Mobile Time

At the recent DevLearn conference, David Kelly spoke about his experiences with the Apple Watch.  Because I don’t have one yet, I was interested in his reflections.  There were a number of things, but what came through for me (and other reviews I’ve read) is that the time scale is a factor.

Now, first, I don’t have one because as with technology in general, I don’t typically acquire anything in particular until I know how it’s going to make me more effective.  I may have told this story before, but for instance I didn’t wasn’t interested in acquiring an iPad when they were first announced (“I’m not a content consumer“). By the time they were available, however, I’d heard enough about how it would make me more productive (as a content  creator), that I got one the first day it was available.

So too with the watch. I don’t get a lot of notifications, so that isn’t a real benefit.   The ability to be navigated subtly around towns sounds nice, and to check on certain things.  Overall, however, I haven’t really found the tipping-point use-case.  However, one thing he said triggered a thought.

He was talking about how it had reduced the amount of times he accessed his phone, and I’d heard that from others, but here it struck a different cord. It made me realize it’s about time frames. I’m trying to make useful conceptual distinctions between devices to try to help designers figure out the best match of capability to need. So I came up with what seemed an interesting way to look at it.

This is similar to the way I’d seen Palm talk about the difference between laptops and mobile, I was thinking about the time you spent in using your devices.  The watch (a wearable)  is accessed quickly for small bits of information.  A pocketable (e.g. a phone) is used for a number of seconds up to a few minutes.  And a tablet tends to get accessed for longer uses (a laptop doesn’t count).  Folks may well have all 3, but they use them for different things.

Sure, there are variations, (you  can watch a movie on a phone, for instance; phone calls could be considerably longer), but by and large I suspect that the time of access you need will be a determining factor (it’s also tied to both battery life and screen size). Another way to look at it would be the amount of information you need to make a decision about what to do, e.g.  for cognitive work.

Not sure this is useful, but it was a reflection and I  do like to share those. I welcome your feedback!