= = = MY THOUGHTS ON THE APPLE WATCH = = =

Written by Jack Eisenmann

WHAT IS THIS REVIEW?

This review is a a single honest, personal opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of the Apple Watch. I am just one Apple Watch owner, so hopefully you can gather many perspectives from around the web. This review is not a basic overview of all models and features. If you are looking for such information, please consult Apple's website. It would be redundant for me to list the specs myself. If you are looking for pretty pictures, you are out of luck. You should already know what an Apple Watch looks like.

Also this review does not compare the Apple Watch to other brands of smart watches. From what I have seen, other smart watches share many of the features of the Apple Watch. However, because I only own an Apple Watch, I cannot review other smart watches.

If you are in a hurry, you can just read the bold stuff!

WHO ARE YOU?

I am currently a college student studying computer science with some engineering on the side. I am also (therefore?) kind of a nerd.

WHICH WATCH DO YOU HAVE?

I have the 42 mm Apple Watch Sport with white sport band. I received the watch on May 2nd 2015, so right now I have owned it for over four weeks. I have worn the watch every day since I received it.

HOW IS THE PHYSICAL BUILD QUALITY?

My Apple Watch has held up quite well. The digital crown has maintained comfortable resistance, the contacts button still clicks, the chassis has not become scuffed, and the white wrist strap has not become discolored. My only complaint is that there are several short hairline scratches on the display. I do not know what caused these scratches. However, they are not too surprising because the Sport model does not use a sapphire display. Fortunately the scratches are difficult to see and have not affected usability.

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON THE PHYSICAL DESIGN?

I do like the appearance of the Apple Watch, but I know that different people have different tastes. Personally I don't understand the fuss about circular vs rectangular displays. Both shapes are good!

The display has an excellent resolution and vibrant colors. One thing which is not immediately obvious is that the front glass is curved at the edges and corners. I think this detail is great. Even cooler is how the black display blends in with the black color of the edges.

The digital crown is convenient for scrolling and zooming. However, I have found that if you don't hold the other side of the watch, pushing the crown in will cause the whole watch to move awkwardly.

The band seems to be easy to remove. It is nice to know that I could use a different band with the same watch in the future.

I do enjoy the inductive charger. It is easy to slap on, and removes the need for an external port.

WHICH FEATURES DO YOU USE THE MOST?

First of all, the Apple Watch is obviously a watch. As you would expect from a watch, the Apple Watch can tell time. However, the Apple Watch tells time REALLY well. I love the variety of watch faces and complications. The first watch face I used was "Utility" which features a traditional analog clock. However, I found that I wanted to see more complications on my watch face, so I switched to "modular". It is an exciting sensation to glance at my watch for weather, calendar events, and physical activity.

The Apple Watch is very useful for notifications. Whenever I have an incoming text message, reminder, calendar event, or 3rd party notification, the Apple Watch alerts me with a gentle tap and a non-obtrusive tone. It is easier to check a wrist watch than take your phone out of your pocket, look at it, and put it back. When you have to check notifications dozens of times per day, the Apple Watch makes a real difference. In fact, notifications are so easy to check on the watch that I enabled push notifications for all of my email accounts. This helps me respond to emails more quickly.

Before I owned an Apple Watch I did not enjoy exercising. I did not like the idea of moving around a lot and getting sweaty for only a small incremental benefit. When I started using the Apple Watch, it sent me occasional notifications about my daily activity. At first I dismissed the notifications without taking action. But then one day I decided to "humor" the Apple Watch; I went out for a fast walk with the workout app. When I saw the activity rings move, something in my head clicked. I loved that something acknowledged that I was exercising. I loved the sensation that something was monitoring my every step and heart beat as I exercised. And even better yet, the Apple Watch gave me a little "atta boy" message when I filled the activity ring! Since that day I have exercising more regularly. (My activity log shows this!)

I use the Apple Watch a lot to text with friends and family. The contacts button makes it easy to initiate a text message with your favorites. Dictation works well for composing messages and rarely makes errors. When I receive a text message from someone, I can choose to reply with a predefined message. Sometimes there are different predefined responses depending on the message you received. (For example, "Yes" and "No" for a question.) In fact, these predefined messages are available even if you are initiating a text conversation. This spawned an inside joke with one of my friends after I sent them "Sorry, I can't talk right now" at a random time.

Passbook is useful, and will probably become more useful with time. I have an iPhone 5S, so I cannot use Apple Pay on my phone. The watch, however, is compatible with Apple Pay. It took a few days to set up (no thanks to my bank), but now Apple Pay is convenient to use at various stores. Sometimes Apple Pay is accepted where you would not expect it. Once I noticed an NFC reader on an ice cream vending machine. I doubtfully opened Apple Pay and waved my watch near the reader. As I was about to walk away, I heard the machine beep. The machine accepted Apple Pay, and gave me delicious ice cream. Right now the only other Passbook item I have is for Starbucks. (It would be nice if Starbucks also accepted Apple Pay.)

