Dear Apple,
It has come to my attention that you might possibly maybe potentially be mulling adding a video camera to the next Apple Watch. Ha ha, good prank! (I hope.) But just in case you’re seriously considering this, please allow me the opportunity to convince you to do otherwise.
Let’s establish, first of all, that the idea of a FaceTime-enabled Apple Watch 2 would seem unthinkable if it weren't for the person who mentioned it: Mark Gurman, the Oracle of Cupertino, an Apple rumormonger so consistently correct that it would be more accurate to say he mongers in truths, or at least strong likelihoods. On Thursday, Gurman wrote:
This means we must allow for at least the possibility you will pair the Watch’s digital crown with a camera lens tiara. And I get it; after seeing iPad sales deteriorate without headline-grabbing new features, there’s understandable pressure to give the Watch sequel a significant spec bump.
Just don’t let it be this one.
Yes, there are a few reasons you might want to strap a lens onto your wristputer. I get it. Being able to FaceTime from your wrist saves you the trouble of reaching for your phone. And again, it could be a solid marketing talking point. But the list, I think, ends there. Meanwhile, there many, many reasons to reject this idea, and we’ll start with the one that might most resonate with you the most: It’s antithetical to why you made the Watch in the first place.
The whole concept of the Watch, as vocalized repeatedly both here and on stage when you announced it, was that it saves you time. Specifically, time you’d otherwise spend staring at your iPhone.
Despite the Watch’s shruggable reception, it has so far delivered on that promise. Its notifications give you just enough information that you can glance at your wrist instead of digging around in your pocket or purse. It keeps keeps a certain kind of digital obsessive from putting his or her phone on the dinner table, which helps ensure he or she is invited back to dinner. That part, at least, works.
Now let’s think about how a FaceTime call fits into that calculus. Surprise! It doesn’t. A FaceTime call would not be one of the “glanceable moments” the Apple Watch enables. It would be a squintable horror, a tiny eternity spent yapping at a stamp-sized acquaintance on your wrist.
Oh, and about that wrist, which is where the Apple Watch lives, because it is a watch. Where do you position it during a FaceTime chat? Normal rib-height gives your video pal a terrifying view of your chin(s) and nostrils, but raising your hand to face-level for conversational duration would be both uncomfortable and make you look insane. At least you’d be able to hear what your FaceTime friend is saying better, but then again, so will everyone else.
That’s the other thing; it’s safe to assume that in the comfort of your own home your iPhone is readily accessible. Or that you’d at least go through the trouble of digging it out from under your Cheetos. Apple Watch calls would, like all other Apple Watch functions, be for when you’re on the go, on the sidewalk or in the elevator or at the coffee shop, surrounded by souls who didn’t ask to hear either side of your weekly check-in with Nana.
I honestly can’t fathom what you’re thinking, if you are really thinking it, other than maybe Dick Tracy made watch calls all the time so it must be okay? But even then, Dick Tracy was a detective; his wrist calls were matters of life and death, an allowable exception to any manner of rudeness. Also, he was a cartoon. Also, if his creators had been able to conceptualize anything like a smartphone, he definitely would have made those calls from a smartphone.
Maybe your reasoning is that people, by now, understand basic tech etiquette enough that FaceTime Watch chats will take place only during discreet, non-invasive moments. To which I say you have clearly not been to a Super Target lately! Or a city sidewalk or subway or anywhere, really, that more than five or six strangers congregate. Instead of Dick Tracy Cool, FaceTime Watch chats will give us the next generation of Bluetooth Headset Guy. He’ll be just as loud and obnoxious, except this time he’s not looking where he’s going because he’s shouting into his forearm. We’ll also---can't stress this enough---be able to hear both ends of the conversation this time, unless he also has a Bluetooth headset on, which puts us in a recursive loop of technological rudeness.
It gets worse, though. Surely you know Samsung already put a camera in a watch, and you know this made said watch very good at taking “creepshots,” photographs of unwitting people, usually taken at intimate angles. Google Glass, which put a camera in a place where people may not know they’re being filmed or photographed, rightly suffered the same stigma. Does this sound like a camera you may or may not be undertaking? If so, please reconsider!
Even if you don’t care about the societal implications---which would, again, turn our city streets into 21st century Hieronymous Bosch hellscapes---have a thought for the technical challenges this poses. Or at least to the only technical challenge that your customers care about: battery life. The Watch comes dangerously close to punking out by dinner time as it is; how long do you think it’ll make it if it has to push all those video pixels? In some ways I guess that could also be the one saving grace; repeat FaceWatch offenders would at least run out of juice pretty early into the call.
The other good news, of course, is that you may end up not putting a camera in the Watch at all. Or at least, not yet. Even Gurman says so. I hope that’s the case, that this is just an experiment that gets left in the R&D bunker. There are plenty of ways to improve a smartwatch that don’t make it a nuisance for those who don’t have one---or those who do.
Sincerely,
Brian Barrett
