I just dropped off my 42mm SS Watch at my local UPS store a couple minutes ago and here I am now writing up my thoughts about my honest experiences with it and why I returned it.
First off, I pre-ordered my watch at 12:03 AM PST. After an exciting 2 weeks, it finally arrived on the 24th. My friend, who preordered but wasn't as "lucky" as me, was just as excited about the watch as I was so I immediately drove to his house to show him the watch. Being a nice friend, I decided to unbox it when I went to his house. After around 20 seconds of tearing open packaging, my watch was in my hands. I got synced up in a couple minutes, no sweat.
The first day or two, the Apple Watch saw lots of use. Way more than normal. After the dust settled, the watch integrated with my daily life. I'd get notifications from things that used to come from my phone which was very convenient. Obviously Apple didn't want you to fiddle with the watch all day, it should be an extension of your phone, and it was.
After a week, I started feeling conflicted about the watch. Sure, I had a little buyers remorse about the ~$750 I just spent on the watch, but the price alone isn't what put me off. I believe that I'm in the market for a $750 watch, but for some reason I just couldn't justify the cost of spending $750 on this watch in particular.
What I did like:
The software. Configuring this thing is pretty straightforward. You enter in your details, set up your apps and glances and enter in your physical info and goals into Activity so that you can start tracking various metrics throughout the day. It's great. Notifications are consistent, the haptic feedback response is nice (though it could be a little stronger), and the activity tracking features are really nice, though if you don't do a lot of cardio you may not use it as much as you think. Sometimes the UI can be a little confusing at times (force touch doesn't feel intuitive at times being one example), but I think that the Apple Watch blows away its competitors in this department.
Fit and finish. All of the materials used in the SS watch feel expensive, even more expensive than what I paid for it (for some reason). The leather strap has a nice feel to it and the stainless steel case looks classy. The digital crown is smooth as butter and the heart-rate monitor on the back looks really cool. Apple has always paid a great attention to detail and the Apple Watch is no exception.
What I didn't like:
Third-party apps. All of the third-party apps are slow. In fact, it's so slow, that I avoided using them whenever possible. We all know why they're slow, but it still is an issue. It takes, for me at least, the same amount of time to grab the phone out of my pocket and open up an app then it takes for me to load it on my Watch. As a result, I found myself sticking mainly to notifications.
Fitness tracking. I'm 50/50 on this. On one hand, it's pretty good, but on the other hand, I feel like it's a compromise. You don't have to run with your phone, but it's recommended; workouts are limited to cardio; and the constant heart-rate monitoring can burn through the battery (this is a problem with photo HR monitors in general). Getting everything stored into HealthKit is nice, but honestly the UP does a better job in this department. The benefit of having fitness tracking on the Apple Watch is that it's part of the Apple Watch—you don't need to have a separate device to track workouts—but it still feels like a giant compromise.
The overall appearance. I'll admit, this is a first world problem at best, but despite the exceptional fit-and-finish of the Watch, it's still very bulky. It feels like I strapped a rock onto my wrist. Seriously. I know that Apple tried their best to cram everything into the Watch, but it's still pretty thick.
Overall:
I think that Apple is leading the category at the moment, but the category itself is still relatively new and trying to figure itself out. I think that the Watch has a lot of great features, but falls short on software and technological fronts. In my opinion, the Watch is a true v1 Apple product and they will learn from this release with the second one. With that said, I could probably justify a Sport Watch at the very most, but the SS feels like you're sort of overpaying for this piece of tech, even if it's for status-related reasons.
First off, I pre-ordered my watch at 12:03 AM PST. After an exciting 2 weeks, it finally arrived on the 24th. My friend, who preordered but wasn't as "lucky" as me, was just as excited about the watch as I was so I immediately drove to his house to show him the watch. Being a nice friend, I decided to unbox it when I went to his house. After around 20 seconds of tearing open packaging, my watch was in my hands. I got synced up in a couple minutes, no sweat.
The first day or two, the Apple Watch saw lots of use. Way more than normal. After the dust settled, the watch integrated with my daily life. I'd get notifications from things that used to come from my phone which was very convenient. Obviously Apple didn't want you to fiddle with the watch all day, it should be an extension of your phone, and it was.
After a week, I started feeling conflicted about the watch. Sure, I had a little buyers remorse about the ~$750 I just spent on the watch, but the price alone isn't what put me off. I believe that I'm in the market for a $750 watch, but for some reason I just couldn't justify the cost of spending $750 on this watch in particular.
What I did like:
The software. Configuring this thing is pretty straightforward. You enter in your details, set up your apps and glances and enter in your physical info and goals into Activity so that you can start tracking various metrics throughout the day. It's great. Notifications are consistent, the haptic feedback response is nice (though it could be a little stronger), and the activity tracking features are really nice, though if you don't do a lot of cardio you may not use it as much as you think. Sometimes the UI can be a little confusing at times (force touch doesn't feel intuitive at times being one example), but I think that the Apple Watch blows away its competitors in this department.
Fit and finish. All of the materials used in the SS watch feel expensive, even more expensive than what I paid for it (for some reason). The leather strap has a nice feel to it and the stainless steel case looks classy. The digital crown is smooth as butter and the heart-rate monitor on the back looks really cool. Apple has always paid a great attention to detail and the Apple Watch is no exception.
What I didn't like:
Third-party apps. All of the third-party apps are slow. In fact, it's so slow, that I avoided using them whenever possible. We all know why they're slow, but it still is an issue. It takes, for me at least, the same amount of time to grab the phone out of my pocket and open up an app then it takes for me to load it on my Watch. As a result, I found myself sticking mainly to notifications.
Fitness tracking. I'm 50/50 on this. On one hand, it's pretty good, but on the other hand, I feel like it's a compromise. You don't have to run with your phone, but it's recommended; workouts are limited to cardio; and the constant heart-rate monitoring can burn through the battery (this is a problem with photo HR monitors in general). Getting everything stored into HealthKit is nice, but honestly the UP does a better job in this department. The benefit of having fitness tracking on the Apple Watch is that it's part of the Apple Watch—you don't need to have a separate device to track workouts—but it still feels like a giant compromise.
The overall appearance. I'll admit, this is a first world problem at best, but despite the exceptional fit-and-finish of the Watch, it's still very bulky. It feels like I strapped a rock onto my wrist. Seriously. I know that Apple tried their best to cram everything into the Watch, but it's still pretty thick.
Overall:
I think that Apple is leading the category at the moment, but the category itself is still relatively new and trying to figure itself out. I think that the Watch has a lot of great features, but falls short on software and technological fronts. In my opinion, the Watch is a true v1 Apple product and they will learn from this release with the second one. With that said, I could probably justify a Sport Watch at the very most, but the SS feels like you're sort of overpaying for this piece of tech, even if it's for status-related reasons.
