I've had a 38mm SS for five days now.
Things I don't like:
1. I can clearly see where the screen ends and the bezel starts. Indoors and outdoors. I thought I may have gotten a subpar screen, but looking at a bunch of pictures of other Apple Watches (Sport and otherwise), I can see that I'm not alone. I wish Apple had spent a bit more effort making the bezel slightly less black at the transition edge to mask it better.
2. On screen wake I often have trouble getting notifications (swipe down) and glances (swipe up) to be recognized if I swipe immediately on waking. The face activates, but the watch seems to be too busy doing something else in the background to recognize the finger input. Of course I can't replicate this as I'm sitting typing this.
3. Hey Siri ignores me just enough to make me look stupid. It works well enough that I'm not turning it off, but around 15% of the time I'm talking to nothing.
4. Battery is OK-ish. If I have a sedentary day I have 30-40% left. If I workout a lot (two 45 minute bike rides with heart rate monitoring) I'm left with low 10% at the end of the 18 hour day. I'm concerned that a year from now the battery with be 10% less capable and Watch OS 2.0 will be burning a bit more power doing more tasks and I'll have to start turning features off. This always seems to happen with my iPhones (awesome in the beginning, then a year or two later I'm struggling to get through a day).
5. Screen resolution isn't high enough. Real watches look better as you get closer to them. You hold small screens close to your face. Apparently my close vision to good enough that I can clearly see pixels when I hold the watch up close. I hope Apple increases the density on future watches.
6. Not bright enough in bright light. But I understand that the power to match the sun isn't possible right now.
7. The watch face keeps activating when I'm driving. It'd be clever for Apple to tweak the algorithm to ignore steering wheel motions when your phone knows you are driving.
8. Taptic touch is weak. I seem to miss it equally as often whether it is set to weak or strong so I just left it on weak to see whether my brain gets better at noticing it. Having tried prominent yet, because missing a notification isn't a problem (see like #7).
9. Why can't I see my reminders?!
That said, there's no way I'm returning it.
What I like:
1. The SS watch is beautiful. So beautiful I sold my 4/24-delivered Sport and waited another couple of weeks to get a SS and don't regret it. With the white band, it is really sharp looking. The only niggle I have is the screen blackness (see dislike #1).
2. The sports band is very comfortable
3. I can leave it slightly loose so I can slide it up and down during the day and the heart rate works fine. The watch only triggers the lock code when I actually take it off. When I workout, I just slide one hole tighter.
4. The digital crown is silky smooth.
5. The OS is surprisingly featured for a 1.0. The logic of the Watch OS makes sense after only a few days. The watch face is the home screen. You have four ways to get into apps: 1. Complications 2. Glances 3. App screen. 4. Siri.
5. Seeing a timer count down on the watch face is REALLY nice. Especially since my iPhone seems to not show a count down on the notifications screen.
6. I can now mark tracked bike rides with my phone deep inside my backpack.
7. The red dot when I miss a notification. I check the time every 5-10 minutes, so missing the tap hasn't been a problem.
8. Perfomance. Not as laggy/terrible as I had read. Most things load within a few seconds (or faster). But I'm using very few non-native apps, since the few I played with effectively broken. Hopefully 3rd parties will get Watch APIs at WWDC.
9. Raise to activate works very well. Occasionally I get mad at it, but a lot less than I expected.
10. Complications are awesome.
11. Maps on the Watch are really nice. Very slick that starting navigation on the phone gives you mapping seamlessly on your wrist.
12. I love that covering the watch turns the screen on. It's also cool that flicking your wrist away from your face turns if off.
13. Activity tracking is based on three independent activities (standing, exercising, calories burned) instead of a dogmatic 10,000 steps. A Fitbit implies you've had a failed day if you ride a bike for two hours but only walk 5000 steps.
Comments
1. Glances are less useful than I thought since they aren't full apps. For instance the Activity Glance is almost useless since I have it as a complication. I was getting confused to see it as a glance but couldn't see any granular information until I touched it to launch the actual app. It makes the most sense for things that aren't real apps - like the power level.
2. Heart rate takes about 10 seconds to get a reading. Annoying.
3. Occasionally the weather complication goes blank. Opening the weather app doesn't fix it.
4. I really want Google Maps on the Watch. I don't fully trust Apple Maps and Google has much better traffic/re-routing information/logic. This is crucial in DC.
5. I want to save more power when working out, but it looks the only option for heart rate it to turn it off for workout. That seems kind of extreme. I'd like an option to only record heart rate every few minutes. Maybe this wouldn't help enough?
6. The Watch is hard to use while walking briskly and almost impossible when biking. I had a few near tip-overs when trying to start and stop workouts while riding my bike.
