Posted on 07/07/2015 4:38:41 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Sometimes, in order to truly appreciate life with modern day conveniences, we have to be reminded of what life was like before them. As an experiment for the last week, I decided to live without the thoroughly modern convenience of the Apple Watch. I was lucky enough to be included in the first group of folks outside of Apple to get an Apple Watch. I’ve been wearing the watch all day, every day since April 1st. Here, I shared my thoughts after my first week. Since April 1st, I have deeply integrated the Apple Watch into my everyday life. I decided to run an experiment and see what a week would be like without the Watch after 85 days of living with it. This is what I learned.
The first thing I noticed was my heightened awareness of where my iPhone was at all times. One of my observations from my first week with the Apple Watch was how it untethered me from my iPhone in a positive way. Whether it was in my pocket or on the coffee table or near the front door, the Watch allowed me not to worry about my iPhone needing to be with me at all times to remain connected. Life without the Watch reminded me of the habits I developed to make sure my phone was always near me. I would make sure to always put it in my pocket as I moved around the house or carry it with me from room to room.
This behavior is a result of wanting, and sometimes needing, to respond whenever I get a buzz or ding of a notification, whether it is an email alert, text message, or something else. I don’t like the idea of missing something important and this led me to be much more aware of where my iPhone was when I was not wearing the Apple Watch.
One of the ways I integrated the Apple Watch into my life was to heavily filter what notifications I allowed to buzz me on the wrist — voice calls, VIP emails, text messages, and only a handful of apps which push me useful information. However on the iPhone, even though I limit the notifications, all of them are treated equally and my phone was constantly buzzing telling me I had a notification. Of course, I check it to see if it is important and needed an immediate response. I had forgotten how much I had to pick up and check my iPhone prior to the Apple Watch. I’d prefer the luxury of reaching for my phone when necessary. Apple Watch helped me achieve this.
iMessage notifications were the worst of the bunch. The vast majority of my daily conversations are via iMessage. Prior to the Apple Watch, this would not have bothered me, but the first few days without it and I was irritated by how often I’d get a buzz of a message, reply to it, put my phone down or in my pocket, get another buzz a minute or two later, reply, put my phone down, get a response a few minutes later, reply, put my phone back down, ad infinitum. For the first few days, this really bothered me because a text message conversation is not always one that happens in real time. Sometimes it takes the other person time to reply. I’d rather not stare at my iPhone screen continuously waiting for the person to respond as I find it inefficient and a waste of time. So I put the phone down or in my pocket between messages and continue what I’m doing. The constant pick up, reply, put down sequence frustrated me. With Apple Watch, this process is seamless. Notifications come in reply from the Watch with text or Siri voice dictation and I keep doing what I’m doing. Living without the Apple Watch for a week showed me how much I took this one experience for granted before the Apple Watch. This was the most frustrating part of living without the Apple Watch because of how much I use iMessage to have conversations throughout the day.
When I told people about my experiment, many were curious if I used my phone less as a result. For a few weeks prior to this experiment, I had been using an app called Moment, which tracks your iPhone usage each day and how many times you pick the phone up, turn the screen on and look at it. While I didn’t see my iPhone usage in terms of hours per day decline during the week without the Apple Watch, I did see a significant drop in the number of times I looked at it. The average number of times I picked up and looked at my phone my last week with the Apple Watch was 74. This last week without the Apple Watch my average number of daily pickups was 102. I charted it to see the difference.
When I had the Apple Watch on, I averaged 28 fewer times I looked at my iPhone each day. This is a good proxy of how notifications on the watch help minimize the number of times I need to look at my phone to see the nature of each notification.
After reflecting on what looking at my phone fewer times meant in my daily life, I concluded the experience was less disruptive. Don’t get me wrong — I love my iPhone. It is my primary computer. However, having to respond to your phone or pull it out of your pocket or bag for each phone call or text message turns out to be fairly disruptive. As I’ve observed my wife’s behavior as well with her Apple Watch, she articulates similar feelings. As she is out and about, not having to fumble through her purse each time her phone dings is a less disruptive experience in many daily situations. Particularly since not all notifications are important or in need of an immediate response. However, without the use of the Apple Watch, you would not know this without getting your phone out and looking at it. This is an area of immense value that can only be understood once experienced.
