Apple CEO Tim Cook said that he was going to "reveal the product that will set the path for technology for the next decade" at Tuesday's Apple Special Event. He might well have done so — but that revolutionary product was not the iPhone X, as planned. The new Apple Watch is more likely the revolutionary, path-defining product.
Gordon Bell, the legendary computer engineer, observed 45 years ago that every decade or so advances in computing technology would enable a new, lower-price computing class based on a new platform, network and interface. By that measure, the new cellular-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 is right on schedule.
The pattern that Bell described has been so consistent over the subsequent decades that there’s even a law about it named after him: Bell’s Law. Bell’s Law predicts that each new computing class enables, in turn, a new ecosystem to build and sell the core platform and to create peripherals, applications and content for new sets of users and uses. The pattern held true for mainframes, minicomputers, workstations, personal computers, laptops and smartphones.
By cutting the tethers to the iPhone and making the Apple Watch a distinct computing platform, Apple is in a commanding position to be the epicenter of the next new computing ecosystem.
As I mused a few years ago, imagine the free-standing Apple Watch as the hub of a body-area network that includes peripherals like augmented and virtual reality glasses, fitness monitors, embedded heart and blood-sugar monitors, and even partially digested pills. Or, maybe some Watch-based Siri AI will process all your big and little data, including not only your calendar, calls, emails and text messages but also the smart, IoT sensors and cameras spread throughout your body, car, house, garden, etc., and assist you as necessary — all while coaching you through your daily health and fitness regimen.
The possibilities are enormous, and the finally mature Apple Watch Series 3 might be the catalyst for unleashing the killer apps that turn those possibilities into reality.
Apple’s much anticipated iPhone X, however, offers few such category-changing or path-defining possibilities. It is beautiful, to be sure, but seems more like an exercise in stretching Jony Ive’s design brilliance than in delivering new compelling functionality.
Take the camera, for example. As Phil Schiller, head of Apple worldwide marketing, said during the launch event, "cameras are the most beloved feature of every new generation of iPhones." Compare the technical specifications for the cameras on the new iPhones 8 and iPhone X, however. You’ll find negligible differences.
The iPhone X is more a laboratory for new hardware and user interface ideas than for new use cases or killer apps. It is an incremental improvement of the iPhone 8 — a faster and better (but not cheaper) iPhone.
If it weren’t for the desire to deliver a surprise worthy of Steve Job’s famous “one more thing” tagline to mark the iPhone’s 10th anniversary, these new capabilities would probably still be percolating in the pipeline for the iPhone 9. As evidence of the rush to launch: when was the last time we saw an Apple event demo failure, as happened with the iPhone X’s Face ID debut demo?
That’s nothing wrong with beautiful design, however. You might even say that it is at the core of Apple’s DNA. As the recorded voice of Steve Jobs intoned to open the special event:
One of the ways that people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there… Somehow in the act of making something with care and love, something is transmitted there, and it’s a way of expressing to the rest of our species our deep appreciation. So, we need to be true to who we are and remember what is really important to us. That is what is going to keep Apple Apple. It will keep us, us.
One could feel the sincere “love and care” in Jony Ivy’s voice:
To press the design boundaries, if for no other reason than to explore more beautiful displays, gestures, animated emojis, and user authentication, is about keeping Apple Apple. It also keeps one of the most profitable franchises in modern commerce going, which is ample reason as well.
To see the path for the next great franchise, however, keep your eye on the Apple Watch.
