# Apple Watch Initial Thoughts



## Shem (Jul 19, 2013)

*I got my 42mm Sport Space Grey last Friday. I'll give a summary of my thoughts here, a couple days in.*

- The build quality is spectacular, and the Swiss could learn a lot from Apple's straps and bracelets. It's by far the most comfortable watch I've ever worn. Seriously, Apple's straps and bracelets, including their end-link attachments and sizing design, make the Swiss look lazy and negligent for forcing us to use crappy and unreliable spring bars and pins/screws.

- I bought the "Sport" version because I intend to use it at the gym and because I didn't want to spend any more than necessary on a limited-lifetime device. That said, if I weren't a watch collector and I were buying my only watch, I would almost definitely buy one of the "Watch" models, probably the one with the link bracelet, and perhaps get a Sport strap as well for use at the gym. The "Watch" version would be more versatile and goes better with the other types of straps and bracelets, while I feel the dark grey anodized aluminum case of my Sport version really only belongs on the black Sport fluoroelastomer strap.

- The screen is beautiful and almost seems to transcend the idea of being a "screen." It feels like a moving painting almost, as though a printed page just magically transforms.

- Both the built-in software and third-party apps are buggy. I would expect this to be fixed over time, but it's kind of a big deal as it makes the watch much less usable. For example, map navigation worked great the first time I used it, but when I tried to get directions home, the Start button to initiate guidance wouldn't work, and there was no way to fix it. Siri has also been hit or miss; the dictation is very accurate, but activating it is a bit unreliable right now, and it crapped out last night forcing me to reboot the watch. This is also a big deal because Siri is a primary way of commanding the device.

- I'm a software engineer, so I picked up how to use the device in seconds, but I can see how normal users may find the interface unintuitive at first. The criticism leveled against the UI in the tech press is way overblown, though, in my opinion. It's not hard to use once you get used to a couple new conventions (digital crown, force touch) and the overall system layout.

- The limitations of the hardware's performance are apparent as some apps are slow. It's "fast enough," but just like the very first iPhone, I think subsequent versions will put the slowness of the first in sharp relief.

- I paid using my watch (Apple Pay) at a couple places including Whole Foods, and it was glorious. Didn't have to take anything out of my pocket, just two button presses and hold near the terminal. Boom.

- The fitness tracking is great, and the heart rate sensor, while not instantaneous, seems reasonably accurate.

- Having the weather and temperature available with a glance at my wrist has been more useful than I expected. Nice.

- Of all the "faces" they provide, I find Modular to be my favorite despite its distinctly modern and digital appearance. The other faces are beautiful, but I don't need my Apple Watch to look like a traditional watch. I would rather have the most info presented the best way at a glance, and Modular fits the bill.

- Calling someone using the watch and Siri feels like the future! It's sci-fi right here, right now, and it works nicely.

- Despite Apple's heavy emphasis on these features, I find that the new ways of communicating -- drawing pictures and sharing your heartbeat -- are gimmicky novelties and will probably be forgotten only a few minutes after trying them out. The screen's too small to draw anything useful or interesting, really. The heartbeat sharing might be nice for a family member away from home on travel or something, but I can't see it being used day-to-day.

- Text/iMessage using Siri works well enough, but having to confirm new messages and replies by hitting Send breaks up the flow a bit. Also, while the watch can display SOME images received in messages, in other cases it just says "this message contains an image, and you can view it on your iPhone," which defeats the purpose.

- The watch battery life is just fine, even with frequent use. Yesterday, with relatively heavy use, I only got it down to about 50%.

- However, the iPhone's battery life is significantly reduced as it's doing the heavy lifting for the watch. My iPhone 6 Plus almost didn't make it through the day.

*Tentative conclusions:*

The Apple Watch is beautiful and useful, and it has great potential. Not unexpectedly, though, it suffers from being the first one of its kind. As software bugs are fixed and third party developers start making imaginative new apps, it will continue to improve, though I suspect that the device as a concept will benefit greatly from faster hardware in future revisions. Overall, I find it to be a convenience and a novelty, but it really doesn't do much that my phone doesn't already do better, and hardware and software limitations (including bugs) make it less reliable and less smooth a flow as I suspect it will be once those issues are worked out.

