What Apple's Big Announcement Means for Government

Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the company’s latest innovations: a new set of larger iPhones, Apple Pay and the much anticipated Apple Watch. The announcements have a few major implications for government:

1. Information on your wrist: 2015 will be the year your agency will need to be accessible through the wrist. Citizens will gradually expect more information via third-party apps to be delivered on their wrist. Moving forward, think about how you can extend notifications and alerts to your citizens through their wrist in a mutually beneficially way. For example, if a constituent is late with paying his water bill, could you notify him on -- and let him pay from -- his watch?
2. Payment through your phone or wrist: As Apple’s payment system goes live this October, you should be asking yourself -- does your current credit card processing system support NFC payments? If not, get ready, because the requests for Apple Pay as an option are on their way.
3. Public health on your wrist: The campaign for healthy living may get a boost through the integration of heart, activity and other tracking built into the new wearable. The new device -- along with its health app, third-party apps and the companion HealthKit development platform -- plays nicely into the movement toward a quantified life through which people pay attention to key measures of health, wellness and exercise because, well, even most Apple users would do well to lose a few pounds.