Smartwatch

“It gives us a comprehensively new way to connect to others.”

“We can now enjoy many functions with it, for example, listening to music, and paying for goods.”

“We can also interface with it through Siri, that is, by our voices.”

On March 9, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc., gave an in-depth introduction of a new product during the Spring Forward special event, the Apple Watch. In the event Cook also showed a new MacBook, but all newspapers were just putting pictures of the tiny watch on their front pages. Although Apple is not the first company to develop and sell a smartwatch, the Apple Watch could still be seen as a milestone.

One of its highlighted achievements is the pressure-sensitive touch screen. Unlike Apple’s other products which allow users to communicate with/through the devices, Apple Watch can tell a “tap” apart from a “press”. It is an extraordinary progress in social science and communication technology – it makes the device much more like human. Human is able to distinguish “patting” from “slapping” and “battering”, and the different meanings of these actions respectively. So is a watch now.

There are concerns, too. The Watch is so smart not only because of its developed interface with human, but also its cool applications that help its users to self-monitor and checkout easily. However, if personal information could leak through these applications, Apple Watch would be too smart to be stupid. Moreover, from the human-like pressure-sensitive touch technology, we could imagine companies like Apple could develop a more human-like reaction-sensitive technology. Human feels comfortable with a pat, but fights back for a punch. How about the “smart-things”?

Source:

Apple announcement takes big bite out of tech conference. (10 March 2015). New Zealand Herald. Retrieve from: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11414816

Apple Special Event. (9 March 2015). Apple.com. Retrieved from: http://www.apple.com/apple-events/

Apple Watch Review: Is it worth the high price tag? (13 March 2015). Geektime. Retrieved from: http://www.geektime.com/2015/03/15/apple-watch-review-is-it-worth-the-high-price-tag/