I've been a user of smart watches for the past 2-3 years, first backing the pebble on kickstarter, the cookoo, purchasing a sony smart watch one, purchasing a pebble steel, backing the pebble time but always said on twitter I'd not get an apple watch, that it will be like a bracelet once the battery runs out and that pebble is really the one for me given the multi OS support (android and IOS).
Well eating my own words I ordered the apple watch on 10/4 at 08:05 am and it was due to arrive on 26/5. Another person I followed on twitter who lives within my area ordered there's at 08:02 and got it on the 24/4. On Tuesday 5/5 I had an email to expect delivery on 6/5 and yesterday it arrived.
So what changed my mind.... it was certainly nothing to do with apple as I think iOS 8 in its recent incarnation and the Iphone 6 plus are both aesthetically pleasing but are bug ridden hardware and software. It was because it's apple given they have predominantly been my choice of machine both on the desktop, tablet and phone since 2009.
I have already indicated my previous experience with smart watches but have missed off the fitbit ultra, fitbit zip, jawbone up and fitbit flex so I know what I want from a fitness band where I have previously lost 20KG in weight through using a fitness band and healthier eating.
So the combination of the smartwatch and fitness band drew me to the Apple watch.
The night before the 10/4 I had heard the rumours about the 18 hour battery life, the software froze but the overall experience was okay but not magnificent. Stories have appeared about the issues with too many notifications, iphone battery life issues, problems with the watch freezing, taking over 70 seconds to boot up and that it is over priced. Again I have the return period and the time waiting for delivery means hopefully a software fix will come out.
But I just bit my lip and placed an order thinking I can always return if it was that bad.
The watch arrived yesterday and the experience from opening the packaging is the usual Apple affair of quality packaging to give you the feeling this is premium product. The model I went for was the 42mm space grey sport edition. Although I was interested in the stainless steel edition spending over £500 on a watch was too much let alone £339. At least with both my pebbles which offer basic iOS functionality they will last a number of years and don't cost the earth. There are plenty of unboxing videos and pictures on youtube and I will never be purchasing the £17K gold edition so £339 is respectable albeit still too much.
In my opinion the apple watch should be £200 and no more for the entry level and the stainless steel model should start at £350 upwards. I am not interested on what manufacturing process has been used to make the alloy as its just a piece of jewellry. To see a cheaper plastic version like the Iphone 5C would be great addition to Apple's range to bring the device to more people at an affordable price.
Its been 24 hours since getting it and I've had the watch on for 11 hours where after configuring it I have 61% of battery left at the end of the day. I have taken one call at home, taken off my fitbit flex to use the health monitoring, configured notifications to what I need and only demoed a couple of applications to colleagues. The speaker and microphone on the device so I can talk into it are just plain stupidity just like the remote viewfinder for the camera when taking selfies and I can never see myself playing music on the internal speaker. However pairing it with bluetooth headphones for music and using the watch without the phone doing activities like the MotoActiv is a use case I can see.
From a smartwatch and notification perspective the first thing I did was switch off notifications from apps such as SWARM, ASDA and other pointless things I don't need notifying about. A smartwatch for me has to give me useful information for items I want to see and I don't want to be bombarded with junk notifications otherwise I would be twitching all day. I've switched off specific Glance apps such as MotionX-GPS which actually activated the voice on my phone from the watch whilst I was about to watch a film last night at the cinema. Just like Google Glass the watch interactions are just moments when a message comes in, you review it and then decide how you want to interact either with a dismiss or further actions. Taking this approach I have been able to reduce the number of notifications to a minimum so it doesn't distract me and leave with a bad neck.
For the fitness I have set up goals similar to my fitbit, it monitors my heart rate every 10 minutes, records my steps, when I stand up and if I move for example I go for a walk it records this. There is the option of workouts but I have not used this yet. All information is in real time and can be viewed on the watch or via the Activity or Health App on the Iphone. The funniest item on this was the watch telling me how many times I had stood up in the day where I have being joking with colleagues and keeping them updated.
I've loaded on game onto it called Lifeline just to see how it works on this medium.
You are limited to 20 glances or widgets if this explains them. I've loaded deliveries, maps, just eat, calendar, meetup and workflow to name a few. So a Glance App is snapshot of some data and you can interact with it but I did find my arm aching just holding it mid air which is why you will always reach for your phone and just rely on the watch for the "micro" interactions.
Outside in daylight it is viewable but the screen is a finger magnet. However trying to workout if you should be tapping, force touching, scrolling up, down or sideways, spinning the digital crown or pressing the button on the side will take time to get use to.
The application chooser works well with the small icons albeit it looks bad when demoed on video. But as previously mentioned the watch for me is for notifications and interactions and not to look like a plonker holding up their arm squinting at a small screen. If I want to do that then I might as well velcro my iphone to a sweat wrist band.
