The Apple Watch Review
by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on July 20, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Wearables
- Apple
- Mobile
- Apple Watch
WatchOS: Communication
If you’ve been reading closely in the past few pages, you’ll probably notice that there’s a rather consistent theme when it comes to what I find myself doing with the Apple Watch. For the most part, those uses revolve around instant messaging, text messages/iMessage, email, and the extremely rare phone call. Ultimately, communication is what the Apple Watch is all about. I suspect that this is ultimately why Apple has placed a dedicated side button for the Friends screen, which contains a carousel of contacts that you would frequently contact. In practice, this is the only way to access some of the features that are specific to Apple Watch, namely Digital Touch and sending animated emoji.
The Friends UI itself is definitely quite effective for what it is, and really shows again just how useful the digital crown can be when it comes to keeping the UI compact without compromising usability. Selecting a given person is done with the digital crown, with confirmation providing by tapping the display. Once confirmed, the user can elect to call or send a text message. If the friend has an Apple Watch as well, the previously mentioned Digital Touch and animated emoji features will also be accessible from the same screen.
Honestly, I saw next to zero value for sending heart rate or animated emoji, but the ability to send taps to someone is really quite helpful given how good the haptic feedback (Taptic Engine) is at getting someone’s attention. It’s definitely possible to accidentally spam taps to someone without malice though, which is something to be mindful of. Drawings are also a fun feature, but probably not a killer app. At the end of the day, it’s probably a fair bet that you’re going to spend most of your time using the Apple Watch to send text messages and make phone calls rather than drawings or emoji.
Although I’ve already discussed the text messaging aspect, the phone aspect is a pretty interesting experience. In practice, phone calls are definitely not going to work in public on the watch, but in private settings I found the experience to be without any major problems. The actual phone call part of the experience is usually pretty relaxed as you can basically leave the iPhone 6 somewhere else and talk over speakerphone with your hands on a computer as the microphone can still pick up voices reasonably well in that kind of situation as long as you haven’t covered the mic with your wrist or clothing. Trying to make a call is also one of the easier things to do, with a list of recent calls synced from the paired iPhone, favorites, a contact list, and voicemail access from the phone application. You can also make a call from the previously mentioned Friends screen.
One issue that I've observed when making calls on the Apple Watch is that there are times where it will hand the call off to the iPhone rather than completing it on the watch. In fact, every time you make a call you will momentarily see a message that says "Handed Off", which would imply that the call has been transferred to the iPhone. Usually this will be quickly followed by the standard ringtone and call connection being done using the speaker and microphone right on the watch, but I've encountered times where it actually does hand the call off to the iPhone and there's no way to pass it back. This seemed to happen in very specific circumstances, such as calling a certain contact using the friends menu rather than right from the phone app, and it's definitely something that will just require a small bug fix.
Something else to note about audio calling is that the Apple Watch doesn't support making FaceTime Audio calls. This is less of a problem now than it would be in the past, as Continuity and Handoff allow iPhone users with iPads and Macs to answer phone calls on those devices. That being said, it means that there's no way to communicate with a person on their iPad or Mac if they don't own an iPhone, which is somewhat disappointing with how FaceTime is positioned by Apple as a way to communicate across all Apple devices. I would imagine that support for FaceTime Audio calling will be added down the road in either a software update or a new version of the Apple Watch, quite possibly with a front-facing camera to enable both video and audio calling.
Fitness
Fitness has been a huge trend in the wearable industry as of recent, with no signs of slowing down. Heart rate monitoring is almost a standard in smartwatches by this point for better or worse, as is step counting. Fitbit, Jawbone, Microsoft, Garmin, HTC, and others have all made strongly fitness-targeted wearables. In the case of the Apple Watch, I was somewhat dubious that this feature would be all that important to my evaluation of the watch. After all, an enormous number of these wearables suffered from the abandonment problem that I previously discussed. Given that fitness tracking didn’t seem to be all that of an appealing feature, I was pretty well convinced that the selling points of a truly successful wearable would be elsewhere. I’m also decidedly low-tech when it comes to how I approach exercise, as to me there’s no real data needed other than a timer and whether I feel like I’m exercising at a sufficiently strenuous pace, when I exercise at all. As a result, I haven’t been evaluating applications like Endomondo and other fitness-related applications in deep detail, and I didn’t really expect to be writing this section either.
So now that we’ve established the background in which I approach fitness, we can start to talk about the actual fitness app on the watch. The fitness aspect is actually remarkably simple. Setting up the application at the start goes something like inputting your height, weight, sex, and age, then selecting a starting move goal. Once you’re done with all of this, just about the only thing you actually have to do with any kind of regularity to make the fitness tracking work is put the watch on and make sure it isn’t locked when you use it. One of the most important parts of getting people to actually use an application is to always ensure a low barrier to entry, and Apple has pulled this off remarkably well.
