“Apple’s new Watch software, watchOS 3, isn’t just new software, it’s an admission that Apple had it all wrong when it came to interactions on the first-generation Apple Watch,” Lauren Goode writes for The Verge. “It’s a rare thing for Apple to admit that it was wrong on something product-related, even subtly. But that’s what it did onstage [at WWDC].”
“The new software, which doesn’t fully launch until the fall, includes a bunch of new features and functions that are at once super obvious and incredibly thoughtful,” Goode writes. “There will be a watch face made up entirely of Apple’s colorful activity-tracking rings, and another that offers a shortcut to the Workout app. People can share their activity data with other Watch wearers, so there’s finally a social component.”
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last month:
Can we have an Apple Workout app that simply lists our monthly progress (how many miles we’ve done to date this month)? Is that too much to ask for? Go to the Nike+ app and companion website for ideas. (Hey, Jay, didn’t you come from Nike?! Cripes, at least keep the good stuff, will ya?) Beyond that, we’d love for iCloud to gain a Workout section that will do what the Nike+ website does, including a social component – the ability to share and compete with friends (yes, we know, Apple+social=GULP!)
“But the bigger changes are around the user interface. (This is where Apple really tried to reinvent the wheel with the Watch’s original interface, when the wheel was probably just fine),” Goode writes. “Apple is ditching the idea of app ‘glances’ on the Watch in favor of something more familiar to iPhone users: an app dock, accessible by pressing the physical side button. Press the button, swipe through recent apps, and launch and interact with them from there. And now, when you swipe up from the bottom of the Watch’s face, you’ll see a mini control center — something, again, that is familiar to iPhone users… Why wasn’t it like this before? I do not know.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re going to have to forget a lot of what’s by now become second nature and learn new ways to use our Apple Watches and that’s going to be FUN!!! We wouldn’t trade participating in this evolution of wrist-based computing for the world!
By the time the rest of the world gets their first Apple Watch, we’ll be like, “You have no idea, but enjoy!”
Yes, future iterations of Apple Watch will be better than those preceding it. And, yes, we wouldn’t miss the unique experience of the first generation, original Apple Watch for the world!
SEE ALSO:
Apple reveals watchOS 3; faster, simpler with breakthrough health features – June 13, 2016
Apple’s watchOS 2 makes Apple Watch even more useful – September 21, 2015
watchOS 2 is a good start, but developers want more Apple Watch access – June 12, 2015
