I received my Apple Watch on April 24th, but thought I would wait a few weeks before I share my thoughts on the Watch.
My watch arrived around 10am on April 24th, a Stainless Steel 42mm with White Sport Band. The packaging was nice, the box was solid, and felt of the usual high quality you would expect from Apple. The unboxing was just as you'd expect from any Apple product too, and the plastic white box containing the watch is of exceptional quality.
When I first put on the watch, it felt a lot lighter than I had expected, even thought I tried it on in an appointment at my local store. The Sport Band is very comfortable and durable. Over the past several weeks I have cleaned it maybe 3 or 4 times in hot water and soap to maintain its white finish, no surface deterioration or stretching or weakening of any kind though. It is no doubt high quality.
The Stainless Steel watch itself looks great, especially when it reflects in any sort of sunlight or lighting indoors catches the corner and gives it a very nice sheen. There are very small minor scratches along the body of the watch, regular cleaning with a simple microfibre cloth at evening and morning however seems to keep the watch at least looking in great condition. I haven't had the need to apply any polishing or cleaning solution, just water, dry it off, wipe with microfibre cloth. The sapphire screen looks in perfect condition thus far which won't come as much of a surprise to any of you really, it is designed to be durable. Im not sure if there is a coating on the screen as others may h ave suggested but I haven't noticed any sort of deterioration on the screen.
Using the digital crown has been pretty intuitive for the most part, it makes scrolling smooth and natural and removes excess fingerprint smudging you would otherwise get on your screen which will make some people happy. The force touch display works like a treat and it will be exciting to see this implemented on the iPhone (Yes, I have tried to force touch my iPhone display instinctively, I bet many of you have.)
In terms of actual usage, the Apple Watch easily manages a whole day of battery life, and if at the end of the day i turned it off overnight without charging, would easily survive most of the following day. I would use it quite frequently for notifications, Siri, and setting reminders as well as the odd app or two, such as Redditor, Sudoku, Starbucks, PassBook and a few others whose names have escaped me. The 18 hour battery life quoted is very conservative and probably for good reason.
The software itself took a few hours of playing around to feel confident with, however I had watched a lot of videos (And the September event over and over...and over) so picking it up was pretty easy for myself. It certainly has a few bugs here and there and isn't perfect. But considering it is a 1.0 release, it was very well developed and I can't complain about much here.
Im not a big fitness buff, but I did try a bit of exercise to see how the fitness aspect of the Apple Watch worked. It seemed relatively accurate however I feel it could do with some tweaking to increase reliability and accuracy. While exercising the watch wasn't intrusive in terms of weight and wrist placement. Sweat did not affect my interaction with the watch either.
All in all? Very happy so far with my watch. A few software updates in the very near future will indeed make Watch OS a very survivable system and I don't think we will see the end of Apple Watch any time soon. It was doubted by many many analysts and people, but it will become like the iPhone and the iPad, a very very desirable technology item that millions will wear and integrate into their daily lives.
My watch arrived around 10am on April 24th, a Stainless Steel 42mm with White Sport Band. The packaging was nice, the box was solid, and felt of the usual high quality you would expect from Apple. The unboxing was just as you'd expect from any Apple product too, and the plastic white box containing the watch is of exceptional quality.
When I first put on the watch, it felt a lot lighter than I had expected, even thought I tried it on in an appointment at my local store. The Sport Band is very comfortable and durable. Over the past several weeks I have cleaned it maybe 3 or 4 times in hot water and soap to maintain its white finish, no surface deterioration or stretching or weakening of any kind though. It is no doubt high quality.
The Stainless Steel watch itself looks great, especially when it reflects in any sort of sunlight or lighting indoors catches the corner and gives it a very nice sheen. There are very small minor scratches along the body of the watch, regular cleaning with a simple microfibre cloth at evening and morning however seems to keep the watch at least looking in great condition. I haven't had the need to apply any polishing or cleaning solution, just water, dry it off, wipe with microfibre cloth. The sapphire screen looks in perfect condition thus far which won't come as much of a surprise to any of you really, it is designed to be durable. Im not sure if there is a coating on the screen as others may h ave suggested but I haven't noticed any sort of deterioration on the screen.
Using the digital crown has been pretty intuitive for the most part, it makes scrolling smooth and natural and removes excess fingerprint smudging you would otherwise get on your screen which will make some people happy. The force touch display works like a treat and it will be exciting to see this implemented on the iPhone (Yes, I have tried to force touch my iPhone display instinctively, I bet many of you have.)
In terms of actual usage, the Apple Watch easily manages a whole day of battery life, and if at the end of the day i turned it off overnight without charging, would easily survive most of the following day. I would use it quite frequently for notifications, Siri, and setting reminders as well as the odd app or two, such as Redditor, Sudoku, Starbucks, PassBook and a few others whose names have escaped me. The 18 hour battery life quoted is very conservative and probably for good reason.
The software itself took a few hours of playing around to feel confident with, however I had watched a lot of videos (And the September event over and over...and over) so picking it up was pretty easy for myself. It certainly has a few bugs here and there and isn't perfect. But considering it is a 1.0 release, it was very well developed and I can't complain about much here.
Im not a big fitness buff, but I did try a bit of exercise to see how the fitness aspect of the Apple Watch worked. It seemed relatively accurate however I feel it could do with some tweaking to increase reliability and accuracy. While exercising the watch wasn't intrusive in terms of weight and wrist placement. Sweat did not affect my interaction with the watch either.
All in all? Very happy so far with my watch. A few software updates in the very near future will indeed make Watch OS a very survivable system and I don't think we will see the end of Apple Watch any time soon. It was doubted by many many analysts and people, but it will become like the iPhone and the iPad, a very very desirable technology item that millions will wear and integrate into their daily lives.