Turn by turn directions are useful. The traditional approach is for a device to speak verbose directions at you. The Apple Watch instead taps you and makes a tone when you should turn. The tone is different depending on which way you should turn. If you have any confusion, you can glance at your watch to see directions. Personally I prefer the more subtle, less verbose mode of navigation.

Siri is useful. I use her most often to create reminders, ask for directions, look at Wikipedia pages, search for images, do calculations, and do conversions.

The rest of the Apple apps I use: Phone acts as a good speakerphone. Photos is useful for viewing recent photos. Music is useful for controlling your phone's music.

Third party apps I enjoy: Twitter, Redditor, New York Times, Merriam Webster, Translator, Calcium Calculator, Tamagotchi, Letter Zap, Lifeline, Minesweeper, Poll Party, and 2048

WAS THE USER INTERFACE DIFFICULT TO LEARN?

Most essential actions were intuitive, but it took me days to discover some subtle features. Here are the features which surprised me:

The watch turns on when you tilt it towards yourself, but the watch also turns off when you tilt it away. This makes sense, but I wasn't expecting the behavior when I started using the watch. Also, the watch wakes up when you tap the screen.

You do not need to swipe from the top or bottom to view notifications or glances. (Swiping anywhere on the screen will work.) You can only view past notifications and glances from the watch face. This is different from the iOS paradigm.

Only the little arrow of the "back" button will actually register a press. Furthermore, you can swipe from the left edge to the right to go to the previous screen.

Turn off watch and return to watch face by placing palm on entire screen.

You can dismiss any notification by swiping down. This works for timer notifications too.

Force touch to clear all past notifications. Everybody loves that one.

The most unexpected effect of using an Apple Watch is that I use my iPhone a lot less often. Now my phone is that thing I carry around so my Apple Watch can work.

WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT THE APPLE WATCH?

The aspects which I dislike are software-based and will probably be fixed in the future. However, I will still list the current bad features:

No native third party app support. This would significantly improve the responsiveness of third party apps. I have heard that Apple is already working on an SDK.

Activating Siri by saying "Hey Siri" works about 80% of the time. I have read all over the web for how to activate her consistently. Some people theorize that you should not pause after "Hey Siri". However, I still find myself raising my wrist and talking to nobody like a dingus. Fortunately holding the crown button works 100% of the time.

You cannot reply to emails on the Apple Watch. For some emails I want to give a quick reply, and dictation would be appropriate. I am guessing that Apple could easily add this feature.

During navigation if you raise your wrist, the Apple Watch will wait two seconds before displaying distance to next turn. Two seconds may not seem like a lot, but when you are trying to focus on the road this delay is annoying.

There is no basic web browsing capability. I understand that displaying full webpages on the watch screen would be bad. However, it would be nice if Apple brought something like their "reader" functionality to the watch for viewing text based pages.

I have found a few software bugs here and there, but no show stoppers.

WHAT ABOUT THE BATTERY LIFE?

I am satisfied with the Apple Watch battery life. It has lasted every day without dying. I find it unusual that people want the battery to last several days. I always put my electronics in the same place at night before I go to bed, and putting the Apple Watch on the inductive charger is very easy. If you like to sleep with your watch on, that's your problem.

IS IT WORTH $400 TO YOU?

Some people note that the Apple Watch has no single "killer feature". However, basic arithmetic will tell you that the whole is as great as the sum of its parts. In the case of the Apple Watch, the combination of many small useful features results in a very useful product. The Apple Watch has become an integral part of my daily life, and I would not trade it back even at full price. So the answer is yes, this particular model was worth my money.

The interesting question is whether the regular Apple Watch and other bands are worth their prices. From a utility perspective, the only tangible benefit of the regular Apple Watch is the Sapphire crystal. In my opinion, it is not worth the extra $200 to avoid tiny scratches on the display. Whether you prefer stainless steel is a matter of taste. As for the bands, pricing beyond the sport band is very steep. The classic buckle looks good, but I'm not sure whether it is worth an extra $100. I am sure there are some third party substitutes which are not as pricey.

WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THE APPLE WATCH?

I would recommend the Apple Watch to moderate or heavy iPhone users who aren't afraid to try some new technology. If you aren't swimming in cash, get the Apple Watch Sport. If your wrists are average or large in size, choose the 42 mm model. It is worth the extra $50.

Thanks for reading!

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