These criticisms aside, I think it's a great device and that it's worth the price. For people who would buy a watch under $2,000, or who want any other digital or "smart" watch, I think it's a no-brainer to get the Apple Watch. It's a truly remarkable device despite its Rev1 drawbacks, and I don't think there's anything the Swiss, Japanese, Koreans, or anyone else offers that can touch it in that price category. For those who love traditional mechanical watches, I think you're safe for now, but it won't be long before the issues holding the Apple Watch back are fixed and new capabilities yet undreamed of are implemented by third-party developers. I still believe that wrist wearables will begin to edge out mechanical watches as people won't want to give up the functionality they provide, but I don't think that day is here quite yet.

I don't think I will miss the watch too much when I choose to wear a mechanical, but I do plan to use the Apple Watch at the gym, when traveling, and when I might otherwise put my real watches at risk. That is if I don't sell it on eBay for a profit, ha.


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## zetaplus93 (Jul 22, 2013)

Nice, was just thinking about creating a thread like this.

I got the 38mm SS in black, and my wife the 38mm Aluminum in white.

Lots of others have covered an overall-style review, so I'll share some tidbits (+/-) that delight or annoy me throughout the day.

Plus:

Control music & volume on my watch. I have several AirPlay speakers around the house, so great to be able to switch speakers as I move around
I use iTunes radio, and it's great to "star" and "+wishlist" songs that I like, so I can purchase later if I want to

Quickly time things around the kitchen etc
Includes countdown timers as well as stopwatch

Quickly add reminders as I walk around. Ideas come up randomly, so having a watch to quickly capture them is great
Quickly send a voice messages to my wife as I drive (hands are high on the steering wheel, so works well)
Quick phone calls are useful. Long calls suck
Battery life lasts through the day (except the first day when you play with all features)
I love not having to deal with the lock screen. TouchID greatly reduced the frustration of typing passwords on the iPhones, but not having a lock screen on the watch is so much better (just drop your wrists and it's off!)
Screen turns on correctly and at the right time most of the time
Siri is pretty helpful, though limited in what she can do

Delta:


Annoying to charge yet another device in the house. Now it's 2 iPhones and 2 watches
I miss my mechanicals, especially the beautiful dials, hands, casing, etc. I'm wearing them about 2 hours in the evening when I take the watch off for charging (~9pm)
Taptic engine is a bit soft. I initially wanted to use the watch in silent mode and rely on the taptic engine, but it was soft enough that I thought I'll miss things. I've turned on "prominent taptic" today and set it to silent to see if it's strong enough to alert me at all times
Yes, the watch will turn on when you don't intend to as you move your arms around. No big deal though I don't think
I wish I could get the watch to show all my reminders for the day. I can ask Siri to do this, but it just tells me to use the phone (this will likely be added later, I think)

Puzzle:

Not sure how well the digital touch will work. I don't think the recipient gets the "message" right away, seems to have a bit of lag
Having said that, I still think this will be an important feature, and Apple should continue to refine this


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## Shem (Jul 19, 2013)

Some photos:


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## Chibatastic (Mar 29, 2010)

Great reviews guys, thanks for sharing!

Many sentiments parallel to my one experience thus far.










For the most part I'm happy with Apple's efforts! I'll go in to more detail later on.

Chibatastic


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## valmak (May 29, 2010)

Great review. Nice to hear a WIS's thoughts on the Apple Watch. Much better insights than the typical reviews you get from the techies. Thanks a lot.


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## Leonine (Mar 27, 2012)

Nice reviews everyone.


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## codeture (Oct 12, 2014)

Nice one.

Apparently the 38mm is also quite big.


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## mpalmer (Dec 30, 2011)

If the general populus reacts as favorably to the watch as this review, I see smart watches becoming popular and beginning to steal away business from the affordable and mid market Swiss makers. The high end should be quite safe though...


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## u56rh (Jan 1, 2013)

Great review. Thanks. I can see wearable tech becoming more and more important as it improves. As that tech becomes indispensable the mechanical watch will just swap wrists and I'll wear both. They really will fulfill very different roles that partially intersect.


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## Shem (Jul 19, 2013)

u56rh said:


> They really will fulfill very different roles that partially intersect.


This is extremely true. The very least interesting thing about the Apple Watch is that it tells the time, in exactly the same way that the very least interesting thing about the iPhone is that it makes calls.


