Thirteen years after making history for the first time with the iPod in 2001, and seven years after changing cell phones forever in 2007, Apple is hoping lightning will strike a third time in 2014 with the launch of what the Internet has already dubbed the iWatch.
With the iPhone 6 already having sold more than 10 million units, some say the success of the Apple Watch is inevitable.
Healthcare industry experts, however, are not so sure.
In an article published in The New York Times earlier this month titled, Success of Apple’s iWatch May Rely on Health Care Partnerships, author Brian X. Chen points out that several other major cell phone developers have released smartwatches recently, and yet we haven’t seen significant adoption.
“Apple needs the support of partners, like app developers, health care companies and medical technology companies, that will help create the functions that give people a reason to want to wear a computer around their wrist all the time in the first place,” explains Mark A. McAndrew, a partner with the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister.
An industry that is notoriously slow to change or adapt, the U.S. healthcare market has the potential to make or break the Apple Watch, based on whether or not providers and developers rise to the occasion and develop tools, apps, and other resources that provide significant value to the consumer.
The success of the Apple Watch, Chen argues, will hinge not on its style or function as much as on its ability to improve the life of the wearer. The value will come, not from Watch itself, but from the new healthcare apps, products, and services it has made possible.
Read the full article, Success of Apple’s iWatch May Rely on Health Care Partnerships, on The New York Times website.
