After 1 day heres what I hate

[rodknocker]

- No chance to turn for example the holiday calendar off on the Apple Watch.
At the moment i see all of my calendars. Maybe i like to disable a dedicated calendar.

 

[Theydonboi]

A lot of your problems are solved with Bluetooth 4.0.

How so? The FITs are 3.0...but the issues I'm having seem to be on the iPhone/Watch rather than the headset. There needs to be a way to disconnect connected devices without having to disable Bluetooth (the MacBook can do this, without issue)

 

[iregret]

How so? The FITs are 3.0...but the issues I'm having seem to be on the iPhone/Watch rather than the headset. There needs to be a way to disconnect connected devices without having to disable Bluetooth (the MacBook can do this, without issue)

Bluetooth 4.0 has standards for auto connect/ auto disconnect. My jabra rox use magnets to pair/ unpair. It's nearly instantaneous I've never had to go into settings and mess with Bluetooth.

 

[jclardy]

It's a weird device. I'm the kind of guy who loves to play with his new gadgets, and this is a device that isn't meant to be played with. From the battery life, to the lacking features, to the quick sleep time -- it's clear that Apple wants you to barely use it.

And that's fine, it isn't an iPhone. I'm coming to terms with this. It's more of a fashion accessory, and something to quickly check notifications on.

The mail thing is odd, but after messing with it for a few minutes I realized that it's more trouble than it's worth. Screen is too small, etc. At that point it's time to pull out the iPhone. Some (most) tasks just aren't worth doing on the watch

It isn't that they want you to barely use it - it is that your watch only makes sense for quick interactions. If you are going to spend more than 10-15 seconds looking at something you should pull your phone out instead.

As for the original post - I have had no issues with sync...if I dismiss on the watch it dismisses on my phone.

Not having a reminders app is perplexing to me though - using your grocery list is such an obvious use case for a watch - I hate having to take out my phone every couple of aisles to update it. And yet they built a photos app and have calendar and mail...Also using siri you can't even create a new list, it tells you to get out your phone.

I guess they are saving a "core app" for the next iOS revision.

 

[mashinhead]

Also on the medium (standard) brightness setting its actually really hard see in bright sunlight! Would be great of the brightness adjusts based on ambient light (maybe using the sensor on the iPhone?)

How could it use the ambient light sensor on your phone to adjust brightness. That wouldn't work, the phone is in your pocket which is dark. It needs it's own ambient light sensor, which I would assume it would have. Does it not? Seems like a huge ball drop if not.

 

[anticipate]

How could it use the ambient light sensor on your phone to adjust brightness. That wouldn't work, the phone is in your pocket which is dark. It needs it's own ambient light sensor, which I would assume it would have. Does it not? Seems like a huge ball drop if not.

The watch has its own sensor and it works.

 

[anticipate]

My initial impressions after a day:

I have the 42mm SS with classic buckle. It looks great and is very comfortable.

The charger doesn't snap on as tightly as I would have thought.

The screen brightness I have set to high, but definitely dynamically changes based on ambient light. It is readable in bright sunlight, just barely enough.

I like how it tracks steps easily without needing a 3rd party app to see what you did. I don't like how workouts are integrated into activities (for tracking) and it's very hard to figure out what was just movement and what was working out. But in the end, it's all tracked there and in Health so it's not a big deal. The activities app on iPhone and watch seems very nice.

I didn't even realize you could only see the current month (week's?) calendar data on the watch until this was brought up. That's hyper annoying. At least give us the option to see 3 months. 7 days is ok but very limited.

I just tested and you can indeed set an appointment for whenever.

Reminders work fine, but you need an app like Up Next to see them on the watch.

Using Siri for things is a theme. Ask it what it can do and you'd be surprised-there's a lot. There's a lot it can do that otherwise isn't obvious on the phone, including reminders (why on earth would they not out a reminders app in?). But it's only a subset of the phone's Siri capabilities. You should be able to do everything the phone does because it comes from the phone you'd think. But when your phone is off and the watch is connected to wifi, it still works. This means the Siri processing is actually happening on the watch itself. Hence the limitations.

Apps all load a little slowly (some more than others), but at least once they are in RAM they work quickly. Native apps are much faster. I hope for them to be available to devs this year.

I got well over 18 hours of battery with 10 percent left yesterday. I actually used the watch with screen on for 4 hours.

The stainless steel model polishes up nicely with just a soft cloth.

The HR was amazingly accurate.

Notifications are odd in that I can't figure out how to just feel them without having noise, unless I turn down the sound completely. I would have thought that putting the watch in silence (or the phone), it would buzz/thump but it doesn't. It does nothing... Unless I'm missing something? How does one make it thump but not make noise??

