On Thursday April 23rd, in the middle of perhaps the most miserable workdays I’ve had for quite some time, I received an email from Apple to say my watch had been dispatched, due for delivery Friday 24th. This was earlier than expected, as when I placed my order delivery was stated as ‘June’, and the spare black wrist band I ordered as available in ‘May’. So on Friday I spend the day fretting about not missing the delivery, and at around 4.00pm there was a guy at my door with a long-ish package like a squared-off oversized Toblerone; I’m expecting a square-ish package like the ones I’ve seen from un-boxings around the world (apparently the square boxes are for the steel watch…) but after checking the address it was indeed mine, and I didn’t even need to sign for it.
As always with Apple products, the packaging is beautiful and whilst set-up was pretty straightforward, it turns out it could have been even more so; I duly pointed my iPhone camera at the watch face when prompted, and when nothing happened I tapped the only ‘button’ (line of text) that was visible - and that started the manual set-up process. Given that the line of text read ‘start manual setup process’ or some such, this wasn’t a total surprise, and again this was simple enough, but apparently there’s supposed to be a swirly pattern on the watch-face that the iPhone recognises and starts the setup automatically; who knew?
The next challenge was to get the damn thing on my wrist and I found the flouroelastomer sport band to have the most un-intuitive fastening ever devised; some techie (I forget who) sneered on twitter that the diagram printed on the watch’s protective wrapper was superfluous, but my experience, and the responses they received suggest otherwise. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you put the pin through the band, then thread the strap through the buckle - the exact opposite of every watch strap I’ve previously used…
Installing Apps was simplicity itself, via the iPhone app - compatible apps can auto-install, or you can select them individually. Overcast on my wrist, at last.
I spent the rest of my evening fiddling about with the watch faces, changing colours, customising ‘complications’ installing other apps and generally having fun until it was time to retire for the night. The UK charger is a truly wonderful design, and comes with a good long lead - I wish my other iDevice chargers were as good. The watch connected easily, began charging, and that was that.
Saturday. First full day with the watch. Oddly, it was only charged to 99% when I got up around 6.00am but that didn’t seem to matter. Watch on, tap out the code to unlock it and away we go. I reposition my watch on my wrist a lot during the day, and I was happy to find that this didn’t break contact with my skin - I’d had visions of having to re-enter my passcode multiple time per day, but this didn’t seem to be the case. It turns out that you can also unlock your watch by using TouchID on your (paired) iPhone - nice!
The ‘taptic’ alerts take a bit of getting used to, especially early in the morning when there’s an incoming barrage of messages and emails; earlier in the year during a hospital visit I was wired up to electrodes that gave me small electric shocks to test my nerve reactions; the watch taptics aren’t quite as aggressive as that, but they’re not far off, and with a bit more digging into the settings (via the watch companion app on my iPhone) I found I could change the force of the taptics, along with the volume of the alert when they happen. The variations are pretty rudimentary though - off, half or full-force - and I do think a couple of in-between stages would be useful.
Digging further into the settings during the course of the day I found there are a number of things that can be altered and customised, including the ‘activity’ monitor. Just as well - the Thursday I received my dispatch email I climbed 70-odd flights of stairs and walked 16000 steps, much of it whilst shifting 600-700 kilos of tools, equipment and materials (not all at once, obviously) so when over the weekend I’m gratefully vegging-out watching sports on TV I really don’t need to be told that it’s ‘time to stand up’ on an hourly basis, thanks.
Much has been made of the ‘all-day’ 18-hour battery life, so one of the complications I had on the watch-face was a battery charge indicator. Allowing for the fact that this was my first full day with the watch, with far more fiddling around and heavy-use screen time than usual the battery was at 21% at the end of the day, almost 17 hours later; not bad.
Sunday. Another day of rest. Wet weather dampened our enthusiasm for the usual early-Sunday cycle-ride, so it was a day spent mooching about watching other people exhaust themselves on the London Marathon, and trying not to fiddle so much with the watch. Nice to get notice of emails and messages on my wrist, and I played around a bit dictating messages to my son in Southampton during a football match we were both watching. Also sent him an animated smilie; it was hideous, took forever to send, and arrived as an animated GIF so I won’t be doing many of those! Nice to be able to dismiss a phone call from my wrist as well, especially after I saw who was calling…
I haven’t been a fan of Siri on my phone (s/he has only ever worked well for me at the times s/he’d be least useful) but s/he seems to be noticeably better on the watch than on my phone; whether setting timers, alarms or dictating messages, the success rate is much, much better - good enough, perhaps, for me to actually start using it for some things; we’ll see.
