Posted on 04/28/2015 12:13:58 AM PDT by Swordmaker
My Apple Watch came Friday. Well, not my Apple watch. I ordered the space gray Apple Watch Sport with the black sport band, and it was back-ordered until mid-May. Fortunately, a friend of mine ordered a watch he didn’t want, and decided to let Six Colors purchase his Apple Watch Sport with a green sport band. After a quick exchange on a little street a couple of miles from my house, I was in business.
I spent two and half days with the Apple Watch without writing a word about it. I was talking to my mother on the phone today, and she asked what I thought of it—and I told her I couldn’t really say. It’s complicated.
This is a new product. Like, a really new product. It’s not like any product I’ve used before, though it has echoes of my old Pebble and of iOS devices, of course. But my built-up skills in using iOS were no use to me when I started using the Apple Watch. This is not a tiny iPhone on my wrist. This is something new.
It might be good. It’s certainly impressive. But it’s new, and it’s going to take some time to figure out quite what it all means.
So, in the absence of that sort of revelation, what am I to write about? Let’s take my rapid-fire observations and present them in a hail of bullets…
Can anyone out-box Apple? The watch comes in beautiful white box with a long plastic watch case inside. Is this packaging a tad wasteful? I suppose, but a $400 product probably demands more than a blister pack. The unboxing experience was really excellent.
I was impressed by the setup experience. Pairing the phone with the watch by taking a picture of a pattern displayed on the watch face just felt cool, and not having to type in a pairing code on the watch face certainly made the whole thing seem more civilized.
As will come as a surprise to no one who appreciates Apple’s prowess in crafting objects out of aluminum, the watch body itself feels fantastic. I prefer the anodized aluminum look to that of the more expensive stainless steel model. I’m still a little worried about the dent resistance, as well as the shatter resistance of the Ion-X glass face. But this is an incredibly solid piece of kit.
I’ve worn a watch for most of my adult life, and so it means something when I say that wearing the Apple Watch feels like wearing a watch. I didn’t feel like I had strapped some hockey puck to my wrist, or weighed my arm down with something heavy. Now, my wife—who rarely wears a watch—tried it on and complained of it being heavy. But if you’re used to wearing a watch, this one won’t faze you. I was also concerned about the device’s thickness, but it doesn’t feel thick at all. Coming from a Pebble and a Rolex, it just felt like another watch.
I love the Digital Crown hardware. I love how it spins, with just a little bit of resistance. I love scrolling through lists or picking complications by pushing my index finger forward and letting the crown run up the length of my finger. But I don’t think the Apple Watch software takes advantage of the Digital Crown often enough. This feels like a fun, sensible input device. Every time I use it, I feel delight. I want to use it more.
I have no idea what I’m doing when I press the two buttons on the watch. Maybe it’ll all make sense eventually, but right now I find myself pressing the lower button as if it’s the iPhone home button, which it isn’t. And I find myself pressing in the Digital Crown in an attempt to get back to the watch face from an app, which would usually get me there if I pressed it three times.
The most important gestures on the Apple Watch are the swipes up and down from the watch face screen. As an iPhone user, you expect that pressing on the Digital Crown and launching apps would be important, but it feels to me a bit more like a last resort. When you swipe down, the Apple Watch displays notifications. When you swipe up, it displays Glances. These, along with the watch faces themselves, feel like the heart and soul of the Apple Watch.
Glances are like the Dock on iOS or OS X. They are the place you put your most important stuff. You don’t want too many Glances, but you want the stuff that’s important to you. I turned on the MLB At Bat Glance, so I can check in on my favorite team1 with a couple of swipes. If I want more information, I can tap to open the complete app. Glances are little tidbits of information, but in most cases they’re all I need—or want.
I think Apple has done a good job with the stock watch faces, but there aren’t enough watch face choices. If I want a digital time display with a few additional pieces of information, I’m basically limited to the Modular display, which is futuristic but kind of ugly. More face choices would be good and more options to customize faces would be even better. (I do love the customization options on some of the faces, including both information density and color highlighting.)
