Moments
How Apple Could Change Time
by Mikael Lundin and Petter Silfver
Well, at least how we manage it. The distribution of content is in a complete state of flux, and the consumers are the ones suffering. We’re doing our best trying to keep up with the different channels, different services, different technologies, different apps, and different notifications. But when Apple announced the Apple Watch we both had an idea that we would like to share with you.
Redefining Time Management
We’ve conceptualized an Apple service where you can subscribe to events that you don’t want to miss. The best part is how these events could get bridged into calendar services that you already use to plan your time.
And we call it “Moments”.
Picking the Right Moments
Moments works kind of like App Store, but for calendars. Get the game schedule of your favourite sports team, see when Naughty Dog adjusts the release date of Uncharted 4, or get a personal notification as Apple announce their next event. When you’ve found something you like, just tap “Follow”.
TV shows, sports, movie releases, game releases, album releases, book releases, conferences, events, festivals, concerts, ticket releases — the list of possibilities goes on.
Since we personally like to cherry-pick our favourite moments, we decided to go with the facetted star as its polysemantic symbol.
The Gentle Act of Being Reminded
Few applications ever manage to get pass the question for permission to send notifications. At the same time, the one application that most people do give permission to hasn’t managed to reinvent itself to be much more than the professional tool you use to book or reject meeting invitations.
When you find something to follow in Moments, you can configure it to automatically show up in Calendar. Just like with any other subscribed calendar, you can individually manage which ones are active. In Calendar, the event details are designed to provide a richer presentation, to heighten the anticipation and give you related content to indulge with in the mean time.
Why is Moments Not Part of Calendar?
Now this is where we think it gets really interesting. By keeping Moments as a separate service, you can still be notified about events even though you’re not a calendar type of person. Using Calendar or any other calendar application in-sync with Moments might be a 1+1=3 for some people, but it wouldn’t be required. Who knows, maybe the way to disrupt the market of calendar services is to not rely on a calendar at all?
Read this comment if you want to find out why we think Apple are the only ones that can pull this off, why it’s different from applications such as Sunrise Calendar, and why it possibly could change the way some third-party developers distribute their services.
Waaait a Minute
Would this actually work? We seem to be insane enough to think that it does. There has been a lot of talk about the many health benefits with the Apple Watch, but we firmly believe that the killer feature of wrist fashion has always been time management. With Moments, Apple Watch could be the perfect companion that gives you a small gentle nudge when something we know you actually care about is about to happen.
On a final note, here are some awesome calendars packed with moments that we personally would enjoy to be notified about.
Authors
Mikael Lundin is a Design Director at R/GA Stockholm.
Petter Silfver is an Experience Design Director at R/GA Stockholm.
The views expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect those of our employer.
Special Thanks
Filip Williamson, Jens Lindkvist and Britta Silfver.
Image Credits
Apple Inc, Getty Images, AFP, AMC, HBO, EA Game, TV.com, Netflix, Teehan+Lax, PixelResort, JustD, Daniel Bruce and Wyman H.
All Apple product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
