“Every time Apple releases some kind of new product, from the iPod to the iPhone, it changes people’s lives,” Winston Ross writes for Newsweek. “The iPod freed me from the ridiculous habit I’d acquired of toting around heavy binders full of compact discs fashioned into mixed tapes, because I liked listening to music randomly, not one whole album at a time. The iPhone freed me from the ridiculous habit of using T9Word to send text messages. Naturally, I was certain the Apple Watch would change my life, too.”
“And in some ways it did! But mostly it didn’t,” Ross writes. “I’ve had the thing for a year now, and it’s time to take stock of what’s different.”
• I pull out my phone less.
• Every few weeks I remember I can skip to the next song playing on my phone using my watch.
“But that’s it, really,” Ross writes. “Those are the only two ways the Apple Watch changed my life. For the remainder of this piece, I’m going to tell you why the device is a complete waste of money, which might explain why sales are flagging and the price of the damn thing keeps dropping.”
• Maps and Siri are worthless.
• Most of the other apps are worthless.
• I’m constantly embarrassed to be wearing an Apple Watch.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you’re not going to use Apple Watch for any of its main raisons d’être, then of course you’re going to complain about it like Ross does in his article. Dude bought a swiss army knife, only uses it to butter his toast and complains about it. You only needed a butter knife, dummy.
For us, and for many others, Siri is markedly more accurate and useful on Apple Watch than it is on any other device. Why that is, we don’t know, but it is. Somehow, the Apple Watch units have a better microphones than our iPhone 6s Plus devices – for Siri, at least.
As we explained last month, we’ve had our Apple Watches on our wrists since Friday, April 24, 2015.
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)We’re not embarrassed to wear our Apple Watches in the least – because we use them properly and effectively; our iPhone batteries (from having 10% or so every night BAW to 50% or more AAW) can attest to how Apple Watch has changed our lives.
SEE ALSO:
Living with Apple Watch for one year – May 4, 2016
Reasons why I still wear my Apple Watch every day – April 25, 2016
A year with the Apple Watch: What works, what doesn’t, and what lies ahead – April 22, 2016
I’m not convinced that Apple Watch has a long life ahead of it. It’s a pretty weak first effort from Apple.
It seems obvious that in some number of years wearables will be so useful that it would seem as foolish to leave home without it as it now does with the phone. Apple’s watch will have some part of that, perhaps a significant one. To say that because it’s not so good now it won’t ever be good is to ignore both history and the future.
I’m of the opinion wearables will be more common in jewelry (e.g. earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, ties, glasses) and clothing (e.g. hats, shirts, pants, shoes) and watches may become just one option among many. It will probably be the case that users will choose wearables to fit their lifestyle rather than buy a wearable (like watches) that are not part of their usual attire. Older folk may actually one day have ‘wearable’ dentures. 😀
“Just about everyone who bought an Apple Watch stopped wearing it after about a week…”
Please provide some proof for this ridiculous claim.
I’ve been using mine for a year and love it. I also have a number of friends, and colleagues with Apple Watches – none of them have stopped wearing it. So I guess your worthless conjecture is just that – worthless.
In case I didn’t mention this in yer last vitriolic tirade about iPads, you may want to take a trip to your doctor or local emergency room and have whatever is sticking out your backside checked out!
Looks painful, but that’s just me! Maybe you enjoy pain?
😉
I have collected fairly expensive watches for over 40 years (7 of them). I am in the camp with MDN as haven’t worn any of the watches in my collection except every once in a while.
I have come in contact with a one or two people who own one and were not excited about it. When I explained the functions that I used like covering the face of the watch when I had an unwanted call (makes it go to voicemail) they became more excited about it. Basically they didn’t know what they had.
YMMV.
I lost fifteen pounds using the Watch, its reinforcing behavior helpful. It’s also useful for flying, the WX very handy.
I agree with the article… mostly. While I love everything Apple, I made a mistake ponying up over $1000 for my Watch. The basic model would have been a better value.
Honestly, I don’t use it for more than basic watch functions and an occasional text reply. The apps are just too slow to load and it’s faster to just check my iPhone. And the watch doesn’t work for sports (volleyball) where you cannot where a watch, so I get little exercise tracking.
Worst, my stainless steel black band is discolored because I happen to rest my wrist on a MBP. One Apple product defacing another! Not covered under warranty, btw.
“… apps are just too slow to load and it’s faster to just check my iPhone.”
