Apple Watch
I have had an Apple Watch for about 3 months now, and I have some thoughts. Mostly positive, but some negative.
Realistically speaking, the Apple Watch is the only game in town if you've got an iPhone. The reason I have one is because I tried to use my Gear S3 Frontier, which is significantly superior in a number of aspects; however, one of those aspects is not "works well with an iPhone". It has a better physical UI, better straps, a nicer, brighter screen, activity and sleep tracking is off-the-chart better. But it's a total sack of cack on an iPhone, so that's all moot. The thing wouldn't even stay paired reliably.
The OOBE is pretty good, but holy shit, that stupid app menu. Here's a bunch of tiny icons, half of which you've never seen before, in a stupid hex grid thing that doesn't even fit on this tiny screen, and we're not gonna even ask you whether you'd rather have a list. This is ridiculous. Also, the crown and button arrangement is vastly inferior to the rotating bezel and two buttons of the S3 Frontier, even though they deliver the same inputs (something that rotates, two things to press).
Straps. So, the strap changing mechanism is actually really good. There's a decent ecosystem of third-party straps. However, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the reason that Apple is a trillion-dollar company primarily because of their Apple Watch strap (or "bands" as they like to call them) business. Now, £400 for a stainless steel bracelet is on par with the likes of Rolex and Omega, and I don't doubt that the build quality is very good; however, if I buy a £400 SS bracelet for, say, my Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean, that's a purchase with a lifespan in the decades. Apple Watch? 5 years, tops.
£40 for a silicone strap? Less "woah, holy fuck, you're serious" but still a bit sharp. That said, the silicone strap that's in the box - the "sport band" - is extremely comfortable and the way the end of the strap tucks through the hole is neat. It's very slim on the wrist, though, and I prefer something with a bit more heft. To that end, I'm still looking for a decent replacement with a bit of timber to it.
There's a lot of horological pretension in the Apple Watch. The "Hermes" editions. Calling what are basically on-screen widgets "complications". The ridiculous 100% price uplift to go from aluminium to stainless steel, and the same AGAIN to go to Ceramic. Inventing the term "Milanese loop" - there's literally nothing "Milanese" about it, although it's a clever, functional design. Apple works very hard to distract you from the fact that this is a limited-lifespan smartwatch that will need responsible disposal in 5 years or so.
Speaking of complications - faces are, well, disappointing. There are quite a few available, but there's a lot of utter crap - things like "Breathe", "Fire and Water", "Liquid Metal", "Motion", "Timelapse", "Vapour" - pure filler. Sure, there're a lot of crap faces on the Samsung store, but there are more good faces for that watch than there are faces for the Apple Watch, full stop, by a huge margin - because third parties can create and sell them on the Galaxy Store.
I ended up swapping between 3 as the fancy takes me - California, Numerals Duo (in red, for late nights), and Solar (the cool one with the sun graph). A trick that neither Apple nor Samsung has figured out is time-based faces, or at least a proper "night mode".
Battery life is good - not "S3 Frontier Two Full Days" good, but workable. The charger, though - fucking hell. It's shit. Let's enumerate its dimensions of shiteness:
The cable is 1 metre. That's three feet, in medieval units. Or "too fucking short", in Peter units.
But that's OK, because I can just use a different cable, right? Heh, fuck you, sez Apple, this motherfucker is integral. Longer cable? £40 for a new charger.
It's a little hockey puck that just sits there, rendering the otherwise-handy "charging mode" display useless. Buy one of the multiple third-party stands (I've got a £8 Spigen one) that at least let the watch sit upright.
It's magnetic, but not magnetic enough. Weaksauce magnets, Apple!
That shite cable is USB-A. So now I've got to take two chargers away with me, because my iPhone charger has a USB-C hole. GG, Apple!
If it weren't for the fact that it does charge pretty quickly, and the charging mode display is good (a light tap shows a clock in an agreeable green, although I'd like to change that to red for overnight), this'd be a significantly disappointing aspect of ownership.
Overall, it's a good watch. The display is agreeable, although could be brighter. Passive activity tracking is [horizontal hand waggle] ok. Sleep tracking is absolute dogshit (slated to improve in the next version of Watch OS, apparently; well, it couldn't be worse). Active activity tracking is good, with excellent GPS accuracy. Raise-to-wake is OK. The UI is only OK, also - there are a lot of things that are not readily discoverable. The Watch is the last holdout of 3D Touch, not that anything tells you this - and that's how you dismiss all notifications, for example. When you want to finish or pause a workout or activity, there's literally no clue what to do (you swipe right to get the buttons to end or pause). Gestures are great, but you need to tell me what to do, at least once or a hundred times!
