Open thread: So, how do you like your Apple Watch?

So, are you among the relatively lucky few who’ve received your Apple Watch and had some quality time to spend with it?

How’s it working out? Are you liking it? Any problems? Any surprises? How’s the battery life holding out for you after much extra Day One poking, prodding, and Digital Crowning? Have you had to do a restart, as we did on one unit, to get phone calls working again this morning? Other than that, we’ve had no issues of which to speak – although, and this is obviously minor, we do wish we could customize the astronomy Watch face (we’d love to have battery life available there).

Praise or critique, have it at it below!

So, how do you like your Apple Watch?

MacDailyNews Take: We love ours! We’d venture to guess that Steve Jobs would be proud.

104 Comments

      1. It’s awesome. Not as fat as the pics make it look and way better than the pics make it look.

        Got mine Friday, I went for the 42mm Sport with White band. I initially wanted the stainless steel version, but I am not a fan of polished stainless steel (always shows way too many scuffs and scratches) I prefer brushed stainless steel, so that pretty much resigned me to the Sport version.

        I was a bit sceptical about how useful the Watch was going to be, but having used it extensively, I can say my iPhone 6 has now become a desk bound or pocket bound ‘hub’ for my watch.

        1. the stainless has a nice look to it.

          i wonder how well the sport bands would work as a tourniquet. it’d be interesting to hear from someone with the sport watch who might have found themselves in a similar situation.

  1. I love mine. It was scheduled to be delivered May 13. It came yesterday instead. It was easy to set up and easy to start using. Absolutely stunning. I haven’t had to jerk my arm around to get the watch going as some have stated. A simple roll of the arm works. I see great potential for the Apple Watch!

    1. I originally ordered a black steel for $1099 scheduled for June within the first few minutes, then immediately after bought a $699 classic buckle shipping Apr24-May8 to get me by til then. But a few days ago I decided I was unwilling to accept a June ship date and have to deal with reselling my 2-month used watch, and cancelled the June order and settling for the silver. Ugh, oh well, maybe for the second gen I’ll get the black I really wanted. Still waiting for mine anyway though :-\

  2. My wife’s blue-banded 38mm Sport arrived yesterday morning, and she could not be more delighted with it.

    Unlike the iPad, where “you already know how to use it” some learning time is recommended. A little video tutorial did the trick.

    Now, if my gray 42mm would only ship… ⌚️

  3. Definitely have noticed that USA Today has an anti-Apple bias in everything they write. 500 people will be bat-shit crazy about an Apple device and USA Today will focus on the one doofus who doesn’t understand how to tie his shoes, let alone use an Apple product.

  4. You guys have heard me loud and clear. I got my Watch yesterday. I had used one over the past few weeks from developing iOS stuff from an Accelerator. I do like the Watch, but it has yet to prove me wrong. It’s cool no doubt, but I have yet to find any real necessity for it other than just being a geek and liking new gadgets.

  5. I love it sofa king much!!! I ordered the 42mm sg sport, and, was a little worried it might look too big on my small wrists. It fits perfectly. I used the s/m band. The sport band is so soft, and comfortable. The “tap” on the wrist is amazing. Love not having to pull my phone out so much. Apple Pay on the Watch? Phenomenal!!!!! I mean, if you haven’t used Apple Pay with your Watch yet, go do it, now. Not much else to say. Except, wow, amazing. Might get another one for my other wrist (kidding).

  6. Picked it up at the UPS Depot yesterday evening. Linked up okay to the phone. Set up ApplePay okay. Set up the fitness, clock app etc. Worked out on the eliptical and took the dogs for a long walk. Apple Watch tracked it all and easier to check that pulling out the phone. Pulse measurement is a good feature and works well. Watch is comfortable to wear.
    Best feature is that I still have use of my arms.

  7. Bought my lunch just today with watch at Subway. Sandwich maker was so excited she called everyone over to “watch this guy pay with his watch!” Worked great — just just have to get the watch *really* close to the terminal (almost touching).

    Still getting use to it, but really liking it so far. Can definitely see how it will become essential down the road, especially for convenience while traveling.

    1. Yea, Subway has one of the cheapest NFC receivers I ever saw. They also have to push special keys to make it work, nearly impossible till the employees were finally trained how to do it.
      Subway is getting better though.

  8. Really liked the fit and functionality, decided to read the online user guide ( I know you’re not supposed to do that ) , discovered you can reconfigure the display face to set up the button and stem on the left side of the watch face , swapped the two sides of the band, keeping the watch on my left hand. Now I love it! It’s easier to push the buttons with your thumb while holding the watch with your fingers as a brace, and the microphone and speaker are now on the right side, so you can hear the speaker better when you raise your arm up towards your ear. Much easier to use than the out of the box set up.