I spent most of the weekend using the Utility face, which reminds me of the pleasures of using a watch with analog hands, namely that when you glance at its face you don’t try to read that it’s 12:37 p.m., you just read that it’s roughly a quarter until one. Analog hands require a little more brainpower at first, but they’re also kind of great at taking you out of the down-to-the-minute mindset that’s so easy to fall into.
I wish watch face complications were smarter. I love the idea of adding little bits of information, like the current weather forecast or your next calendar appointment, to a watch face. But that calendar complication continues to display even when all it can tell you is that you’ve got no future events, when it should probably just get out of the way. I don’t love that your World Clock options come from the Clock app on your iPhone, but you have to use the Apple Watch app to set their abbreviations. I’d like the option of displaying any current timers or alarms—but only if they’re set or running, not all the time.
I get frustrated by switching between apps and the watch face, and can’t figure out what happens when and why. Sometimes I’m using an app, and I look away for a minute and it’s been replaced by the watch face. (There’s a setting to make the Apple Watch display remain with the currently running app rather than return to the watch face, but I don’t want to set it, because I do want the watch face to return most of the time.) For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to pop back to my most recently used app, but it turns out it’s a simple answer—you double-tap on the digital crown to switch. I didn’t figure this one out until Benjamin Mayo told me on Twitter.
The Apple Watch seems to turn its screen off too aggressively. I’m all in favor of saving battery life, but I can’t show someone what’s on my watch without it turning itself off. And I find it turning off when I’m using it—even to dictate text!—much faster than I’d like. It seems like Apple has done a great job of ensuring all-day battery life, but a little more leeway here might make the experience of using the watch a bit more pleasurable.
I have no complaints about battery life. I’ve been using the Apple Watch normally and it feels like I haven’t come close to running it down. As I write this, I put the watch on 16 hours ago fully charged and it now says it’s at 46 percent. Seems pretty good to me.
The force touch gesture takes some getting used to. I kept wanting to tap the screen harder, but that’s not how it works—you’re supposed to tap normally and then just push in harder. Once it’s a part of your gestural lexicon, though, it becomes as natural as a two-finger click on a Magic Trackpad. It’s fun!
I took a shower with the Apple Watch, and both of us survived. In fact, the touchscreen worked even when it—and my fingertip—were soaking wet. Look, Apple’s statements about the waterproofness of the Apple Watch are all over the map. The company rates the product’s water resistance as IPX7, which equates to a claim that it can be immersed to up to 1 meter of depth for up to 30 minutes with no ill effects. Yet on Apple’s marketing pages, the company says “Apple Watch is splash and water resistant but not waterproof. You can, for example, wear and use Apple Watch during exercise, in the rain, and while washing your hands, but submerging Apple Watch is not recommended.” Tim Cook has said that he showers with Apple Watch. My guess is that Apple doesn’t want to tempt fate by encouraging people to swim with the Apple Watch on, but that under normal circumstances it will perform just fine if you get it a little bit wet in a shower, or a rainstorm, or washing dishes.
I hate rubber watch bands, but the fluoroelastomer sport band is pretty great. It’s soft and pliable and doesn’t make me want to rip it off screaming, even though I prefer leather bands. (I couldn’t shower with a leather band, either!) I still think the way the sport band attaches—popping a pin into a hole in the band—feels weird and backward, but perhaps I’ll get used to it. Also I’ll point out for people who are freaked out by the idea of using a leather band with stainless steel with an aluminum Apple Sport watch: the sport band on these aluminum models has a stainless steel pin. Oh, horrors, the fashion faux pas!
The third-party story is going to be huge as time goes on. Current third-party apps are okay, but they’re incredibly limited. With some of Apple’s built-in apps, you can get a better sense of what might be possible on this device. But I have to admit, I’m most excited by the idea of third-party watch faces or, at the very least, third-party complications for existing watch faces. I’m not convinced that developers will make pretty watch faces—I’ve seen all the awful third-party Pebble faces—but I do want more variety in my watch faces. I’d be fine if Apple took a strong hand with faces and only approved a very small number that passed a very high bar. But I’d be okay if Apple kept tight control of the faces… if developers could provide data from their apps as complications on existing faces. I’d love to plug in my Weather Underground temperature, for instance—today Apple’s standard temperature widget was a full ten degrees off of the actual temperature in my town.
