As we all should have expected, John Gruber published his thoughts on today’s iPhone event late last night. He predicts we’ll see both a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone (which most of us have come to expect at this point) and also shared his thoughts on Apple’s rumored wearable device:

In short, I don’t expect to see Apple’s take on the sort of thing Android Wear is trying to do. I expect Apple to do something different, and quite possibly something less but deeper.

I think John nailed it here. I don’t think Apple can be successful with a wearable device that does what all of the recently released “smartwatches” do, it has to be something different.

The biggest problem I’ve had with these watch-focused devices is that they don’t do enough to justify their existence. And, the things that they do aren’t compelling enough to stand on their own as a reason to actually own one. Not to mention all of the overhead involved in adding another gadget to my daily life (charging it, remember to wear it, etc.) which makes it that much more difficult to actually be persuaded to purchase one.

If Apple plans on announcing a wearable device today, I expect them to have a very good reason why someone would want to wear it everyday. And, the reason will be beyond “look at this cool technology we can put on your wrist.” Other companies have tried that, and it hasn’t resulted in products that people continue using beyond the first few weeks — eventually the novelty wears off and it ends up buried under a pile of cables in a desk drawer.