Apple Watch & the Internet-Augmented Brain
The Future of Wearables is “Vibration-as-an-Interface”
You may question the usefulness of the Apple Watch, but I believe that it’s the first-step towards an Internet-Augmented Brain. Let me explain…
I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch since June 2015, and although it’s becoming more popular (especially in the pocket of Silicon Valley where I work and live), I still find that I’m consistently asked “Do you like it? Do you use it? What does it actually do? Does it do anything your phone can’t?”
Most people are still fairly skeptical about the future of the Apple Watch.
Even if you ask Apple Watch users, they will say: “I never actually use any of the apps on my Watch. I occasionally use it for Glances, but I really only use it for notifications”.
And I agree. My Apple Watch usage is 95% notifications (driven by Apple’s vibration-centric “Taptic Engine”). But I don’t see this as a deficiency — I see this as the interface.
Vibration-as-an-Interface
For those uninitiated, the Apple Watch features a “Taptic Engine” that creates unique, intimate vibrations on your wrist depending on the type of incoming notification.
If you get a message on Facebook Messenger, you get one kind of “tap on your wrist”. If you get a text, you get a slightly different tap. When you get paid via Paypal, or your Uber is arriving, or someone replies to your Tweet, each notification distinguishes itself with a unique vibration.
Here’s the amazing thing: I don’t look down at my watch anymore. I always know what is being communicated to me without ever having to look. Vibration is fully acting as the communication interface between my Watch and my brain.
I’m convinced this is the future of the Apple Watch and wearables in general.
Augmenting Our Senses and Our Brain
Clearly, my brain has been trained to interpret the Apple Watch solely via vibrations. That’s nice and all, but the information that is currently being communicated is pretty uninspiring.
The fact that I can “feel” when my post is Liked on Facebook isn’t super groundbreaking. But this is just the beginning.
Imagine if your Apple Watch could communicate, via vibrations, in real-time, information-rich messages that leverage machine intelligence and supercomputing.
For example, imagine you’re on a date. Your Apple Watch captures the speech from your conversation, processes the language via some machine learning model, and determines what parts of the conversations are resonating with your date and what parts you should steer away from. Then, your Watch, via vibration, communicates this information to you in real-time, as a “sixth sense” that you can leverage as part of the conversation.
Or imagine you’re giving a keynote presentation. Your Apple Watch let’s you know when you’re losing the interest of your audience, or when you’re relying too heavily on “verbal tics”, or reminds you of your next talking point.
Your Apple Watch could tell you when your spouse is lying, or when you should call your mom, or statistically what play you should make during your pick-up basketball game.
Your Apple Watch could tell you when to stop talking during a job interview, or what you should eat to maximize nutrition for the day, or what the answer is to a Jeopardy question.
If you’re blind, your Apple Watch could describe your environment to you through some kind of tactile interpretation.
The options are theoretically limitless.
Obviously, these options are constrained by current “information-processing” technologies, but the capabilities of machine learning and artificial intelligence are growing quickly and are already serving in some capacities as human-augmentation (i.e. Palantir, IBM Watson, etc.).
The point is this: The Apple Watch has this magical “Vibration Interface” that acts as an entirely new input device to your brain. If Apple can leverage this power to communicate machine-driven intelligence, your Apple Watch transforms from a fashion statement into a piece of unbelievably powerful technology.
I’m pretty sure this is the future of the Apple Watch. But, in the meantime, I will have to settle with sending my heart-rate to my girlfriend.
Max Deutsch is the founder of Rhombus, a Startup-As-A-Service company, based in San Francisco. Rhombus works with non-technical entrepreneurs to build stunning mobile apps.