Third-party apps are better than I expected. I really thought that WatchKit efforts were going to be so hamstrung by Apple’s initial developer limitations that they’d be almost useless in most cases. Perhaps by lowering my expectations, I was allowing myself to be pleasantly surprised? In any event, I loved being able to send tweets with Twitterrific and read Slack and get a pitch-by-pitch update from MLB At Bat. Like I said, I think that Glances are more central to the Apple Watch experience than apps, but the two work in concert. There’s a whole lot of potential here.
I appreciate the embrace of voice recording and speech-to-text. I love that when I’m sending a message to a friend, I can choose to send it as an iMessage audio attachment or just use the built-in speech-to-text engine to send it as text. I also love dictating messages in other apps, including Slack and Twitterrific. Dictating a message from my watch and watching it appear as text in a conversation somewhere—that’s a real feels-like-the-future moment.
A bunch of Apple’s technology investments over the past few years really pay off on the Apple Watch. Chief among them is Siri, which is the perfect technology for a device this size. But Apple’s Health app, Photos, iMessage, even the Remote app—by building a connected set of tools and a syncing infrastructure to power them, Apple was able to bring a whole lot of functionality to the Apple Watch that would have been much harder to build from scratch. (It’s almost like Apple had this whole thing planned out, isn’t it?)
The friends interface feels half-baked. For such a prominent feature—it’s what appears when you press the non-crown button on the side of the watch—it’s kind of weird to use. I’ve sent my share of digital scribbles this weekend, but I can’t imagine that I’ll keep doing it after the next week or two. It’s hard to draw anything in such a small space. The tap-on-the-wrist version of the same feature feels like the equivalent of a poke on Facebook—namely, a feature we’ll all regret. And most of the sketch messages I received strangely came from phone numbers rather than Apple IDs—so I didn’t know who was sending them until I did some research2.
I appreciate how the Apple Watch truly feels like an extension of my iPhone. When I get a new phone, I have to spend time logging in and authenticating all sorts of apps before I can start using them. But I didn’t need to do that with the Apple Watch, because in most cases my iPhone vouched for my watch.
I was skeptical of the idea of giving my Apple Watch a passcode—what a pain to put a passcode on a watch—but once I realized that I’d only need to enter the passcode once so long as I kept the watch on my wrist, it was no big deal. I really like how the Apple Watch trusts you as long as you haven’t taken it off. And I didn’t feel that I needed to make the watch super tight in order to keep contact—just a normal amount of contact between the inside of the watch and my skin did the trick.
That’s what I’ve got so far. I’m going to keep this thing on every day for the foreseeable future, and of course I’ll write more as I go. So far, I’ve enjoyed my time with Apple Watch. But as with any new relationship, it’s a good idea to be cautious. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship…
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metrosexual, entitled, whiny millenial
Good Gravy! I used to wear a “rubber watch”, but the bands would always wear out and break, and I ended up carrying them in my pocket. Then when I got a cell phone, I carried that in my pocket, and it functioned as a watch ( with the press of a button ) so that’s where I’m at now. So ... I’m supposed to GO BACK ? Heh. Obviously I’m way out of touch anyway, so no matter.
Apple Watch owners shame pro reviewers
Find out what new owners of the Apple Watch think about their devicesApr 27, 2015 7:45 AM PTThe Apple Watch has finally been delivered to some of Apple's customers, and many of them have been sharing their thoughts about the watch on the Apple Watch subreddit, and in the MacRumors forum. I've found the comments by Apple Watch owners much more interesting and informative than some of the so-called "professional" reviews that nit-picked the Apple Watch or failed to put it into the context of everyday living.
Apple Watch users have thankfully been quite forthcoming about the pros and cons of the new device, and they've also been very clear about how well it fits into their daily routines. Their voices have become a helpful counterweight to the Negative Neds and Negative Nellies in the tech media echo chamber.
So here's a smattering of owner reviews of the Apple Watch for you to enjoy. I've also added some comments of my own after each quote. Be sure to click through to the full post to get many more details about the actual experience of owning the Apple Watch.
