About four weeks ago we received our shiny new Apple Watch, ending what felt like the most anticipated delivery of all time.

Since then the four of us at Truth Labs each wore it for a week. Here’s what we liked, didn't like, and what we hope to see in the future.

Erik

Creative Director

After wearing the watch for a little over a week, I had some mixed emotions about it. In general, I'm blown away by the size, quality, and performance of the piece. I truly feel like this device will push us forward into a new chapter of computing.

Things I can't live without

After my week was up, these are things that slipped seamlessly into my life and I'll have a hard time living without:

Fitness tracker — I've never been a Fitbit guy, and the latest round of fitness trackers just haven't appealed to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm way into fitness, but they've always seemed a bit too “casual.” But I loved the activity monitor on the watch; it really opened my eyes to how I’m spending my time out of the gym. I love the “pokes” throughout the day, I feel like it actually makes a difference.

Interchangeable watch faces — I wear a lot of watches; some expensive, some casual, and some purely for the looks. And believe it or not I’ve never contemplated the idea of changing the face on the fly. It sounds obvious given it’s a digital watch and all. I found myself using the Utility face most of the time, then switching over to the Modular face for workouts and cooking, then even the Mickey from time to time. Now I find myself trying to change the face on my analog watches.

Timers / Reminders — At least three or four times a week I cook for my family. Having timers and stopwatch on my wrist is infinitely better than having my iPhone on the counter getting splashed with oil and grease. My steaks have been getting grilled perfectly since I've had the watch :)

Disappointments

“It caused me to be more rude than usual”

Apple has done an amazing job advertising the watch. I got really excited about having one watch to replace an ANT+ chest strap and large GPS watch. Unfortunately…

It's not a professional fitness tool — this was by far my biggest disappointment. When I'm working out I want to know my pace, cadence, and heart rate NOW. Not in 30 seconds, not in 3min, NOW. The watch just took too long to measure my heart rate, and using the watch while moving is pretty much impossible. This was especially frustrating when I was biking. Trying to get my heart rate and pace with one hand on the bike was crazy — and I nearly wiped out several times trying. Oh, and I don't want to use the built in Activity app. I want to use Strava or RunKeeper for all fitness aspects. It was annoying to have to jump between many apps to get the info I wanted.

It caused me to be more rude than usual— I found myself rudely gawking at the tiny screen during meetings. And in many cases my colleagues called me out asking “are we out of time already?” or simply stop talking ‘til I was finished. It was embarrassing. Maybe I just need to master the art of being slick at checking notifications on the fly.

I felt like I was “released” — After my week was up and I passed the watch on I instantly felt relieved. I felt like a literal chain and ball was removed from my wrist. Seeing the little disconnected phone icon when my phone was out of reach stressed me out. I didn't know how to clear-all the notifications so they kept piling up. The sheer amount of notifications I got in a day was maddening. After a while start to feel “ghost” buzzes on my wrist, which caused me to fervently check my wrist all day. I will, however, probably continue to wear it, but I think I’ll make some adjustments next time.

Things I’d like to see in the future

1. Most apps at this point are extensions of their phone counterpart and they are marginally useful at best. The built-in apps are pretty nice, but I’m really looking forward to native 3rd party watch apps.
2. I want one fitness app to rule them all. Heart rate, cadence, pace, and calories, duration, distance, elevation in one spot.
3. Instant heart rate reading, especially while working out.
4. Modes —Most of the time I felt like navigating the watch was cumbersome. Too many places to go and too many apps I didn’t really need. I think “modes” could help with this. “Business mode” that keeps only work-related apps present during certain hours and notifications to a minimum. “Workout mode” which has all my workout apps front and center and keeps the key metrics present on the screen when waking up. I could also see “Party mode”, “Home mode”, and a bunch others.

Drew

Interaction designer

Features I can't live without

Weather — The weather “complication” on the watch face makes finding current conditions and getting to forecasts incredibly easy.

Apple Pay — it’s the simplest way to pay for something. Two taps of a button and you’re done. It even works on CTA trains and buses in Chicago!

Siri/reminders — Siri is better than ever on the Apple Watch. She seems to understand me better, she gets things right, and she can do many tasks without having to touch the watch.

It’s the simplest way to pay for something

Disappointments

Touch targets are small — Opening apps was surprisingly hard, and so was pressing some buttons. When I was on the move, I would fat finger almost everything, especially the back buttons in the top left corner.

