APPLE?S NEW smartwatch can track your heart rate, pay for your chicken mcnuggets and give you turn-by-turn directions by sending vibrations to your wrist. The device is the latest in slick, wearable technology, a growing category that includes Google Glass, Jawbone?s Up fitness tracker and Liquid Image?s goggle-cameras. But are these innovations really game-changers for travellers?
Some technology and travel experts see real-world potential in wearables, even though many are most likely years away from being what we want them to be. Take smartwatches, which are already available from brands including LG, Motorola and Sony. They?re good at pushing information and alerts from your calendar to your wrist, where it?s easily glanced. The wrinkle, says James L McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, is that most smartwatches are clunky and impersonal. A wearable should be a coach, McQuivey said a day before the Apple news conference in Cupertino, California, ?someone who knows more about what you need than you do.? But let?s get to what will actually be available early next year when the Apple Watch comes to market. One of the biggest boons for travellers involves maps and GPS: walk through a city and the watch can deliver different vibrations to your wrist to indicate whether you should turn left or right, so you don?t have to wander the streets peering at a tiny device to know which way to go. ?It?s like having this invisible guide with you,? Kevin Lynch, vice-president of technology for Apple, said during the news conference.
As you might expect, the watch will also have apps from leading travel brands such as American Airlines and Starwood, although it?s hard to get excited because versions of such apps are available on smartphones and tablets. There are a few twists: an app from Starwood, for instance, will allow you to unlock your room at any W Hotel in the world by waving your watch in front of the door. And, of course, some travellers will like that the Apple Watch has Apple Pay, a new mobile system that allows you to pay at the registers of places as varied as McDonald?s and Walt Disney World. Until the system is ubiquitous, I?ll be carrying my wallet. I?ll also be carrying my iPhone because, well, you must in order to use all the features of the Apple Watch?and that?s a real drawback for travellers who aim to carry fewer, not more, devices.
So far, wearables haven?t exactly taken off. And, for what they cost, they?re not always practical for the average traveller. Still, some analysts think Apple has the best shot at delivering on the promise of such technology in part because the company is well-positioned to go beyond the smartwatch. It could eventually roll out a full-body network of devices; a system that allows travellers to access the same information in a variety of ways.
?Nearly four in 10 travellers can see the benefit of using wearables when they are travelling,? says Henry H Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with Atmosphere Research Group. To attract more of them, the devices should be easy to use. And if the wearable is a smartwatch, he says, it should look inconspicuous, if not beautiful.
No matter what they look like, analysts think it will be years before wearables replace smartphones and tablets, if ever. ?These will be supplemental devices for the consumer,? Harteveldt says.
Only time will tell if wearables become our second skins. ?This is not going to be an overnight story,? Harteveldt says. That?s what makes it exciting. And maybe a little scary. As Jonathan Ive, Apple?s senior vice-president of design, put it in a video during the news conference: ?We?re now at a compelling beginning.?