“After a full year of wearing the Apple Watch every single day, it’s time to revisit the hardware, software, and some things I looked at in our original review to see where the platform is and where I think it ought to go in the next year or two,” Andrew Cunningham writes for Ars Technica.
“I’m still wearing the Apple Watch because it does a handful of things that I quite like and have grown used to, even if this is just a subset of the Watch’s feature set,” Cunningham writes. “I’ve settled on the Modular watch face as the most functional one for me, and I’ve enabled Complications to tell me the day and date, calendar reminders, the current temperature, my Activity circles, and the Watch’s current battery level. The temperature and weather forecasts are the ones I use the most, especially as winter turns to spring and I want to check quickly and see whether I should have a coat or umbrella with me when I go outside.”
“The Apple Watch is doing fine. It’s certainly not the abject failure that some people have already tried to declare it. But if Apple wants to keep peoples’ interest and, more importantly, attract new interest, it needs to keep improving the Watch and expanding the number of things [for which] people can use it,” Cunningham writes. “The Apple Watch as it exists is still rough and limited in a lot of ways, but hopefully another year or two of improvements will help it realize its full potential.”
Tons more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve had our Apple Watches on our wrists since Friday, April 24, 2015 through today, or exactly 365 days.
Here’s what we use our Watches for in order of usage:
1. Time
2. Temperature
3. Fitness
4. Music while running/working out
5. Alarms
6. Weather forecast
7. Sports scores
8. Stock prices
9. Timers
10. Turn-by-turn navigation
11. Quick texts (mainly replies, Siri works remarkably well for dictation)
12. Quick news via 3rd party news apps
13. Apple Pay
14. Apple TV Remote
15. Basic email (reading, deleting, marking unread)
Wouldn’t it be great if you could do all that without having to have your iphone with you? Maybe one day….
Obviously, you do not have an Apple Watch. Nearly everything on MacDailyNews’ list can be done with the Watch alone, no iPhone required.
You can do more than 1-5,9 and 14 w/o an iPhone?
Umm, no. It wouldn’t. (Actually some stuff where you don’t want your iPhone with, you can (music while Working out))
The watch is designed to use your phone less, not replace it.
You’re still going to want to have the full functional of your phone within reasonable reach.
The people that think that it’s a phone replacement just don’t get that it never will be or was designed to be.
Hoping for an Adblocker user ads whiner blocker.
Tough crowd. Adblocker users are sensitive.
Surprised that Quick Texts and Basic Email aren’t higher on MDN’s list. They are towards the top for me. “Fitness” is a little broad.
Use Purify.
Personally I want it to do less – not more. Or at least give us the option of a simplified watch with a battery that can last at least a week.
I ended up selling mine because of the battery issue – having to take it off every night meant it couldn’t do sleep tracking, and I often forget to put it on in the morning and suddenly I’m in the car without a watch. I also found the most irritating thing is just trying to get the freaking time – it would never turn on when I turned my wrist so I always had to hit it, and even then I often had to hit it multiple times just to make it turn on so I could see the time. That’s such an obvious nonstarter.
I’m still looking for the right solution – fitbit always works and has great software. I’ve used Withings Activite which was awesome – looks like a normal watch, super flat, battery lasts months, and still does fitness tracking. I actually put on my original Pebble The other day and surprisingly I’m still wearing it because it just works – easy to tell the time, and I get my notifications from my iPhone. It’s definitely not as beautiful as the Apple Watch, but there’s not much else I’m missing. I have high hopes for the next version of the Apple Watch, but something tells me I’m going to be disappointed.
The fact that it does so much is what makes it so great. If you only look at the core features or applications, you might think, so what. But you appreciate a toolbox for what it accomplishes for you, and the watch is like a customizable little toolbox.
I’m always finding new ways to save time with it. (Here’s one: ask Siri a question like a math problem, take a screenshot, have photos app set for recently added pictures to quickly recall it)
Third party apps are great for workflow solutions. I found one that lets me set reminders, adjust them by minute increments, and set large complications for the time and title and a glance with a countdown to the next one. Note dictation apps are very helpful, and many other apps come out when there’s a void to fill.
If you like finding ways to be more effective and get things done with less effort get an Apple Watch. If you only want a hammer to occasionally hang up pictures get a Pebble.
I wore a pebble for 2 years before I purchased my Apple Watch (Milanese loop). As someone who knows both products very well, I am having trouble fathoming how anyone could pick a pebble over the Apple Watch.
You said: “I couldn’t get the watch to show time when I raised my wrist.” That surely would make me want to sell mine too, except that I have NEVER had that problem…
I also owned a Pebble for quite a while before getting the Apple Watch. It took a bit to get out of the Pebble habits since the two work differently for actions that cause the screen to turn on or light up (Pebble).
Absolutely correct. The as- lovers can’t accept it
“it needs to keep improving the Watch and expanding the number of things [for which] people can use it”
Astounding insight!!!!!!! I wonder if Apple had thought of doing that.