I have felt that some of the applications that are being offered have lost the plot and really don't understand the micro interaction concept and are trying to deliver a full phone experience to the watch.
Now to the conclusions...
Is it a game changer - very simply the answer is no. It is a polished example of a smartwatch but given the functionality is only a little more advanced than a pebble, or android watch and/or fitness tracker I still believe the market is young.
What it will do is set a standard like the Ipad and Iphone in terms of premium build quality and polish. The pebble original and steel already have the aesthetics and the new pebble time will just add to this as you're getting a coloured screen, long battery life and it looks great. With the apple watch you get the colour screen and it looks great, but the battery is bad (I'll explain more in a bit) and I am scared of scratching it given the case it is built in. I have just purchased a Spigen outdoor case for the watch so I can use it for outdoor activity tracking. The other "gotcha" here is the pebble time smart straps which will also be a game changer and will add functionality to the pebble watch in the future which means one watch but multiple straps.
Is it a keeper - after day one the answer is potentially but let me expand on this.
If I go back to my primary uses a smartwatch gives me notifications and micro interactions. I also wear a fitbit flex to record my fitness levels every day but only wear a watch when I go out. The fitbit flex measures all of my usual body stats albeit the heart rate but also measures my sleep. The battery lasts for a few days and in a morning I can leave it on charge for 45 mins whilst getting ready for work. Here I know my activity will be low so I won't be missing many statistics but it will have charged for the day. So I am using a two box solution...
The apple watch will measure everything but sleep and the battery will only last 18 hours. So from 7am until 2am I have power. As the watch can't measure my sleep but if I want to record my statistics I will need my fitbit on through the night and leave my apple watch charging. Even if I could monitor my sleep with the apple watch by the time the morning came I would need at least 1.5 hours to give me 80% charge where I only usually have 45 minutes in the morning so this means 40% which wouldn't really get me through a day.
For now should I keep the watch it means a two box solution so I can record everything and before you ask why..... it's just what I like doing..... This is just a memory of the old issue of having to use a phone and a PDA such as a Psion together all of those years ago.
I really want to see the following in v2 or at least if something with software or hardware could sort out v1.
I've got over a week to decide if I will keep it.... knowing me I probably will but no doubt along the way will be ranting on twitter.... so watch this space.
Well eating my own words I ordered the apple watch on 10/4 at 08:05 am and it was due to arrive on 26/5. Another person I followed on twitter who lives within my area ordered there's at 08:02 and got it on the 24/4. On Tuesday 5/5 I had an email to expect delivery on 6/5 and yesterday it arrived.
So what changed my mind.... it was certainly nothing to do with apple as I think iOS 8 in its recent incarnation and the Iphone 6 plus are both aesthetically pleasing but are bug ridden hardware and software. It was because it's apple given they have predominantly been my choice of machine both on the desktop, tablet and phone since 2009.
I have already indicated my previous experience with smart watches but have missed off the fitbit ultra, fitbit zip, jawbone up and fitbit flex so I know what I want from a fitness band where I have previously lost 20KG in weight through using a fitness band and healthier eating.
So the combination of the smartwatch and fitness band drew me to the Apple watch.
But I just bit my lip and placed an order thinking I can always return if it was that bad.
The watch arrived yesterday and the experience from opening the packaging is the usual Apple affair of quality packaging to give you the feeling this is premium product. The model I went for was the 42mm space grey sport edition. Although I was interested in the stainless steel edition spending over £500 on a watch was too much let alone £339. At least with both my pebbles which offer basic iOS functionality they will last a number of years and don't cost the earth. There are plenty of unboxing videos and pictures on youtube and I will never be purchasing the £17K gold edition so £339 is respectable albeit still too much.
In my opinion the apple watch should be £200 and no more for the entry level and the stainless steel model should start at £350 upwards. I am not interested on what manufacturing process has been used to make the alloy as its just a piece of jewellry. To see a cheaper plastic version like the Iphone 5C would be great addition to Apple's range to bring the device to more people at an affordable price.
Its been 24 hours since getting it and I've had the watch on for 11 hours where after configuring it I have 61% of battery left at the end of the day. I have taken one call at home, taken off my fitbit flex to use the health monitoring, configured notifications to what I need and only demoed a couple of applications to colleagues. The speaker and microphone on the device so I can talk into it are just plain stupidity just like the remote viewfinder for the camera when taking selfies and I can never see myself playing music on the internal speaker. However pairing it with bluetooth headphones for music and using the watch without the phone doing activities like the MotoActiv is a use case I can see.
From a smartwatch and notification perspective the first thing I did was switch off notifications from apps such as SWARM, ASDA and other pointless things I don't need notifying about. A smartwatch for me has to give me useful information for items I want to see and I don't want to be bombarded with junk notifications otherwise I would be twitching all day. I've switched off specific Glance apps such as MotionX-GPS which actually activated the voice on my phone from the watch whilst I was about to watch a film last night at the cinema. Just like Google Glass the watch interactions are just moments when a message comes in, you review it and then decide how you want to interact either with a dismiss or further actions. Taking this approach I have been able to reduce the number of notifications to a minimum so it doesn't distract me and leave with a bad neck.
