Apple have spent years crafting their latest product, but don’t let its small size fool you, this is a big contender for the wearable technology crown.

One of the main issues Apple will have faced is creating a product that is not just a novelty item, but something that fits seamlessly into your usual habits and movements. The inclusion of the “digital crown”, as you would find on traditional watches, is a great example of a solution to this. The difference here is the functionality of this little switch, giving users a more practical way to navigate, zoom in and out on the screen, or make a quick jump back to the home screen. By incorporating a feature users will reflexively and naturally use, Apple have made their first move to head off the competition.

The introduction of new sensory features is another novel in the smartwatch field – Force Touch uses tiny electrodes around the flexible Retina display to distinguish between a light tap and a deep press, “…the most significant new sensing capability since Multi‑Touch.” Additionally, the “Taptic Engine” of the Watch has the capability to physically tap you on the wrist, with a range of different sensations to notify you of various alerts.

As with anything, the test with these two features will be how well they adapt to you, the user.

For businesses and brands this is a whole new platform for interaction with customers. With a product that hails itself as being “intimate” and the user-specific data being collected, the possibilities are endless for getting closer to their target audience, creating strategies that utilise the insight the Watch provides and really integrating themselves into the lives of the users.

The same can be said of the consumers, the average person who uses an Apple Watch to make their daily processes easier. Given Apple’s history of creating innovative, industry game changers, our guess is that we’re about to see swathes of new developments targeted at using the Watch to facilitate new interactions between people and their environments.

The general consensus in the Zebra office (after many long debates) is that the Apple Watch is their first step in what is unequivocally a very exciting market. It raises all sorts of questions on what this will mean for businesses and consumers, how brands can develop their communications through it, and the opportunities for new applications.

What uses for the Watch do you see developing over the next few months? What challenges might developers, designers and businesses face when planning for the Watch?

 

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