From there, the actual fitness tracking is completely invisible. The user never actually has to actively interact with the watch to get fitness tracking to work. There are only three metrics tracked at this time, but they’re probably the most important predictors of health. The first is movement, which appears to be at least partially based upon heart rate because I seem to have “movement” calories during times when I’m doing nothing but sitting in front of a computer and typing. The second is exercise, which is definitely influenced by heart rate although I haven’t been able to really experiment to see if heart rate is the sole determinant of this metric. The final metric is standing, which effectively attempts to get people to stand for at least a minute every hour for twelve hours a day.
As far as I can tell, after a few weeks of continuously using the watch with the phone paired it didn’t make a real difference in distance estimates when I would forget the phone and rely on the watch for distance estimates. When using purely passive distance tracking, I found that the watch estimated a 1.8 mile walk at 2 miles, or roughly 10% error. However, when selecting the "outdoor walk" fitness option a 1.8 mile walk was estimated at 1.75 miles, which is pretty much no error at all.
There is a workout component, but I suspect that this is something more targeted towards someone who is actually setting aside time every day to do nothing but exercise. I tried the interface and found it to be a useful addition, but I really haven’t had a reason to use it as the automatic tracking is pretty much good enough for my needs.
Of course, outside of tracking the watch will also give you reminders (or guilt trips?) throughout the day of your progress on these three metrics. If you haven’t stood within the last hour, the watch will also remind you of this so you can stand for at least a minute and take a break from whatever you were doing. None of these are really all that intrusive though as the reminders are widely spaced throughout the day so it didn’t feel like I was getting bombarded by notifications from the fitness application. The stand notifications can get pretty excessive if you’re sitting down for an excessive amount of time, but it’s possible to disable this which is a nice touch.
Surprisingly, I found myself looking at these features pretty often because it’s data that I haven’t actually had any real insight into. I’ve never really used a fitness tracker that keeps track of something as simple as standing time, which seems like an obvious metric to track as soon as you start using the fitness functions of the watch because sitting for extended periods of time can have significant effects on health regardless of how much exercise you do. Other fitness trackers have also tracked calories burned and distance covered before, but an actual exercise metric is surprisingly helpful because it’s often difficult to tell what exercise really constitutes as. For example, I wouldn’t consider walking at a decent pace to and from a store half an hour away to be exercise, but with heart rate tracking it turns out that at least half an hour of the one hour walk was actually exercise. I’m sure some people would consider this to be cheating, but in practice I’ve found that the end result was that I had a tendency to try and be more active more often because almost any kind of reasonably strenuous activity would be counted as exercise.
Overall, I found that the fitness component of this watch to be a real surprise. I often hear that Apple is good at making things we didn’t know we wanted, but this is probably the first time I’ve really believed that statement. Going into the review, I didn’t really realize that I wanted a solid fitness tracker on a smartwatch, but now I’m really convinced that there is value to such features.
The only difference was implementation, and it’s apparent to me that the difference here is strongly influenced by a level of thought that I otherwise haven’t seen in most smartwatches. I don’t particularly care for step counts, but I do care about how many calories I’ve used through activity and how many minutes of exercise I’ve done in a day. Even if you don’t care about fitness tracking, the watch’s fitness tracking capabilities are worth keeping in mind when comparing against other wearables. Of course, buying Apple Watch isn't going to magically make you healthier, but it will provide information that allows such actions to be taken.
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supermoon7 - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
You're so right! Use the watch for what it's intended for. It's not a computer. According to the guys at http://www.watchtimely.com it was originally meant to have a slightly larger screen to be able to do more complicated things, but the developers realized nobody would do them on their watch anyway.xihan94 - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
+1 for the uncovered bonus chromosome 21.johnnycanadian - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
... you seem to have a tremendous amount of time on your hands. Perhaps learning a new skill would be valuable?Schickenipple - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
This guy has written book-length posts on pretty much every Apple product review. It's quite sad, really.I'd have to imagine that ANY skill other than ranting on and on about something he's never even used would go a long way... A career, maybe?
iWatchHogwash - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Dera BittenRottenApple,Excellent Analysis, what a great read, rationally and logically consistent, thank you very much.
By the way, some further recommendations to read and watch:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-hate-Apple/511277...
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-we-really...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9d5mXc7eg&fe...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90NJOpjq02M
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38007-new-y...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/technology/perso...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37610-lg-re...