This hasn’t been my experience at all. I find apps load very quickly, and I love the convenience of not having to check my Phone. Quick glance at the Watch to check emails, messages, phone calls or news updates, and then back to work. So convenient.
And I have to say – using Apple Pay alone is worth it. The rest of the conveniences are just icing on the cake.
Too bad about your expensive band, and paying a grand. You’re right – as this was a first gen device, I figured the Sport version would work just fine. And it has!
Disagree with author on several counts. Siri is not worthless. I add reminders via the Apple Watch multiple times a day, especially when cooking. Doesn’t matter where my phone is.
The wrist taptics with Maps navigation are invaluable for alerting me when a turn is coming up. (I don’t pump iPhone through car audio system.)
Most valuable feature: alerts from Slack and Messages. Lets me know when I have to pay attention to a work conversation without having to have my phone out.
Also use fitness apps everyday.
This article is just another example of internet trash talking. It’s like having a disappointing experience at a restaurant and feeling the need to drop a 1-star rating on it at Yelp. Sometimes a product or service is just not a good match for YOU. That same product or service may be wondrous and greatly appreciated by countless others. If something is just “meh” for you, express your opinion amongst your friends, but don’t feel so important that you must publish an internet article trashing people, places, things. You are not that important and the person, place or thing probably doesn’t deserve it just cause you had misguided expectations or are just feeling pissy.
Spot on!
Products cost money and people want to know whether a product has value. If a reader accepts a review as gospel, that reader does not have a working critical reasoning center.
That said, MDN repeatedly lists the very things I do with my phone as life-altering super-powers of the wrist remote. Everything on that list is a smartphone feature, and the watch is a remote control.
I (and the vast majority of other iPhone users) cannot justify the cost being charged for a wrist-mounted iPhone remote control.
There are legitimate reviews, and then there are self-important whiners like this guy:
“For the remainder of this piece, I’m going to tell you why the device is a complete waste of money, which might explain why sales are flagging and the price of the damn thing keeps dropping.”
You note that he doesn’t state “for me…the device is a complete waste of money…” No, he wants to declare it a waste of money for all humanity. He goes on to say “…sales are flagging and the price of the damn thing keeps dropping.” Well, I am certainly impressed that he has a pipeline into Apple’s sales figures, but the reality is that Apple has dropped the price one time.
This guy doesn’t have a useful product review. He has bought a product that he does not need, and thinks because it doesn’t fit him it is a worthless product. That is being a self-centered a-hole, not an author worth reading. That’s like me buying PeterBilt semi-truck tractor and then writing a piece saying what a piece of junk it is because I can’t fit through the drive-through anymore, there’s no trunk for my golf clubs, and it costs too much to fill up.
But the space available in any of the options for a trunk for a PeterBilt tractor are quite large. Or, you could just go for straight bed version.
Maybe the author has a valid opinion and assessment, and your thoughts are biased and unfounded.
The Apple Watch for me has been nothing but a wonderful experience. From telling time to talking on the phone to SIRI to driving to avoid looking at my phone while in meetings and most important… monitoring my health and exercising… the Watch has been most beneficial. And this is but the first iteration.
WATCH is bulky, ugly, and though there are many bands, also quite blasé. Both of my teen kids wear Apple Watches, and I’m still shocked by the bulbous, shiny, ugly form.
Watches are jewelry because they’re close to your hands which you use often, and because they’re essentially bangles with a purpose.
But the WATCH is a formless obelisk of black glass on your wrist. Obelisk of black glass is ugly. No one wants that on their wrist. No one would wear a WATCH if it wasn’t a computer. But you might wear a broken, or not-perfectly functioning watch just because it’s a beautiful form.
No, the watch is, by its nature, ugly. Maybe the function it provides offsets that. Maybe it doesn’t. But that’s the calculus, in any case.
Until WATCH is beautiful on its own, without needing Hermés $1000 leather bands to give it runway cred, it’s going to get hit pieces like this.
I do believe in the watch. But not in this iteration. And I don’t feel sad in the least that I’ve skipped the WATCH completely up to this point. I’ll skip all the generations, too, until it’s elegant, beautiful, and actually tells me something I want to know.
I don’t need a satellite for my phone to tell me what my phone can already tell me. Watch —it’s that easy.
The last line was edited by the website processor because I used carrot brackets. It should read:
I don’t need a satellite for my phone to tell me what my phone can already tell me. Watch (pulls phone from pocket and looks at it) —it’s that easy.
“I’m constantly embarrassed to be wearing an Apple Watch.” Then stop wearing it and move on. Sell it or give it away, but please just go away.