[This post is an unofficial supplement to this post. If you don’t understand that post, then read this post.]
Everyone seems to expect the Watch to have That One Feature That Will Kill Everything Else.
The feature that everyone assumed the iPhone had after its release. The feature that everyone assumed the iPad had after its release.
Notice I said “AFTER its release”. That is important to my point here.
When Apple releases a new product, everyone flocks to the keynote expecting to hear “This new iXYZ will be the best and you will love it because it has X, and this X feature will change your life forever”.
Instead, they always seem to hear “This new iXYZ is an X and a Y and a Z, and it does this amazing thing where A B C D E F and G, it’s made out of Q and U X and FDGHKLEFTNKML…”
And then everyone panics because it seems Apple has lost its magic and succumbed to feature creep.
Well, I’m here to tell you that the second example is actually correct.
TO market a device with a lot of apps you can’t just go “This does X.” and leave it at that. That will only interest a few people.
You guys seem to want Apple to have JUST THAT ONE THING that will amaze everyone.
I need to take you through something:
Let’s go back to 2007, before the iPhone was released. Pretend you saw a development model and you KNOW what it might be. You see a flat device with a few buttons and indents and your assumption is that it might be a phone made by Apple.
Now remember: You don’t know what a touchscreen is, you don’t realize what such a boring-looking object can do.
Now what would you have the phone do?
1. Make calls
2. Handle voicemail
3. …uh.
Why’d I put that at number 3? Because that’s what a phone could do. And if the rumors are “a phone”, that is all you would think of.
But when the iPhone was released, Steve Jobs immediately said the iPhone could do three different things: Be a phone, play music, and browse the internet. And then he revealed more things as the keynote went on.
And the audience didn’t stare in confusion and assume Steve Jobs had lost it. Instead they clapped up a storm.
That being said, the audience didn’t stare in confusion when Tim Cook revealed the Watch either…
But the Watch is a weird case though. Because it has almost the smallest screen Apple’s ever designed, and yet it’s able (essentially at least) to do more than all the iPod Nanos combined. You don’t think a sane third-party app developer would create a drawing program on an Watch? Well Apple included one with Digital Touch: You can send a drawing to another person.
Well…without using up way too much time…THAT’S THE POINT.
It’s the same strategy Steve Jobs used with the iPhone: The Watch can do SO MUCH that you can make it what you want.
And that’s the real point: YOU make the killer feature.
HOWEVER…this seems to fall flat on its face when faced with the Watch’s implementation of the Photos app. When you first open this app, you’re faced with like a thousand photos all pressed in the screen at once. Sure you can tap to zoom into a group of photos, but good luck seeing anything at first.
Of course, this happens on the iPhone as well, if you zoom out to Collections, and then Years…
……FINE. Obviously there might be some execution issues, but the point remains: Maybe the question we should be asking isn’t “What is THE killer feature?” Maybe it should be “What is YOUR killer feature?”