This is not an Apple Watch review: I like it, but I won't buy it (yet)
I’ve been wearing the office’s Apple Watch for a few weeks now. This post won’t be a Apple Watch review; my colleague CS already did a good job of that, and my colleague Kenny followed that up with a brilliant look at the Watch from a mechanical watch aficionado’s perspective.
These are just a few brief thoughts I have after reporting on the Watch for close to a year now and finally using it for myself. The number one takeaway is …
I’m not going to miss it
I’ll be passing the Watch on next week to another colleague of mine, and my biggest thought right now is that I’m not going to miss it.
I suspect that’s true not just of the Watch, but any wearable right now. I’ve pretty much abandoned my Jawbone Up, and I think I’ll feel the same if I were wearing a Google Wear smartwatch.
It’s early days for wearables, and they haven’t gotten to the point yet where they’re so good it makes less sense not to wear one than to just wear one. Kind of like how we all had friends who refused to abandon their favourite Nokia/Motorola/Blackberry phone in the early smartphone days, but have all caved in by now to get one.
The Watch is good for some people
I wore the Watch during an assignment recently where I couldn’t keep my iPhone on me (it stayed in a bag that was never too far away). That was the best use case scenario in all the weeks I used it.
Having the Watch on my wrist helped me check messages to make sure I didn’t miss important ones, and I didn’t have to worry about missing calls.
Still, I don’t get this kind of assignment often, but it lets me understand that the Watch will be more useful for some people than others.
The Watch doesn’t reduce distractions, it increases it
In some ways, the Watch increases the distractions in my life, instead of decreasing it. It’s easier to put my iPhone face-down on the table, switch it to silent mode and ignore it altogether.
It’s a lot hard to ignore something tapping you on your wrist. I can resist the face-down iPhone, it’s harder to resist just peeking at my wrist.
While it looks rude to be always checking your smartphone, it’s a lot ruder to always be glancing at your wrist. Checking your watch seems to be the default body language signal for, “I have better things to do right now,” no matter what language you speak.
The Apple Watch is like the first iPhone
I’m still bullish on the future of the Apple Watch and wearables in general though. Apple Watch 1.0 is like iPhone 1.0, and that’s okay.
The first iPhone was cool and nice, but besides a great new interface, it didn’t really rock the world — not yet. It was really iPhone 2.0, with 3G bringing always-on data, and the pairing of it with the App Store, that changed the game forever.
Apple Watch 1.0 feels like iPhone 1.0. It’s beautifully made, just like the first iPhone was beautifully made. Everything else about it is quite basic. Apps are slow to launch. I hardly use Glances. But I’m still positive about the Watch and the future of wearables in general, because …
The Watch will only get better
Like with all of Apple’s devices, the Watch will only get better with time. I imagine that Apple is already working on a slimmer Watch with a more powerful processor and longer-lasting battery.
What really intrigues me, however, is the Watch’s ability to influence health. Wearables have one key characteristic that other smart devices don’t, and it’s that they’re always sensing you. While some people are more interested in how wearables’ sensors point out (e.g. Apple Pay, unlocking doors, etc.), I’m more interested in how wearables’ sensors point in.
I’m keen to see what developers cook up with the upcoming watchOS 2. Right now, apps can’t even be stored on the Watch, making them slow as molasses. But with watchOS 2, not only can apps load on the Watch directly, they’re also given access to the Watch’s sensors.
One example of that is with Run 5k for watchOS 2. With access to the Watch’s sensors, the app can tap your wrist to tell you to change pace during the run, without interrupting your music. That’s an interesting way to do coaching via the app in a more intuitive way.
For myself, I’d love to see my favourite health apps, StrongLifts and BitTimer come to the Watch. It’d be much easier to track and start/stop my workouts on the wrist than on the iPhone. It’d also be interesting to see prompts for harder or less exertion to hit ideal heart rates during training. I’d also be interested to see if somebody tries to make an app to measure heart rate variability.
These are the kinds of things that the Watch and wearables can do that the smartphone cannot, thanks to it always sensing you. This is the part I’m most hopeful about.
But right now, the Watch is just an expensive notifications machine
I’m staring at the Apple Watch, and it’s staring back at me. It’s not really doing anything for me right now, except telling me the time, and there’s nothing I want to do with it.
In fact, nothing will really happen with the Watch until somebody pings me with a message or call. In which case, I’ll have to take it on my iPhone anyway.
The Watch is nice. I can’t deny that. And sometimes, it gives you some luxurious conveniences that can’t be had any other way; just this morning I used it to play a podcast from my iPhone while making breakfast, while my phone stayed in my pocket. But these are minor conveniences that aren’t essential. Not S$598 essential.
I might actually get one, though. But not the first one. Right now, it feels like the Apple Watch is an expensive, beautiful piece of hardware/accessory that’s still waiting for the future.
Alvin Soon / Former Deputy Editor
I like coffee and cameras, but not together.