Sometime in 2014 Apple will introduce the iWatch. No one knows what it will do, what it’ll look like, or what it is for. Apple has broken ground like this before. The Apple 2, is a prime example of introducing a novel product to a previously non-existant niche. That was a homerun. The iPod was another novel product that stood out among a few rough pioneers. And of course the iPad defined a new paradigm of personal computing.
But the revolutionary product that I keep thinking about is the Newton. The Newton was John Scully’s project. It was his vision for mobile computing. He coined, the once ubiquitous term, Personal Digital Assistant. The Newton was going to be the product that was going to show the world that after Macintosh and after Steve Jobs, Apple was still a revolutionary company that would deliver the future of personal computing.
The product was revolutionary. It was easily 10 years ahead of it’s time and that was the problem. The Newton went mobile before there were cellular networks to connect it; before there were lithium batteries to power it; before there was a well defined problem for mobile devices to solve. The Newton was an expensive and public failure. It was too expensive, too complex and, like Microsoft’s pre-iPad attempts at tablets, poorly timed.
I fear that another post-Jobs Apple CEO will burn good will on a new device that is too early and without a problem that needs solving. Before the iPod I wanted to carry more music with me and stop carrying around CD-cases. Before the iPhone I wanted the internet in my pocket. But am I clamoring for a better watch? Do I have a burning desire to track esoteric health statistics? No.
Unlike Apple in 1992, the Apple of 2014 is in an existential battle with a larger, more established, competitor. Apple has defeated Goliath and has taken his place. The company is too profitable for even a catastrophic iWatch failure to significantly damage the company but Tim Cook may not be as invulnerable. An iWatch failure could tattoo as Cook as Scully 2.0 and cause the board to begin looking elsewhere for a visionary leader. Cook needs a win, I am skeptical that the iWatch will be it.
