{"id":43552,"date":"2015-04-28T15:51:50","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T15:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/?p=43552"},"modified":"2018-04-29T12:34:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T12:34:35","slug":"its-not-the-apple-watch-thats-inadequate-its-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/its-not-the-apple-watch-thats-inadequate-its-me\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Not the Apple Watch That’s Inadequate; it’s Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"apple_watch\"<\/a>
\nUntil last Friday, nobody actually owned an Apple Watch except for Tim Cook, who has a custom version with a red crown since the 38 possible variations are inadequate for him; a special one had to be made (Beyonc\u00e9 and Karl Lagerfeld also have custom solid-gold Apple Watches they were given for free). Nevertheless opinions of the new device have been dispensed everywhere and, in fact, despite a general enthusiam, \u201cinadequacy\u201d is a main theme: not enough battery life; not enough computing power; not enough capability without a \u201cparent\u201d iPhone (as the phone tethers to the PC, the watch tethers to the phone; with there next will be a ring that tethers to the watch?); not enough speed; not enough of that mysterious unnamable quality that makes Swiss watches actually worth tens of thousands of dollars even though they use 100-year-old technology and are therefore not in danger of becoming obsolete (this last part confuses me but this is the claim being made by the Swiss).<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not the Apple Watch that\u2019s inadequate; it\u2019s me. I finally came to grips with this when I sat down to explore all of the device\u2019s capabilities in detail, on Apple\u2019s website. They have a series of short films in which a very chipper person explains, in encouraging tones, how it all works, while we see the phone in that same infinite white Platonic void where all Apple products actually live before they must descend, like Primeval Greek Gods, down into our mundane lives. (Maybe we\u2019re seeing the inside of Jonathan Ive\u2019s imagination; I have looked closely at the smooth reflections in the stainless steel version of the Apple Watch that floats in that white void and can make out nothing of the surroundings.)<\/p>\n

The watch has a special button that lets me, immediately, get access to the ten or twenty people whom I must contact so instantly that pulling out my phone is simply too slow. I can then text them (in a rudimentary way; without a keyboard I\u2019m reduced to Paul-Revere-level communication, unless I direct my message through Siri, who frequently has trouble grasping what I’m saying) or I can actually call them by speaking into my wrist like the secret service agents in the movies. <\/p>\n

But, who are all these people? Yes, I have a fairly extensive contact list, thank you very much, but closer examination reveals that it\u2019s my dentist, and people like that, who take up most of the space (along with former co-workers and the other people in my building whom I contact about steam problems). There are business contacts, to be sure, but I\u2019ve been finding over the years that Captain-Kirk-style communication with them is sufficient; if I were moving faster every day, or had more people dependent on my immediate feedback about everything (as does, say, the President), then that \u201cdedicated\u201d \u201chardware\u201d button on the phone would make more sense.<\/p>\n

I can also keep track of my investments, literally, with the flick of a wrist; all the beautiful Apple Watch faces can be customized to include a stock ticker. I have trouble remembering the last time subtle Wall Street fluctuations had this kind of urgency for me (mostly I just stare glumly at the readouts of certain web pages, with a vague feeling of regret, like everyone else). Those same watch face customizations let me seize control of my daily calorie burn and workout progress by showing me beautiful rotary displays of energy expenditure and sprinting times. Again, I don\u2019t think I quite measure up to this; if they had one for sandwiches or beer consumed I would be better served (it could tell me when it was time to offer to buy a round).<\/p>\n

The Watch has \u201cTaptic Feedback,\u201d which means not just that I can be alerted subtly by means of a \u201ctap\u201d on the wrist, so I can continue reading My Pet Goat<\/i> uninterrupted; the same mechanism (those introductory films explain) allow me to \u201cpair\u201d my watch with another so that the participants can feel each others\u2019 heartbeats or send each other little finger-swipe-based hieroglyphs like the hearts girls would draw on the edges of notebook pages, in school. Would that there were such a person. The scenario of being invited to feel somebody\u2019s heartbeat happens, shall I say, infrequently enough that the process does not require telecommunications.<\/p>\n

Apple had a media event for explaining their watch and invited \u201ca friend\u201d to help demonstrate its utility: Christy Turlington, who\u2019s been making people feel inadequate for decades. The supermodel\/philanthropist\/scholar got up on stage to introduce a segment describing her important work in Africa and her preparation for the next marathon she\u2019ll run: the Apple Watch, Turlington assured us, has been invaluable. Good. When I do those sorts of things, I keep wishing I had the right gear with me. The Watch\u2019s fitness systems actually \u201cremind\u201d you when you\u2019ve been sitting too long and have to go outside\u2014I think this feature, alone, would drain the battery of mine so fast that the device would be impractical.<\/p>\n

So I can\u2019t get an Apple Watch not because I don\u2019t want one but because I simply don\u2019t measure up; my life doesn\u2019t have any of the absences it would fill. I\u2019m not good enough. I think Apple knows about me; there has to be a reason they included the Mickey Mouse face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Until last Friday, nobody actually owned an Apple Watch except for Tim Cook, who has a custom version with a red crown since the 38 possible variations are inadequate for him; a special one had to be made (Beyonc\u00e9 and Karl Lagerfeld also have custom solid-gold Apple Watches they were given for free). Nevertheless opinions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43552"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44442,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43552\/revisions\/44442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}