Apple Car

Apple CEO, Tim Cook and Didi President, Jean Liu in China

When Apple invested $1B in Didi Chuxing, the "Uber" of ride sharing in China, it got me thinking...

What do wrist watches and cars have in common? They've both been around for a hundred years and, in my life time, there hasn't been significant innovation prior to the last decade. Until recently, cars have used internal combustion engines to transport people and wrist watches simply told time.

Over the last dozen years, we've seen automobiles transition from internal combustion engines to hybrid and pure electric cars. While it's still a nascent technology, with single digit market share, it's growing. The same is true for wrist watches which have been simple digital or analog devices with limited functionality beyond telling time. Once a technology has matured, it frequently becomes a fashion item such as clothes, cars, condos, and color choices, to name a few. A $10,000 watch doesn't necessarily tell better time than a $10 watch; and a $110,000 car doesn't get you to your destination faster than a $10,000 car. The inside of a $299 Apple Watch is the same as a $17,000 Apple Watch.

Before the Apple Watch, Apple could choose the form factor for their products. Simply look at the Apple II, Mac, iMac, iPod, etc to see how Apple dictated the industrial design. That changed with the Apple Watch where Apple had to fit the technology into a predefined form factor while making it fashionable. Wearable high tech is hard to make fashionable, as we saw with Google Glass. The key to rapid adoption is packing innovative technology into a familiar form factor.

For years, there's been a long standing rumor that Apple is developing a car. The details are secret and many Apple R&D products never see the light of day. But it seems clear that Apple's working on something automotive related, whether it's an entire electric car or merely software for a car.

Perhaps, Apple can bring to market a self-driving electric car, which is the holy grail of personal transportation. Now, imagine if you produced a self-driving car and you owned a transportation network company?

Up and Running with Watch

Space Black Watch

Yesterday was my first full day with my Apple Watch. My first foray into wearable technology was 20 years ago when I purchased a Polar heart rate monitor in June 1994. Since then, on nearly every run, from training, to 5Ks and 50Ks, I have worn a heart rate monitor. But the Apple Watch is my first experience with a consumer wearable high tech device designed for daily use.

A buddy purchased an Apple Watch Sport, and, when I told him I had ordered a Space Black Apple Watch, he said, "The internals are all the same. The only difference is the casing, band and crystal." A good point. In other words, this device is more fashion than technology; just like a car.

Unbox and On Wrist

When my Apple Watch arrived, I recorded the unboxing and then played around with my new toy for a couple hours. The fit and finish is exquisite. I also ordered three bands (leather, Sport, and Milanese). The traditional wrist watch has been around for more than a century, yet it took Apple to design a simple way to swap and adjust bands. You can see, in my unboxing video, that my Apple Watch bracelet was too big and needed resizing. Instead of bringing it to a jeweler to adjust my band, I did it myself. It only took a couple minutes to pop out links from the bracelet, with my fingernail, until it was a perfect fit. Swapping out bands is even faster – simply make sure that the three rubber shims are facing up as you slide on a new band and you'll have no problem.

On the Go

New York Times, July 9, 1916

The heart rate monitors I've used required that I wear a chest strap. Before the Apple Watch, if I wanted to go for a run while listening to music, I needed to bring four things: watch, chest strap, iPod shuffle, and headphones. Since the Apple Watch can store music and monitor my heart rate without being tethered to an iPhone, I now only need two things: Apple Watch and Bluetooth headphones. 

Yesterday morning I walked to breakfast with my Apple Watch while listening to a podcast. The Apple Watch Workout app performed beautifully while tracking my heart rate during my mile and a half walk. The app lets you set a specific goal for running, walking, cycling, etc. The goals can be set for time, distance, calories, or left open with no specific goal.

In the afternoon, I took my Apple Watch for a run. During my one mile warm up run I didn't use the Workout app. I was a little concerned when I tried measuring my heart rate while warming up because it took 10 to 20 seconds to measure it. Looking down at my watch for that long, while running, seemed worse than texting while driving. 

Heart Rate Hubbub

Heart rate fonts could be larger for easier reading.

Once I was done stretching, I activated the Workout app and my heart rate measuring concerns melted away. The Workout app continuously reported my heart rate. Measuring your heart rate is the key to knowing your personal exertion levels during endurance sports. You don't want to be anaerobic if you're running a marathon because you'll bonk. On short runs, you don't want to run too slow and miss out on maximizing your training. Noticing that your heart rate is higher than normal while running at a slow pace could indicate something. Perhaps you're coming down with a cold or you haven't recovered from a previous workout.

What's the Big Deal?

The allure of wearable technology is that it physically incorporates you into its system. It's a part of you and you're a part of it.

