A College Student’s Review of the Apple Watch
With the growth of smartphones and smart devices, Apple has become a worldwide smart device manufacturer and distributor. Since the creation of the iPhone, Apple has created a name for themselves and continue to thrive in today’s smart culture with new products like iPads, iPods, newer (and bigger) iPhones, Macs and MacBook’s, and more. This time around, Apple decided to come out with a new line of technology, the smartwatch. The “Apple Watch”, Apple’s most recent creation, is centered around promoting health and fitness and has different features that allow a user to check on their bodies while on the go, such as a heart monitor and fitness app that tracks steps and calories. There are many negative aspects that come with the Apple Watch as well, such as battery life and screen size, but through the review that I have seen and read, as well as personal opinions from different people I have interviewed, I can say that I now have a general idea of what people like and what people dislike about this smartwatch.
There are many features of the Apple Watch that I found unique to health and fitness. One such feature is the ECG or heart monitor feature. According to Apple, by tapping the Digital Crown of your device, the watch will generate an ECG waveform that will monitor your heartbeat for 30 seconds to check for any irregularities in your heart rhythm. This tool is extremely useful for health professionals as it’ll help them get to a solution faster in case of an emergency. Some other features I found interesting was their noise detection software, that senses noise and sends you a warning in case the noise level of a certain area reaches a point that may be harmful to your person, as well as their fall detection feature, which creates an emergency response call in the case that you may have gotten into an accident. What I found interesting about this feature was that the watch can sense your surroundings in real-time, which can allow a faster and clearer response time from you or the people around you. Another cool feature about the Apple Watch is its dependence on Siri. When the watch first came out, it was more dependent on using your iPhone instead of the coined AI of Apple, Siri. Now as newer generations of Apple watches are produced, we see more of a growth in usage of Siri. Just like with your iPhone, by saying “Hey Siri” your watch will pick up your voice and respond to the tasks that you may give it, such as setting a timer, sending a text, or creating a meeting/reminder. If your home is also connected to Smart Home, simply telling Siri to turn off/on the lights of any room would complete that task.
Although the features helpful software that assists you with your health and fitness routine, there are also many setbacks that may cause someone to shy away from the device. One such factor is the cost of this device. Apple watches (especially the new series 5) ranges between $399 and $529, which is very expensive for a device that’s only 40–44 millimeters in size. This leads to the next disadvantage of the Apple watch: its size. The case itself only goes up to 44 millimeters and can be quite small for many users. It is difficult to tap on apps when the app size is not much more than a small circle. Battery life is also an issue it comes to the Apple watch as well. The Apple watch guarantees 18 hours of battery performance of “all-day use”. According to “Honest Pros and Cons”, the “all-day use” battery performance is structured as such: 60 minutes of fitness, 45 minutes of app use, 90 notifications, and 90-time checks, quite a limited number of things that you can do. I believe in future developments, there will be an improvement in battery life, but for people looking to buy a watch now, expect there to be a slight disappointment when it comes to how long you can stay active despite the price you are paying. The last disadvantage of the Apple Watch that I noticed was the fact that the watch can only connect to and work with other Apple products. If you were using an Android device, you would not be able to connect with the watch even though the watch is on Bluetooth. You must also have an iPhone 5 or better in order to connect with the watch as well. Besides connectivity, if you want Apple Pay or iCloud to function with your watch, you will have to set those applications from your iPhone to your watch.
As I mentioned in my introduction, I reached out to a couple of people that I knew to interview them about their personal experiences with their Apple watches. One friend (I will call them A) had a good experience with their watch and told me about how they used it on a daily basis. “A” is a nursing student and always wears an Apple Watch Series 4 to her school and the hospital. She enjoys doing physical exercise, so she found the fitness applications on the watch very useful, as the watch kept track of her steps and the number of calories she lost. She also uses Siri a lot and the time function to remind herself of things she may need to do at work or how long she should check a patient’s breathing. One thing she didn’t like about the watch was how slow the apps processed when they opened, as well as the size of the apps. While she is on the run and wants to access apps, she mentioned it was hard for her to keep running when she had to stop just to access an app that she wanted to use. She also thought she looked funny while talking to her watch and mentioned how self-conscious that made her feel while out in public. Another person I interviewed (I will call them B) gave an interesting perspective of how he utilizes his Apple Watch Series 5. “B” mentioned how he always texts people on his watch by asking Siri to text for him. He explained how his life was made much easier just by doing this simple task. Besides texting, he uses his watch to change songs while driving which enables him to stay safe while driving by telling his watch to skip the song for him. When asked about battery life, he said how he never had to use his watch long enough for the battery to become a pressing issue for him.
After doing this research and interviewing different people about their stance on the Apple Watch, I realized a few similarities between everything that I have read or listened to. The watch was made for fitness and health, but it is also made to make everyday tasks simpler using assistive AI technology. Although there are disadvantages to the watch such as low battery life and small screen size, the watch makes up for it with a very clean and precise way of letting the user stay healthy physically. I believe with future modifications and developments, that the watch will be able to get past the current vulnerabilities that it has today, such as their low battery life, and screen size. The watch will also have more features that impact users and become more enjoyable to use as newer generation Apple watches go by. But for now, this is my complete review of the current Apple Watches out now.
Works Cited:
Smith, Josh. “61 Exciting Things You Can Do With the Apple Watch.” Gotta Be Mobile, 14 Apr. 2020, www.gottabemobile.com/things-apple-watch-can-do/.
“10 Apple Watch Pros and Cons (Apple Series 4 Watch).” Watch Ranker, 29 June 2019, watchranker.com/10-apple-watch-pros-and-cons-apple-series-4-watch/.
Bishakha. “11 Pros and Cons of Apple Watch.” Honest Pros and Cons, 19 Feb. 2020, honestproscons.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-apple-watch/.
