There’s been a wave of sentiment over the past few days about the Apple Watch as an invitation to thieves. Many people share
John Gruber’s take:
I really don’t get the hysteria over this as an invitation to thieves. This is no less secure than every single other wristwatch ever made.
This isn’t about the value of a single watch. It’s about a combination of large enough market size, high desirability, and relative rarity.
When the iPhone first emerged, the market was relatively small and theft was not a big problem. As the iPhone took off, the market for iPhones achieved critical mass, new releases were highly desirable and supply was constrained (new models achieved relative rarity). That combination triggered a wave of iPhone thefts, including some dangerous and brazen robberies, all triggered by a need to feed the hunger for the iPhone.
Apple responded to this crime wave by making their products useless if they were stolen. The approach clearly worked and iPhone theft plummeted.
The Apple Watch is not an invitation to thieves. Yet.
There are not enough Apple Watches in the wild yet to be a large enough market. The desirability might be there for early adopters, but it’s still too early in the adoption cycle for desirability to be high enough to trigger a large enough black market to entice this sort of thievery.
That said, if the Apple Watch catches on (and I think it will), then that wave is coming. If and when Apple Watch thefts become a large enough problem, it would be better if there was already a solution in place, a switch all ready to flip. After all, this lesson has already been learned.
“This is no less secure than every single other wristwatch ever made. ” except this is not another wristwatch but a tiny computer with a lot of personal data. i don t get Apple, after the iphone iterations, has not included a find my watch, lock my watch, remote eraze feature
The fact that it’s a computer or it has personal data might make it a more valuable, high damage target, but it doesn’t make it any easier or harder to steal. Just like adding some fancy pants chips to a Rolex doesn’t suddenly make it easier for someone to remove it from your wrist.
more attractive target? as Dave is arguing here, potentially. A normal luxury watch is probably a lot easier to fence though than electronics, much less depreciation in value and likely harder for owner to track down, also no need to sell to someone who has an iPhone.
I do agree that they should add activation lock which is probably the most effective deterrent (more than find my watch, which they can’t really effectively implement any way without gps and cell data), but this whole thing is basically clickbait from likes of 9to5, verge, CNN.
In order to make the watch usable or sellable, it is necessary to do a factory reset. This deletes all of the information stored on the watch.
if the watch loses contact with you skin, it locks (PIN needed
10 strikes on the PIN erases the phone (if you set it to)
if it can’t see your phone, it’s little more than a timepiece.
common street thugs are mostly after the hardware, not your data.
the solution to the hardware problem is – require skin, phone and itunes pass to unpair – because you can’t remote wipe if your stolen watch can’t see the phone..
The point is not to lock it if lost. The point is to make it unusable to whoever stills it. Like an iPhone or iPad
My concern, in certain places, is not so much that the watch will be taken, but that I am also advertising that I am carrying an iPhone.
Not that that will stop me, of course 🙂
if that’s the actually point then it’s entirely unrelated to what you wrote in your original post.
nope. it s about protecting my device which is not just “another wristwatch”
Hmm…if you travel in dodgy places like that perhaps you shouldn’t be wearing the watch in those places? I guess I never worried that I was going to be a target because I use an iPhone.
It’s a big world. You should try it sometime, I’ll bet you’d like it! 😉
This entire article is about people (supposedly) being concerned about theft. Is everyone traveling in dodgy places?
update: looks like Apple “find my watch” “wipe my watch” are coming very soon http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/18/apple-readies-first-significant-apple-watch-updates-tvkit-sdk-for-apple-tv/