Content area
Full text
THE BIG READ A century after marketing men convinced us to shift our clocks from pocket to wrist, Apple is attempting to launch a revival of the watch. SIMON USBORNE explores the cultural, historical and scientific significance of ticks and tocks, and discovers how we really tell the time in the digital age
A century after soldiers strapped clocks to their wrists, and marketing men convinced us all to pull time out of our pockets, mobile phone companies have put it back, as so many of our old watches tick in the darkness of cupboards and drawers. The international symbol of time checking should no longer be a tap of the wrist, but a press or swipe of the thumb. But now those same companies are attempting to turn back the clock and restore time to our person. On Monday, Apple showed off its latest device. You probably noticed. Apple Watch, which goes on sale next month, is a strap-on iPhone accessory with unlimited applications. It will take your pulse and allow you to do an impression of Dick Tracy, but when Tim Cook gave "the most advanced timepiece ever created" the big sell, the models projected behind him initially displayed only one function: a retro clock face. The time? An aesthetically pleasing nine minutes past 10.
Today's marketeers are using time and the familiarity of its analogue measurement, to convince us that we need smartwatches in the digital age. Google tried it with glasses, but its attempt to buy our most valuable real estate - our faces - has so far failed. .
Apple has ditched the "skeuomorphic" features of the iPhone that, for example, made the notes app look like paper. But in its bid for our wrists, its watch goes back to basics, with old-style, if virtual, hands, and a real crown wheel.
The arrival of these devices, many of which bear an even closer resemblance to old timepieces, raises new questions about our shifting relationship with a constant yet slippery measure. It can crawl, race, fly, run out or even seem to stand still, but what does time look like? Who controls it, and how does it reach our wrists? What time is it right now, and how do you...