iWatch: Great or Stupid Idea?

Image: Yrving Torrealba/The Los Angeles Times

The geek Interweb is atwitter with the rumored iWatch, the mythical "smartwatch" that Apple is supposed to be working on. The iWatch, if such thing even exists, will be able to sync up to the iPhone - so you can view who's calling or texting you simply by glancing down on your wrist.

The iWatch rumor hit fevered pitch when the AppleInsider blog noted that Apple has filed a patent for a wearable accessory device with "a bi-stable spring with flexible display," which brings to mind the slap bracelets popular back in the late 80s.

There's plenty of interest amongst Apple and tech enthusiasts - after all, the concept of a smart wristwatch has been around since the golden era of Dick Tracy, a comic strip first drawn by Chester Gould back in the late 1930s.

And most recently, the huge interest that surrounds the Pebble Watch resulted in the company receiving more than $10 million from nearly 70,000 people on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. The Pebble watch is based on ePaper technology and if a scrappy startup could do it, imagine what a company the size of Apple could do. (Note: smart Android-based watches already exist, but so far they haven't made the big splash one'd expect. See the i'm Watch review over at the-Gadgeteer, for example)

No doubt that wristwatches are highly fashionable and very much coveted accessories (the list of watches that are more expensive than a Ferrari is suprisingly long) and that Apple has a knack of creating great products that critics dismiss out of hand at first (remember the iMaxiPad joke on MADtv?), but does the concept of an iWatch - basically, an always on, small iPhone on your wrist - make sense to you? (Personally, I don't get it).

Does the idea of being able to glance at your wrist to see who texted or called you is worth the alternative method of spending a few seconds to grab the actual iPhone out from your pocket or purse? (Because, you know, who actually carries their phone in their hands all the time?)

And what about the function of actually telling the time? Marshal Cohen of consumer research firm NPD Group (who's a big fan of the iWatch concept, by the way) noted that whenever he approached teenagers wearing a watch and ask them what time it is, as a way to do real-life research on the topic, they almost always pull a phone out of their pocket to check.

So what do you think about the iWatch or whole concept of a smartwatch, Neatoramanauts? Great idea or a stupid one?