Apple Watch owner reviews from Reddit
Papermario13689 had a very positive take on his new Apple Watch:
The Taptic engine is beautiful. Instead of feeling like an iPhone vibration, it feels like someone getting your attention by tapping your shoulder, except on your wrist. Several notifications have different tap patterns too.
The sport aluminum feels so smoooooth. Like the band, just run your fingers around it, and you'll understand what I mean.
The digital crown. Mmmmmmmm. I could turn this thing all day and never get tired of it. It feels strangely more natural than those clunky PC mice scroll wheels. This is the good ol' Apple smooth scroll at work.
The watch overall has a lovely weight. For sport/exercise folks, it is a solid build feel, but it's not heavy in any way. You could easily run a marathon with this.
The watch is fantastic. I already feel like it's a part of my life. The battery life is more than acceptable, the useful functionality is there, and with some tweaking to make the 3rd party apps run faster, it can really be an amazing platform. I'll leave you all with this: I will never get tired of watching Mickey tap out the seconds with his foot. It brings back my childhood memories of my Mickey Mouse watch from Disney World. The fact that it's customizable made it an instant pick for me.
I agree with Papermario on the weight. I tried on an Apple watch this weekend, and I was quite surprised at how light it was on my wrist. I tried on the space gray aluminum watch and I hardly noticed I had it on. The band was surprisingly soft too.
As far as the digital crown goes, I had no problems using it either. I got used to it right away and I could see the value of it immediately for Apple Watch users. It's a great way to navigate the watch.
Adambunion found that the 38mm Stainless Steel Apple Watch was a perfect fit for him. He also enjoyed the fitness features of his watch:
Firstly, the size. As you've heard again and again from others, the watches are smaller in person and I can't believe how true that is. They do appear smaller once you have one in front of you. That is no issue for me and my 170mm wrist though and the fact I prefer smaller watches :) If, from the pictures, the 38mm looks just about on the edge of acceptable for you, you may want to go with the 42 as the 38 will look smaller in person is something I'll say for those on the fence about which size to go for.
...earlier today I was sitting reading /r/Applewatch[6] and I received a 'ping' on my wrist telling me to walk around a bit. So I did. I went downstairs and made myself a drink at which point I got another 'ping' telling me that 'Sacriel' had gone live on Twitch (all of this while running a tap and filling my glass with full use of both hands still). 'Cool' I thought and walked back up stairs and put Twitch.tv on.
This combined with noticing that the daily calorie goals, movement goals along with all your 'steps taken' data and more is put into the health app for tracking on a daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly basis. You really do feel like this watch is with you through your fitness goals and its going to be keeping track of how badly or well you are doing and can show you real results and progress. For example, being unfit and running around the block at the start of 'getting fit' will probably result in pretty high BPM for those of us that are unfit in the heartbeat sensor. After time, you'll notice in the health app a lower BPM on the graph over time as your cardio improves. I'm not a fitness expert by any means I'm just trying to exemplify the usage cases when it comes to how this can feel like you are being helped along with the data collected.
Adambunion is absolutely right about the size. In person the Apple Watch seems a lot smaller than it does in photos. I thought the 38mm watch would be right for me, but then I realized that the 42mm felt and looked a bit better on my wrist. If you are going to buy an Apple Watch you should definitely try one on first, if at all possible. It's really the only way to know which size you will prefer.
Absurdly_sarcastic felt that some reviewers had exaggerated how difficult it was to learn how to use the Apple Watch. And he noted that the taptic engine might be a little weak for some users:
The reviewers were overly critical. This is not hard at all to learn how to use. A few wrong swipes here and there, but I'm a pro already. It's not THAT much different than iOS. They were also wrong about the speed of the clock face wakeup. When I flick my wrist to see it, it's pretty instantaneous.
The taptic engine is a little weak. I have already had a few times when I didn't notice a tap (mainly while driving, though I guess that's good). I wish it had a stronger setting, with the ability to turn it down. As it is now, you can turn it down, but the strongest setting is a bit weak.
Absurdly_sarcastic is dead on about reviewers exaggerating about how difficult it is to learn to use an Apple Watch. All you have to do is watch the Apple Watch Guided Tour videos on Apple's site and you'll pick up everything very quickly. The Apple Watch software is not complicated to learn how to use, and the whining about it by some professional reviewers should be discarded by anyone interested in getting an Apple Watch.
