Messages can be personalised at three levels
—
emojis, heartbeats, or drawings. There are several
new, animated emojis that are reserved specially for Apple Watch. Emoji in Apple Watch garnered
mixed feedback. Emoji lovers felt that they were fun and offered a quick and handy way to give
concise responses though not groundbreaking. Senior editor of
The Verge
Lauren Goode commented
that “not everyone … finds animated emojis thrilling”
while co-executive editor of
R/code
Kara
Swisher called them
“
creepy
”
(Newman, 2015). Users could also send their heartbeats or create
their own drawings by touching the watch display. The interactivity provided a playful and fun
experience for the user. Sending and receiving heartbeats from loved ones could be refreshing
initially but lost its appeal after a while. In addition,
“with such a small screen you don’t have much
space, even if you can use multiple colors … for drawing” (Miles, 2015).
Besides criticisms on the uniqueness in its technology, Apple Watch had marketing issues as well.
Marketing to iPhone users
Apple Watch
’s capability
could only be realised in the presence of an iPhone. In other words, the
Apple Watch was designed for an iPhone user to wear. But who were the iPhone users and would
they put an Apple Watch on their wrists?
Studies by Hixon (2014) and comScore (Mactech, n.d.) revealed that iPhone users were weighed
significantly on the following demographic traits:
Older, usually 24 years and above
More educated, with graduate degree or higher
More affluent with household income of USD 100,000 or higher
More likely to have children
More likely to be professionals and business people, less likely to be computing nerds
More addicted to digital devices
Usually spent on clothing, entertainment, and travel
In addition, a survey of 2,000 smartphone users by TalkTalk Mobile showed that iPhone users had
the following personality traits:
Tend to be image conscious, confident, ambitious, daring, bright, and flirty
Believe that they were valued most by their bosses
Are active on social media sites (Woollaston, 2013)