Other Apple news not mentioned here:
Apple Watch sales fall by 90 per cent
Apple has another lemon
It is turning out exactly as we said – sales of Apple's latest cure for cancer have slumped to a shadow of their initial "glory."
While the Tame Apple Press and a big chunk of analysts sung praises for the iWatch, claiming it would sell 70 million in its first year. We pointed out that the gizmo was nearly two years out of date and lacked most of the software which would make it moderately useful and if it succeed it was a triumph of user stupidity and marketing.
Lately analysts have been slowly withdrawing the enthusiastic sales figures they gave the watch, and now a new survey has shown that sales have fallen by 90 per cent.
Apple is selling fewer than 20,000 watches a day in the US since the initial surge in April, and on some days fewer than 10,000. This is not too bad, but it does suggest that most people who wanted an iWatch have one, and existing users are not managing to win many converts amongst their friends to make it take off. For the record to make the 70 million figure apple would have to sell 195,000 a day.
Data collected by Slice Intelligence show that Two-thirds of the watches sold so far have been the lower-profit "Sport" version, whose price starts at $349, according to Slice, rather than the costlier and more advanced models that start at $549. Apple's gold "Edition" model priced at $10,000 or more has only sold 2,000 of them have been sold in the US.
The figures are based on the electronic receipts sent to millions of email addresses following purchases. The company conducts market research on behalf of consumer-goods companies, among others, many of them in the Fortune 500.
All up though these figures are not bad, but they are not the sort of numbers which Apple needs to convince its investors that it can make mega sales any more. With sales drying up in China, Jobs mob will not have a good bottom line this year.
Source:
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38173-apple...
And
Apple puts iWatch in stores
Maybe some idiot will buy them
Apple mysteriously has enough iWatches on hand to start putting them in its own stores.
The iWatch went on sale six weeks ago and at the time Apple did not think it would ever have enough to put it in its own shops. The original plan was to flog them online and in fashion stores, however and Jobs' Mob thought it would never have enough to meet the crushing demand for an out-of-date wearable which was more expensive than anything else on the market.
So it appears that suddenly Apple has enough. Of course the Tame Apple Press is trying to keep the story about a shortage going. Potential buyers must first reserve their device online, and some models are still out of stock.
But the sport models, which are most popular and the cheapest, are available across the country, while others can be bought in Apple's flagship shops, such as those in London and Manchester.
In order to reserve your device, you must pick the Watch you want to buy, choose a store to pick the device up and then choose a time to go and buy it.
You can also order the home delivery, but it's not recommended as it takes more than three weeks for the shipment to be delivered.
The most expensive models, such as the 38mm yellow gold model with red modern Buckle strap, are still unavailable. As Apple said last week, the 42mm Watch in Space Black with the metal link bracelet is unavailable at all stores for now.
Source:
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38018-apple...
Finally some related news (pasted in chronological order from new to old):
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/38274-apple-press-gea...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38254-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38173-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38126-analy...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38018-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/38017-apple-is-convic...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/38007-new-y...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/technology/perso...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/38004-xiaomi-sells-6-...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37983-twitter-thinks-...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37893-zenwa...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37889-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37832-analyst-realise...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37787-quanta-clarifie...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37756-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37660-iwatc...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37646-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37635-apple-results-s...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37610-lg-re...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37609-is-the-iphone-a...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37586-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37558-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37499-imac-is-getting...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37485-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37391-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37350-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37349-apple-a-trillia...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/37278-new-ios-...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/37248-apple-blames-se...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37235-devel...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/37224-iphone-i...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37130-mobil...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37048-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/37001-study...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/36699-apple...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/36603-consu...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/wearables/36427-sony-...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/36342-intel-outclasse...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/36183-microsof...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/36169-microsof...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/36080-microsoft-beats...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/35959-apple-wa...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/35740-doctors-rubbish...
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/35694-rumour-i...
Have a nice day.
Ryan Smith - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
In the interest of transparency, BittenRottenApple has been banned from AnandTech. We have since identified him as a sockpuppet having used multiple accounts here, and while we afford our readers a great deal of liberty to discuss products and articles, we will not put up with people who are dishonest in their actions.Dennis Travis - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
Ryan, thank you. It's for the good of the site. I was about to reply to him but glad I read this first!Again thanks for getting rid of people like that. Just brings the whole comments section down.
colonelclaw - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
Thanks for that Ryan, on the internet it's easy to say "you need to get some kind of help" in jest, but in this case I think it may actually be true. Presumably iWatchHogwash is the same person?sammery - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
Goodness me. That was so long and devoid of meaning I might start using it instead of Lorem Ipsum.WinterCharm - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
Take your neurotic apple hating bullshit elsewhere.You're just bitter that Anandtech gave the watch a stellar review.