Another redditor named Rodleland came from the Pebble, and had some interesting insights about his new Apple Watch:
-The packaging is insane. Seriously, take your time unboxing. Savour it - it's a trip. There's so many carefully planned pieces to peel back, unfold, take out, and uncover. It's likely the most incredibly complex, thought-out (and wonderful) pieces of tech apple has ever boxed up.
-It's not perfect yet. There's some UI glitches that still need working out. I'm confident that by Watch OS 1.2 everything will be sorted, but it's not perfect yet. The app screen takes some time to register input, there's a lot of missed input touches (especially near the top of the screen for "back" inputs), and there are some small loading glitches throughout. This likely won't concern YOU because if you're reading this, you're a rabid fanboy/girl, but take note.
- Taptic Engine 1.0 needs help. This could just be me, but I've got prominent haptics turned on, and my band cranked up TIGHT and I'm still missing some notifications. It's only been a day, and maybe some apps are just acting up and not sending good taps, or taps at all, but it's been all too likely for me to glance up and see the "red dot of notificationness." I'm coming from a pebble, and you can NOT miss notifications on that thing, so maybe I just need to reset my expectations and readjust my tolerance for wrist-top notifications, but taps are SUBTLE..
-This thing is boss. Seriously, it's awesome having something this powerful on your wrist. I've had a ton of stares, a ton of questions, people freaking out. It's obviously part of the early adopter appeal, but as some of you know, it's awesome. People WILL notice. I find it's easiest to walk people through the OS/UI by describing your selected face as "the home screen" - that tends to make sense to people. The people at my knockoff apple store (iWorld) in the mall FLIPPED OUT when I walked in today. It's gonna be a fun ride for a few weeks. Let your friends try your watch on and take a pic.
-Flouroelastomer bands are every bit as awesome as everyone says. - It's like having your wrist gently squeezed by a cloud. I don't even notice the thing. It's so soft, comfortable, and perfect. Seriously- don't regret your sport band purchase. The bands are amazing. Night and day between the first-world ghetto-rubber on my pebble.
-Glances are where it's at. Navigating to apps takes too long. Apps with good glances rise to the top quickly and easily. I've found myself pulling apps off my glances with savage judgement. I'm stingy about what gets a glance- only the best of the best gets a spot in my glance set. I think you'll do the same.
-Battery life is a non-issue. I'm writing this as a moderate-notification person at 11PM and I have 43% left. it's a NON-ISSUE. I charge my phone every night, I don't have a problem charging my watch every night.
I didn't see any UI glitches when I used the Apple Watch at the store. So Rodleland's comment about that surprised me. The watch I used was quite smooth. And I also found the Taptic Engine to be quite noticeable, but perhaps that is just something that varies from user to user.
I completely agree with Rodleland on the sport band, however. I was amazed at how good it felt on my wrist. I had expected cheap rubber and that sort of thing. But that's not what they are and it's not how they feel when you have them on. The quality is definitely there and you'll notice it the moment you touch your sport watch's band.
An Apple Watch owner review from the Mac Rumors forum
BD1 focused on how well the Apple Watch performed during his workout:
Elliptical:
I did 45 minutes with a mix of steady and high intensity intervals and the results were very close to what I get from my chest strap. Avg HR was exactly the same. Calories on the AW were a little less but Apple calorie algorithms might be better than other apps with all the recent research they did. But not sure about this, just guessing.While doing the workout I liked how you can just lift your wrist to get current workout results.
Also, my elliptical has moving arms and the watch face did not turn on with the back and forth which I was wondering how this would work. Same with running. Screen stays off unless you lift to look at it.
One thing to note about calorie reporting. While doing the workout the AW reports 'active' calories so when I was comparing calories it seemed to be underreporting to what I expected. But when I looked at the final workout results in the activity app it reports active and resting (metabolic) calories. The total of these two were close to what I have been getting from the chest strap. For example, Apple showed 298 active cal and 83 resting cal for 381 total. I was expecting low 400's.
