Those who use the Apple Watch every day and can't imagine going back to a time without it typically fall into one of three camps: those who value the convenience, those that value the health motivation, and both. Benedict Evans sums up the convenience angle well on ben-evans.com:
In all this, the watch reminds me a little of Google Now. It's not essential - you don't NEED it. There's nothing you couldn't do with a smartphone, not even telling the time. But, like Now, if you let go, flow into it and just let it work, it removes a lot of small tiny daily moments of friction (this was also a common theme at IO and WWDC this year). You wouldn't make a phone call on it, but if you're walking up the stairs with a bag in one hand, a child in the other and a dog on your wrist, and the phone rings, seeing who it is, tapping 'Answer' with your nose (an under-hyped interface innovation) and saying a few words without stopping or putting anything down is, well, a superpower. It's as though you're Elastigirl, doing the laundry.
Convenience was my killer feature for Apple Watch—and, turns out, my family's—and a benefit Liz Plosser discovered as well.
(For more on the health angle, check out Serenity Caldwell, Jim Dalrymple, and Peter Cohen.)
Ben also offers some great insight into why the Watch is proving so challenging for the tech and financial press alike, and how that's really not so different that then first months of iPod or iPhone.
Meanwhile, in our recently completed Apple Watch usage survey, iMore learned the following:
- 93% of respondents wore their Apple Watch 5 days a week or more, and 95% wore it for 8 hours a day or more.
That's a lot of super-powered potential.
