MacDailyNews Take, April 30, 2015
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Our iPhone usage is way, way down and, consequently, our iPhone battery life is way, way up (from about 40% left at the end of a typical day to over 65%). We put our Apple Watches to bed every night with about 30-35% battery remaining.
One additional thing to consider: We have iPhone 6 Plus units. 128GB. We are Day One iPhone users for every new model. We’re now using the iPhone (directly) so much less often that any Apple Watch-compatible iPhone might suffice. The next iPhone will need to offer something(s) might attractive to get those who’d normally jump to the latest and greatest iPhone, but now find a lot of their attention has shifted from iPhone to Apple Watch, to make the leap.
Of course, we’ll get the next flagship iPhone as usual, but it’s not a stretch to think that Apple Watch might impact serial iPhone upgraders. At this point with Apple Watch, a smaller model iPhone already looks much more attractive to us. So, we’re (again) seeing a raison d’être for SMALLER iPhones: You can just squirrel it away. Apple Watch use will very likely affect iPhone buying decisions for many going forward.
In a nutshell: Before Apple Watch, we used our iPhones all the time and wanted the largest display and longest battery life possible. After Apple Watch, we use our iPhones less and size/weight (easy to carry) have become much more important to us; a smaller iPhone battery wouldn’t hinder us now with Apple Watch.
Luckily for Apple, only some 20% of U.S. iPhone users have currently upgraded to iPhone 6/Plus (and there are millions of potential Android switchers coming off contracts every day), so there is a lot of headroom for iPhone 6s/Plus sales this fall and for a long time thereafter.
It’s rather amazing how dramatically the Apple Watch has affected our iPhone usage after just one month. Eventually, Apple Watch will likely change the dynamics of iPhone model sales. — MacDailyNews Take, May 22, 2015
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Apple Watch saves time. And, we don’t mean that in a small way, we mean that in a big way. 😉 (Thanks, Steve.) Small bits of time saved throughout each day equal big time savings each day. Time is our most precious commodity.
“Lost time is never found again.” — Benjamin Franklin
That’s why we wear Apple Watches, they give us the gift of time. — MacDailyNews Take, July 21, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David G.” for the heads up.]
There is a part of the article that I hope MDN would not have written.
“The iPhone’s on-screen keyboard made typing a clunky business. The phone couldn’t connect with most workplace email systems. Cell service (limited to AT&T) was slow and flaky at best. Battery life was short. There was no App Store. The iPhone didn’t even have a ‘cut and paste’ feature.””
The touch keyboard did not make it a clunky business….only if you were Balmer would you have thought that. I mean is it still clunky? it is the same interface even today. No. People just need to stop knee jerk reactions.
The phone couldn’t connect to workplace email systems……wtf! It was the first device to allow easy email account adding and deleting. It was magic.
Cell service was the same as any other phone. Only the iPhone did a LOT MORE. It did the full internet for one!
Battery was better than other phones. Other phones did nothing but talk. iPhone did everything.
Apps store was not there….Ofcourse NOT. Some things come after other things. But t had more apps built in than any other phone.
Cut and past ……..yeah, not sure why that was never out from the get go.
-Keyboard: If you were coming from a BB or other smartphone, switching from a physical keyboard to onscreen one took an adjustment. In 2007 a swapped a Motorola RAZR for the iPhone and the keyboard was a joy and revelation.
– Email: again, the mail DID present some problems with connecting with some mail systems so this was a legitimate problem for some. For me, running my own mail server, the iPhone was wonderful.
-Cell service: ATT is not everyone’s cup of tea, nor is it ideal for areas of service. But it was necessary to begin with that alliance to launch the new, unproven iPhone. But again, not an unjustified complaint by many.
-Battery: Perception and realignment of expectations. It took a lot of people a while to grasp that their iPhone was not a cell phone, or even an average smartphone—it was, and is, a pocket computer.
– Apps: Other smartphones at the time had 3rd party applications they could buy to add functionality. Their absence on the original iPhone was a concern.
I loved everything about the first iPhone because I came from a flip phone experience, but I think those that had been using a BB or Treo for years would have had a harder time embracing the first gen iPhone. All’s well that ends well.
What! The future is an overpriced nag machine strapped to your wrist? Yeah, that’s correct.
The future it points to is the door under the exit sign that shareholders will expect Tim to walk through sooner than later.