( CNN ) -- If you have n't been under a rock the past 24 hours ( and if you have been , you have other things to worry about ) , you know that a certain Cupertino-based fruit company has finally unveiled its entry into the smartwatch sweepstakes , and , as expected from the house that the late Steve Jobs built , the new Apple Watch is a bushel of insanely geektastic features wrapped up in a sleek and eminently gorgeous package . You can get the scoop on what it actually does ( and whether you should drop your hard-earned $ 349 `` to start '' on it ) elsewhere . The question I 'm interested in is whether Apple 's long-awaited arrival in the buzzy wearables category finally means that people -- regular people , that is , not pixel-pushing pundits and Tesla-driving tech titans -- are ready to wear them . The fact is , while wearables have generated a lot of attention , they 're being used a lot less than the fanfare might suggest . According to the NPD Group and Strategy Analytics , only about 14 million fitness bands and activity trackers and about 2 million smartwatches were sold globally over the 12 months ending this past March . ( Everything else -- Google Glass , cloud cameras , digital jewelry , wi-fi socks , connected underwear -- basically represents a rounding error . ) Compare that with the number of smartphones sold around the world : 964 million . That 's the difference between a niche product and an emerging necessity . Now , there are pretty good reasons why people have so far failed to adopt wearables in droves . The first is that this first generation of devices have been , in the larger scheme of things , pretty useless . Or single use , at most : Fitness trackers may be invaluable for dedicated dieters and exercise junkies , but most people do n't have room in their personal digital portfolios for another device that does nothing but count steps and calories . It 's one more thing to update , charge , sync and misplace . ( I had a Fitbit when it first came out -- accent on the `` had . '' It 's currently counting turbulence jolts on a plane somewhere between here and Shanghai . ) Hands-on with the new Apple Watch . But the second and most critical reason is that technology needs to reflect demand , not supply . Are consumers actually hungry for what you 're cooking ? If they are n't , your smart [ insert device category here ] is an interesting idea , not a product . It 's an answer looking for a question . And it is designed to make nerd fanboys and technology columnists wet their pants , not to change the way ordinary people live . Every game-changing innovation , from the horseless carriage to the first cell phone to streaming video on Netflix , is one that fulfills a fundamental need so well that it 's hard to imagine what it was like before that innovation arrived . Of course , you often do n't realize this until well after the innovation in question has been released . Apple 's original iPhone , with its featureless oblong form factor and touchscreen-based UI , was derided as an expensive , keyboardless toy . The iPad was dismissed as an oversized iPhone with a feminine-hygiene inspired name . Both of these ended up completely reinventing their categories and earning Apple billions . The Apple Watch , meanwhile , received a standing ovation when it was unveiled Tuesday as the `` One More Thing '' behind Apple 's new supersized iPhone 6 , and has been generating a near-universal stream of acclaim from the digerati ever since . People across my social network have been focusing their lust on different aspects of the device -- from its fashion-focused interchangeable bands to its ability to serve as a wave-and-enter key for rooms at Starwood hotels , to perhaps the weirdest feature it offers : Its ability to send a real-time pulsing display of your heartbeat to any contact on your paired iPhone . ( At the very least , that 's going to change the face of action cinema . ) Which may answer my original question : While other companies are trying to figure out how to respond to need , Apple , more so than any other company , has figured out how to create it . Just now , my mom called me to ask if I thought she needed an Apple Watch , to go along with her new iPhone 5c . If you needed an indicator as to whether the wearable revolution is finally here , that 's as good as any .
Apple unveiled the long-awaited Apple Watch . Jeff Yang : Does Apple 's foray into wearables mean people are ready for them ? He says even though wearables are buzzy , consumers have n't flocked to them in droves . Yang : The biggest challenge is that there just aren't enough apps yet.