Gadgetory

oh boy it's the Apple watch there's so much to say about the Apple watch it's apples first new product in five years and it's the first one developed after Steve Jobs died there's a lot riding on this thing Apple introduced it at a celebrity-filled event last year so huge they built an entire temporary building for it you can spend anywhere from $350 to $17,000 on it it's crazy it's a big deal so what's it like first the Apple watch doesn't look anything like Apple's other products its rounder and friendlier than the iPhone or the MacBook it really looks more like a first generation iPhone than anything else it's also pretty heavy it's just under three ounces and it feels like one solid object in your hand it's just way nicer than any other SmartWatch out there it also has more stuff unlike Google's Android wear which basically extends your phone the Apple watch feels like an entire little computer on your wrist and that's both good and bad unlike every other SmartWatch the Apple watch is all about physical controls it literally has buttons and knobs and it takes a while to figure them all out there's the digital crown scroll wheel which is also a button the screen itself which uses a new technology called force touch to act as another button and there's a side button which is especially confusing since it looks just like the iPhone sleep button but actually opens the communications app Apple is making a big deal of the digital crown which lets you smoothly scroll and zoom on a watch without your fingers getting in the way of the screen it's definitely nice to have after using a watch for a while I'd look for the crown on my phone but you can also just scroll through lists on a watch just fine with your finger and in general anything you can do with the crown you can do on the screen the back of the watch has a raised area for the obstacle heart rate sensor and it's also where the magnetic charging cable connects the cable is nice but I wish Apple had included a nice dock like Motorola does with the Moto 360 of course all the real action with the Apple watch happens on the screen and the Retina display is beautiful it has super bright colors great viewing angles and inky blacks that make it seem like it blends right into the sides of the wall it's great my only complaint is it's not laminated super close to the watch face there's definitely a small air gap that you can see from time to time once you start using the watch it's pretty obvious that there's actually three different things going on the first and most important is that the watch face is an entire little SmartWatch platform all by itself it's where you're going to spend the most time there's really only a few basic templates but you can customize the details on almost all of them there's not really a great digital watch face though and you can't create your own or buy new ones like you can with Android wear it's a missed opportunity and Apple has to be working on it but the watch face is really about two things notifications and glances when you get a notification you'll feel a slight tap on your wrist but the screen won't light up when you actually look at your wrist the watch will first show you what kind of notification you've got and if you keep looking it'll show you the actual information that came in this is great if you get a lot of notifications and you're almost certainly going to get a lot of notifications because the iPhone app that controls everything comes set to full blast by default so we're really looking forward to launching this new thing we're thinking a lot about the future we want to bring in food and technology and kind of think about how we can you know spin that into a really great package and we were wondering if the verge was interest in collaborating with it so this is an email from a co-worker who is not this coworker I don't have time to answer this right I want to pay attention so I'm just going to dismiss it for it so we thought that you know this is something that could be a really great collaboration for either we're wondering if you guys have made thoughts on it yeah there's so much this is an Instagram like and here's the real problem with the Apple watch right now the settings for how you control it notifications go from your phone to your watch aren't very granular it's kind of all or nothing for every app you have on your phone so I'm getting all kinds of notifications I don't want and to turn them off I have to go through a huge list and pick which ones yes or no and so really all I'm doing is knowing more about what's happening on my phone than ever before is there somewhere that you need to be right now yeah I really want to talk about this I think it's such an exciting project there's so much we to do together yeah absolutely another thing we thinking about is mind this is another text for my wife so now I'm not paying attention to Sonia I'm not paying attention to my friends and family but I'm more aware of how many people that I'm ignoring than ever before I'm not sure that I like if you miss a notification you can just go back to the list from the watch face and take it from there but you'll sometimes notice that notifications slow things down which is a theme on the watch it's a little underpowered it's the same with glances which are basically little status screens you can open from the watch face you can quickly check your heart rate or figure out your location or look at the weather apps on your phone can install glances so I can see what the top trends on Twitter are or look at mass transit options using transit it's cool but glances don't update in the background so you have to wait for them to load from your phone anything that loads data from your phone takes a while to happen on the watch especially if you're loading location data if you want to send a quick message to someone you click on a side button to open the communications app which is really just a favorites list