It’s been a week since my Apple Watch arrived.
I got the middle one because the screen doesn’t scratch.
The problem is – I hardly ever wear a watch. And when I do it is a thin tank watch that is light and hardly noticeable.
Still, I don’t want to study and write about generations without trying to know firsthand what I’m talking about.
The music blogger Bob Lefsetz sent out a fairly glowing email Saturday telling his many subscribers “You're gonna get one. You just don't know it yet.”
Then about eight hours later Lefsetz changed his tune once he got to know his Apple Watch. He said, “It’s a lousy watch”, “I can’t see it” and concluded, “My heart says to keep. My brain says no”.
Why the sudden change?
And why am I writing about a watch? You know radio people, if it’s not about a car radio, they’re really not worried about it.
They should be.
I thought Lefsetz was constipated he was so bitter. Don’t get me wrong – I love readying his stuff. He’s so right on when it comes to the music industry and lots of other things but he woke me up for a moment and reminded me why the Apple Watch will fail.
It’s for young people and he’s 60ish.
Young people can’t wait to get one on their wrists but a little thing called money gets in the way.
I saw a man Lefsetz’ age in the Apple store Saturday. And he wisely spent a full hour of premium One-on-One Service ($99 for the year) for a young sales clerk to teach him how to use it.
He left happy.
I am an Apple fan boy – and I still own a lot of their stock but you already know that.
Okay, here are my initial thoughts about the Apple Watch:
- It feels heavy on my wrist. I am aware of it. It pinches the hair on my arm sometimes and yet I love that it taps my wrist and rings softly when I get a new email or text message.
- And this I LOVE – text me and I can answer on my Watch. Just dictate the response and Siri spells it out for me to approve or I can send it in my best radio voice.
- You can’t use it to listen to music, which doesn’t interest me, but it sure interests a lot of other people. My plumber says he wants one because when he is working he can hear music on his wrist whichever sewer he happens to be working in (yes, he was working all day Thursday in a sewer).
- At lunch, my watch reminded me to get up and move. Sitting too long. It tells you how fast your heart is beating and lots of more serious health apps are on the way. The joke is that it will someday tell you in advance if you’re having a heart attack. For me, that heart attack would come when iHeartRadio stopped running 16 minutes of commercials an hour. That sounds like s@#t on an Apple Watch. Just sayin’.
- I flew from Philly to Phoenix Sunday and in flight had to disconnect from my iPhone, which is necessary to make notifications work on your watch. But it still told time and allowed me to track my 4 hour and 28 minute flight. Come on, you think the Apple Watch is a watch? A piece of jewelry? No way. It’s a mini-iPhone on your wrist.
- Another great use for the watch -- I can see Mike McVay make an ass of himself on Twitter asking why female program directors never apply to work at Cumulus. Hmmmm. Let me see …
- I get 300 emails a day. Now I can dismiss them or mark them as unread on my wrist so I have more time to write these articles for you.
- Can’t get the Internet on the watch and even so it doesn’t make you less distracted when you drive. We’re all too distracted and this watch doesn’t make that any better.
My problem is not that I don’t like it – quite the opposite.
It’s that I had better figure out how to get balance in my life with a laptop, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch. My life is all in the Cloud and I need to remember to get back to earth.
Still, rejecting connectivity is not my mindset and I am devoted to using the Apple Watch as a tool for balance and not just another distraction.
If you’re done with any more technology, I’m down with it.
It’s your life.
My media friends should give it a try – after all, you’re not a dinosaur. Okay, some of you are, but not all.
If you plan on living in a world more and more influenced by 95 million Millennials, you have to be careful you’re not left to your own devices when theirs are so much cooler.
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