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Apple Watch At 7 Months: Haters Gonna Hate, Raters Gonna Rate

This article is more than 8 years old.

The folks over at Wristly, a market research firm that tracks interest in wearable technology, talked to a bunch of people who tried -- and ultimately rejected -- the Apple Watch. What they found was that the vast majority of those people had pretty fundamental complaints: the Watch was too slow, it didn't have enough functionality and the battery didn't last nearly long enough for their taste. Half of those surveyed, a group of 330 who tried and gave up on the Watch, were annoyed by the fact that the "time is not always displayed." Nearly as many, though, were "likely" or "very likely" to buy the next version of the Apple Watch and most still have theirs in a drawer somewhere.

Three-ring circus: A "perfect month" on the Activity app with Apple Watch.

This report comes in contrast to a much larger sample of more than 2,000 Apple Watch users published in September who reported a 97 percent user satisfaction with the product, higher even than the first year scores for iPad (91%) and iPhone (92%) reported by ChangeWave. Don't make too much of the relative size of those two groups; it's not as if they represent one sample with 2,000 happy customers and 330 who were unhappy. But rather they reflect that even in the current state of Apple Watch -- with the product very much in a highly flawed, "1.0 state" -- even a group that could be called "haters" is very willing to give it another go if their concerns can be addressed.

Having purchased an Apple Watch myself the day it was released, April 24 of this year, I can understand where both groups are coming from. And with November marking my first "perfect month" on the fitness app, one in which I filled all three of the rings for the exercise, movement, and standing goals each day, it seems like a good time to talk about some of the things the Watch gets fantastically right as well as where it falls short.

Ergonomics (B+): I haven't worn a watch in a long while since leaving an inexpensive Casio on a tennis court one day when I was in college. The idea of putting something on my wrist made me nervous in a way most watch wearers wouldn't be. Happily, I can report the Apple Watch is mostly comfortable when wearing the Sport Band I ordered it with. It's also easy to put on. I've also been testing a very nice leather strap from Nomad that takes a while to wear in, but once it does looks great and really dresses up the Watch. It's easy to swap bands, which makes me tempted to invest in other colors but I'm concerned Apple will change the way bands attach with the next generation of the Watch.

Room for improvement: Though the Watch isn't bulky by the standards of modern men's watches, it doesn't sit on the wrist optimally and feels a bit chunky. Only 1/3 of the Wristly panel of watch rejecters considered this important, but a nicer design would likely bring in some buyers who passed on even purchasing the Watch at all. It seems certain the design will change with the Apple Watch 2.

Performance (B/D-): The Apple Watch is sometimes really fast and sometimes slower than the last drop of ketchup trying to wriggle its way out of that Heinz bottle. Get a text message? It's usually on your wrist as fast as your phone. Want to pay for something? ApplePay pops up in an instant. Trying to launch most third-party apps? Prepare for spending time with the rotating dots. It's to the point that I simply don't use more than a handful of features (patience, I'll list them all).

Room for improvement: Two changes will likely fix the performance issues. First, developers still haven't had much time to build apps directly on the Watch. The latest WatchOS 2 only arrived in September and with iOS 9 and the new AppleTV also arriving, you can imagine that only finite resources have gone into Apple Watch thus far, especially with just 6-7 million out there. Second, the S1 processor in the Apple Watch was built using 28 nanometer technology. Apple's A9 chip used in the newest iPhones is a 14 or 16nm device depending on where it was built. That's three generations newer, which will allow for better performance and better battery life whenever the next generation of it is realized.

Notifications (A-): For me, this is one of several truly killer features on Apple Watch. I have text messages, e-mail and appointment reminders delivered to the Watch. Few other notifications are allowed to pass through. E-mail is pre-screened by Outlook so that only the "focused" inbox messages are allowed to reach my wrist. My texts are limited to people that know me and I want to communicate with. Other folks are pushed to Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, which don't get passed to the Apple Watch.

The result? Important information reaches me regularly, where I can often deal with it -- no iPhone required. Approximately 80% of e-mail, it seems, requires no response at all. Many texts can be handled via a preset response or an emoji. For others, Siri is quite accurate on the Watch and when she isn't, I send a voice text instead. Being able to text on the move in all kinds of weather without fumbling around with the phone turns out to be a huge win.

Room for improvement: I'd love even more control of who gets to reach me on the Watch via texts and e-mail. The Watch allows you to flag e-mail for follow-up, delete it, etc. Why not a control to mark certain senders as "always get through" or "never get through"?

ApplePay and Wallet (B+): The implementation of ApplePay on the Watch is fantastic. It's not only better than on the iPhone, but way better than I figured it was going to be. Double tapping the big button on the Watch is highly reliable and switching between cards is easy (though rarely necessary). ApplePay support is spotty, though that's no fault of the Watch. Still, I can now use it at four of five places I buy groceries, my two main drugstores, a handful of lunch spots and the local Microsoft store!