One thing I’ve noticed today is that, as a watch, it isn’t that great; the ‘raise your wrist to light up the display’ is a good way of preserving battery-life, but it seemed to light up when I didn’t particularly expect it to, and not so much when I was specifically trying to see the time. I’m a watch-wearer and have been all my life, and I do miss being able to glance at my wrist to see the time without moving my arm; I’m getting used to flicking my wrist, but after 45 years of not needing to do this it’s hard to fight against the muscle-memory. There’s also quite a lag between raising my wrist and the watch lighting up - probably less than a second, truth be told, but it feels much longer.
The watch itself (42mm Sport) is smaller than my ‘everyday’ watches, and less than half the weight, so if it wasn’t for the slime green strap I wouldn’t notice it was there; as it is I can’t wait to get the black strap I ordered that won’t deliver until May - I tried calling my local Apple store to see if they had any stock, without success, though I can apparently swap the strap within 14 days if I want. Without a firm delivery date for the replacement black straps though, I’m not sure I see the point.
So after a more normal days use - a bit of messaging, podcast control, triage-ing emails etc… - the battery indicator showed 42% remaining when I quit for the night around 10.15; getting on for 16 hours use, that’s pretty good, but if that turns out to be a typical day for me, then I’d like to have the opportunity to customise my watch experience further at the expense of the remaining battery. For example, the watch switches off after about 6 seconds - too quickly for me; I’d like to have the option to leave it on for, say, a couple of seconds longer. Interestingly, if you tap the screen to show the time, it does stay on for much longer - about 20 seconds; I’d cheerfully swap those times around.
Monday. First full working day. Up at 5.30am to 100% charge. In my worksop mostly today, but also out and about locally; the watch has been getting a bit of of attention, and I really can’t wait to get a less ‘shouty’ strap - I may try spraying it black. As a ‘normal’ user I don’t really get that much in the way of messages and emails, but it’s really good to be able to dispense with them on my wrist instead of reaching for my phone, especially when I have both hands occupied with my work. One odd thing I found today - sometimes when I view an email, the blue-text body of the message is really hard to read against the background; I don’t know if this is because I’m viewing it via a notification, so it blurs the watch face as the background, but it’s much harder to read than going to Apps > Mail > message, where the message is shown against a black background. Not every email has blue text either - I wonder if this is something to do with how they’re sent?
Podcasts are my usual entertainment during the working day, and having the controls on my wrist is great, but it’s taking a bit of swiping around to get back to Overcast once the watch has defaulted back to the time. There’s a setting you can change to take you back to the most-recent app instead of the watch face, but I don’t want to do that as eight times out of ten I will want the time, not the most-recent app. I’m really struggling to see the usefulness of the ‘friends’ button; I thought it peculiar when the watch was first demo’d that you’d have a hardware button dedicated to your dozen ‘bestie’s’ (for the record I have 4 of those slots filled, and I’m related to all of them) and I’d love to have the option to map that button to something else - a direct return to the last-used app, for example, or to the app that has a process currently active e.g. a podcast app, the music app, your run-timer, whatever.
I’m also finding the digital crown a bit superfluous - I know the techies seem to love it, but I find it easier to flick-scroll my way through an email or message, for example, and though it may come into it’s own for zooming should I ever feel the need, to be honest I think I’d be just as happy with pinch to zoom, with the digital crown just for fine control. And talking of zooming, I’ve bumped up the text size slightly today - feel free to snigger, but I’m 55 with varifocals, and your time will come as surely as night follows day…
I’d also love to have Notes.app on my watch - a little surprised it isn’t there, as its the perfect device for quickly dictating thoughts, ideas, measurements, almost any information you’d want to jot down quickly and refer to later, especially if you don’t happen to have a spare hand. Yes there’s Evernote and OneNote or other third-party notes apps, but Apple’s own Notes.app is the backbone of my note-taking; I just don’t feel the need to be using something else.
Tuesday. Another regular work day - some time in the workshop, some time with a customer on a go-see. I used maps with taptic to direct me to the destination about 30 minutes drive away - worked pretty well, though the taps that felt like electric shocks whilst sat on a sofa were barely discernible while driving; I need to turn them back up, I think, and maybe there should be an even stronger option. Also, while the three double-taps for a right-hand turn were easily felt, the multiple taps for a left turn weren’t - I found I was more aware of the audible alert than the taptic. I used the watch to control my podcasts again - quickly becoming my ‘killer app’ - triaging texts and emails, and sending calls to voicemail, but was otherwise a pretty low usage day so I was surprised to find the battery down at 17% when it was time to turn in; I guess turn by turn directions take their toll??
