How Apple Watch re-define Apple’s products

Some of the advancements from Apple haven’t been discussed as much as they should have been. Please note that this is a data engineer’s perspective on Apple Watch. This article aims to bring out how Apple Watch would re-define Apple’s data warehouses and present a(nother) competitive edge to Apple in years to come.

Launch of Apple Watch heralds deep personalization for Apple’s customers

Think of iPhones 2 years back – there used to be 1 or may be 2 models to choose from. In last 2 years, Apple drove basic personalization in their products – Apple iPhone 5c and 5s launched simultaneously, so did iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. But, this was still 2 new devices at a time and a total of 4 – 8 devices to buy from at any time.

All of this changes with Apple Watch – different models, different kind of bands, different sizes with Prices varying from $350 – $10,000 provides very specific information about the user to Apple. There are 38 different models to choose your design from!

You are now constantly on!

There are 2 aspects of this feature worth mentioning:

1. How many of you always carry your phones? How many of you always wear your watches? The chances are that more people have watches always with them.
2. The second aspect is about proximity of the device. You watch is always with you – even when you are driving. It is not resting on your car’s dashboard. It is there with you when you are typing your emails (rather than resting on your office table), or when you are trying to put your baby to sleep.

What does this mean? More and more data about your habits and your lifestyle, which was not possible through your phones.

Feature 3: Heart beat tracking is now a reality:

According to CDC, 1 in every 4 deaths in the United States is because of heart disease. The percentage would be far higher in middle and low income countries. How far are we from the time, before a company releases data about heart rates for a Kaggle competition which makes heart ailments more predictable? It is unlikely that Apple would do this, but Apple already has in house expertise to make use of this data.

Tracking heart beat every second can yield results which are probably difficult to think right now. How far are we from the time when your health app tells you that exercising 5 minutes extra is likely to extend your life by x days? How does that gamification sound?

Let’s put these features together:

Now, let me just give a few examples of some data driven products which Apple Watch would enable in future:

• Depending on your location, your watch tells you the right gym for you – based on your lifestyle and segmentation. How about recommendations of personal trainers? How about gym trainers accessing your activity records and crafting the workouts accordingly?
• If you are travelling – which hotel suits your requirement and lifestyle? How far is it? How to reach there? How about checking in as soon as you enter? What should you order? How much should you order as well?
• How about getting notifications about your family on your watch – you get notified for every class your child misses? You get notified at the first irregularity of heart beat of your parents?

Frankly, the possibilities are limitless!

The journey would take some time. Every new product has it’s own growth cycle and so would Apple Watch. Also. Apple still needs to make a few tweaks in their product:

1. Better battery life, so that you can start capturing further lifestyle details like sleep quality.
2. Apple hasn’t addressed the security of this data yet – would be Watch be unlocked always? Can any one access the intimate and personal details in this product? This might be an easy fix, if Apple has not addressed it till now – but something definitely worth pondering.