I wish there were more tactic patterns to pick.

The watch learns the same wifi info as the phone. It definitely keeps connected via wifi and not BT when it's far away from the phone assuming they are on the same network. I know this because if I try to get "usage" info on the phone about the watch, it won't work unless they are physically close. But it all data works fine far away from the phone if on wifi. You can also do a surprisingly large amount of stuff on the watch when not connected to the phone IF you're in wifi that was previously set up on the phone, primarily Siri and the native apps all work. So does messages. Very nice.

When setting directions on your phone, your watch automatically engages. It will thump and show next turn on your wrist, and there is no option to shut that off. This is an issue when using CarPlay maps (which I use), as I don't need my wrist lighting up with the info when it's on a huge screen next to me. It is nice to kind of glance at your watch to see though.

If you are in an app and just walk away from it, the screen goes black. If you go back to the watch, it will be on the app or home screen or wherever you left it again. After some time tough (2 min?) it will default back to the watch face.

You can see texted photos and photos in emails, but that's it. No video, no PDFs, nothing else. HTML email doesn't show any graphics either. But simple attached photos (and voice memos) will work on the watch.

Many 3rd party apps are very crashy. Some work very well. It's kind of the Wild West out there but as I have been telling 3rd parties about the issues, they have been quick to respond to them.

I have been able to use my Hue & Link bulbs (10 scenes) with the Philips Hue app without issue (but Hue Widget crashes constantly), wemo (quick connect) devices, nest thermostat (there's a few apps.) As with anything data related on watch you have to wait a moment for that when loading anything but it's usually just a second or less.

The battery drain can initially seem extreme (1.5 hours on my wrist and it's at 88% and I barely used it) but you will find it does indeed last the day.

The watch definitely affects battery and storage on the phone. Everything on the watch is automatically backed up on the phone. And it is the #1 or #2 use of battery on my phone. It probably will give your phone battery a 10-15% hit daily over where it used to be. This isn't that noticeable on the 6 plus buy may really negatively affect an older 5 or 5S.

Glances cache, so you don't have to wait for them to load unless you want them to refresh as you swipe through them.

Screen shots on watch sync to the phone. If you use camera remote you can only take single shots or bursts with a 3 second delay. Sometimes it just doesn't work but mostly does. Lots of times I tried to see what I had shot and it says "open photos". I think the iPhone needs to be unlocked to see what you shot, not sure. Other apps will let you take remote video which is nice.

Overall, I love it. It's far far more capable than any other smart watch I have seen. There's huge value in having glancable info on your wrist and not have to go find or pull out your phone. On a big 6+, always pulling it out can be a real pain. It's also a very nice watch watch... And if you did not have a watch for a while like I did, but used to be wear them, you'll appreciate it.

Is it necessary? No, not yet. It's purely a luxury at this point (or a very capable nice fitness tracker if you think of it that way - especially sport models) and really should be seen as being a timekeeping device first. But it really let's you be more physically involved in the world, less looking at your phone, yet still very connected to it.

More to come but so far, so good!

 

[sailermon]

I agree, for a first generation it's pretty good, but the one thing I'm shocked that it can't do, and to be honest the one thing I would really "need" out of a smart watch more than any feature, is the ability to use it to trigger phone calls from my phone.

Ie. If I have my phone in my bag, but have my earphones connected (which I do for at least two hours a day, every day), I would like to be able to use the watch to make a call and speak hands free with my earphones via the phone, not the watch.

And alternatively, I'd like to be able to answer a call on my phone, using my watch (without having to take out the phone).

The watch can't do that and it surprises me.

To make it worse, I read in a review that it couldn't do this, so I asked an Apple employee during my try-on, who said it could, so I double-checked with an Apple employee online and they said "we can't comment on third party articles, but it contradicts the information we have been given and I can confirm the watch can do what you've described". Both were wrong.

Do you think this is the sort of thing that could/is likely to be added in a software update any time soon?

I can't be the only guy to want this.

What? Actually the watch will probably do this, but why do you want to use the watch in this situation when your BT headphones will allow you to make and receive calls without taking your phone out, including voice calls. If you don't have these capabilities on your BT headphones, you need to upgrade to a current model.

 

[Blakjack]

It was playing on her phone that was sitting next to her watch. Note how she looks over at her phone right as the music starts, almost as if she didn't expect it. She then just went along with it.

Oh ok thanks

 

[dyt1983]

edit: to remove personally identifying information not relevant to the thread.

