Today is the day many of us have been waiting for. Today the Apple Watch will arrive. I was on a flight from NYC yesterday when I received the news that I would in fact receive my Apple Watch on launch day.
After weeks of diving into the WatchKit SDK and watching each new update description and how brands were creating new Apple Watch experiences I went to my local Apple Store for a personal fitting.
This was my first exposure to the hardware
I get very excited on Apple launch days. When an Apple white box arrives on my doorstep I take great care in the unboxing of the product.
Today was no different as it was a very smooth setup process. A review will be forthcoming.
I was recently asked by Mobile Marketer to outline the opportunity for marketers and the Apple Watch.
(Mobile Marketer) How big is the opportunity for marketers in apps for the Apple Watch?
(Tom) “The Apple Watch provides a great opportunity to extend unique app use cases by leveraging the capabilities of the Apple Watch hardware and the WatchKit SDK. The key to fully unlocking it’s potential will be driven by marketers ability to create optimal user experiences built on relevant behavioral touch points and value connections with consumers.”
(Mobile Marketer) What do marketers need to keep in mind in considering or having apps for the Apple Watch?
(Tom) “One key area to consider are actionable notifications. The Apple watch will support short term and long term notifications. Long term notifications support app-defined actions, so it is feasible to leverage functionality from the app directly from the notification bypassing another step for the consumer.”
(Mobile Marketer) Is an Apple Watch app something every marketer should have?
(Tom) “I would not say that every marketer needs an apple watch, but any marketer that focuses on content creation or distribution should take note of user behavior after launch and fully understand how to create an ideal experience on the platform. “
(Mobile Marketer) What are the hottest topics or category of apps you have seen for the Apple Watch?
(Tom) “Content delivery apps such as Buzzfeed and Flipboard as well as retail apps such as Target and Starbucks are all prepping for the release on the 24th. Buzzfeed is focused on delivering daily polls which may work well as they are short form. Flipboard is focusing on providing summaries of news stories and using the handoff feature to allow for consumption of long form content. Starbucks is porting many of the iPhone app features into the Apple Watch such as store locators and paying with passbook.”
(Mobile Marketer) Are there any examples of Apple Watch apps that seem especially noteworthy?
(Tom) “The Target Apple Watch App looks interesting as not only will it provide list building within the application, it will also provide value while in-store by mapping the location of the items on your list and the glance option will provide simple utility by seeing if the store is open, how many items are on your list, and how many may have deals associated with them.”
I am truly excited to dive into the various use cases that are being deployed today and how we can create new ones for our marketing partners.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360
