Apple Watch Impressions!
- Thread starter urooj asim
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MariaAli
Banned
Never Offline? How Apple Is Invading Our Bodies
[h=2]The Silicon Valley giant has redrawn the line that separates our technology and ourselves. That may not be a good thing[/h]
For the full story, read this weeks TIME magazine.
This is new, and slightly unnerving. When technologies get adopted as fast as we tend to adopt Apples products, there are always unintended consequences. When the iPhone came out it was praised to the skies as a design and engineering marvel, because it is one, but no one really understood what it would be like to have it in our lives. Nobody anticipated the way iPhones exert a constant gravitational tug on our attention. Do I have e-mail? Whats happening on Twitter? Could I get away with playing Tiny Wings at this meeting? When youre carrying a smartphone, your attention is never entirely undivided.With the unveiling of the Apple Watch Tuesday in Cupertino, California, Apple is attempting to put technology somewhere where its never been particularly welcome. Like a pushy date, the Apple Watch wants to get intimate with us in a way were not entirely used to or prepared for. This isnt just a new product, this is technology attempting to colonize our bodies.
The Apple Watch is very personalpersonal and intimate were words that Apple CEO Tim Cook and his colleagues used over and over again when presenting it to the public for the first time. Thats where the watch is likely to change things, because it does something computers arent generally supposed to: it lives on your body. It perches on your wrist, like one of Cinderellas helpful bluebirds. It gets closer than were used technology getting. It gets inside your personal bubble. Were used to technology being safely Other, but the Apple Watch wants to snuggle up and become part of your Self.
The reality of living with an iPhone, or any smart, connected device, is that it makes reality feel just that little bit less real. One gets over-connected, to the point where the thoughts and opinions of distant anonymous strangers start to feel more urgent than those of your loved ones who are in the same room as you. One forgets how to be alone and undistracted. Ironically enough experiences dont feel fully real till youve used your phone to make them virtualtweeted them or tumbled them or
Instagrammed them or YouTubed them, and the world has congratulated you for doing so. Smartphones create needs we never had before, and were probably better off without.
The great thing about the Apple Watch is that its always thereyou dont even have to take it out of your bag to look at it, the way you would with an iPhone. But unlike an iPhone you cant put the Apple Watch away either. Its always with you. During the companys press event the artist Banksy posted a drawing to his Twitter feed of an iPhone growing roots that strangle and sink into the wrist of the hand holding it. You can see where he was coming from. This is technology establishing a new beachhead. To wear a device as powerful as the Apple Watch makes you ever so slightly post-human.
[h=2]The Silicon Valley giant has redrawn the line that separates our technology and ourselves. That may not be a good thing[/h]
For the full story, read this weeks TIME magazine.
This is new, and slightly unnerving. When technologies get adopted as fast as we tend to adopt Apples products, there are always unintended consequences. When the iPhone came out it was praised to the skies as a design and engineering marvel, because it is one, but no one really understood what it would be like to have it in our lives. Nobody anticipated the way iPhones exert a constant gravitational tug on our attention. Do I have e-mail? Whats happening on Twitter? Could I get away with playing Tiny Wings at this meeting? When youre carrying a smartphone, your attention is never entirely undivided.With the unveiling of the Apple Watch Tuesday in Cupertino, California, Apple is attempting to put technology somewhere where its never been particularly welcome. Like a pushy date, the Apple Watch wants to get intimate with us in a way were not entirely used to or prepared for. This isnt just a new product, this is technology attempting to colonize our bodies.
The Apple Watch is very personalpersonal and intimate were words that Apple CEO Tim Cook and his colleagues used over and over again when presenting it to the public for the first time. Thats where the watch is likely to change things, because it does something computers arent generally supposed to: it lives on your body. It perches on your wrist, like one of Cinderellas helpful bluebirds. It gets closer than were used technology getting. It gets inside your personal bubble. Were used to technology being safely Other, but the Apple Watch wants to snuggle up and become part of your Self.
The reality of living with an iPhone, or any smart, connected device, is that it makes reality feel just that little bit less real. One gets over-connected, to the point where the thoughts and opinions of distant anonymous strangers start to feel more urgent than those of your loved ones who are in the same room as you. One forgets how to be alone and undistracted. Ironically enough experiences dont feel fully real till youve used your phone to make them virtualtweeted them or tumbled them or
Instagrammed them or YouTubed them, and the world has congratulated you for doing so. Smartphones create needs we never had before, and were probably better off without.
The great thing about the Apple Watch is that its always thereyou dont even have to take it out of your bag to look at it, the way you would with an iPhone. But unlike an iPhone you cant put the Apple Watch away either. Its always with you. During the companys press event the artist Banksy posted a drawing to his Twitter feed of an iPhone growing roots that strangle and sink into the wrist of the hand holding it. You can see where he was coming from. This is technology establishing a new beachhead. To wear a device as powerful as the Apple Watch makes you ever so slightly post-human.