  9. Loving my white sport. It’s working perfectly. I love notifications and texts. Answering a call on the watch and transferring to the phone is seamless. I’m very delighted with my purchase!

  10. My son got his 38mm Stainless steel Apple watch yesterday, I’m still waiting for mine. Today while out shopping he says, “uh, dad, there’s a scratch on my watch.”, I said to him, there can’t be, it’s a sapphire cover. I look at it, there is a scratch on it. I’m like, how is this even possible, I figured it was just dirt or something, nope, it’s either a scratch or a scratch under the glass, I immediately made an appointment at the Apple Store across the street from where we were. The Apple Genius looks at it and asks if he can take it in the back to look closer. After about 10 minutes he comes back and says that he can send it out for repair, but since it’s so new and they haven’t had to send any back and don’t have any in stock, he says he doesn’t know how long it will be before it comes back. Also since it’s just cosmetic they may send it back without repair, per policy. I argued with him that clearly it’s defective, less than 24 hours with it in normal use should NOT have scratched the sapphire. He says, well it’s not scratch proof….so basically he was not going to do anything for me except send it out and hope for the best. So I said to him if I called Apple Customer Service right now, would they tell me the same thing? He said he didn’t know, so I said “let’s find out”, I called customer service right there in the store, and the gentleman I spoke to was much more helpful. He agreed that ther shouldn’t be any scratches from normal wear especially after 1 day. I had to put a deposit down, but they are sending me a replacement, and then I can send the scratched one back. The whole experience has kinda dented my confidence in the watch, I hope this was a one time anomaly.

        1. I’ve had to do this when they sent me a replacement time capsule. They authorized the full price of a new time capsule when my replacement shipped out and voided the authorization once they received the defective one in return,

      1. I agree 100%, which was why I was so incredulous when the “Genius” was arguing with me that it was just a cosmetic issue and it wasn’t “scratchproof”, I said there was a reason I paid extra for the sapphire.

      2. Sapphire while very resistant, is not scratch proof. I have some old digital watches with sapphire crystals, and one has several scratches. Not sure what caused the scratches, but I’m sure it wasn’t diamond since I have none.

        That your son seemed to have scratched to his watch on day one is bad luck, not a factory defect… unless you are saying that it came out of the box scratched.

        If that were the case, i think you would have said so. I would doubt that being the case not only due to historically excellent Apple QC, but because our most vigilant eye is on a product when we first handle it. In other words, I would be stunned if you would miss a scratch when you first opened and fawned over the watch.

        Blaming Apple, or anybody else, for your misfortune is I believe, unfair. You seemed to have bad luck and first day is bad timing to boot. But Apple isn’t at fault unless it was that way in the box.

        1. I have a 23 year of Movado with a sapphire crystal and it still has a perfect finish. The rest of the titanium band has seen better days but only the black finish has been rubbed off in some places.

        2. My Seiko watch (~$350) has sapphire and I’ve banged it into hundred of objects — it’s still perfect. i don’t think you should expect any scratches on a sapphire watch face.

        3. Ditto for my 20-year old Citizen with a sapphire face. I distinctly remember accidentally dragging across a rough brick wall about a year after I got it and was horrified…but not a scratch on the face!!

          The band shows plenty of scratches from tons of wear, but the crystal is still absolutely flawless.

        4. The watch I described above with the scratched sapphire is precisely one of those Seikos. It can be scratched… to my chagrin. And I have no idea how I did it, but I would guess that when one encounters cement, one encounters sand. Sand contains all sorts of crystals including aluminum oxide. That is one of those items of similar hardness to sapphire. Bottom line… sapphire is harder to scratch, but it is not scratch proof. I have not seen apple advertise it as scratchproof, so I don’t see why they should be expected to give warranty service if a consumer has bad luck or is careless.

    1. That is very strange… Maybe got in contact with a diamond ? About the only thing harder than sapphire….

      There are videos on youtube showing the kind of increadible abuse these things can take… Its amazing.!

      Glad your issue is resolved… Its a fluke… Dont be disappointed;)

  11. I’m a guy and I got a blue 38mm from work to try out for the weekend. In terms of looks this design is not very “manly” and pales in looks compared to my Seiko. Having said that, I love its functionality. The ForceTouch and haptic feedback is very innovative. Screen is delicious. Battery at 40% after a whole day of use. I love wearing it in the house. I tend to leave my phone in different rooms. Now i get all texts and calls directly on the phone. That’s super convenient (more so that I would have imagined.) I also like the convenience of having the time, correct date (ahem, Seiko), weather, and AAPL stock ticker price, all at the flick of my wrist, all day long. I can’t wait until my 42mm stainless steel comes in. I can tell that this is not something I will ever want to be without. (Ordering one for wife tomorrow.)

