The Apple Watch made smartwatches the wearable of choice

Ten years ago, after announcing the iPhone 6, Tim Cook had one more thing to show the world. Cue the first-ever sizzle reel for the Apple Watch.

It’s funny watching that video today, especially when you zero in on the features Apple claimed would revolutionize the smartwatch category. There was the Digital Crown — a so-called breakthrough in input technology that would let you scroll and zoom on what was essentially a mini wrist computer. It had a Taptic Engine that would discreetly buzz when a text or notification came in. Glances were supposed to be digestible tidbits of information, a sort of status update for your apps. Also, remember Digital Touch? That weird feature where you press two fingers on the screen and send a friend an animation of your heartbeat? 

Fast forward a decade, and the sizzle reels for the Apple Watch are completely different. Now, they’re full of people sharing stories about how the Apple Watch saved their lives. Year after year, most of the new features focus on novel ways to close your rings. Whatever you think of the Apple Watch, it’s now the most popular smartwatch in the world and has been for years. In 2020, it outsold the entirety of the Swiss watch industry. It is an undeniable success. But 10 years in, where does the Apple Watch go next?

The first Apple Watch arrived during the golden age of the fitness tracker. Fitbits and devices like the Jawbone Up reigned supreme with their long battery life and simplicity. Smartwatches kind of sucked. Pebble was beloved for its simplicity among gadget nerds, but the company never achieved mainstream appeal. Google was next to the scene with Android Wear in 2014, but as a platform, it was plagued by laggy interfaces, questionable tracking accuracy, bulky form factors, and piddling battery life. Samsung had a few options on its Tizen OS, but it struggled with many of the same issues. So did the first Apple Watch. For most people, the smartwatch was an overly expensive device that couldn’t replace a fitness tracker or your smartphone. So, what was the point in buying one?

Nobody had a good answer, including Apple (which is probably why so much of the Apple Watch’s early marketing focused on fashion, of all things). And it wouldn’t start figuring out the answer until 2017.

That’s when Apple added LTE with the Series 3. Suddenly, the Apple Watch wasn’t tethered to your phone. You could still call for help in an emergency. I remember calling my roommate to give myself the illusion of safety while freaked out on a walk. Safety was a persuasive argument, albeit one tempered by still laggy performance. It certainly didn’t help that making that call absolutely zapped my battery life in a mere 30 minutes. After I finished testing the Series 3, I went back to my Fitbit Alta HR — but my perception of the device as an unnecessary luxury had shifted.

And then the real industrywide game changer came in 2018 with the Series 4. Now the Apple Watch had FDA-cleared EKGs that could detect atrial fibrillation. It could figure out when you had a hard fall and call for help on your behalf. On top of that, you could get alerted if your heart rate abnormally spiked when it shouldn’t. Your phone can’t do that. Suddenly, the Apple Watch wasn’t a fancy toy that, at best, helped triage notifications. It could save lives. And did. 

It turns out, health is what’ll get the average person to buy a smartwatch. Anecdotally, it’s the number one reason why friends and family ask me about smartwatches. I’ll get texts from folks worried about their parents’ health or, as we get older, concerned friends following a less-than-stellar doctor’s visit. It’s why I personally made the switch, too. It’s why it’s so hard to find anyone making fitness bands anymore. 

The only problem is that tech moves fast. Health is notoriously slow.

The Apple Watch has gotten more clever updates than I can count. So many that the Series 9, Ultra 2, and second-gen SE are vastly different devices than the original watch. (I, for one, am a big fan of last year’s double tap gesture.) But even the most ardent Apple Watch fans can’t deny the updates feel more iterative with each passing year. Aside from introducing the Ultra in 2022, there hasn’t been an industry-shaking update since the Series 4. 

Not for lack of trying. There have been several rumors that Apple’s been working on features like high blood pressure and sleep apnea detection, plus the holy grail of all health tech, noninvasive blood glucose monitoring. But the raison d’être that catapulted the smartwatch — the fact that it can save lives — is also the very thing that’s kept it in limbo. If people believe this tech can save lives, it has to pass a higher regulatory bar than any other consumer gadget. 

This is a good thing! FDA clearance is there to protect consumers and ensure guardrails are in place. But it does mean Apple is kind of stuck. For better or worse, it set consumer expectations sky-high in this space. Yet, advanced health features require companies to tread the thin line between regulatory clearance, accuracy, and patents. All this takes an incredible amount of resources and time. (You need look no further than Apple’s legal battle with medical device maker Masimo over blood oxygen tech to see why Samsung beat Apple to an FDA-cleared sleep apnea feature.) 

In essence, the Apple Watch is sort of where the iPhone was a few years ago — solid, but minor updates with the vague sense that something big might be around the corner. But where generative AI has breathed new life into smartphones, no one’s figured out how best to stuff it into a smartwatch yet. Based on what we saw at WWDC, Apple Intelligence isn’t headed for the Watch anytime soon, either. So, where does that leave the Apple Watch over the next decade?

There’s always a chance that Apple will pull an industry-first health feature out of thin air. Just a few days ago, Bloomberg and 9to5Mac both reported the long-delayed sleep apnea feature might make an appearance. But without health, Apple has to go the more traditional route. Bigger screens. Better battery life. Upgraded sensors. More in-depth fitness features to compete with the likes of Garmin, Polar, and Suunto. More ways to integrate with other Apple devices. New, non-health ways to make your life better. Apple’s in a tricky spot, but in the case of the EKG, it was worth the wait. The next time Tim Cook steps out onstage might not be to show off technology that saves your life, but give it time.