P90X Weight Workout:
I did 30 minutes recording this as "Other." When you start other is says it calcs calories about the same as a brisk walk. It did not seem to regularly record HR. Maybe because it is "Other." But calories were pretty close to chest strap. I am going to do my next Weight exercise as an inside run or walk to see if that continuously records HR.
I would like to see Apple add direct support for weight lifting workouts in the future.
BD1's comments about fitness and the Apple Watch really hit home for me. I also do some of P90X's workouts, so I was very happy to find out that the Apple Watch worked well for counting calories. But I also think we are at the very beginning in terms of the development and value of fitness apps for the Apple Watch. We're going to see much better app functionality as time goes by.
Read more owner reviews of the Apple Watch
The owner reviews I quoted and linked to above are really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of customer feedback about the Apple Watch. For much more you can browse the Apple Watch subreddit or check out the Apple Watch section of the MacRumors forum.After reading some of the reviews posted by Apple Watch owners, I'm reminded once again to take anything the "professional" reviewers say with a huge grain of salt. There was far too much nit-picking about the Apple Watch in some of those reviews, while the owner reviews provide much better information about how the Apple Watch actually functions as people integrate it into their daily lives.
This person aspires to have a relationship with a consumer product. Think about it.
I bought one but after all the hype I was sorely disappointed. This is a poor imitation of the old Dick Tracy wrist watch. I’ll be getting rid of this clunker on Craig’s list
(bookmark)
I'd do it quick. I've read accounts of scalpers having hundreds of them on E-Bay already.
Right! Lots of dumping going on. Getting rid of this bogus watch before the ebay bid price craters
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?clk_rvr_id=821961863428&mfe=search&_nkw=Apple+Watch&_sop=15
The retail price seems to be about $550.00 there, at least for now.
This is a thing. A device. A gimmick. It can’t shoot anyone, save anyone or travel through time. I can only shake my head and wonder where the hell are we headed.
It's a tool. People do productive things with tools.
It's a straight-forward and honest first-look at an Apple Watch. How in the world could you possibly arrive at those conclusions? There are zero of those characteristics in the article. It is fair, well balanced, and informative.
I think you just had to lob a bomb in here without reading anything but the headline. Your ignorant remark does nothing but make you look stupid and ignorant. It's remarks like that that ultimately damage all conservatives. Perhaps that was your real intent as a nutso troll.
I havent worn a watch for years. I used to wear one every day, for even more years.
I have to be honest...I just don’t get it. The last thing I need is another small screen to look at.
I am usually an early adopter—I had a palm pilot before tablets were popular. I have an apple IIc before portable laptops were a thing.
I guess I will see its importance in a few years.
Personally, I would like to see a 50 inch retina screen TV integrated with itunes.
My first watch was a Waterbury pocket watch widely available for $1.00. Maybe had 3 jewels nothing like a standard 21 jewel railroad watch. The Bulova Accutron changed timekeeping forever.
What Exactly is a Dollar Watch? Although it might not necessarily have sold for as little as a dollar, dollar watches, whose parts were stamped out of sheet-metal instead of being machined, were made to be sold as inexpensively as possible. They also lack jewels (or perhaps have very few), which are used for bearings. They're not really made to be serviced, just used for a few years and upon failing, thrown away and a new one purchased. All-in-all, they weren't bad timekeepers.
Sword, these initial impressions are good and all, but I’m going to be much more interested in the ones from a month or so from now. I’ll be willing to bet that like most things, some of the features people think are nifty now, will be “meh” after a while, but there will be some things that people didn’t even think about initially that they will really find compelling once they’ve used it for a while.
“I bought one but after all the hype I was sorely disappointed. This is a poor imitation of the old Dick Tracy wrist watch. I’ll be getting rid of this clunker on Craig’s list”
*****************************************************************************************************
Don’t you have the least bit of an ability to recognize that FReepers can easily view YOUR posting history? A quick review of your postings reveals numerous anti-Apple screeds and attacks on FReepers who choose to buy Apple products.
Now do you really expect us to believe that you bought an Apple watch?
YOU DISHONOR YOURSELF, SIR. There is no honor in lies and FUD.
You can get rid of yours on Craigs list. That bogus watch is in demand....NOT!!!\\\\||||||!!!!!
I never called you guys fud packers. That was someone else who wrote an opus and went bye bye
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