Nordic Business Forum
- Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak called the Apple Watch his "favorite piece of technology in the world right now" when speaking to Bloomberg Television.
- He said the watch gives him less of a reason to use his phone, and therefore prevents him from being addicted to it.
- Technology addiction has been an increasingly important focus area for Apple and other tech companies in recent years. Apple built screen-time management controls into the iPhone last year.
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While Apple has certainly improved the Apple Watch's health functionality in recent years, company cofounder Steve Wozniak says he loves his smartwatch for a very different reason: it prevents him from being addicted to his phone.
"It's about my favorite piece of technology in the world right now," Wozniak recently said when speaking to Bloomberg Television.
Wozniak says he typically uses his computer when he's checking email or keeping up with the news and uses the watch when he's on the go. "And then I move to the watch and pretty much skip the phone," he said. "I'm not one of these people that wants to be like an addict."
The Apple Watch has slowly become an increasingly important product for Apple in recent years. Sales of products in Apple's wearables, home, and accessories division, which includes the Apple Watch, have surpassed that of the iPad and are closing in on the Mac, according to the company's most recent earnings report.
Read more: Fitbit's new smartwatch can do 3 important things the Apple Watch can't
Technology addiction has become a prominent subject of interest for companies like Apple and Google, which in recent years have added tools to their smartphones to help users better monitor how they're using their devices.
Apple brought a feature called Screen Time to the iPhone last year, which provides reports showing how much time users spent in specific apps. The company is adding more features to it this fall with iOS 13 that let parents control who children can communicate with and set screen-time limits across different app categories, apps, and websites. Google has a similar feature for its Android devices called Digital Wellbeing.
Apple is also launching a new software update for the Apple Watch this fall, which will bring the ability to track activity trends over time and a standalone App Store to the watch. Apple could also launch a new Apple Watch model this fall, according to Bloomberg.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has also spoken about the importance of managing the amount of time we spend on our smartphones in the past. "I think they ought to put their phone down and look at who they're talking to or having dinner with," Cook said when ABC's Diane Sawyer asked him what he thinks when he sees people in a restaurant staring at their phones. "But I totally recognize that it is their decision."