Interestingly, the same sentiment is noticed by other Apple Watch wearers. I’m working with a company doing research on existing Apple Watch owners called Wristly (if you have an Apple Watch please consider joining our panel) where 32% of respondents said they spend much less time on their iPhone and 58% indicated they use their iPhone somewhat less.
So what did I conclude? As I pointed to at the beginning of this article, the Apple Watch is a modern day convenience and should be understood as such. It is a convenience in the same way a dishwasher or washer/dryer or a microwave is. None of the items are absolutely necessary, yet so many of their owners can’t imagine life without one. This is what my week without the Apple Watch taught me. Of course I can get by without it but, given the number of conveniences I’ve been able to quantify in the flow of my daily life, I can no longer imagine life without it.
Actually, I shouldn’t have said “you” since your posts are 24x7 so I suspect your login is used by multiple social media workers that post your Apple press releases and advertisements.
I have one like that that I bought back in like 1979. Seiko Sports 100. Still have it. Wore it for about 20+ years but when I turned 40 my wife bought me a Rolex Submariner. I wear it every day. : )
She sounds like a keeper!
Sounds like you’ve got a pretty good wife too.
However on the iPhone, even though I limit the notifications, all of them are treated equally and my phone was constantly buzzing telling me I had a notification. Of course, I check it to see if it is important and needed an immediate response. I had forgotten how much I had to pick up and check my iPhone prior to the Apple Watch.
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So what he’s saying is the iPhone is an annoying piece of junk.
Your stats are lies. Apple doesn’t sell their watches at the same price worldwide. And the graph I posted disproves your statements.
All lies. And even if Apple does sell the thing to a tune of 5B, this is an utter failure. A 2 percent portfolio and that’s all Apple’s got to show for their hyped up wasted efforts over the past 4 years?
This is the big leagues and Apple’s batting 020. And what do you care if Apple sells 1 or 100 million of these anyway? shouldn’t you be more concerned the horse you’re backing is trying to destroy the lives of our fellow conservatives and Christian brethren????
Look asshat, I am one person who just runs the Apple PING list on Freerepublic. . . which you have been told and JR knows all about it. Give it a rest. You've been told this repeatedly. . . yet you continue this campaign. Cut it out. You've had your replies deleted multiple times because of your irrational hatred.
And all your Citizen EcoDrive watch does is tell time. Nothing more. It is not even as accurate as the Apple Watch over a years time.
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NEGATIVE , my watch is infinitely more accurate beginning with hour 30 when yours shuts down and demands that you recharge it .. How accurate is something that is turned off? ... Yes “all mine does is tell time” , isn’t that what a watch does? And yes mine is inaccurate to a few seconds a month... Can you please tell me how that is damaging to it’s functionality or usefulness to me?
P.S. Yes you did... you said many times here never to think of an iWatch as an actual watch,, that was not it’s purpose or function. And I agree with you.
Actually what he’s saying is he’s a phone helicopter and now has 2 places to land his skids on 24 hours a day.
What makes you think that Apple is sharing its sales data with Slice? They are not. That Chart is completely BOGUS. . . because there were not email sales receipts made to anyone in April for Slice to track. . . because they do not have access to Apple's servers. Nor could they track charges to credit/debit cards until Apple started shipping phones. . . in May. Ergo, everything about that chart is pulled out of their nether orifice just like your data. It is meaningless, made up BS. SLICE knows nothing except what they get from a few receipts their members have.
That is also, US sales alone when Apple was selling in the US, Europe, Japan, and China. . . meaningless. . . even if it were accurate, which it is not
Is Apple Watch successful?While its initial sales were not as high as iPhone or iPad, according to research from Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), the post-launch demand for the Watch has been higher than its sister products. Ubergizmo examined that research and offered the following analysis:
"The company tracked interest of the original iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch in its first 5-6 weeks of launch and found that the iPhone managed to garner the most interest at the start, followed by the iPad, and then the Apple Watch. However as the weeks progressed, interest in the original iPhone started to decline rather sharply and around the fourth week, it was overtaken by the Apple Watch.. . .
