Apple Watch is NOT Replacing the Mechanical Watch

APPLE WATCH IS NOT REPLACING THE MECHANICAL WATCH

My little voice is nothing in the breathless rush of chatter about the Apple Watch. But I keep hearing the same set of sentiments from my friends and I think they have it all wrong.In various ways, friends are lamenting the loss of the mechanical watch. Others are asking “Why do I need this accessory? What’s the killer app”?

Back in the day people had pocket watches. You’d dig in your pocket, and pull out your pocket watch to tell the time.

Then the wristwatch came along. It was smaller - but so much more convenient. The time was right there at a glance.

The thing people have wrong is that Apple Watch is not replacing the watch. It’s replacing your phone. Or it will rather. Apple is just hoping it can provide sufficient value through the form-factor in the meantime.

“But they call it a watch.”

Yes, it’s called “watch”, but calling the Apple Watch a “watch” is akin to calling the iPhone a phone, and not, say, a pocket computer. The Apple Watch is a wrist computer and will eventually replace your pocket computer. All based on pure convenience.

The Apple Watch is a wrist computer and will eventually replace your pocket computer.

“But I need a bigger screen!”, friends have then said. Of course you do for some things, and bigger screens will become accessories. And that's another paradigm shift here - the watch is not the accessory, the screen is.

There is no way this first Apple Watch is the fully expressed big idea. This is just the first step.  Surely the plans for Apple Watch are long.

It's long been acknowledged that anyone under 30 who wears a mechanical watch today is essentially wearing jewelry. And that they use their phones to tell the time now.  For these users wrist watches are merely quaint objects on par with vinyl LPs and 50s geek glasses.  So for a generation of users who have abandoned mechanical watches for “pocket computers”, a wrist computer is so much more convenient, and it does not replace anything already there. For them, sheer convenience is the killer app.

For hipsters and us old farts who still think mechanical watches are beautiful and functional jewelry, yes, we need to “replace”. And if one is contemplating that switch there is no killer app. But there are 3 dozen small, functional features - in addition to telling time - that make the switch quite worthwhile.

Over time, I believe that switch will happen - even for them - as the Apple Watch replaces the iPhone.