This is an interesting story. It’s not about Apple Watch, and it’s from three years ago. Watch the video, embedded below.
At the heart of the story is a Gizmo smartwatch, specifically designed for kids. It sells for about $170.
What I find interesting about this watch is its incredibly simple design. It lets a child make and receive phone calls, but only to and from a specified list of phone numbers, a list that their parents set up and edit.
There’s a location tracker, presumably only available to their parents. And there’s a geofence, alerting parents when the watch leaves a specific location. So if the fence is set up to the grounds of a child’s school, the parents receive an alert if the child leaves that area.
There’s more to the Gizmo, but you get the idea. Now on to my point.
I’d like to see Apple add a mode like this to watchOS. All of the capabilities above exist already in watchOS. Imagine a starter Apple Watch with these limitations, perfect for a child, but also perfect for an elderly user, or for someone with limitations that might make it difficult to navigate the full watchOS.
And, while we’re at it, how about a similar, limited version of iPadOS? One with very large icons, and customizable. Boot it, and the only icons that show up are the ones it is set up with. And each of the icons can drive an editable shortcut. The shortcut might make a phone call to a specific person. Or send a text message. Or anything.
My mom is legally blind, and all the existing solutions in the Apple ecosystem are too complex for her to manage. She feels cutoff, but she’s smart, and eager for some solution she can manage. A limited Apple Watch or iPad would be a real blessing for her.
What an interesting story. Definitely something for Apple to pay attention to here.
It’s so simple it doesn’t have to be a watch. A band will do.
” I’m not paying $10 a month for an Apple Watch subscription. The Gizmo is a much more reasonable $5/month”
Because $5 is SO extortionate…
Your 3 year old likely isn’t LEGALLY BLIND which is his Mom’s issue.
Good point about the mom, Rick. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
Great for that kid! But seriously, Dave, I’m not paying $10 a month for an Apple Watch subscription. The Gizmo is a much more reasonable $5/month. I REALLY don’t like it when a big company charges me more money just because I can afford Apple stuff. So, with a Gizmo costing less than $200 up front including activation, and 50% less monthly means my kids will never have apple watches regardless of if they have kid features.
Oh, and my 3 year old can use the native iPad interface. She’s not great, but that just means she can’t play games on the iPad as well as the 5 year old can.
Regarding your last paragraph, I’ve had the same thought. I know Apple’s made some accessibility strides, but it would be great if they’d start making some adaptations to their products for aging users.
By last year, my dad’s vision and cognitive functions had deteriorated to the point that his iPhone had largely become a frustrating symbol of what he could no longer do. So I hid all of his apps in a folder and started making some simple unitasker apps like this for him:
https://twitter.com/hellogreg/status/1025397308702306304
Took about a day from concept to creation, and yet it’s likely the only good software I’ll ever develop! But it definitely made the last eight months of his life so much better for him–and for those of us with whom he kept in contact.