Two weeks with Apple Watch, and the existential dilemma

It is hard for me to personally call the Apple Watch a success.

Please understand I do not mean for this to be a click-baity Apple-is-failing doom and gloom editorial that has become popular lately, but rather a questioning of motivation for a company that I have held in high esteem for some time. I like others am guilty of being considered a bit of a fanboy for Apple. I admit it, I have come to love the consistent quality and aesthetics of devices that (in my mind) cost significantly more than their industry counterparts.

My experience with wearable devices began a year and a half ago with the Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit, then moving swiftly to a Moto 360 in search of a deeper feature set and functionality. I found the Motorola to be a significant improvement to the Samsung, although comparing the two feels unnatural due to the specific health tracking motivation of the Gear fit (perhaps a better comparison would be between the Gear fit, and a fitbit).

I ended up returning the Moto 360 to target, and the Gear fit resides in a drawer somewhere destined for a future trip to the recycling center.

As they often do, my wife’s birthday happened the same time as it did last year. However, this year was different. Breaking tradition, we decided against the standard “I don’t know what I want” and “Surprise me” discussion (darn…) that has proceeded the occasion annually for nearly a decade for something that was promised to be “personal”, “sleek” and “embrace individual design” all while having an “unparalleled level of technical innovation”.

Enter the Apple Watch

We decided t0 walk into our local Apple store an take a look (an actual usage and trial, not just quickly looking while passing to make a Genius bar appointment). We walked in, and asked to see one- the standard questioning “did you have an appointment” followed by an all-to-excited employee ready to show us the drawer full of goodies that existed under a familiarly stylish table that- in years past, displayed an impressive lineage of innovative tech that had enough sex appeal and intuitive functionality that drove Apple into the stratosphere both technically and financially.

After a brief walkthrough that included a few minor technical hiccups, I purchased the Watch based on it’s form and the history I have had with the company and it’s products in the past.

One week in

My wife took every chance she could to thank me, show off the (seemingly gimmicky) feature set, or tell me about some random compliment she got while at work (fitness industry). I was pleased that she was pleased, but couldn’t help but notice the few times she had difficulty doing using features I feel we should expect from a device in 2015- specifically setting appointments using voice commands, navigating menu structures, and messaging (the latter due mostly to my experience with the Moto 360). First release jitters? perhaps, but the benefit of the doubt was always given to the watch due to the prior collective experiences we have shared with the device maker over the duration of our relationship.

As a brief side-note, many of the other blogs I have read mentioned a set of standard concerns, the main being battery life. This was not her experience, as charging at night has become ritual- and on those nights the device didnt meet it’s magnetic home-base, a decent portion of the following day still had standard usage time. The battery life was everything we had come to expect from Apple devices and wasn’t noted as a major concern-ever.

The final Countdown

Towards the end of the second week (coincidentally the day I saw this comical review of 2 months of usage of the device ) an extremely unexpected question came.

How many days do I have to return this?

I was flabergasted.

Return the watch? an Apple device? this was a first for our relationship (both together and with the company). I decided to probe further to possibly diagnose any technical issue she might be having with it, as I have come to accept this role within my family unit (I’m in the IT industry…). Was it an issue with battery life? Slowness? possibly connectivity issues & delay with syncing? A cloud services issue (an obvious question due to my MobileMe past) perhaps?

It ended up being none of these things. Unprompted, the discussion came up about it’s cost- even though we decided the sport model was appropriate, and I never once mentioned being upset about the amount we spent.

The next conversation was equally unexpected- my wife was discussing with me the upcoming features of a future software update release and the bugs that would be fixed, along with other features that would be introduced via software for her brand new watch. It became readily evident,

She was bored with the watch.

This had little to do with the cost, or the upcoming feature set- rather the lack of functionality and overall usability of the brand new purchase.

We ended up returning the watch shortly after, just under the two-week policy allowed. The friendly associate pretended to act surprised that anything at all could be wrong with the watch, and offered to make a geniusbar appointment for any technical issues we were experiencing. We politely declined, obviously, as there wasn’t an issue with the device technically.

We walked out of the store, empty-handed, and continued on with our day quickly forgetting about returning the device, or really even owning it.

The reason for writing this was not to describe the minutiae of an agreed-upon purchased by a young married couple, rather, express a sadness (perhaps the wrong word, but you understand) that came from being let down by a company that had yet to do so with it’s devices (see the MobileMe comment above). As stated previously, I owned the Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch prior to the Apple Watch purchase, and comparing the two, both seem to lack a real reason for existing.

Apple is not playing catch-up any more than they were when they created the original iPad (coming years after the questionable Windows tablet edition), the difference is now they have had multiple successes, along with more money and a better reputation than any other player in the industry. All of these factors should be more than enough to back any whim that might come out of Jony Ive’s industrial design labs, and produce technology that people actually want to use. There is no excuse for not crushing the competition, and by demanding almost double the price (for the least expensive model, mind you) you would expect a significantly better product. Anecdotally, this was not my experience, nor the experience of many talented tech reviewers before me.

Apple’s recent decisions (in regards to the Watch, and overall lack-luster showing at WWDC) seem to be cash motivated, not focusing on innovating and creating products which got them rich in the first place. I do not attribute this solely to the loss of Steve- as Mr. Ive existed at Apple before and after that tragic event, and on the surface seems to serving more of a central role than ever.

The non-Apple-like reactionary response that is Apple Watch should not have happened (in the form that it did). Copying the former copycats and garbage tech that is produced year after year is not becoming of a company that has earned our trust by producing quality products. Apple is guilty of responding, in kind, using the same tactics as the competitors (it so readily insulted in the past) rather than producing an original, easy to use product that people can fall in love with.

Selling ~2,000 ridiculously priced versions of the same watch with a different finish may put a few (more) millions in the coffers, but to what end? Apple is already the richest tech company (by far) and isn’t really cash strapped. Sure, some will enjoy the Apple Watch enough to justify keeping it, and many will likely purchase whatever cyclically-produced phase 2 that will be produced in a year, but at the end of the day, is that what Apple is striving for?