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What it is: NYC restaurateur, Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group will use Apple Watches to improve service at the Union Square Cafe in Manhattan.
When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, many people didn’t think it was a revolutionary product. Only a few years later when the iPhone got more powerful, reached more carriers, and opened its App Store for developers to market their apps to consumers did the iPhone rapidly change the entire smartphone industry. Yet in the beginning, the iPhone was still revolutionary, but wasn’t able to change the smartphone market overnight.
The same cycle is occurring with the Apple Watch. Many people are initially disappointed that the Apple Watch didn’t revolutionize the wearable computer market overnight, but they forget that the iPhone didn’t revolutionize the smartphone industry overnight either. It took time for the iPhone to change the world and it’s slowly taking time for the Apple Watch to do the same thing.
Apple has improved the Apple Watch with a faster processor and redesigned operating system, based on feedback from the original Apple Watch. Now the Apple Watch is moving into the hospitality industry as a necessary item.
In the past, service in restaurants depended on waiters/waitresses and other workers physically interacting with customers. The coat check attendant wouldn’t know which coat to get until you showed up and asked for it. That’s all going to change with he Apple Watch.
When the Union Square Cafe reopens in Manhattan next month, every floor manager and sommelier will wear an Apple Watch. Now when a VIP walks through the front door, someone orders a bottle of wine, a new table is seated, a guest waits too long to order her or his drink, or a menu item runs out, every manager will get an alert on their wrist.
Suddenly service will greatly improve because managers will know of an important task without having to physically be there to find out about it. such improved service will please customers when their problems magically seem to get fixed without the hassle of actually talking to multiple people.
Without wearable computers, this would be impossible. With wearable computers like the Apple Watch, this seemingly impossible task will soon become commonplace. Wearable computers simply provide information rapidly. While many critics compare the Apple Watch to dedicated fitness trackers, dedicated fitness trackers are not versatile enough to compete against the Apple Watch.
As third-party developers find more unique uses for the Apple Watch, you can expect wearable computers (led by the Apple Watch) to continue breaking new ground and allowing people to perform tasks that were impossible to accomplish before, which is the real definition of a revolutionary product.