How Apple Should Explain Its Watch

Apple made a huge mistake when they launched their newest attempt at maintaining world domination. Rather than advertising how much we’ll love using it, they should be telling us just how little we’ll be using it.

How often do you pull your phone out of your pocket or your bag and glance at it? I do this simple but annoying task upwards of fifty times a day. I love my iPhone, but in this respect I also hate it. I hate how rude it looks when I have to turn my ringer off while in conversation with somebody. I hate having to take my backpack off in order to get my phone out to simply check my notifications. I hate the constant buzzing and ringing necessary in my day-to-day existence.

Most people would tell me to simply disconnect. “Turn the phone off and quit social media and walk away.” However for many people, like me, social media and email are necessary part of our jobs.

Apple just presented us with the solution to the problem they helped to create. A simple, tiny screen that fits on our wrists in place of our Timexs and Rolexs that can give us a discreet way of dealing with the digital world when we’d rather be out in the physical one. The genius of the Apple Watch is much like the now ubiquitous headphone remotes we employ to skip tracks and answer calls when our phone are buried away in our pockets or slipped into armbands. It’s biggest feature is how little we’ll have to use it. Raise your arm, make the adjustment to your digital life in a couple quick taps, and get on with the real world.

Rather than trumpeting their new product as the most stylish and simple way of executing this amazing concept, Apple chose to market this new toy as a tiny iPhone. “Look, it plays music and calls cars and counts your steps and you can watch video on it!” Who in their right mind would want to watch YouTube on their wrist? Who is typing a letter on a 38mm screen? Nobody is going to do that and it’s ridiculous to advertise this product as such.

What should Apple’s ads look like? A couple in the middle of an important conversation. One of the pair gets a call during it and, using the new Apple Watch, simply and discreetly swipes it away for later.

Another could show a woman going for a long run who keeps thumbs-up and thumbs-down-ing tracks on Pandora as she makes her way down a trail, no need to desperately reach around to her armband-entombed phone or fiddle with her headphone remote.

Another could show somebody carrying luggage for a trip down a flight of stairs, simply needing to enter a few taps on their watch to call and Uber to the airport.

These are simple and real use cases for Apple’s newest and least intrusive digital portal yet. This is what they should be telling us. Does it make the iPhone seem bulky and intrusive? Yes, but we already knew that it was.

I’ll be buying an Apple Watch when they debut, but if Apple’s marketing doesn’t shift then I’m not sure many other people will see a reason to.