Will it be bigger than iPhone?
Early predictions suggest that Apple Watch may be a megahit extending its reach well beyond the strongest Apple devotees. The company could sell as many as 36 million smartwatches in the first year, according to revised predictions from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, who is raising her Apple Watch sales forecast by 20% from the earlier figure of 30 million CNET reported.
That blows early iPhone sales out of the water and suggest a strong future for the watch.— The Motley Fool — July 6, 2015
On the same day that chart was released, The Motley Fool reported that the Apple Watch demand exceeded initial sales demand of both the iPhone and the iPad in the long run. The iPad had the highest initial sales of any new product in history when it was first released. . . and the fact is the Apple Watch actually exceeded the iPad's first three-day weekend's numbers in the FIRST TEN MINUTES of pre-sales! The Motley Fool yesterday also reported that Morgan Stanley upped its prediction to 36 million Apple Watch sales in its first year from 30 million.
So much for your single source FUD article from an anal-cyst who does not have access to the data needed to really do the analysis.
I think that Morgan Stanley's numbers are probably too high. . .
No, he's saying he was having to use it too often for things that were unnecessary to pick up the iPhone to see were unnecessary to look at right then. The Apple Watch makes it easy to see and dismiss the need to pick up the iPhone. You can also decide what alerts and notifications you don't want to send to the Apple Watch that you might like to normally receive on the iPhone. When you are wearing the Apple Watch and it is active, the iPhone will not necessarily display or beep for those either.
You choose to read too much negativity into what he wrote. . . which was to describe the exact reason that Apple designed the Apple Watch: to relieve the user from having to depend too much on the iPhone for alerts and notifications that require having to pull the iPhone out of a pocket or purse to see what they are all about.
Too high? They’re off the charts. Boots on the ground are already stating suppliers have had their orders practically halted. These are reliable Chinese sources who accurately predicted the booming sales of the past 3 Apple releases.
And the Apple scarcity tactic was evidence they knew the launch would be a disaster, which it was.
Now, you can continue to believe the shadow stats coming from vested investment companies or Apple’s wishy-washy comments about overall sales, or you can listen to the ears on the ground. It’s your choice.
Normally I would stay out of posts like these, but you posted a pure biased propaganda “I missed it while it was gone” AppleBamaCare piece, hoping nobody would notice how you’re really advertising for Apple instead of defending sound conservative principles.
Entire article read. Stand by my post.
I think I got it right. A person shouldn’t need an expensive watch to make their phone work the way they want.
Oh, now I’m a drunken old clown now, is it? More Alinsky tactics of attacking the messenger instead of the message.
I see you’re not an economist. If you were, you’d know 5 billion out of 210 billion is a measly 2.3 percent.
All this hubbub over 2.3% and a future forgotten product made by a future forgotten Apple. Can you do us a favor there Mr. chief executive officer? Can you stop fibbing about being an economist? And a CEO also?
And just for the record, I was a CEO for 30 years. My neighbors were too. CEO’s grow on trees in this country. Like that ole’ Dr. Pepper jingle. I think I forgot my gold CEO star chart back at the prior abode, but if I find it I would be happy to mail it to you to add it to your prestigious collection.
Good night.
Who turns it off. I don't. You are such an ignoramus on what you are talking about and you are making a fool of your self. The Apple Watch keeps running while charging. Try arguing about something you USE one of these days and I might have some respect for you. I actually own a Citizen EcoDrive Chronograph watch. I know its capabilities and limitations. It's just a watch nothing more. The Apple watch is a watch and far more.
P.S. Yes you did... you said many times here never to think of an iWatch as an actual watch,, that was not it’s purpose or function. And I agree with you.
No, Neidermeyer, I know exactly what I have written on Freerepublic. I told you that it is more than a watch, and not to think of it as "just a watch", but I certainly did not tell you it "sucked as a watch" which is what you quoted me as saying above. . . that made you a liar about what I said by your embellishing what I said. Not a single one of us who have argued this with you have ever stated that.
Fine, you make your Android phone alert and notify you about important things without taking the phone out of your pocket or purse. . . The functionality added is not possible without adding the watch.
Android phones are annoying junk, too.
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