  12. Amazing gen 1 product. I love my watch. Got it delivered yesterday (Friday afternoon). Used it to find an address with turn by turn navigation the afternoon I got it (yesterday). Worked flawlessly, didn’t have to dig out my iPhone, I just flicked my wrist after it buzzed with the haptic sensor to see where to turn as I was driving. Then this morning went on a 31 mile bike ride and used the cycling part of the movement app to track miles, speed, time and heart rate. As I was climbing a hill all I had to do was flick my wrist to see my heart rate. Easy to use and very practical on a bike (got the space grey sport). Yesterday a friend texted a video he shot on his iPhone of the finish of a bike race, watched it all on the watch! There is a slight learning curve, but I got the hang of it pretty fast. Used it tonight to “Shazam” some music and it pulled up the lyrics right on the watch. Even gave me a list of previous songs “Shazamed” on the iPhone. Only issue is the watch does not always come on when I raise my arm, but that is seldom. Watch is very comfortable, surprised the Fluoroelastomer band was nice to wear (thought I would want to get another band, but I’m happy with the sport one). I’m finding new uses for it each day, while it isn’t essential, I think I will not want to go back to just using the iPhone. Overall I give it a 10 out of 10!

  13. I love this thing…. Amazing… Fun… Practical…. Sweet…
    A winner in so many fronts so far!!!
    Not hard to use at all. Mostly very intuitive… Just the bottons and force touch take a little getting used to as to what they do in different modes ….
    So far..iin the one day that i have had it on, suprusingly the most used feature has been answering calls and holding short conversation with it … Super convenient…
    Also took a shower with it…:) no problems….

    This thing keeps getting better and better the more i learn it..
    No hiccups so far.. 🙂
    Plus ….it Takes it to another level if your better half and or friends have an applewatch too .

    Cheers Tim, Jhonny and the whole Apple team!
    A New chapter in history!
    Love it !;)

  14. I intercepted my 42SS w/Classic at UPS at 9:30 a.m. and I couldn’t be happier with it. When asked about it, I tell people that it is a ‘want’, not a ‘need’. The thing I like about it so far is the ability to know right away who is calling, emailing, or texting, and knowing if I want to jump on it or ignore it for now. For instance, I ignored many emails today, but was tapped on the wrist with a call from my 6-year-old son.

    I’m enjoying having a watch again after so many years of digging my phone out of my pocket for the time.

    I’m happy.

  15. I got the 42mm grey sport with black sport band. This looks even better than I expected. Setup was a snap, holding the iPhone camera over the watch face.

    I’m a lefty, and I set it up for wearing on my right wrist, and it’s working great!

    I also set up Apple Pay on it, very easy, although nobody at my bank had set that up on an Apple Watch yet, the confirmation came through on the watch while I was on the phone with them.

    I’ve paid for a few things with it so far, using Apple Pay and the Starbucks card from Passbook – all of the payments went through just like in the video 🙂

    Using the camera remote works perfectly.

    Overall, I love it – it works just as advertised, which most things don’t! And the Space Grey Aluminium and black band really look sharp, too.

  16. I’m generally loving it. A few notes:
    I love that it doesn’t simply duplicate notifications from my phone. If I’m using my phone they show up on my phone, otherwise they tap just on my wrist, not both.
    There is not a watch face that I wouldn’t change. I too would like to customize either the jellyfish or astronomy one to show a complication or two. If I were designing my own watch face it would have simple analog hands (not the skeumorphic Swiss train ones they use) with an additional complication with the digital time.
    I haven’t yet learned which taps mean which things.
    It is sometimes frustrating to look down at my watch to check the time and the screen is off. Someday I suspect screens will be able to combine the features of E ink and color displays for full-time information.
    I disliked when all my available apps began transferring automatically to my watch. I had to delete them one by one as they would transfer over. I don’t see most of them being useful.
    My setup did not go normally. When it came time to point my camera at the watch the watch face was empty where the QR code should be. When I tried the manual option the only watch my phone could detect was a different number than the number displayed on the watch face. Exiting out and retrying the numbers matched and then it worked fine.
    Trying to use the watch to navigate while driving was frustrating, primarily because due to Apple maps (didn’t recognize the restaurant when searching, put the address in the wrong state when entered manually). Hoping for a Google maps watch app soon.
    I wish I could use the other button as my home button, since the digital crown seems slightly more awkward to press.
    When setting the colors of the watch faces I wish it were an infinite gradient of colors rather than 8 predefined colors. I couldn’t get it to match my tie tonight.

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