Tomorrow Apple is having their “Spring Forward” event to discuss further plans about the Apple Watch and, hopefully, a few other new and shiny things. There’s been a lot of speculation lately about pricing. I’m sure looking forward to that being over. How much they may charge for that gold watch is purely academic for me and probably 99% of everyone else reading this. Unless the stainless steel model is remarkably close to the aluminum model (which doesn’t make much sense), I will be purchasing an aluminum Apple Watch. I know myself well enough to know that when the tech gets better in a year or two, I’ll buy a new one.
All that being said, I sure am looking forward to getting one of these things. Lately I’ve found myself spending time at the Apple Watch website and re-watching the original videos when it was unveiled. I’ve also been wearing my Pebble watch again since last October and find that the ability to get notifications on my wrist with my phone in my pocket is really convenient. It will be even better with the Apple Watch that has much deeper ties into the operating system than Apple would ever permit Pebble.
While I am pretty stingy about which notifications I let through on my phone, those that do come through are absolutely essential. For example, I set notifications for nearly all of my appointments. If I don’t have my phone reminding me, there’s a good chance I will miss it. Because I often stack meetings together, this requires me to take my phone out of my pocket while I’m in a meeting when it inevitably goes off to tell me I have to get to the next meeting. Doing this by just glancing at my watch makes a lot more sense and is a lot less intrusive.
Likewise, I ultimately gave up on the iPhone 6 Plus earlier this year when I was in an elevator and got a message that I could not read because I couldn’t unlock my phone with just one hand without risking dropping it. That problem completely goes away with an Apple Watch.
Also, Apple Pay without taking the phone out of my pocket seems like a pretty good idea. While I wish more vendors supported Apple Pay, I find myself gravitating to those that do and use it several times a week.
There are a lot more good reasons to use an Apple Watch including the ability to track fitness, communicate easier, and (hopefully) turn on the lights in your house once HomeKit gets sorted out.
Because I’m an iNerd, there’s no way I can avoid buying one of these things. I will also be watching the event tomorrow and look forward to learning more. While Apple has been teasing the Apple Watch so far, I suspect after tomorrow’s announcement, the media blitz will really begin.