I'd have to say, I don't think that's right.

I agree with /u/rajrdajr that this idea has been popping up for decades now - never to really take off. Whilst the watch is probably a better match to it than the desktop, it's still only a good match to user needs some of the time.

It comes down to how you view what a smartwatch is for. At first sight a timeline interface for a time-directed watch seems like a match made in heaven. Information is presented in the natural mindset of the device.

However. There are at least two other modes going on here.

The first is the interruptive model - a message comes in and a notification pops up. You need to filter those messages such that only the key messages are presented depending on context and priority. You also need to be able to understand the context of the message and if it needs attention VERY fast. Neither of these are done well (or at all) on today's watches - and improving them is probably of higher priority than this from a UI perspective. In addition, if they are not dealt with at the time then the context and priority changes, as should the UI. So a timeline of past notifications is a BAD way of presenting the info.

And second is the action interface - using the watch to DO something. This is very much a categorised, app driven interface - and an area of failure in most watches. At least with Android Wear I can ask a question in natural speech (a better interface than button pushing). That's missing (and looks like it will remain missing) on pebble. Maybe I'm calorie counting and I want to register food eaten - that's an action which has extremely poor relationship to a timeline interface (sure you will register when its eaten, but that's not the point). It's both difficult to achieve, categorised/app like in nature, and horrible with a button press interface.

In short, this article and pebble are considering the watch to be an information consumption device. However it's a horrible, small, low res screen - so it's poorly designed for the task. Rather the smartwatch's future is in smarter, context aware, notifications and active initiation of actions (doing something). Thus the interface needs to both be much smarter, and much more orientated to the performing of those actions and input of information.

Timeline is secondary.