Things I don't like:
1. I can clearly see where the screen ends and the bezel starts. Indoors and outdoors. I thought I may have gotten a subpar screen, but looking at a bunch of pictures of other Apple Watches (Sport and otherwise), I can see that I'm not alone. I wish Apple had spent a bit more effort making the bezel slightly less black at the transition edge to mask it better.
2. On screen wake I often have trouble getting notifications (swipe down) and glances (swipe up) to be recognized if I swipe immediately on waking. The face activates, but the watch seems to be too busy doing something else in the background to recognize the finger input. Of course I can't replicate this as I'm sitting typing this.
3. Hey Siri ignores me just enough to make me look stupid. It works well enough that I'm not turning it off, but around 15% of the time I'm talking to nothing.
4. Battery is OK-ish. If I have a sedentary day I have 30-40% left. If I workout a lot (two 45 minute bike rides with heart rate monitoring) I'm left with low 10% at the end of the 18 hour day. I'm concerned that a year from now the battery with be 10% less capable and Watch OS 2.0 will be burning a bit more power doing more tasks and I'll have to start turning features off. This always seems to happen with my iPhones (awesome in the beginning, then a year or two later I'm struggling to get through a day).
5. Screen resolution isn't high enough. Real watches look better as you get closer to them. You hold small screens close to your face. Apparently my close vision to good enough that I can clearly see pixels when I hold the watch up close. I hope Apple increases the density on future watches.
6. Not bright enough in bright light. But I understand that the power to match the sun isn't possible right now.
7. The watch face keeps activating when I'm driving. It'd be clever for Apple to tweak the algorithm to ignore steering wheel motions when your phone knows you are driving.
8. Taptic touch is weak. I seem to miss it equally as often whether it is set to weak or strong so I just left it on weak to see whether my brain gets better at noticing it. Having tried prominent yet, because missing a notification isn't a problem (see like #7).
9. Why can't I see my reminders?!
That said, there's no way I'm returning it.
What I like:
1. The SS watch is beautiful. So beautiful I sold my 4/24-delivered Sport and waited another couple of weeks to get a SS and don't regret it. With the white band, it is really sharp looking. The only niggle I have is the screen blackness (see dislike #1).
2. The sports band is very comfortable
3. I can leave it slightly loose so I can slide it up and down during the day and the heart rate works fine. The watch only triggers the lock code when I actually take it off. When I workout, I just slide one hole tighter.
4. The digital crown is silky smooth.
5. The OS is surprisingly featured for a 1.0. The logic of the Watch OS makes sense after only a few days. The watch face is the home screen. You have four ways to get into apps: 1. Complications 2. Glances 3. App screen. 4. Siri.
5. Seeing a timer count down on the watch face is REALLY nice. Especially since my iPhone seems to not show a count down on the notifications screen.
6. I can now mark tracked bike rides with my phone deep inside my backpack.
7. The red dot when I miss a notification. I check the time every 5-10 minutes, so missing the tap hasn't been a problem.
8. Perfomance. Not as laggy/terrible as I had read. Most things load within a few seconds (or faster). But I'm using very few non-native apps, since the few I played with effectively broken. Hopefully 3rd parties will get Watch APIs at WWDC.
9. Raise to activate works very well. Occasionally I get mad at it, but a lot less than I expected.
10. Complications are awesome.
11. Maps on the Watch are really nice. Very slick that starting navigation on the phone gives you mapping seamlessly on your wrist.
12. I love that covering the watch turns the screen on. It's also cool that flicking your wrist away from your face turns if off.
13. Activity tracking is based on three independent activities (standing, exercising, calories burned) instead of a dogmatic 10,000 steps. A Fitbit implies you've had a failed day if you ride a bike for two hours but only walk 5000 steps.
Comments
1. Glances are less useful than I thought since they aren't full apps. For instance the Activity Glance is almost useless since I have it as a complication. I was getting confused to see it as a glance but couldn't see any granular information until I touched it to launch the actual app. It makes the most sense for things that aren't real apps - like the power level.
2. Heart rate takes about 10 seconds to get a reading. Annoying.
3. Occasionally the weather complication goes blank. Opening the weather app doesn't fix it.
4. I really want Google Maps on the Watch. I don't fully trust Apple Maps and Google has much better traffic/re-routing information/logic. This is crucial in DC.
5. I want to save more power when working out, but it looks the only option for heart rate it to turn it off for workout. That seems kind of extreme. I'd like an option to only record heart rate every few minutes. Maybe this wouldn't help enough?
6. The Watch is hard to use while walking briskly and almost impossible when biking. I had a few near tip-overs when trying to start and stop workouts while riding my bike.