 

[sailermon]

Calculator: No, I can't "just ask Siri". Maybe most of you spend your time in quiet solitude, but I don't. Siri can't always pick out my words correctly in loud environments, or sometimes picks up background noise as words. Maybe if I yelled a lot louder in noisy environments it would help, but that leads me to... I'm not always in areas where it's commonplace to lift my arm and ask a simple calculation. Punching numbers into a calculator app would be more discreet and private, and is something people have done for almost 40 years so isn't terribly out of place. There are much older watches with touch screen fingerwriting recognition, one could draw on the face of the watch "72 X 33 =" and get the answer. This would seem to be something simple for an Apple Watch after it was available elsewhere for so long.

If you need a calculator to do that kind of basic math... well it's a sad state of affairs. I guess you could blame your teachers for allowing you to use a calculator in school way too often. But that's beside the point, because it is never going to be practical to use a calculator on that small piece of real estate.

 

[dyt1983]

edit: to remove personally identifying information not relevant to the thread.

 

[Fireproof!]

Yes, I went to school in Northern California. It's like ranked 48th in the US or something, right?

(Your argument is lacking in some basic logic. I was never allowed to use a calculator in school, and I didn't say I NEED a calculator to do that. But since it's a tool available to me now, why shouldn't I use it? Should I always use a handsaw since that's what I learned in school, and avoid a power saw? Should I only get a car with a stick shift, since I know how to drive it, when an automatic is available? Should I walk 8 miles to the market, in the snow, uphill BOTH WAYS, since that's how I got to school, or should I drive and save an hour because I can?)

So you're right, it's beside the point, and you're wrong, because calculator watches have been available and worked for people who wanted or needed to use them, and are small. If you don't see the need for it, should we call do things your way? If I don't see the need for something, I don't bother trying to tell people that they shouldn't because I can understand that I don't see things their way. But then I guess I don't fit into "the California way" that way.

Calcbot includes a Watch extension. It's pretty elegant. Takes a bit to get used to using "force touch" for the operation, but it works...

 

[sincere11105]

Posts like this and others I'm reading, coupled with the shipping times for the watch I wanted, if I was going to get one at all, slipping to August is almost guaranteeing I won't get an Apple Watch. At least this version. Apple is not the same as When Jobs was alive.

Slipped til August?! Might as well wait for 2nd gen. Wasn't AW announced in sept ?

 

[listenclose]

I just want the option to listen to audio books from my wrist.

 

[Sparkeze]

I hope Sony adds the Watch camera remote to their iPhone app--it already does camera remote to the iPhone with up to 5 cameras, even just one would be great.

A tap on the watch would be so much more convenient than using the iPhone app. I didn't even think of it, although I use the iPhone app every couple weeks.

 

[abuskeletor]

- tons of other reminders apps for more detailed gtd. At the moment I'm trying upnext and tempo but would be interested in what other people are using.

I'm using idealist. I hate list and reminder apps that require an account. I don't need web access or syncing across multiple devices. A simple watch extension so I can shop without phone in hand is all I need. The UI for idealist on the iphone is a little awkward at first, but I like the UI on the Watch app. It's very simple and does what I need.

 

[mariana888]

No reminders app? That's mind boggling.

I had a notification from a reminder this morning....

 

[abuskeletor]

The HR was amazingly accurate.
When setting directions on your phone, your watch automatically engages. It will thump and show next turn on your wrist, and there is no option to shut that off.

If you go into the Maps settings on the iPhone Apple Watch companion app there's a setting to turn off the turn alerts.

 

[mariana888]

What? Actually the watch will probably do this, but why do you want to use the watch in this situation when your BT headphones will allow you to make and receive calls without taking your phone out, including voice calls. If you don't have these capabilities on your BT headphones, you need to upgrade to a current model.

I answered a call with the watch buttons and had my headphones on, the call came through the headset and I could talk via my mic, not the watch mic

 

[dyt1983]

edit: to remove personally identifying information not relevant to the thread.

 

[mariana888]

Mail: Should allow one to exclude some inboxes from "All inboxes". Or even better, just use the list of Inboxes I am using on my iPhone. You know, I have some Inboxes at the top of my folder list, followed by "All Accounts" after.

Using the iPhone companion app you can select the options of which inboxes you want, you can add all or select some. But it won't show them as different inboxes.

 

[lsutigerfan1976]

Wow this many pages on what you hate about the watch. If all of you are dissatisfied with it. Y'all can contact me. I will be glad to take it off your hands lol.

 

[robaroo]

IMO no reminders app on the watch is a serious dropped ball. the watch was BUILT FOR a reminders app. how could they not have included it???????????

 

[shandyman]

After 1 day heres what I hate

IMO no reminders app on the watch is a serious dropped ball. the watch was BUILT FOR a reminders app. how could they not have included it???????????

Because Siri can be used to set them and the watch announces them when due. So reminders are included.