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My review of the Apple Watch

I received an Apple Watch as a totally unexpected, sorta-late, winter holiday gift, and here is my honest & blunt feedback (lots of “I’s” and “I’m’s” incoming).

After wearing it for a couple months, my main problems with the Apple Watch are its battery life, and limited functionality.

Pros:

  • I get a nice little vibration on my wrist for any notification and can check them much quicker than digging in my pocket or looking for my phone
  • I can reply to texts quickly by using preset responses or using text to speech.
  • Seems to save battery life on my phone now that it doesn’t light up for 99% of the notifications I’d normally get
  • Activity tracker! This is my favorite part. Apple did a great job of gamifying standing up and moving around x times per day and encouraging you to try and beat your previous day or week habits.
  • Makes me feel like I’m getting a lot more exercise than I’m actually doing when playing drums…

    Drumming with Apple Watch.. I'll take it. #vf15 #drums #tama #apple #ios #applewatch

    A photo posted by Andy Gentile (@andythps) on

Cons:

  • After wearing it for 24 hours I have to charge it. I really don’t want to have to charge a watch every night. This is easily the biggest turn-off (hey-ooo).
  • When I receive a notification from Voxer, I wish I could hear the message from my friends, and send one back much like the native phone and text apps.
  • Same with Snapchat notifications. Being able to see the snap on my watch would be great.
  • When I receive a Youtube notification, I wish I could watch the video or view the comment from the notification without using my phone.
  • There are 0 games that support watchOS. There are probably a handful that could/should work even on the tiny screen (flappy bird?).
  • 0 watch exclusive apps. I can think of a few essential things that’d add to its usefulness: Leveling tool, whistle, zippo, compass
  • I wish I could browse the internet via chrome or safari.
  • This is the epitome of first world problems, but it also doesn’t recognize when i’m standing at a stand desk (haha), or anywhere i’m resting my hands while standing.
  • When I’m laying down, I have trouble getting the watch screen to flip on. Also happens when slouching down on the couch. Pretty frustrating.
  • With the amount of customization we *could have*, I have yet to find a way to display digital time along with a second counter.
  • Also, where’s my 1 or two touch to get to a stop watch or timer? The quickest way for me to do this now is to ask siri to do it but it seems so essential and primitive that it should be a couple clicks away (maybe I just have yet to find out how).



All in all I think it’s.. not quite where it needs to be, and I’d be better off getting a regular watch for less than $50.

I think it’s a good first step towards something I couldn’t live without, and I’m no watch designer, but it seems like I’m really hoping for another powerful iOS device that could work as a phone substitution on my wrist (without the limited functionality and battery life) as opposed to being something that aids my phone and is now *one more thing* I need to keep up with, charge, and carry around.

I haven’t worn a watch in over 10 years, but I did through ages 5-15. All of these gripes will probably be resolved through time by updates and 3rd party support, but right now, I can’t justify the price tag and charging it every night to get a glimpse of what I feel the watch should be.

I started writing this review in January 2016 when I first got it, and finished this review after I sold it on ebay in late March 2016.

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