Time Spent, Wrist Style

I was reading Lopp’s bulleted list of observations on watches, which is definitely worth your time, and this one stuck out to me.

“Interaction with a watch is measured in seconds and rarely minutes.”

This definitely implies that people are going to be using the wrist device for quick bursts, but not for any sustained time period.

Earlier this week, I read this article by Kevin Tofel that makes the case for Watch apps being “usable” in ten seconds or less.

I actually agree that the first generation of apps for these devices are more than likely going to be for small burst activities.  I think, however, that that will be because most people haven’t had access to a device prior to this first release of apps.  It may also be because of battery life, but that remains to be seen at the moment, I expect we will know more tomorrow.

I think that this device will, in the more long term, be used for longer things than people realize at the moment.  I keep imagining some addictive watch based game that people play. Think tamogotchi for your wrist (which I imagine someone has to be making the equivalent of somewhere at this very moment) and you have the general idea. I think that the limiting factor, aside from the aforementioned battery life concern, is that people will think of this like a watch until they don’t.