Apple Watch Review

Hardware and Battery Life
The Apple Watch has one of the best hardware you can find in a smartwatch. These are the Apple Watch specs:  a 500 MHz Apple S1 processor, a PowerVR SGX543 GPU, 512MB RAM and 8GB of storage (when connected to an iPhone, you can fully access its storage memory).
The watch is also equipped with a heart rate sensor, that uses both infrared and visible light LEDs along with photodiodes to determine you heart rate; there’s also a gyrometer, an accelerometer and unfortunately no built-in GPS.
In terms of connectivity, the Apple Watch features the usual Bluetooth 4.0 and adds a 802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz WiFi capability and NFC (useful for Apple Pay).
Also inside the case you can find a 205mAh (or 246mAH) Lithium Ion battery. It promises 18 hours battery life on normal use, 6 hours of music playback or working out with the heart monitor, 3 hours of talk time and up to 48 hours of juts checking time.

 

 

If the battery is running low, you can turn on the Power Reserve Mode, that can offer up to 72 hours, but it reduces the smartwatch to a normal timer. A major inconvenience is that in order to switch it back to normal you have to restart the watch and the restarting process takes almost a couple of minutes.
In order to charge your Apple Watch you have to use the inductive magnetic charger and it takes about 2 hours to reach full battery. The magnetic charging cable uses Apple’s MagSafe technology and it feels a bit sturdier than the Pogo charger from Pebble or Samsung.
The battery life is already scarce compared to the likes of Pebble Time Steel (that offers 10 days of battery life) and with future updates and third-party apps, the battery will deplete even quicker.

 

 

Software
The software that runs on the Apple Watch is called the WatchOS 2.0 (an updated version to the more laggier first generation) and in order to be fully operational, the Apple Watch requires an iPhone 5 or a later version.
The watch is not designed for prolonged use, it provides a better experience if used in shorter periods of time, especially because some apps are a bit slow and not many complex apps are developed (using Facebook or any other Google app on the small screen of the Apple Watch may prove undesirable in the long run).
It works best for notifications, urgent emails or texts or just a short call for Pizza and checking the weather.

 

 

Now, let’s talk about the interface. If you swipe away, you get the watch face with notifications and Glances and if you press the Digital Crown you get access to the apps. There is without a doubt a learning curve, but after a few days of using the watch you get accustomed to the way things operate.
The watch faces have a series of new options (since the new update) that let’s you change the colour, add new elements or remove them. They can also be customized using ‘complications’ that are nothing more than small chunks of data, some of the cooler ones being the Carrot Weather, iTranslate, Hotwire or Dark Sky.
Apple also offers six time lapses that feature moving images from six major locations around the world: from London, Shanghai, New York, Paris, Mack Lake and Hong Kong.

Besides the usual notifications and watch faces, you get to choose one of the single screens with quick summaries of information from apps you view frequently. To access the Glances you can either swipe up on the watch face or ask Siri to open it for you, even if it’s not in your active glances list.
In order to create a list of active glances you can choose from the stock ones offered by Apple (battery, weather or calendar) and you can also choose apps from third party developers.
Watch faces and glances look pretty cool on the Apple Watch, but there’s a lot more to it. You get the Taptic Engine, an innovative feature that actually taps you on the wrist when a notification arrives so you won’t miss anything important, it can also be used when navigating, it can tap you on the wrist several times for left or right turns or you can use it along with the Digital Touch.

 

 

Digital Touch is a unique way of messaging which works exclusively between Apple Watches and allows you to send taps, finger sketches or your heart rate. These may seem fitted to use inside your group of friends or your loved ones. Still, subjectively speaking, sending your heart rate is a bit weird, unless, of course, you have a heart condition, in which case, the people on the other side will feel at ease :).
Since we spoke about heart rate measurement, there are Activity and Workout apps that let’s you keep in touch with your overall physical well-being and it works great while jogging or cycling. It can also prompt you to stand up if you’re too sedentary and get active. But there have been times when you are prompted to stand up while in a bus or when driving creating a rather hilarious situation.

There’s also the Apple Pay (similar to what you can find on your iPhone) which is a really great feature, if you find places that accepts this type of payment. What is does it to offer the ability to purchase goods or services with a single touch of the watch on the pay terminal (two taps of the button is all it takes to summon your card). It also works without an iPhone present.
Note: Apple Watch can also be used to open your hotel room, a feature not really wide spread, but available in some locations in the world.

 

 

Thanks to the built-in speaker and microphone you can call and receive calls on the fly. It is a cool feature, especially if you can’t reach your phone on time and you’re waiting for an important call.
But taking calls in public can be a bit awkward, as you’ll look like you’re performing some sort of ritual. Also, dictating messages in public is equally weird.
Yes, thanks to Siri you can now accurately dictate a message and it works even better than on the iPhone. Besides this, Siri can also be used in order to set a remainder, open Glances, start a workout or even control HomeKit devices (most of these feature come from the WatchOS 2.0 update).
Besides all this abundance of apps and features you get the versatile Camera remote that allows you to see a preview of your iPhone’s viewfinder and even focus, set a timer or trigger the shutter. There’s also the Remote Control app that allows you to control the Apple TV, Activation Lock for if the watch ever gets stolen and a lot more.

Conclusion
So how has our experience with the Apple Watch been so far? Well, it hasn’t been too different then with any other smartwatch. You get notifications, it allows you to keep your watch in your pocket, unless it’s something important, it’s more discreet, you get a gentle tap on the wrist, unlike a ringtone and overall, meeting up with friends and family is more engaging since we look less on our phone and focus more on the discussion.
But this has been our experience. Some of you may get easily accustomed to the Apple Watch, while other may quickly disregard it. It does have a bit of a steep learning curve and the prices are somewhat high. There’s still some work to be done on the design elements and some software implementation, but that’s what you get from a first generation device.
The obvious conclusion is that the Apple Watch is not a must-have device, you don’t really need it, but if you can afford it it will make you life a little easier in some small aspects.

Pages: 1 2