For the fitness I have set up goals similar to my fitbit, it monitors my heart rate every 10 minutes, records my steps, when I stand up and if I move for example I go for a walk it records this. There is the option of workouts but I have not used this yet. All information is in real time and can be viewed on the watch or via the Activity or Health App on the Iphone. The funniest item on this was the watch telling me how many times I had stood up in the day where I have being joking with colleagues and keeping them updated.
I've loaded on game onto it called Lifeline just to see how it works on this medium.
You are limited to 20 glances or widgets if this explains them. I've loaded deliveries, maps, just eat, calendar, meetup and workflow to name a few. So a Glance App is snapshot of some data and you can interact with it but I did find my arm aching just holding it mid air which is why you will always reach for your phone and just rely on the watch for the "micro" interactions.
Outside in daylight it is viewable but the screen is a finger magnet. However trying to workout if you should be tapping, force touching, scrolling up, down or sideways, spinning the digital crown or pressing the button on the side will take time to get use to.
The application chooser works well with the small icons albeit it looks bad when demoed on video. But as previously mentioned the watch for me is for notifications and interactions and not to look like a plonker holding up their arm squinting at a small screen. If I want to do that then I might as well velcro my iphone to a sweat wrist band.
I have felt that some of the applications that are being offered have lost the plot and really don't understand the micro interaction concept and are trying to deliver a full phone experience to the watch.
Now to the conclusions...
Is it a game changer - very simply the answer is no. It is a polished example of a smartwatch but given the functionality is only a little more advanced than a pebble, or android watch and/or fitness tracker I still believe the market is young.
What it will do is set a standard like the Ipad and Iphone in terms of premium build quality and polish. The pebble original and steel already have the aesthetics and the new pebble time will just add to this as you're getting a coloured screen, long battery life and it looks great. With the apple watch you get the colour screen and it looks great, but the battery is bad (I'll explain more in a bit) and I am scared of scratching it given the case it is built in. I have just purchased a Spigen outdoor case for the watch so I can use it for outdoor activity tracking. The other "gotcha" here is the pebble time smart straps which will also be a game changer and will add functionality to the pebble watch in the future which means one watch but multiple straps.
Is it a keeper - after day one the answer is potentially but let me expand on this.
If I go back to my primary uses a smartwatch gives me notifications and micro interactions. I also wear a fitbit flex to record my fitness levels every day but only wear a watch when I go out. The fitbit flex measures all of my usual body stats albeit the heart rate but also measures my sleep. The battery lasts for a few days and in a morning I can leave it on charge for 45 mins whilst getting ready for work. Here I know my activity will be low so I won't be missing many statistics but it will have charged for the day. So I am using a two box solution...
The apple watch will measure everything but sleep and the battery will only last 18 hours. So from 7am until 2am I have power. As the watch can't measure my sleep but if I want to record my statistics I will need my fitbit on through the night and leave my apple watch charging. Even if I could monitor my sleep with the apple watch by the time the morning came I would need at least 1.5 hours to give me 80% charge where I only usually have 45 minutes in the morning so this means 40% which wouldn't really get me through a day.
For now should I keep the watch it means a two box solution so I can record everything and before you ask why..... it's just what I like doing..... This is just a memory of the old issue of having to use a phone and a PDA such as a Psion together all of those years ago.
I really want to see the following in v2 or at least if something with software or hardware could sort out v1.
- Faster charging in under 1 hour to 100%
- A better strap or included metal strap with the sports watch given the price
- A cheaper plastic version or reduction in price
- Better battery up to 36 hours
- Sleep monitoring
These are all minor and given it's Apple's first time (please forgive the pun!) at a watch they have delivered a good piece of hardware and software which is in my opinion a lot better than Iphone 6 and iOS 8.
I would also like to see the notification control to other smart watches such as pebble and cookoo, allow the apple watch to pair to Ipads and multiple devices and add android support but I don't see any of this coming soon.
So here is my advice in this order:
- First ask do I need a smartwatch - if you don't save the money and use your phone
- If you don't want to spend too much then look at the Pebble original or Steel, Cookoo or a cheaper android wear watch. Failing that get a U8 smartwatch
- If you want multi platform then look at the Pebble range
- If you want multi platform and fitness look at the Microsoft Band
- If you want fitness only then the market is buoyant where I would recommend Fitbit which I have used for a number of years (and no they're not paying me to say this)
- If you're an iphone owner and can afford the apple watch then buy it
- If you can wait then do for another 6 months as Apple's entry into this marketplace will shake things up
I've got over a week to decide if I will keep it.... knowing me I probably will but no doubt along the way will be ranting on twitter.... so watch this space.
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