The verdict is in: I enjoy using the Apple Watch. I was pleasantly surprised when I received the email last Thursday that I would be receiving my Apple Watch on Friday instead of June. When I pre-ordered my watch the email stated that I’d be receiving my watch in June.
I still wear two watches since I mainly use the Apple Watch as a fitness band. I’m a watch girl and I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know the time. Plus I’m not willing to buy a device to wind up my automatic watch when I can just wear the watch.
The Apple Watch has a battery life of roughly 13 hours before having to recharge the watch. Granted it only takes around 2 hours to fully charge the battery. My normal usage of the watch is taking some quick phone calls, answering texts via Siri, using the watch as a remote to play my music on the phone, and deleting emails on the watch. I didn’t find myself downloading a lot of Apps for the watch. What currently comes with the watch works for me.
I was a tad bit disappointed that the watch didn’t record my treadmill activity at home accurately. I ran 1.5 miles and it logged it as .3 miles. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to change the mileage on the Activity App, but I had to manually record the mileage as 1.5 on the Health App. I basically need to run and walk with my Apple Watch and my iPhone a few times outdoors so the Activity Workout app learns more about my stride. I haven’t done that because I want to order a sports band to properly carry my phone when running/jogging. The watch doesn’t have a GPS so I have to lug around my iPhone 6 Plus for better mileage accuracy. For now I’m ok manually typing in the mileage when I run on the treadmill.
There are also plenty of other Workout Apps that I can purchase from the App Store but for now I’m happy with the default Apps on the Apple Watch even if I have to alter my mileage on the Health App when running on a treadmill.
I also like that it has several designs of the watch faces to appeal to different types of users. I personally like the Mickey Mouse clock design because it brings out the kid inside of me. Even my youngest daughter enjoys seeing Mickey and always wants to tell the time from my watch. The only thing I don’t like about the design is that you can only put three pieces of useful information on the clock face. In my case I put the activity, date, and calendar on the clock.
I also added two other clock designs with different pieces of information when I need to see more detail on the watch display. One clock display has four pieces of information and the other clock display has five (which is the most I found that can be displayed on the watch). I added the date, calendar, weather, activity display, and battery charge. Granted the one with five pieces of information is the most unappealing watch display but very informative at a glance.
One thing I liked about the watch was that I constantly got notifications. That’s either a good or bad thing. I’m not used to my watch pulsing on my wrist when I get an email, a text message, etc. I found that because I was getting a lot of notifications on my watch I started ignoring it. I even missed a text message from a family member. During the weekends I kind of ignore messages on my phone or anything on a digital display especially when I’m binge watching on Netflix. Sometimes my brain needs to turn off. 🙂 When you don’t want to be notified and hear sounds you can always turn on the “Do Not Disturb” and the “Silent” mode.
I did like seeing my upcoming calendar events on my watch. Granted I had to sync my Google Calendar to the iPhone calendar since I normally use the Pocket Informant App to view my calendar and to do lists on the phone. It’s just nice to quickly view what my next appointment is and where I need to be.
Obviously because the Apple Watch has a small display it really isn’t ideal to view emails, texts, photos, or maps. But you can easily access those features just in case you don’t have your phone on you. Most emails are difficult to read in that small display and can’t be displayed by the Apple Watch unless it’s an all text version email. The watch is really there to notify you that you received an email and if you wanted to read it you should read it on your phone.
I wouldn’t recommend deleting emails from the watch either. It takes two steps to delete the email. You first have to swipe to trash the email and then there is a confirmation button that asks if you really want to delete the email. On the phone you can delete it in one step (a swipe).
Sending text messages was weird for me because I had to rely on Siri to send text messages. If Siri really butchered up my message I had the option to send my message as an audio file. It was a different experience than what I’m used to since I’m used to typing in my text messages on the phone. On my phone I rarely use Siri. Again, it’s just something I need to get used to.
I also wouldn’t recommend looking at photos on the watch. It’s just really small. It’s nice to see that I can access my photos but don’t feel the need to since I can view those photos on my phone.
I also didn’t feel the need to download a playlist on my watch. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I mainly used the watch to skip a song I didn’t want to hear on my phone.
Even if the Apple Watch is the first generation and the general consensus is to not buy the first version of a product. I just had to be an early adopter since for me the Apple Watch is something that would work for my lifestyle. I didn’t want to wait another two years to buy the Apple Watch version 2.0.
Some people may also complain that it can’t track your sleep habits but you can use the Sleep Cycle App on your phone to do that.
I mainly bought the watch to monitor my fitness activity and the Apple Watch does that and more. So for my needs, the watch fully delivers and meets my expectation except for when running on a treadmill. That issue should be fixed when I get a chance to calibrate my Apple Watch for improved workout and activity accuracy.
I just need to get used to the constant notifications coming from my wrist and that’s something I’m not quite used to yet.
I already know that the watch will help me be more proactive on staying healthy and that’s what I’m looking for. Having my watch integrated to my phone to receive calls, view text messages, emails, music, photos, maps and more is a bonus. 🙂
I can already see myself not having to physically hold my phone in my hand when I’m out and about. I think my phone will stay in my purse most of the time. Yay!
View the Apple Watch guided tours to learn more.