Watch/Phone battery dies fast — There is nothing “wrong” with the watch battery, it never ended the day below 40%. It did really hurt the battery life of my iPhone though. I would really prefer a watch battery that would last a week or more, like a Kindle or Pebble.

iMessage issues — I could never send an iMessage from the Watch. This was frustrating, since I have several friends outside of the US who I was unable to respond to from the Watch. Message history on the watch is also inconsistent, missing most of the messages.

Pie-in-the-sky future state

Battery that lasted like a traditional watch (or a spring based generator? Wind your Apple Watch!). Charging one more thing is one thing too many for me.

Tyson

Visual Designer

Features I Liked

When it was my turn to take a spin with the Apple Watch, I was most keenly interested in how it could enhance my runs. I am a Nike Plus user, but don’t love wearing earbuds while running. So I usually hit the start button in Nike Plus and throw my phone in my SPI belt, which puts my running data out of view and basically unusable. The Apple Watch allowed me to see my pace and milage by simply lifting my wrist. The results were surprising–I beat my average pace by almost 30 seconds and set multiple personal records along the way. Having the data at hand (literally) made me a better runner.

Having the data at hand (literally) made me a better runner.

I found Force Touch to be an interesting interaction that I hadn’t experienced on other devices and found myself trying it out on every app to see what would happen. It is a great way to reveal deeper information or contextual menus — things that are usually reserved for a rollover or right-click on a computer. The physical action, pressing deep into the surface, is cognitively tied to the virtual action of revealing something below the surface of the app.

On the last day of my week with the watch, I went to a party. From across the room, my girlfriend’s coworker said “Hey, send me your emotions” in reference to this feel good ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9X7y_ZlkI. Before I knew it, I had a crowd of 5 people around me checking out the watch as I fumbled through some of the features. I am generally a late adopter, so I had never experienced a device acting as a conversation piece or providing some social clout.

What I didn't like

While my running experience with the watch was good overall, there were some annoyances that popped up along the way. As I checked the watch during my run, there was a significant lag of 2–3 seconds before new data was displayed. It was enough to break my rhythm, and if I were a more serious runner, would be a deal breaker. I don’t know if this was an issue with the Nike Plus app, the GPS, the bluetooth connection with my phone, or just the watch itself, but there are just too many variables for it to be a serious running tool.

I expect my wrist to sweat under the watch on a run, but even as I walked to work on an average early summer day, I found my wrist sweating bullets under the Apple Watch. The sensor glass on the backside of the watch face didn't seem to interact well with my skin.

What I wish it had:

At the end of the week, I realized that the Apple Watch isn't for me, at least not yet. Here’s what I'd like to see.

It seems a lot of what I could do on the watch was an extension of what I could do on my phone. One of the most interesting things I saw the watch do was act as a remote for the iPhone camera. That feature is using the watch, not as a glance-able version of the phone, but as a new tool that can do things more unique to its form factor. I don’t have any killer app ideas yet, but I’m sure as the device matures, we’ll begin to see really clever ideas for adding specific watch-based functionality.

It would be interesting to look at the watch from a Modes viewpoint. What if I could set up my watch right from the start in Fitness mode or Business mode? It may ease some of the pain of fine tuning every configurable detail and make it easier to move seamlessly from work to workout.

Justin

Visual Designer

I wear watches as a style accessory and it looks too techie for me

Features I'll miss the most:

Weather from my wrist at a glance — any watch can tell the time, but I’m not sure how many have the weather as well which is something I often check living in Chicago’s unpredictable weather.

Reading text messages without reaching for my phone — it was helpful when I didn’t feel like responding at the moment. However, was distracting while I was working.

It was cool how the GPS would pulse when I needed to make a turn on a street.

Top Disappointments

Touch targets were hard to hit — I found myself double tapping at times to hit a button.

When I got a phone call, the watch and my phone would both ring and it felt overwhelming and got me a little flustered.

I didn’t like that the Cupertino weather was defaulted to show up on one of the home screen designs. I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. I only care to see Chicago’s weather.

Features on my wish list

I wish I could have a customizable transit schedule built in and let me know when my bus or train is coming. It could let me know what time I should leave if I want to get to my train and be home by a certain time.

A simple mode that only shows me the essential things I care about. I don’t want to see too many options or apps I don’t need.

I actually just wish it looked different. I’m more interested in watches as a style accessory and this looks too sporty for my style. Maybe different shapes that look more classic.

Maybe if it knows when you aren’t home or at set destinations (parent’s house, work, etc.) to notify you when you’re far away from your phone and where your phone is on a map if you ever forget it somewhere.

A secret unlock code that notifies the police where you are in case you’re in trouble. (e.g. being mugged and someone forces you unlock your watch or give them the passcode.) OR an easy way to contact 911 or an emergency contact for help.