Still finding it disconcerting not being able to glance at my wrist to see the time - the physical movement required to light the watch up is alien to me, a watch-wearer of 45 years.
Wednesday. A regular work day, but onsite today. Normal watch use - no maps or directions, though I did accidentally take a phone call on the watch! I answered on the watch expecting it to ‘play’ through the headphones that were plugged in - and where I could hear it ringing - but the call went to my watch. I could hear just fine, once I’d pulled my headphones off…
I find I’m making exaggerated arm movements to see the time - really starting to irritate me that I can’t see it at a glance. Podcast controls can seem to take a long time to connect - I’ve seen more spinning dots in the last few days than I have for a while - and I haven’t quite figured out the taptics; I’m not getting them for notifications from e.g. Overcast, but I do when I get an email or message; why the difference?
Battery OK today with 25% remaining.
Thursday. Another day onsite, after a trip to see another customer elsewhere. Used maps on the watch for directions, and the taptics still don’t seem to make much sense - either that, or I haven’t had got the feel for them yet; the left-turn indicator doesn’t seem any different from the right, so whilst I know I need to make a turn, I’m unsure which way without looking at the watch. Siri continues to impress though - much, much better on the watch than the phone; when I first set up the ‘utility’ watch face I put my common tasks - alarm and timer - as complications so I could access them easily; turns out it’s easier to use Siri to set a timer or an alarm.
Podcast controls are still a little frustrating; if I start a podcast on my phone, when I go to the watch app it shows the last played podcast, not the current, and I have to back out of that to get to the list, select the current, playing one, and let it catch up to itself before I can get to the controls. Once I’m there it works really well, but getting there can be irritating, and probably not what I should be doing whilst balanced on a ladder with both hands occupied.
I’m still finding that I miss some alerts - I can glance at my watch and see the red dot of notifications, but haven’t felt or heard anything to notify me.
Battery life steady at 25% end of day; I’d added a ‘transit’ app to the phone & watch, and had wondered if that was adversely affecting battery life, so I uninstalled it this morning - doesn’t seem to have made a difference one way or another.
The ‘raise your arm to see the time’ is still a source of frustration though - I find that it comes on with the most innocuous of arm movements whilst sitting my sofa, but when I actually need to glance at my watch to see the time nothing happens. Making exaggerated wrist-flicking movements just reminds me of Monty Python’s old ‘ministry of silly walks’, only less effective.
Friday afternoon, 4.00pm; almost exactly a week since the watch arrived. Today was much more straightforward watch-wise. No maps or calls today, but controlling podcasts for about 6 hours so far, a couple of alarms and timers, and fielding texts and emails. Battery showing 59% - possibly about the same charge that it arrived with a week ago.
I’ve been impressed with the comfort of the Sport’s wristband, and its utility; I haven’t done anything to baby the watch this week, simply carried out my usual work cutting, prepping and painting wood, and shifting tools, materials and equipment; the watch has survived comfortably in relatively hazardous environments, and cleaned easily. I’m also very pleased that the touch-screen watch, like the iPhone, can be used whilst wearing latex gloves - a must when I’m painting, or using chemicals.
I’ve read that some people have found the overall interface confusing, but I’ve had no real issues - it’s really pretty straightforward - though I do dislike how the app screen shifts everything around when you move the icons; I think I’d be happier with an iPhone-style grid of icons than this. And the option to make them bigger, permanently. I’d also like the option to remove (or at least hide) some of the stock apps, the things I’ll simply never use like the errr… Stocks App. At least on the iPhone/iPad you could shunt these off to another screen or folder, but the watch’s screen is too precious to clutter up with stuff I don’t want and, frankly, didn’t ask for.
So it’s been a good first week, and even though the Apple Watch is undeniably a first-gen product it’s still a fully functional device with tremendous upside, and I expect the less polished edges to be smoothed out in short order - both mine, through familiarity, and the watch, through development.
I’ll end though, with one observation; I had an iPad at launch 5 years ago, and it took my wife less than a week of watching me use mine before she ordered one for herself. So far she’s shown no interest in the watch, and like me, she’s a ‘watch person’ with many, many watches in her collection. Apple Watch really is a very personal device that I think needs to be used by the individual before they can get a feel for how it will fit into their lives.
