» Enabling other uses

In response to my post on square versus round watch faces, Abdel Ibrahim agrees, although he hates the Modular face, which I can understand. He also makes a point I hadn’t considered:

This is also why I think round, in the long term, is likely the wrong choice if you’re really trying to push the needle forward. Sure, round is a tad nicer looking when compared to square and we all know that if Apple built a round smartwatch it would be beautiful, but the problem is about information and glanceable data. In 5-10 years, are we really going to be using watches to tell time? Will that be even 1/4 of the reason we wear them? It’s hard to say, but again, I look at the iPhone and ask myself “How often do I make phone calls?” Answer: Rarely.

I have to think telling time will still be a core feature of a watch, even a smart one. The phone use of the iPhone is a bit different in that I never liked talking on the phone and the iPhone enabled means of avoiding that while on the go, like texting and email (you could do those on previous phones, of course, but it was not a good experience). I’m not sure how I can avoid needing to know what time it is. But he’s probably right that, ultimately, smartwatches will be used primarily for other things. So tying their UI to something defined by the sweep of hands doesn’t make a lot of sense.