Let's be honest, James Bond is an Apple fan.
“Classy,” “cool,” “slender,” “sophisticated” - and maybe even “dangerous” Keep the undead:the best technology to eliminate zombies Keep the undead:the best technology to eliminate to zombies This is a breaking report. An unknown disease is sweeping the nation. Please stay inside. There are some items in your home that can help. What follows is a special report from MakeUseOf. Read More Sony even offered Daniel Craig $5 million to use one of his phones on Spectrum - he refused the deal; he said a Sony smartphone wasn't good enough for Bond. The same would be totally true for a Sony SmartWatch Sony SmartWatch 3 Review and Competition Sony SmartWatch 3 Review and Competition The SmartWatch 3 comes with Google's Android Wear, but unlike other versions of Android Wear, it offers a nearly perfect hardware profile. Read more.
Bond has always had a thing for watches. In fact, some of the best gadgets Bond has ever used The best Bond gadgets of all time The best Bond gadgets of all time are legendary. In this article, we take a look at some of the most futuristic gadgets from the movies and see how they stand out in the era of the iWatch. Read More It also tends to be at the forefront of watch technology. All of which means you'd love the Apple Watch.
In 1973, Roger Moore's Bond wore the Pulsar P2, the first mass-produced digital watch, in He Lives and Lets Die . This was 10 years before a digital watch was even considered nerdy 4 Everyday Things That Were Incredibly Nerdy In The 80s 4 Everyday Things That Were Incredibly Nerdy In The 80s they were considered cool Read More .
While the P2 is a classic watch, it's not without its flaws. For a digital watch it is almost featureless:it simply tells the time. No date, no stopwatch, and no other complications. The screen wasn't on all the time; pressing a button on the side shows bold red numbers. It's also $395 bucks, $10 more than a Rolex Submariner. This all sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?
From then until 1985. A view to kill Bond almost exclusively wore Seiko digital watches. These came with various abilities courtesy of Q Branch. Bond was able to receive secure text messages from MI6, using laughter in an incredible way back in 1977. The Spy Who Loved Me -and even television images on the various Seikos of him.
When digital watches stopped being so futuristic, Bond went back to analog watches. Timothy Dalton wore a TAG Heuer and a Rolex, while Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig wore both Omegas. Even these were not without some cool additional features. Brosnan's Omega equipped with a Golden Eye laser is without a doubt one of the most iconic watches in history, in part due to its role in the amazing Nintendo 64 licensed video game that was really good [MUO games] licensed video games that were really good [games from MUO] Games are not known for their quality. Most of the time, licensed games are released to coincide with a movie or other major press release. It's ... Read More based on the movie.
In the decade following Bond's foray into digital watches, his popularity increased. Even in the mid-1990s, when I was growing up, a Casio digital was the best thing you could strap on your wrist.
As John Gruber discusses in an article on James Bond and the Apple Watch, the best thing about Casio was its potential. You hardly ever needed any of the additional features, and even when you did, using them was next to impossible.
I couldn't agree more with what Gruber writes:
But you know what? You didn't care His Casio was the successor to the digital watches Bond had been wearing since the 1970s. Although he couldn't receive text messages, the stopwatch was accurate to hundredths of a second. Sure, there was no way you could use it with such precision, but all that mattered was that the potential was there.
Having worn an Apple Watch for the past month, Gruber reminds him of these early digital watches.
When I was growing up, one of the Irish TV channels, for a few months every year, would show a Bond movie on Saturday nights, working on the entire collection. This weekly ritual was one of the most formative experiences of my childhood.
For me, childhood nostalgia isn't Disney movies, it's watching Bond dispatch another henchman, kiss another girl, or throw in another sexual innuendo (which, luckily, I missed at the time). It's safe to say that Bond is pretty ingrained in my psyche.
Now, 40 years after Bond first received text messages on his wrist, the real world is finally catching up. I'm sure Roger Moore's Bond would wear an Apple Watch. While Daniel Craig won't be wearing one in Spectrum I wouldn't be surprised if he had one in the movie after.
Even as a fan of Apple and its products, I accept that no one necessarily an Apple Watch, but it's not about necessity. As gruber puts it, “[The Apple Watch] must justify its existence no more than any other watch, mechanical or electronic, ever created. Of course you don't need it. Nobody, not a single person on the face of the earth, needs a $400 watch, Apple Watch or otherwise.”
It's not about whether getting notifications on my wrist will make my life better, it's about having a device on my wrist that is capable so much Something that has been promised for decades is actually available for the first time:a watch that can make phone calls, search the Internet, receive messages, and look good while doing it.
Gruber again:
James Bond would definitely wear an Apple Watch, and so will I.
There's only one real reason to buy an Apple Watch:because you want to. As with many first-generation Apple devices, the promise outweighs the implementation. The iPhone 3GS was the first great iPhone. The second generation of Macbook Air was the laptop that changed the PC industry. The first generation of the Apple Watch has its problems, but I still want it..
If an Apple Watch is good enough for Bond, it's good enough for me. That's as good a reason to buy one as any I've ever heard.
The Apple Watch has so far proven to be divisive among the MakeUseOf staff. So are you going to buy one? If so, is your decision remotely based on seeing James Bond wear futuristic wristwatches over the years? Let us know your thoughts on the Apple Watch and/or James Bond in the comments section below.
