Free Apple Watch

It’s called the Apple Watch, it looks like a luxurious synthesis of technology and traditional timepiece craftsmanship, and it uses a “digital crown” to navigate through lists and zoom in on data. Apple finally announced its long-awaited smartwatch on Tuesday, and, boom, just like that, the center of gravity of the shaky wearables market has shifted in a seismic reset.

No, not because the watch looks that revolutionary. It’s because this is an Apple smartwatch. And for better or worse, this is the new wearable’s most important feature.

Will all this aesthetic variety be enough to convert mainstream normal people to smartwatches once and for all? Well, the focus on design helps. But Apple hasn’t necessarily reinvented the wheel—or even the watch crown—with the features it revealed Tuesday. It appears the Apple Watch is still mainly a wearable for quick personal communication, activity-tracking and smartphone notifications

Of course, Apple Pay looks great, and could push Apple Watch to mainstream relevance. But this feature and the rest of Apple’s tricks will need to be dead-frictionless to use if Apple Watch is to be a winner.

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