The practical reality is that if you've got an iPhone, and you want a smartwatch, then it's the Apple Watch or fuck off. Nothing else works particularly well. I think if the Samsung watches worked well on iPhone, that's what I'd be using, and I further think that it'd cause Apple to sharpen their ideas somewhat.
Realistically speaking, the Apple Watch is the only game in town if you've got an iPhone. The reason I have one is because I tried to use my Gear S3 Frontier, which is significantly superior in a number of aspects; however, one of those aspects is not "works well with an iPhone". It has a better physical UI, better straps, a nicer, brighter screen, activity and sleep tracking is off-the-chart better. But it's a total sack of cack on an iPhone, so that's all moot. The thing wouldn't even stay paired reliably.
The OOBE is pretty good, but holy shit, that stupid app menu. Here's a bunch of tiny icons, half of which you've never seen before, in a stupid hex grid thing that doesn't even fit on this tiny screen, and we're not gonna even ask you whether you'd rather have a list. This is ridiculous. Also, the crown and button arrangement is vastly inferior to the rotating bezel and two buttons of the S3 Frontier, even though they deliver the same inputs (something that rotates, two things to press).
Straps. So, the strap changing mechanism is actually really good. There's a decent ecosystem of third-party straps. However, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the reason that Apple is a trillion-dollar company primarily because of their Apple Watch strap (or "bands" as they like to call them) business. Now, £400 for a stainless steel bracelet is on par with the likes of Rolex and Omega, and I don't doubt that the build quality is very good; however, if I buy a £400 SS bracelet for, say, my Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean, that's a purchase with a lifespan in the decades. Apple Watch? 5 years, tops.
£40 for a silicone strap? Less "woah, holy fuck, you're serious" but still a bit sharp. That said, the silicone strap that's in the box - the "sport band" - is extremely comfortable and the way the end of the strap tucks through the hole is neat. It's very slim on the wrist, though, and I prefer something with a bit more heft. To that end, I'm still looking for a decent replacement with a bit of timber to it.
There's a lot of horological pretension in the Apple Watch. The "Hermes" editions. Calling what are basically on-screen widgets "complications". The ridiculous 100% price uplift to go from aluminium to stainless steel, and the same AGAIN to go to Ceramic. Inventing the term "Milanese loop" - there's literally nothing "Milanese" about it, although it's a clever, functional design. Apple works very hard to distract you from the fact that this is a limited-lifespan smartwatch that will need responsible disposal in 5 years or so.
Speaking of complications - faces are, well, disappointing. There are quite a few available, but there's a lot of utter crap - things like "Breathe", "Fire and Water", "Liquid Metal", "Motion", "Timelapse", "Vapour" - pure filler. Sure, there're a lot of crap faces on the Samsung store, but there are more good faces for that watch than there are faces for the Apple Watch, full stop, by a huge margin - because third parties can create and sell them on the Galaxy Store.
I ended up swapping between 3 as the fancy takes me - California, Numerals Duo (in red, for late nights), and Solar (the cool one with the sun graph). A trick that neither Apple nor Samsung has figured out is time-based faces, or at least a proper "night mode".
Battery life is good - not "S3 Frontier Two Full Days" good, but workable. The charger, though - fucking hell. It's shit. Let's enumerate its dimensions of shiteness:
If it weren't for the fact that it does charge pretty quickly, and the charging mode display is good (a light tap shows a clock in an agreeable green, although I'd like to change that to red for overnight), this'd be a significantly disappointing aspect of ownership.
Overall, it's a good watch. The display is agreeable, although could be brighter. Passive activity tracking is [horizontal hand waggle] ok. Sleep tracking is absolute dogshit (slated to improve in the next version of Watch OS, apparently; well, it couldn't be worse). Active activity tracking is good, with excellent GPS accuracy. Raise-to-wake is OK. The UI is only OK, also - there are a lot of things that are not readily discoverable. The Watch is the last holdout of 3D Touch, not that anything tells you this - and that's how you dismiss all notifications, for example. When you want to finish or pause a workout or activity, there's literally no clue what to do (you swipe right to get the buttons to end or pause). Gestures are great, but you need to tell me what to do, at least once or a hundred times!
The practical reality is that if you've got an iPhone, and you want a smartwatch, then it's the Apple Watch or fuck off. Nothing else works particularly well. I think if the Samsung watches worked well on iPhone, that's what I'd be using, and I further think that it'd cause Apple to sharpen their ideas somewhat.
