Face and rectify the problems.

1. The problems NEW smartwatch even
Apple can't solve
We've heard for quite some time that Apple is hard at work on its next big thing, a smartwatch.
There's even a product name all picked out by the pundits, the iWatch. According to persistent
rumors Apple has dozens, maybe even hundreds, of its brightest employees getting the iWatch
ready to blow everybody away. As exciting as rumors make the smartwatch sound, I don't think
Apple is going to be able to adequately address some practical issues.
Smartwatches are nothing new, they've been around for a few years. We've seen models that
simply serve as a second screen for the smartphone, some that connect directly to the web to
retrieve information, and others that contain a whole Android device that can run apps.
Lack of engaging funtions for a smartwatch
None of these smartwatches have captured the attention of buyers. First, while it's cool when you
first try a smartwatch, after a short period it gets, well, boring. I've tried several smartwatches
and I really like the concept. Unfortunately, the limited functionality wears thin over time and
the smartwatch ends up sitting on the shelf.
It's useful to a point, then it becomes readily apparent that it's not as cool as you thought when
you first got the smartwatch. If you're like most people you have the smartphone, in the case of
Apple's iWatch that would be the iPhone, in your hand most of the time that you're free to use a
smartwatch. There's no compelling reason to look at the watch when you have a nice, big, high-

2. resolution screen in your hand. The smartwatch ends up being used mostly as, you guessed it, a
watch. Even that is less than useful as the time is displayed on that iPhone in the hand.
The watches that serve as second screens are a good example of the lack of engaging functions
for smartwatches. These connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth and basically show phone
notifications on the watch. This usually consists of caller ID, email, social network updates, and
text messages. This is useful in that it you can keep the phone in the purse or pocket and check
the watch when a notification comes in. Of course, over time the phone makes it back into the
hand so it's easier to just check the incoming notifications on the phone.
Apple would probably give the iWatch the ability to run apps to make it useful. It might run full
iOS or a special subset of it to run special apps that provide engaging functionality. That would
almost have to be the case to give any reason at all to get buyers to open their wallets.
There's one big problem with this approach, the screen. The tiny screen, to be exact. A
smartwatch shouldn't have a display bigger than a square inch to avoid being too big to be
fashionable, and even that's pretty big on the wrist. Maybe Apple would try to make a watch with
a longer, narrow display, but it would still have to be big enough to display enough information
to be useful. That would be tough to do as small screens are not very practical to run apps.
There's a reason why smartphone screens have been getting bigger and bigger over time, and
they started out much bigger than a tiny watch display.
The watch display would have to be a touch screen to be practical, and that brings challenges
when a screen is that tiny. If you display icons and controls big enough to be tapped with a
fingertip, that little screen gets filled up really quickly. You end up with a touch screen that
doesn't display much at all which limits the practical functions Apple can give to its fancy
iWatch.