How to improve a product: Apple Watch Ultra 2

A fun exercise to answer the question for one of my favorite products: how would I improve the Apple Watch?

Disclaimer:

1. I've owned many Apple Watches throughout my life (3, 4, Ultra 2) so I've got personal experience to lean on, but me ≠ user
2. The Apple ecosystem has got me in a chokehold. I love Apple. So much, in fact, that I'd rather build an app to supplement a lacking use case (running analytics from the Apple Watch) instead of switching to a competitor (Garmin)

With any consumer product, we must first understand the problems to solve (the ultimate goal of the product) and its users. Because this is an investigation into how to improve an existing product, we will start with the ultimate goal for the users of the current product and how it solves those users' problems, assess the current problems of the product and how it can be improved to better solve those users' goals, and then discuss an implementation and validation plan. Meanwhile, we will consider business viability — ensuring strategic alignment of the product's improvements with the company's strategy.

Goal & Problems Solved:

An Apple Watch isn't worn to tell the time. Yes, it does that, but users don't wear it to merely see the time on their wrist. It's better to think of the ultimate goal as not a direct interpretation of the features, but rather the place/feeling/benefit/accomplishment that comes from the product + human.

Goal = Benefit(Product+Function)

There are two main goals and problems that fit this function for the Apple Watch today:

1. Understand & act on their health: this wearable device tracks bodily vitals and movements like heart rate, steps, miles, HRV, etc. giving the user insight into how their body is doing and what steps they can do to improve their overall health
2. Reduce dependency & screen time on phone: the Apple Watch solves this by allowing users to stay connected to the messages they would get on their phone without being on their phone

Interestingly, and important to note, this wasn't the case for the Apple Watch when it first released. Apple marketed it as a 'luxury lifestyle device' that can also do the above: look fancy, tell time, get your notifications, and track health stuff.

It's only after listening to customers' core problems that they were able to pivot from selling a "nice-to-have" (fashion piece) to a "must-have" (health device) because now it was viewed as essential product to take care of your health. Go to the Apple Watch landing page, or take note of any ad; Apple is selling the health benefits and the fit person you can become when it's you + Apple Watch. The following also emphasize its design and positioning as a health device:

• recent launches focusing on new health features (EKG, blood oxygen reading)
• revamping Apple Fitness+ program exclusively for use with Apple Watch activities
• expanding customer base to the elder population through new health-oriented accessibility features (fall detection)

The second goal/problem is, rightfully so, secondary to the health benefits on importance/impact. If you ask people about their watch, it's "nice" that they don't have to use their phone every time to stay in touch (get information). It's not why most people buy their watch right now.

Apple has obviously done tremendously well with the Apple Watch as a health device, but new technology and a shift in consumer trends/needs make the case for it to be more than that — especially when helping users take the vital step to act on their health data is plagued with legal challenges (solving the problem of understanding your body's health is great, but it'd be great to act on it).

I believe now is the right time to focus on the second problem — reduce phone dependency & screen time.

Proposed Improvement

Sure, the Apple Watch Ultra could have a slimmer profile, faster processing, and better battery life but that's lame. And not transformational. People are sick of these incremental changes that don't drastically benefit them in new ways.

The emergence of AI allows for Apple to solve problem #2 in an entirely new way: turn the Apple Watch into a context engine for the user's life.

A phone can be used less if the task you go to use it can be expedited and augmented with relevant context from your everyday. Need to draft an email to coworker after that meeting? Your watch just recorded the context and can now draft a response based on what you discussed. This is just one of endless examples in how such capabilities could augment knowledge work that was previously done without context on phones/computers (and took longer).

There's so many AI products that are promising to do things for you -- but the problem that they haven't been able to solve is doing things at a quality and level that is you. They lack the things that make you, you. They lack context. To fully make the most of AI products for your personal work, products need access to as much context about you as possible. This device can do that. ChatGPT with memory is so great because it uses context on past conversations to make it's future responses anticipate things you didn't know you needed, connect dots, and reduce repetitive work in repeating yourself.

Turning the Apple Watch into a context engine does more than just augment knowledge work -- it has the potential to improve your entire, everyday life as everyday devices become connected devices.

Heart rate elevated? Spotify can recommend a calming playlist or Netflix can recommend a 'feel-good' flick. Body temperature low? Automatically send a message to the smart thermostat to turn up the heat.

You can start to see the vision.

Before we move on to business viability, another reason why this improvement makes sense that can't be overlooked: It's a familiar form factor. Instead of having to tell consumers to change their behavior and wear a necklace that does just this, they can continue doing what they already do: wear a watch.

(oops — the rest will be in bullet points because I timeboxed this and need to work on other things)

Business Viability

• No surprise Apple has failed to deliver something meaningful in the AI space while their competitors have been ripping it
• Big concern that their former head of design, Johnny Ive, joined OpenAI to build a device whose purpose is also to reduce screen time and provide a context engine for your life
• If Apple doesn't deliver a device that can successfully utilize the new capabilities of AI in a meaningful way (as discussed here), they will lose relevance
• Small steps have already been made

Implementation Plan

• Improve battery life: already a pain, will be more of a need for something that's always capturing/analyzing data
• New watch-iPhone connection: it's not realistic to expect this new version of the watch to handle all the data analyzing and processing — likely it will need to be smart with what data it chooses to use and part of that will be its ability to offload tasks to the iPhone (more powerful) whenever it's in-reach
• More processing power: more data processing (even if most of the analyzing is off-device) will require better chips
• Improved microphone: better quality microphone = more accurate results
• Consider tiered/alternative product strategy with a no-screen device: Whoop has been successful with this for a health device. Since the goal is less screen time, no screens (or less) makes sense.

Postscript notes

Of the four main "product risks", we mostly discussed its value and viability. The other two are:

• feasibility
• usability

And if there were to be a fifth, it'd be the sustainability. Ensuring the product is built with the health of the planet and future generations in mind.

Oh, and yeah, privacy is a big concern with this improvement. That requires another discussion.

A customer/user profile that was consulted when writing this (as it was primarily written through this lens):

Common traits:

• tech-savvy
• own an iPhone (and likely other Apple products)
• affluent (enough to purchase a watch)

Likely to be:

• busy
• health-focused