once you pick a contact you can either call them right in and watch send them a text or emoji or poke at them using digital touch if they also have an Apple watch digital touch is pretty cool but it's kind of more of a demo than anything else you can send little drawings and taps and even your heartbeat and they'll play back in real time for your friends and then disappear I had fun setting my heartbeat to people but other than that I'm mostly stuck to texting apple also has weird ideas about emoji you can send the standard ones but you can also send one of three animated custom images that are exclusive to the Apple watch I'm not sure why this smiley face has a tongue I'm not sure why this heart is exploding and I'm not sure why this mimes hand is giving me nightmares this is by far the strangest part of the Apple watch I had a lot of fun with it but I also think I freaked a few people out with this thirsty Rando beyond the watch face in the communications app you can click the digital crown to open the home screen and launch apps it's a world of possibility but it's also where the watch definitely feels the slowest apps on the watch right now look remotely off your phone and they feel like it uber and Twitter take forever to load anything that needs to grab location data from your phone is extremely slow and in general you're going to look at a lot of waiting screens these apps also don't offer that much functionality think of them more like remote controls for the apps on your phone you don't really need them Apple says true native apps are coming later this year and hopefully they'll do more the Apple watch also has Apple pay which lets you pay in where you can pay with an iphone you just DoubleTap the side button and wave the watch over the payment terminal once you've got the watch on your wrist all you have to do is unlock your iPhone with touch ID and you're ready to go that was actually pretty cool the watch stays authenticated until you take it off which means it's even faster than paying with an iPhone this is Apple at its best with hardware and software and services all working together and it's by far my favorite feature of the Apple watch one of the biggest features of the Apple watch is health tracking it can measure your steps it can count your calories and even remind you to stand up every so often the heart rate sensor on the back takes your pulse automatically every 10 minutes and you can set goals from movement and exercise throughout the day the three rings in the activity app fill in as you get closer to those goals if you hit the gym you can open a workout app and select from a few presets to guide you through a workout but once you set a preset in your goals the watch will give you little taps to mark your progress but it's really only geared for cardio walking running an elliptical exercise bike a stair stepper a rower anything that's not cardio doesn't really get picked up so weightlifting yoga things that don't make your heart rate go up don't really get accurately tracked by the watch none of this is as advanced as other fitness devices but it is all right there on your wrist Apple expects third parties will build apps to expand on these basic capabilities over time which will definitely give the Apple watch a leg up over other platforms but wait a minute all this seems really interesting is a tech gadget but the watch is supposed to be a fashion item as well is it actually cool I went ask the fashion editors a track calm to find out these are like a lot of interest for me readers from like young women who read a fashion magazine is there not a lot of interest what's the what's the vibe I think that there is a certain kind of like person who wants to know what's happening let's have the latest product immediately because it makes them feel really savvy I feel like that's dissipating a little bit so like that person who like has to have the iPhone first like I don't know that they're going to feel that way about the watch well this is not luxury yeah it feels very much like two separate objects that were not designed in tandem like if it feels like you very much have a computer sitting atop a band which is not the point in terms of whether the fashion world will adopt it or not I don't know that they're gonna adopt it as a design object I do think this is a watch that makes you feel important and people who work in fashion like to feel important like is this coolkid doesn't stand a chance of being cool I think that if it gets adopted all over the place fashion people are going to find a reason to love it but I don't think that they're going to love it as a beautifully divided object I believe in the future of this I'm not into this first version but I believe in the feat I think there's like there could be something here so that's the Apple watch it's so much more powerful than every other SmartWatch and it's infinitely more stylish but it's still a SmartWatch it can do a lot but it definitely can't replace your phone and it really can't do much that your phone can't do to be honest it's a little unfocused it's like it has half of every possible feature it's a first real step towards what seems like a revolution of wearable computing but it's definitely just a first step so should you buy it I'm not convinced anyone actually needs a SmartWatch yet and there's nothing about the Apple watch that really changed my mind but there's certainly enough here to be interesting and it's definitely the nicest SmartWatch out there but it's also one of the most expensive so if you're going to get one I'd only recommend the sport model for 350 or 400 dollars you'll get all the same functionality is the more expensive versions and Apple is definitely going to improve the software a lot over the next few years but spending any more money than that right now seems silly the Apple watch is interesting right now but I bet next year's model and the one after that will be the ones to Ashley about