I usually wear a traditional watch so I might as well wear one that ties in with my iPhone. Since I've only been using my Apple Watch for a couple days I still have a lot to discover. For simplicity sake, the small size of the Apple Watch necessitates limited UI interactions, so it takes a little getting used to. But, it's very handy to answer phone calls and respond to text messages without needing to carry around my phone. However, it is, yet, another device I need to have with me. And it needs to be tethered to an iPhone to use all of its features.

Time will tell, but so far it's definitely an asset. I'm pulling my phone out of my pocket far fewer times throughout the day without missing alerts, e-mails, and messages.

The Future of Tech: The Web's Not Dead (it's just not sexy, anymore)

Technology can be thought of as anything invented after you were born. As it matures, it fades into the background and it's taken for granted. One of the most prolific inventions of the 20th Century was the automobile – entire cities are designed around this invention – but it's no longer cutting edge technology.

The Web has reached this level. It's hard to find cutting edge Web sites. I saw the writing on the wall when I left the Apple Online Store in 2007. At the time, the Apple Store was headed up by Eddy Cue as part of Apple's engineering department. Engineering, at Apple, is the talent. I could see there were no revolutions on the horizon. E-commerce on the Web hasn't changed much since I left the store. It's not dead, it's just mature. Buying online, today, is the same as it was 10 or 15 years ago.

Blogs (Web logs) are another mature technology – they haven't changed in the eight years since the invention of Twitter as a micro-blogging platform. Dave Winer described it best, yesterday, in his interview with The Guardian on the 20th anniversary of the blog when he said that some of the spark is gone.

A couple of years ago, in Two Ships Crashing in the Night, I wrongly predicted that the next big thing would be random video chat for social media. Today, I see that the Web, social media, blogs, e-commerce, e-mail, etc, have plateaued. None of these technologies behave much differently, today, than five or ten years ago. I used to implement cutting edge entrepreneurial ideas enabled by the Web such as SMS payments and classified ads, URL shorteners with revenue models, race photo distribution before the proliferation of RFID, etc. These technologies aren't dead, rather their growth is dead.

So, what's the next big thing?

The Future of High Tech

Without a doubt, the future is in wearable technologies. Eyeglasses have been around since the late 13th Century so it's only natural to incorporate a heads-up display into them now that networked computer displays can scale down and be (almost) fashionable. The ubiquitous smartwatch isn't far away. GPS in shoes isn't just for endurance athletes – Alzheimer patients won't remember their phone and they may forget where they put their shoes, but they're not going to forget to wear their shoes – it's self-prioritizing. Silver alerts will become a thing of the past.

Entrepreneurs looking for the next big thing on the Web will be challenged. It's hard to be revolutionary in a mature industry. Instead, entrepreneurs should to growing markets in technology. The longer a technology market moves sideways on its plateau, the harder it will be to make a difference since small, incremental changes aren't sexy. It's like adding a catalytic converter to the internal combustion engine. Sure, it's great for the environment, but a typical consumer could care less.

If you want to put a dent in the universe, you'll need a hockey stick, curve jumping idea in a growing market.

Is it Safe to Drive with Google Glass?

Wearable technology Q&A on Google Glass at Qualcomm.

Driving while talking on the phone is distracting and texting is worse. So, what about driving while wearing Google Glass?

Google Glass is a heads-up display (HUD) for consumers. HUDs were invented for military fighter planes since flying requires intense focus and concentration in a distracting environment. Surprisingly, a large amount of today's computer science design best practices related to size, distance, and grouping U/I controls originated in the airplane cockpit.

Some user interface decisions seem obvious such as not putting the ejection button right next to the landing lights switch or not placing small, related, buttons far apart on a web page. But how do you figure out what's best? Paul Fitts, an Air Force Officer, modeled the theory behind human movement in a mathematical fashion. Based on his work, human machine interfaces have been refined leading to the development of technologies like the HUD. Technology should enhance an experience, not interfere with it.

Is it safe?

The plain English description of the HUD (heads-up) tells all. It's much safer to drive when Google Glass displays your speed and GPS directions than it is to look away from the road to find this information on your dashboard. Of course, it can be equally distracting if you're viewing videos and surfing the Web with Google Glass while driving. This issue has become relevant when a woman was ticketed, in San Diego, for merely wearing Google Glass this past October. Last week, the case was dismissed because the judge decided there wasn't enough evidence to prove the device was on. That still leaves the legal issue of driving while Google Glass is turned on to be answered.

Wearable World News Testing for Darius

This is test post for Wearable World News as a demonstration on how to get directly into Google's search engine. I'm doing this to show Michael Darius how it can work once a web site is considered authoritative.

BTW, here's a link to a WWN story about Apple and their iWatch which ran on wearableworldnews.com:
http://wearableworldnews.com/2014/02/10/apple-ceo-tim-cook-builds-iwatch-anticipation/

Sincerely,
Joe Moreno