#013 Orlando thinks: Better do not lose your Apple Watch
I have been a devoted Apple user for many years. I still believe that the user experience for someone who is not very tech-savvy is great and simple. Yes, the prices can be exorbitant, but that’s not the point here.
However, as an Apple fanboy, as I often describe myself, I believe that it’s important to offer some tough criticism from time to time. This time is one of those moments. Let me begin by saying that my wife lost her Apple Watch Series 7 recently, and what followed was pure frustration.
Until then, I had no idea that there were places other than “on the wrist” or “on the charging station” where an Apple Watch could be found. 😊
Find My to the rescue!
What happened? One morning, my wife couldn’t find her watch. Not a problem, we thought. We have Find My, after all.
Excursus on Find My App: With this app, users can see the location of their Apple devices such as iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, or MacBook on a map. The app can also be used to locate lost devices, play a sound on them, or lock or erase them remotely.
Find My showed that the watch had been located the previous evening around 10 p.m. — at home. It was clear: the battery had died, and the watch was buried somewhere in our apartment.
Our first intention was to play a sound to locate the device quickly. The app on the iPhone returned the message “Sound is played”. However, we didn’t hear anything. So, the battery was indeed dead. But why didn’t we receive an error message? Regardless, my wife searched high and low, turning the entire place upside down. We spent the entire day searching together, checking every nook and cranny, including drawers, cupboards, and boxes, no matter how bizarre it seemed. Our minds can play tricks on us sometimes, and we end up leaving things in completely nonsensical places. We even went as far as checking the fridge(!!). Nothing. No watch.
You can imagine that my wife was already frustrated at this point.
It gets weird.
In the evening, she said she was going to the supermarket quickly. When she arrived at the parking lot, she checked the Find My app again. Now, it no longer indicated that the watch was last seen at our home the previous day; instead, it clearly showed the text “Now: with you.” Wait, the watch is in the car?
I knew that the watch, even if turned off, still tries to send its location at regular intervals with the remaining energy. Therefore, we didn’t wonder why there was an “update” at first. It could have been that the watch only now, after reconnecting to the iPhone, could send its location again.
My wife tried to play a sound on the watch again — unfortunately, nothing was heard. So, she did the same thing as in the apartment: turn the car upside down.
She spent more than half an hour on the supermarket parking lot searching the car. Hey, the watch must be there! The phone says so! But you can imagine… no, it wasn’t there. It just wasn’t there.
My love returned from the store visibly upset and had completely given up. By then, she was convinced that the watch had been stolen or would never be found.
Are you kidding me?
I felt sorry for the situation and didn’t want to let it go. I wanted to investigate further.
So I took my wife’s phone and went out to the car again to check if it still showed that the watch was there. And yes, as soon as I sat in the car, it said again that the watch was “with you” now. I searched everything again, but I had little hope of success after hearing my wife’s story.
I got out and walked around the area a bit — and suddenly it showed that the watch was now supposed to be somewhere halfway between the house and the car. It had to be a point where I had already walked past with the iPhone. I was like, “Are you kidding me?”
On the one hand, I was convinced it was just a location detection error, and I wasn’t actually getting the location of the watch, but that of the iPhone. But, on the other hand, there was still a little voice in my head saying that the darn thing had to be somewhere around here.
Slowly, I felt like Apple was messing with me.
We had nothing left to do that day but go to sleep. Maybe we’ll find the watch the next day.
Well…
The next morning, my wife drove to work (about 20km away) and could hardly believe it. When she arrived and wanted to take her work materials out of her personal locker, she suddenly froze in her movement. I don’t want to make it exciting — the story has already been going on for a while — but yes:
Her Apple Watch — turned off with an empty battery — was in front of her.
Suddenly she remembered that she had put it there herself — more than 3 days ago (yes, I also wondered why you would only miss your Apple Watch so late 😀).
Finally. Relief and joy arose. And at the same time, anger mixed in.
WTF Apple?
Bugs happen. Some are annoying. Some are frustrating. But there are some that can drive you insane.
The bad thing here is that without Find My, the whole ordeal wouldn’t have been so emotionally taxing. Here, you are proactively sent on a false trail. It is claimed that a device must have been sighted at a certain location. And when you have searched everything there — you can despair. Or even doubt yourself.
Looking back, I’m slightly annoyed with myself. As a software engineer, I typically scour thousands of websites to solve problems, but it didn’t cross my mind to check various forums for this situation. It was only later that I stumbled upon a post in the Apple Support Community Forum describing a similar issue.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253762195
Can you trust Find My?
The aftertaste is: I can’t trust Find My 100%. What if my device really gets stolen and I want to play a sound on it? If it shows me “sound playing” and I trust it — but in reality, it doesn’t happen?
Even worse: what if I want to delete my data — and it doesn’t work?
I also know that bugs happen — and that what happened to me is not the norm – edge cases exist. However: Over 400 “me too” clicks in the above-mentioned post in the Apple Support Community Forum show me that this is not an isolated case.
There is certain critical software that MUST work. And any small bug that shakes trust is not good. Ok, maybe Find My is not that critical as in “software for nuclear power plants” — but you got the point.
I hope Apple will improve here. And to you: If you ever experience weird things with Find My — please don’t despair. ;)
Cheers 🍻
Orlando
I’m an Apple fanboy and software engineer at arconsis. From time to time, I publish an article from the series “Orlando thinks” in which I highlight a specific topic that I see as important or exciting. Sometimes it might be just certain aspects of everyday life, but sometimes it might be tips, hints, thoughts, or appeals — but nonsense is not excluded either.
