Last week, Apple held their yearly September conference where they showcased the latest generation iPhone, but most notably, the all-new Apple Watch. What is slated to be Apple\’s next \”groundbreaking device\” may actually prove useful to doing more tasks than the simple social networking, but may become more helpful in completing other tasks such as DJing. The folks at Digital DJ Tips compiled a list of the 5 ways that the Apple Watch could actually benefit DJs when it\’s released in early 2015.
1. Assistance with Beatmatching
Although sync is a useful tool that has been around for quite some time, and is often used heavily – some beginning, or even experienced, DJs may find it useful to at least have a background on manual beatmatching. Seeing that the Apple Watch has a vibration module, it would be cool to see the watch interact with the music and give a light tap if a beat is only slightly off, or a heavy tap if a beat is extremely off. Apple has put a lot of R&D into the revamped \”Taptic\” feedback, so it\’d be definitely interesting to see that.
2. Showing \”Time Left\”
There are times were club DJs are playing for countless hours, and can get disgruntled and have to use the restroom. With a feature that could connect with the Apple Watch that interacts with the CDJs, could easily alert the DJ of the time remaining of a song that\’s currently playing and further, suggest what songs to play next based on BPM, key, etc.
For more popular DJs who are playing sold out shows or major festivals, it probably wouldn\’t be the best idea to run off stage to the bathroom for 2 minutes, but it could be convenient to show how many minutes they have remaining in their performance.
3. Controlling Lights and Effects
Since the Apple Watch contains sensors, as well as a gyroscope, it would be insanely cool to see the Apple Watch work closely with the lights and FX, to have a direct relationship with the DJ. Such as intensified bright lights when the DJ is waving his hands before a drop, or crazy flashing lights when the DJ is banging his fist once the drop hits. Although this is probably a bit more complicated than it seems, it\’d be nice to have that correlation and relationship between the two.
4. Reading The Crowd
Apple has slated their Watch to be the next personal everything-Health device, and it could very well be used to do just that – while also having a correlation to the DJ. The Apple Watches contain in-depth sensors which not only take account of all your activity at a given time, but also knows your heart rate. With the amount of Apple Watches that might be sold, or even just in general, a DJ could use the activity and see if the crowd is feeling mellow, or if they are feeling the energy. This way the DJ has a general preface of what to play.
5. Collecting Requests
While I don\’t expect Calvin Harris to be using something like this at Hakkasan, it would be really nice to see some implementation of the requests that people want the DJ to play. Apple touts the Watch to be the best portable input device, so it could be useful for people with, or without the Apple Watch, to submit requests and have the DJ read them right on his wrist without being interrupted.
Although they won\’t DJ for you, it\’s quite evident that Apple Watches could quite possibly change the way we interact with DJs today, and how they can make for a more personal, and intimate experience while seeing a show at a club, etc. Can you think of anyways the Apple Watch may be useful for DJs? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
