If you could make calls, respond to messages (any platform), play music from a major music service, and stay up-to-date with the most important notifications, you could basically untether yourself from your phone completely. This would be a real game-changer from a personal health standpoint. People are losing their minds with the current smartphone pandemic. I, personally, would welcome this change. It seems like an easier path toward device freedom. Since you wear it, it would feel like you've freed yourself from a screen (for the most part).
I love my S2, but I have a hard time seeing why I should pay the cell phone company $120/yr to connect my watch.
I don't go without my phone and I don't think this would change that.<p>For people who want to run and listen to Spotify this may be great.<p>But that stupid cell company fee will keep me away. Just like it keeps me off cellular iPads.
I'm hoping that in 10-15 years, existing smartphones with giant screens will seem like a thing of the past, and that we'd have tiny devices that look "dumb" for a third person from 2017, but are much smarter and have AR capabilities just like we've seen in Sci-Fi movies and video games for a long time.<p>We don't need large screens to consume more content - we need content to look larger and more content to be seen <i>in our eyes.</i> I see wearables (watches, combined with earphones, and eyewear of some kind) becoming independent of a smartphone as one step forward in this evolution.
This is all great.<p>In the short term, the sticking point is the cell contract.<p>If there is a reasonable add-on price to your existing phone rate, this is going to catch on. The more reasonable the rate, the quicker it will catch on.<p>Longer-term, the standalone service contract (Watch-only, no phone) will become more significant. People don't have an intrinsic urge to carry a rectilinear slab in their pocket... they have an intrinsic urge to communicate with each other. As a watch form-factor becomes more convenient, they will happily switch, in droves.
There are plenty of instances where I might want directions while I'm on a run, but there is no way I'm paying $10 a month to add the device to my plan. Hopefully it is just shared data with my phone plan. We'll see what the carriers do, but I think it will make or break it for a lot of people.
Maybe if Apple wins their fight with Qualcomm we'll start seeing cellular connectivity in more of their products. I personally have no interest in a cellular-capable Apple Watch, but I would be very interested in a cellular-capable MacBook.
Connecting the dots, if Airpods are successful in adoption, this could answer the awkward "You'd look silly holding a watch up to your ear" argument, same with "It's inconvenient to plug a 3.5mm plug into a watch". Maybe this is one motivating factor in Apple's decision to remove it the 3.5mm port from the iPhone?
An Apple Watch as a kind of iPhone Lite, not supplementing your phone but actually replacing it, could be an attractive option for a lot of people. Most of my extended family members don't use any apps, don't use their phones for e-mail. They do use the camera though, so that alone might be enough to keep them from switching.
This is a disappointing development, because it means they are moving in the wrong direction on the biggest weakness of the Apple Watch: the watch is embarrassingly thick and heavy for an Apple product.
This is exactly what I want.<p>Calls, Messages, Email, and Siri with voice to command short replies.<p>Map directions, Apple Pay, and Car2Go and I'd be set.
The only company that has a greater advantage at this game is Amazon's Echo. Echo is like a smartphone without a screen. It is the future of smart phones. And because it has a headstart on the voice game, an Echo watch would probably be the next best thing.<p>An Apple Watch with a small screen is a misfire and a watch that works standalone is somewhat missing the point. Watches were supposed to be remote control devices for our phones. Nothing else. This move feels like a cheap limited feature phone, not the future.<p>Edit: Maybe I am missing the point. Imagine a standalone watch that broadcasts wifi signal. Now imagine a thin ipod touch on the other hand piggybacking on the watch. That would be like reimagining the future.