Apple Watch Travel Apps Ready for Launch and My Predictions

Five months after revealing the Apple Watch, the company today announced pricing for the device as well as a release dates and more details about its features

Source: skift.com

If you do a lot of travel, it appears that the Apple developers have been thinking about you when it comes to apps for the Apple Watch. If this little set is anything to go by, I think times are going to get very interesting. The Apple watch is going to make some people wear a watch again and others will be looking at their watch that only tells the time and after telling other people they are geeks for wanting a smart watch, will be putting it on their birthday list, Christmas list or just going out and getting one. Those who bought Fitbits or other watches because they wanted a digital watch but found it only did the sports and health stuff are probably already wanting more, unless they bought it specifically for sport and health reasons.

Let’s just have a look at some of the apps on offer and of course this is just a sample:

Airline apps. I use my phone app to check flights, confirm the gate, my seat, it’s even my boarding pass and lets me order coffee. I’m keen to be able to do all of those things without getting my phone out of my pocket.

Starwood Homes and Resort’s let you use your Apple Watch as your door key at the hotel. No hands, no pockets, no smart key to accidentally leave lying on the bed where you tossed it after checking in. Just pass your watch over the door scanner.

TripAdvisor. One of my favorite apps. It is more and more getting into attractions and of course since your watch knows where you are, it can tell you what is cool, in proximity to your current location. Soon it will also know what you like and only tell you about things that are of interest to you. The other night when I was at a local restaurant my phone thought I was at the Oteha Valley Mitre 10 DIY superstore (the manager never got back to me as promised about the pool chlorine bottle that leaked into my car and bleached my good shorts) and no I wasn’t keen on going back there, but thanks for asking me, phone!

OpenTable, what’s good and where is it in relation to the car park I just found, how far away is it.

There’s more here, but I’ll just mention Citymapper. For many places using public transport is getting easier and easier. Apps for mobiles are great and I love to see more apps coming out that tell you what bus (or train) to catch, directions on how to get to the stop and when to expect it. I usually have to put something down, enter my pin code and find the app. Having it on my wrist makes a lot of sense. This is a really exciting one for me because that was exactly the app concept that won the New Zealand Location Innovation Awards that I ran for a couple of years. Unfortunately the transport network was not yet ready to deliver real time information on where the vehicles were, at that time.

You know, with all of these cool apps, I might get my hands back and be using them for other things than holding my 2 phones. (That’s another story).

My prediction is that within a couple of years a large percentage of the population will be wearing a smart watch. Here is another industry that is going to either have to be part of the evolution or be swamped by it. Whether it’s a Casio or a Rolex, unless they are smart watches that market will be seriously at risk. It will be interesting to see which are the brands that make it happen, that watch it happen and complain about life not being fair, and those that just fade into history, wondering what happened.

See on Scoop.it – Location Is Everywhere