“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