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## cfw (Jun 20, 2012)

mpalmer said:


> If the general populus reacts as favorably to the watch as this review, I see smart watches becoming popular and beginning to steal away business from the affordable and mid market Swiss makers. The high end should be quite safe though...


Swatch should have left the system 51 and focused on a smart watch.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## DocJekl (May 19, 2014)

I refreshed the Apple website every few seconds until the store became active, which was 1:09 AM that pre-order Friday (in Colorado maybe the store servers going active didn't propagate very fast). I had my watch ordered by 1:12AM (3 min) and it was scheduled for delivery on 4/24 - 5/8, but so far no notice of shipping yet.

When you guys got a shipping notice, how many days did it take to arrive from start to finish?


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## Shem (Jul 19, 2013)

larryganz said:


> I refreshed the Apple website every few seconds until the store became active, which was 1:09 AM that pre-order Friday (in Colorado maybe the store servers going active didn't propagate very fast). I had my watch ordered by 1:12AM (3 min) and it was scheduled for delivery on 4/24 - 5/8, but so far no notice of shipping yet.
> 
> When you guys got a shipping notice, how many days did it take to arrive from start to finish?


I received my shipping notice the morning before I received it. Apple stages the shipments at distribution centers all over the U.S., and they usually ship overnight from one very close to you.


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## Gunnar_917 (Feb 24, 2015)

Nice review. Must remembe

i don't want a smart watch, I don't want a smart watch, I don't want...


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## zetaplus93 (Jul 22, 2013)

Shem said:


> I received my shipping notice the morning before I received it. Apple stages the shipments at distribution centers all over the U.S., and they usually ship overnight from one very close to you.


Same here. It arrived in 2 days (notice Wed, arrived Friday).


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## dhoyle (Jul 13, 2012)

codeture said:


> Nice one.
> 
> Apparently the 38mm is also quite big.


38mm looked tiny next to the 42mm. My wife has pretty small wrists and went with the 42. It arrives today.


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## WatchOutChicago (Oct 28, 2013)

Great review!


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## EPmac (May 2, 2008)

Wow, Shem. With all of your Omegas, I wouldn't have guessed you'd buy an Apple Watch! Congrats, and nice review. Very thorough. I've been a huge Apple fan since I bought an SE/30 in 1991, but I haven't been interested in the watch. I would like to check it out, though.


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## gt0279a (May 18, 2009)

Shem said:


> *...*but it really doesn't do much that my phone doesn't already do better....


That pretty much sums it up for me. I think they will improve over time, and once it gets to the point it provides significant features over a phone I would consider one.

I heard the android version can function without the phone nearby as long as it is connected to Wifi. Can the apple watch do that as well?


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## CraigShipp (Jun 3, 2013)

If you don't mind my asking how is the screen in direct sunlight?


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## MusicPDX (Feb 27, 2013)

+1 big thanks for taking the time to write these up. 
I've been considering whether to take the plunge when these are more readily available. 
Based on your experiences, perhaps waiting it not a bad thing since some bugginess will be fixed by then.
Cheers,
-Rob


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## BarracksSi (Feb 13, 2013)

How well does it work if you wear it inside your wrist? Does the screen turn on reliably?


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## iinsic (Feb 18, 2010)

I've been an Apple fan for years. I'm on my fourth iPhone (a 5 ... haven't been able to justify going up to the 6 yet). I have two iPads. I have a Mac desktop and a Macbook Pro. Heck, my first computer back in the 70s was an Apple II, on which I did word processing, spreadsheets and wrote quite a few programs in Basic.

That said, I am not enthusiastic about the watch. The greatest drawback to me is that it must be charged every day (if I hate manual-wind watches, it stands to reason that I will hate a watch that requires an "energy" recharge daily). The second drawback is that the processing speed is quite slow, and apps are very slow to respond. The third drawback is the paucity of available apps, especially third-party apps (although that likely will change dramatically in the next couple of years). The final drawback is the learning curve for using the watch. Unlike every Apple product that preceded it, the Apple Watch requires considerable effort to learn how to get maximum advantage from its use. It is not nearly as intuitively operated as the Mac, iPhone or iPad.

I'm much more excited about the "smart" watch developed by Frederique Constant/Alpina/Mondial. This watch does pretty much what 90% of us want from a smart watch, works on both iOS and Android, and has a two-year battery life. No nightly charging BS.

