This was used to illustrate how each major product had a unique input method tailored to it. However, Jobs didn’t stop there:

Meanwhile, with the Apple Watch, we got this:

Fishing for apps in a shrunken Springboard on a 1.5 inch screen, does not a tailored UX paradigm make. Apple’s “apps everywhere” approach is reminiscent of Microsoft’s Windows Everywhere™ strategy under Steve Ballmer. When a company doesn’t holistically approach each new platform with a new perspective, you get products like this:

Even Apple partially acknowledges this, as evidenced by their messaging pivot from focusing on apps, to positioning it primarily as a health wearable. However, watchOS 3 indicates that the product team didn’t receive the memo from Marketing; it encompassed a doubling down on the old paradigm — app switcher & all:

Instead, they killed Glances — one of the few UX elements that actually suited the snap interaction style such a device requires.

The overall result? A platform with neglected apps and waning developer interest, and a product that has yet to produce a compelling value proposition.

Based on the use cases provided, Apple originally positioned third party watchOS apps as a way to essentially “augment reality”:

The most crucial ingredient for augmented reality is contextual awareness. In my Apple Watch review, I recognised the need for this:

Given the various watch faces display different information, it would be handy for the Apple Watch to be able to switch faces based on your location — e.g. at work, show Modular; at home, change to Mickey Mouse. This could be coupled with different alert settings, forming a geo-profile feature.

After using the Apple Watch for over a year, I believe Apple needs to take this even further: context — not Springboard — needs to become the underlying paradigm for the entire operating system. Instead of WatchKit, Apple should have designed ProactiveKit. It could offer developers a set of “triggers” that watchOS watches for and intelligently acts upon, similar to Trigger on Android. It would be a richer extension of iOS’ Siri App Suggestions, which is not even present on watchOS. Context would extend to all aspects of the OS:

At this point, you are likely to interject and say, “But, Dan, just wait for watchOS 4! I’m sure it will improve!!” However, performing a pre-mortem revolves around imagining a product has already failed. Furthermore, Steve Jobs didn’t wait until iPhone OS 3 to release Springboard. User experience is a core part of a product’s value proposition, and if people form the opinion that a product isn’t really useful, it can become hard to change that. Therefore, I believe Apple should not have released the product yet if they were planning to essentially experiment publicly.

2. iOS

Last year, there was a realisation that people were experiencing app fatigue. The iMessage and Siri and MapsKit App Stores may help alleviate that for a little longer; however, Apple hasn’t planned for a post-app world, and tacking App Stores everywhere is unsustainable. iOS is still very much Springboard-centric. Indeed, the old criticism that iOS is a “static grid of icons” is still largely true years later.

Apple has tried to incorporate a sense of intelligence through Siri App Recommendations/Proactive; however, they are tacked-on and shoved to the side — literally. Notifications are still an unprioritised, endless text list. Widgets are presented in an even longer, unintelligent list. Meanwhile, Siri — the supposed underlying intelligence agent — still doesn’t know me or my devices any better than a stranger.

To solve this, Apple must not cling to old paradigms that made them successful, lest they fall victim to the Innovator’s Dilemma:

The problem is [incumbents] fail to value new innovations properly because [they] attempt to apply them to their existing customers and product architectures — or value networks.

Contextual computing is the next frontier; therefore, not only should watchOS be redesigned around it, but also individual apps and iOS: