Week 1 with Apple Watch
I have read a lot of reviews of the Apple Watch. It is becoming a lot of fun to see the varied opinions of the device, both biased towards and against Apple. So I will try not to be one of those reviews, and just give my inital thoughts after using the Apple Watch for a week.
My inital reaction to seeing the first announcement of the watch was, that is sweet but I don’t think I will get one. Then I watched the keynote again and watched the videos for it. Once I saw the tech behind it, I changed my mind and wanted one. I loved the force touch gesture, as well as the digital crown.
I have the 42mm Stainless Steel Apple Watch with the White Sport Band. It took me a while to figure out what model I wanted. I changed my mind quite a few times between the Space Gray Apple Watch Sport and the Apple Watch with either a black or white sport band. I did also buy the black sport band for my watch. My wife has the 38mm space gray Apple Watch Sport and put the pink sport band on it. After feeling the weight differences, I decided to stay away from the Sport and go with the steel.
So, what do I love about the watch?
- The Fitness Feature.
There is something about filling those three circles that is keeping me motivated. I am in the midst of a weight loss process and the watch is helping me out. It is a lot nicer looking at the rings, and graphs displaying my activity, than looking at dots on my FitBit and Nike Fuel Band before that. I have already lost about 5 pounds. Only 60 more to go!
- Complications/Watch Faces
I love the complications on the watch faces. I currently switch between the Modular, Utility, Simple, and Color watch faces. I like being able to se the time, my activity, the date, and the batery left on the watch in one simple look. Sometimes I switch to have my calendar and stocks in there as well. It is a very nice and easy way to access information that I want to see.
- The Display
The display is beautiful on the Watch. I was very impressed with the quality of the display. I also love that (so far) I haven’t had trouble seeing the display in any light condition. It reminded me of experiencing a Retina Display on my iPhone for the first time.
- Battery Life
Not so much the battery life on the watch itself, even though I am impressed with that, but on my phone. I have an iPhone 6, and the battery life is pretty good already. Now that I don’t pull out my phone over 150 times a day to check notifications, and the screen isn’t lighting up a ton, the battery life has jumped up by at least 4 or 5 hours for me. I am loving this. As far as the battery life on the watch goes, it is a lot better than I thought. I can get a full day’s use out of it, and sleep with the watch on, to use as an alarm in the morning and not wake my wife up. I love it. Of course, I wish it would last a week or so. We will see if that ever happens. But until then, I am fine with how it works now.
- The Haptic Feedback/Notifications
I love getting notifications on my wrist. I worried that it would be distracting while I was in the middle of something or needing to focus on a task at first. But after a week’s worth of use, I have quickly found that I was wrong. It did take a few days to dial in what notifications I wanted on my watch, and what ones I wanted to use with the haptic feedback. Now that I figured that out and prioritized my notifications, I am loving life even more. I also don’t get what I call notification anxiety any longer. I used to freak out in meetings when my pocket would vibrate and try not to check my phone, wondering who emailed me, texted me, or what have you. Now it is not such a big deal, and I can check my wrist pretty discretely and see what it is. This one was my biggest surprise in using the watch.
What I don’t Like:
- Most 3rd Party Apps.
I know this is not fully the watches fault, or most of the developers fault. Yet, it is at the same time. Without devices to test on, it is hard to see how well your app will do. The simulator only goes so far, and using both for Apple Watch app development, there is nothing close to testing on an actual watch. Also, how the Watch OS is set up, it is going to be a bit slow for 3rd party apps. The watch has to talk to your iPhone, then the iPhone talks back to the watch, then the data is displayed. Thankfully this is changing in the fall with Watch OS 2. Also, a lot of developers just tried to shrink their phone apps into a smaller screen. That doesn’t work on the watch. At the end of the day, the watch is still just that, a watch. It isn’t made to have long interactions. It is for quick interactions. Made to help keep you more enguaged with the world around you, and not looking down at the screen.
Even though they are adding the ability to reply to emails in Watch OS 2, it is sometimes anoying to have to pull my phone out to respond to a quick email when I could have done it on my watch. I also am not a fan that the notification will take precedence over whatever I am doing if I am in an app. While, yes, I can dismiss the notification, I would be happy with just a tap on the wrist and I can check it when I am done with whatever I am doing at the time.
- Battery Life
Like I said earlier, I am impressed with the battery life, but if I had my way, I would like for it to last around 5 days or so.
Over all I am in love with my Apple Watch. I like the looks of it, how easy it is to switch the bands and give it a different personality, and the functionality. I do need to remember that the force touch gesture is there more often though. I am excited for a lot of the Watch OS 2 features and can’t wait to see what the next version holds.