Perhaps in a couple of years, when the watch becomes more intuitive in its use, the available apps (and their diverse utility) explode, and the battery life goes to several days, I might change my mind and have to have one.


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## zetaplus93 (Jul 22, 2013)

iinsic said:


> The final drawback is the learning curve for using the watch. Unlike every Apple product that preceded it, the Apple Watch requires considerable effort to learn how to get maximum advantage from its use. It is not nearly as intuitively operated as the Mac, iPhone or iPad.


No idea why people are concerned by this (perhaps it's because tech reviewers made a big deal out of this?).

From first hand experience, it's not hard to learn and use everyday. Certainly no harder to use when the first iPhones came out in 2007.

Believe me, the watch is much easier to use than the iPhone, iPad, and Macs (especially the Mac!).



iinsic said:


> The greatest drawback to me is that it must be charged every day (if I hate manual-wind watches, it stands to reason that I will hate a watch that requires an "energy" recharge daily).


If it offers enough value, recharging everyday isn't an issue. You just form a habit to charge everyday along with your phone. If it's a 2-3 day battery, you may forget to charge on the "right" day.


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## zetaplus93 (Jul 22, 2013)

gt0279a said:


> I heard the android version can function without the phone nearby as long as it is connected to Wifi. Can the apple watch do that as well?


I can walk around the house and the watch will work because it's connected by wifi. Performance (i.e. Getting new data, like weather) seems to be slowly, likely because it has to go through wifi.

Supposedly the watch will work with some functionality even if you leave it at home, as the yahoo reviewer David Pogue reported.


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## CraigShipp (Jun 3, 2013)

Here's my Apple Watch I got today. I like it so far but the screen is kind of washed out in direct sunlight.


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## spidaman (Dec 24, 2011)

Fantastic youtube review, Craig. Thanks!


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## iinsic (Feb 18, 2010)

CraigShipp said:


> Here's my Apple Watch I got today. I like it so far but the screen is kind of washed out in direct sunlight.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ohhhh ... that's kinda sad: "NO EVENTS TODAY." ;-)


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## zetaplus93 (Jul 22, 2013)

BarracksSi said:


> How well does it work if you wear it inside your wrist? Does the screen turn on reliably?


Just tried this. Nope, doesn't seem to work. If you have the watch face turned up, it'll turn on. But if you're wearing it inside your wrist, I assume you'll not turn the watch face completely up, so it doesn't light up.


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## DocJekl (May 19, 2014)

Got a shipping notice that my Stainless with leather classic buckle strap arrives tomorrow.


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## Zinzan (Oct 9, 2014)

I'll wait for Gen 2 before considering. I bought a CarPlay Pioneer system at Christmas, and have been disappointed at how buggy it still is today, often requiring me to disconnect/reconnect, or force terminate apps (even Apple apps). Which can't be safely done while driving. 

And there are still limited third-party apps.


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## richard371 (Nov 25, 2011)

Just got my 42 SS rubber. I turned the brightness up all the way and can see enough to get by in the hot sun today in SF. Not a deal breaker for me. Man this thing is useful. If this is only gen one I can only imagine what it will be like 2 or 3 generations. I still love my sub bluesy and DSOTM but I will no longer buy any more Swiss mechanicals as the apple watch keeps improving. I see a lot of potential here. Having a Swiss mechanical in a few Years will be like having a flip phone lol.


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## zetaplus93 (Jul 22, 2013)

richard371 said:


> Just got my 42 SS rubber. I turned the brightness up all the way and can see enough to get by in the hot sun today in SF. Not a deal breaker for me. Man this thing is useful. If this is only gen one I can only imagine what it will be like 2 or 3 generations. I still love my sub bluesy and DSOTM but I will no longer buy any more Swiss mechanicals as the apple watch keeps improving. I see a lot of potential here. Having a Swiss mechanical in a few Years will be like having a flip phone lol.


Nice to hear. Can you share what you like most about it, and which few things are most useful to you?


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## WatchOutChicago (Oct 28, 2013)

I think I want one to replace my Nike + Sports band. My screen is broken on it and the Apple watch isn't priced so high as to not be a suitable replacement as a workout watch.


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## Leonine (Mar 27, 2012)

I hear that the display actually looks a little better on the Sport editions because the hardened glass reflects less light than the sapphire models.



CraigShipp said:


> Here's my Apple Watch I got today. I like it so far but the screen is kind of washed out in direct sunlight.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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