With prices ranging from $350 to a whopping $17,000, an Apple Watch warrants some investigation before making the leap. According to Apple, an Apple Watch will “let you do familiar things more quickly and conveniently,” including providing a physical alert when you receive new messages, increased options for tracking physical activities, and information like weather and calendar entries at a glance. Probably the first place to start in your research is watching the guided tour videos on Apple’s website.
Your next step will be to find out what other lawyers have to say about the Apple Watch. Can an Apple Watch help you in your law practice? Attorney Nicole Black reported, after a week with her Apple Watch, that “[t]he watch provides you with the most important information you need to know in a convenient, easily accessible way …. [Y]ou just look at your wrist for the time, the weather, your upcoming appointments, notifications of important communications and more.” Other pluses she noted: good sound quality for receiving phone calls, turn-by-turn directions with haptic alerts before each turn, the ability to control your notification settings, and the Activity app tracking her activity levels for the day.
But are those things really enough to justify the $350 (on top of the price of your iPhone)? To me, those pluses don’t add all that much to your iPhone. And, more importantly, they don’t seem to add anything particularly useful to law practice, at least at this point. Perhaps, as the commenter on Ms. Black’s post above said, “For now I would say it’s too early to buy it.”
That said, if gadgetry is your thing, read up on what lawyers have to say about the Apple Watch as well as some of its competitors: