After long months of expectation, the Apple Watch was officially unveiled this week at a special San Francisco launch. The adaptability of the device could lead to an expanded role in the workplace. However, there has been some concern and criticism expressed over exactly how functional the watch will be.
Bloomberg Business featured a live minute-by-minute account of the official presentation, as CEO Tim Cook, among others, described the device and some of its accompanying features. The customizable interface is meant to put commonly-used apps closer to the wearer's fingertips.
According to this piece, Apple wasn't just promoting the watch during this event, but championing its products for more use in general. These include a new version of the Macbook with longer battery life and the iPhone, which Bloomberg's Sam Grobart says is being positioned more and more as an enterprise device.
Despite all of this attention and excitement, not everybody seems to believe that the Apple Watch will take off. For one, it is expensive. One version of the watch will be $10,000, which places it high above even the pricier consumer-level electronics products that employees are likely to use.
Vox's Timothy Lee says that this emphasis on style means that the Apple Watch is less of a tool and more of a luxury item, which means its functionality won't really be important.
"A high-end smart watch can appeal to people who wouldn't be interested in buying a conventional luxury watch," he writes. "But it doesn't have to do very much more than tell the time to serve its function as a status symbol. What people are buying is the idea of innovation and progress, which has only a tenuous connection to actual utility."
Despite the high price, the Apple Watch could still succeed as a work device in certain cases, and at least signal the rise of more Apple products in the workplace. To guarantee proper network use among all devices that access the web, enterprises should use a web based terminal emulator that makes all legacy applications compatible.