The Wallet, though, has issues. Loyalty cards at Starbucks and 7-11 are more irritating to use than convenient such that I just pull out the phone. And things like boarding passes are a crapshoot. At some kiosks, the watch simply won't fit under the scanner so you need to have your phone ready.

Room for improvement: The "ambient" functionality that almost brings loyalty or payment cards up on the iPhone when you're nearby really needs to be automatic on the watch -- just get my Starbucks card onscreen when I'm there. Ideally, a lot of this stuff becomes beacon based in the future so you don't need to scan a barcode or touch an NFC reader, but can use Bluetooth in the vicinity, often without pressing a button at all.

Fitness tracking (B): For a couple of years I was a Fitbit user, eventually giving up when my Fitbit Force was recalled by the company and I got frustrated with unreliable syncing and limited data from the device. Apple Watch syncs flawlessly, addressing one of my concerns nicely. It also does a great job of gamifying the basics of fitness traffic with the three-ring system. Since getting the watch, I've become increasingly motivated to complete those three circles every day and gotten better at it each month.

There is an arbitrariness about Apple's methods that needs improvement, though. Forcing you to stand 12 hours per day is probably a good idea, but it would be nice if you could, for example, reset the goal to require 2 minutes per hour instead of 1. The other two goals are for 30 minutes of exercise (fixed) and an adjustable number of "calories" that is a computed value based on time and intensity. But Apple Watch currently only understands a limited set of workouts. If you do an intense Pilates class and you remember to tell the watch, it will consider that a good, brisk walk for calculating "activity" toward the calorie goal. Cycling is a workout Apple Watch understands, but don't forget to tell it you started riding or it can't really give you credit.

Room for improvement: This isn't easy stuff to fix but it's not impossible for Apple Watch to eventually understand you just went for a bike ride, especially if your iPhone is also with you. It's not hard to imagine more choices in the Workout app over time to account for intense exercise classes with some accuracy. Still, I've seen my average walking and running distance climb over 9 miles a day from 5 since acquiring the watch. Surely a lot of that is personal motivation and yet I give the watch credit for helping foster that motivation.

Telling time (C+): On the one hand, I now check the time far more often than I used to with my phone. It's much more convenient and there's something strangely appealing about having an analog watch face to do it with. On the other hand, those complainers at Wristly are right: It is annoying that the display goes dark all the time. Why? Because when you turn the watch toward you, it doesn't illuminate immediately 100% of the time. And really in that sense it's a truly awful watch. Yes, a tap brings it to life. Usually re-rotating the wrist does too. None of this should be necessary. One of those fails with gloves on, the other makes you feel very silly.

Room for improvement: Make the watch show the time all day. Can this be done while still preserving an all-day battery that has only failed to deliver on that promise three times for me in seven months? I hope so.

Answering the phone (A): This ridiculous feature is the kind of thing you never knew you needed until you had it. Then you couldn't imagine living without it. Like most people, my phone periodically winds up on my desk / the counter / in another room / hidden in the couch / somewhere. Then it rings. And I'd like to maybe answer it, depending on who is calling. With Apple Watch both of these first-world problems have elegant solutions. First, you get to screen the call from your wrist. Family member or important call? Great, I want to pick up. Second, press button on watch and you are talking to that person. Oh, and the sound quality is pretty decent. It's not as good as the iPhone but then again it's a lot better than your iPhone buried in the cushions.

Room for improvement: Give me more range on this feature so I can use it in the yard. Or in Canada.

UPDATE:

Charles Arthur notes on Twitter that the maps and directions function of the Watch is also really quite good, especially for walking. My experience is that's true especially in unfamiliar places. Over the summer in Europe it was amazing to know whether to turn left or right as I approached unfamiliar street corners simply by the different vibrations on my wrist. Personally, I use that less locally, perhaps because when I am walking I know the streets. Some may find the functionality very compelling for driving as well, though that likely depends on how much you're in cities as opposed to on highways. Google's visual lane guidance is a killer app for driving and I can't see replacing that with an Apple Watch at this time.


Notably I didn't attempt to talk here about a lot of features on the Apple Watch I don't use. Sending your heartbeat to someone is belt left to loved ones who also have the Apple Watch. Texting them a doodle requires a bigger canvas for me at least (and also that they have an Apple Watch!). At times, I pull up the weather when it chooses to load quickly, but other times I find it's faster to grab my phone. That experience is the kind of thing I'll tolerate as an early adopter and is the main reason I tell people who ask me about the watch to wait for the next version.

I skipped the first iPad feeling like it wasn't quite finished and that once Apple got a second pass at it, much refinement would occur. The Apple Watch could easily follow a similar path. While many keep talking about the failure of the watch to become an overnight blockbuster, it appears to be on track to sell a similar amount to iPad in its first few quarters on the market. Whether it can have a round two as good as Apple's tablet, however, will depend on Apple Watch answering the objections not only of those who shelved one they did purchase but also of reaching those who have yet to even bother. More on that topic in future posts.

 

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