“My watches as a teenager were digitals made by Casio, pretty much like this one that you can still buy today for $10: black plastic watch, resin strap, two buttons on each side,” John Gruber writes for Daring Fireball. “The interfaces were complex, inscrutable at first. I always knew the interfaces were bad, but I accepted them because I wanted the features. I liked having a stopwatch and countdown timer. And of course the interface was complicated: all these features were packed into a tiny little watch.”
“During the past four weeks, I’m surprised how much I’ve been reminded of those Casios. In the way it felt cool in 1987 to have all those features on my wrist, it feels cool today to have these features on my wrist,” Gruber writes. “This is the watch my teenage 1987 self would have expected my 2015 self to own. Apple Watch’s interaction model is complicated. That doesn’t mean it’s too complicated — and I don’t think it is. There’s simply no way to avoid complexity with the number of features — which, borrowing from the terminology of the horological world, Apple is calling ‘complications’ — Apple Watch encompasses.”
“Do not expect to strap on Apple Watch for the first time and feel entirely at home,” Gruber writes. “It’s different, new, and surprisingly expansive. Apple Watch demands exploration. Those old Casios were arbitrary. Apple Watch has a logic behind its interaction design — but it needs to be used to be fully understood. The basics are obvious — initial setup and pairing with your iPhone remarkably so — but not everything. It’s a tool you have to learn to use. It is not an iPhone on your wrist.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Give yourself two days. Two days, tops, and you’ll be fine. There’s more to learn after that initial acclimation, but you’ll get it and have the basics nailed rather quickly for such a “different, new, and surprisingly expansive” device.