"...........using pressure data from millions of watches, Apple could build a precision altitude map of the world. This map would indicate true altitudes everywhere that iWatch wearers travel. The granularity would be several orders of magnitude......."
What is granularity and how is it measured in orders of magnitude?
Sorry, this is enough to scare the c*** out of me. I don't want to sound defeatist, but thank God I'm in my mid 50's and hopefully wont be around (ie: I'll be dead!) when every single person on the planet will be trackable/contactable/accountable...
Why don't we all iOFF, get a life and appreciate the things that are important like gorgeous sunsets, bird song - anything but this junk...
iPis**d
So you don't ever use a cell phone?
Everyone says the dont want or don't need one, but how many of these people said the same thing when the iPhone and/or iPad came out?
I agree with you. If apple ever did make an iWatch, they would be smart about making it so that it became a useful tool to a majority of people. Yeah, duh, nobody uses a watch to tell time anymore so nobody is going to try to fool people into buying a watch for that reason (although a 'screensaver' that tells the time would be convenient). Iphone and iPads have definitely convenience us in many ways, but who says that they have to stop where they are? I can think of dozens of ways a wrist-worn device could compliment an iPhone.
-FaceTime... think about it. The watch itself is using your iPhone to face time, but you can leave the phone in your pocket and talk to your "wrist" like in the sci-fi movies.
-iMessage... again, the watch itself isn't connected to the cellular network, but it's connected to your iphone, which is. The screen would be too small to actually type your message, but if you got an incoming message, for example, you could read it on your watch and then dictate, with speech, a reply. ***This feature would only be feasible if the speak-to-type function currently available for iOS becomes a lot better.
-A screen that showed you any important dates or events coming up in iCal or other to-do-lists.
-Weather information.
-The added features it could add to your phone's alarm clock: You are wearing it on your wrist as you're sleeping and when the alarms that you set on your iPhone go off, the watch on your wrist starts vibrating to help wake you up
-iPod / music controls. And don't tell me that this is dumb because you can just pull the phone out of your pocket to change the song... I know you can, but why do companies offer headphones with remotes on them?
-Of course, I like the ideas mentioned in the article having to do with with the option of your watch alerting you if you go a certain distance from your phone, so you don't lose it. And not having to use a passcode if it's near your watch, too.
-You could put the same sensors in it that are in the Nike Fuelband... actually the fuelband only has accelerometers, this watch could include those AND gps. This could make it useful for a whole host of fitness apps (make it sync-able with MyFitnessPal?)
These are just some ideas that I came up with at the top of my head and I'm sure that the people at apple would come up with a lot more that are better than mine. The biggest flaw that I would see with something like this is battery life. I doubt it would be able to go much longer than 2 days without a charge, that would bug me. I don't want to have to take my watch off every day to charge it.