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Perceived complexity and lag in the Apple Watch

Night Spring said:
Yes, exactly! I know it's easy trot out "Steve would never have done X" whenever you disagree with something Apple does, but there is just so many things about the watch that would have benefited from more editing. And I'm afraid without Steve, there is no one to wield the Simple Stick.

I didn't spend too much time playing with the demo watch, but one thing that surprised me was the zooming on the apps screen -- you know, the one with all the circular app icons. So you twist the crown to zoom in, find the icon you want to tap, then you let go of the crown -- and the icons snap back down to smaller size! Did anyone find that kind of pointless? I was expecting the icons will stay zoomed in until you twisted the crown the other way. It's so hard to tap the icon you want when they are so tiny. I wasn't the only one having problems tapping the correct icon. My friend and the apple salesperson who was showing us the watch also had problems tapping the icon the were aiming for.
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I'm pretty sure on the demo unit I used, you could leave it zoomed in - and even launch an app if you go in far enough.

There are "snap points" with the crown though. As I was customising a watch face, if I didn't turn the crown enough, it would go back to the previous setting.
 
Moving around the interface was fast enough, although a little confusing but that is to be expected as there will be a learning curve. The thing I found laggy was using the force touch (haptic feedback) to customise the watch faces. It was very slow to respond, perhaps a 10 second delay.
 
kdarling said:
A lot of people have commented that they didn't know what action to take next. Press? Tap? Swipe? Force tap? Rotate crown?

The UI input goes all over the place. E.g. press the button below the crown to bring up Contacts. Then use the crown to scroll through them. Then press on the contact to select it.
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This is one observation that I'll agree with pretty much completely. When I was playing with a demo unit yesterday, there were several times when I was in a function and I couldn't figure out how to get to the next one or go back to the watch face. It felt...claustrophobic I think is a good word for it. It looked great and as others have mentioned it's just a matter of learning how to use it properly, but it's not as intuitive an interface as I might have liked.

Didn't dissuade me at all, but it was something I like you noticed the first time using it.
 
bluntcave said:
I'm pretty sure on the demo unit I used, you could leave it zoomed in - and even launch an app if you go in far enough.

There are "snap points" with the crown though. As I was customising a watch face, if I didn't turn the crown enough, it would go back to the previous setting.
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That's good to hear, but it's another element to make the UI more confusing. :(
 
A few of my thoughts on the UI (unfortunately I didn't get to try one on, just play with the demo units):

I like the circular home screen which you can zoom in and out of with the Digital Crown. It's really nice and fluid, although a few frames were dropped which ruined the magic somewhat. Most of the apps were really well designed, such as Photos which was just a delight to zoom and pan around on the watch, and the weather app presented the information in a really clever way.

Though it wasn't all great. Glances, as some have said, feel really slow and often didn't register my swipes. Hopefully this can be fixed with an update. The UI also stuttered a lot when scrolling down lists such as Mail. It also felt all a bit fiddly, even on the 42mm model. Can't imagine what it's like on the smaller one.

However, my biggest gripe was how unintuitive a lot of it seemed. I tried out customising the watch faces (which are great), but had absolutely no idea how to confirm my actions. I consider myself a fairly quick learner and know most of the ins and outs of OS X and iOS, so I naively thought I'd be able to instantly use the watch without problem. It does have a steep learning curve, and I can see people who haven't kept up with every keynote and guided tour being confused at first. Force Touches also seemed to have a delay before it registered, but not sure if that was because it was a demo unit not on my wrist or not.

The watch has a lot of potential and it's an exciting product, but I don't think it's quite there yet. It does feel like it's being held back by the CPU, possibly to preserve battery life. I also really don't understand the superfluous contacts button - I know Apple want to push this as a 'revolutionary communications device', but it's not. It's easier to text and call on your phone, and watch specific communications like the emojis and heartbeat sending are just a bit weird. I don't know why we need a whole button devoted to this, and would much rather have the crown symmetrically placed.

I'm glad I've preordered one - I'm going to enjoy seeing how it evolves and fits in with my life, but on the other hand I'm glad I haven't bought into the concept too much and gone with a £500+ model. You get the feeling that even if the design remains unchanged, the next version will refine the ideas and make the watch work much more fluidly. Plus, the Sport watches I saw seemed to have a lovely, almost pearlescent, finish.
 
cambookpro said:
...I also really don't understand the superfluous contacts button - I know Apple want to push this as a 'revolutionary communications device', but it's not. It's easier to text and call on your phone, and watch specific communications like the emojis and heartbeat sending are just a bit weird. I don't know why we need a whole button devoted to this, and would much rather have the crown symmetrically placed.

...
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You need two buttons to hold down to force a restart when the little critter crashes. And crash it will! :)
 
I totally agree about the "side button" being superfluous, particularly because I have a feeling that most people will not be using the watch to initiate communications with people very much.
 
re: lag

These reviews and posts regarding "lag" when accessing iPhone connected data (map locations, stock prices etc.) - just HOW different is that from using the iPhone solo?

Calling up the maps app on the iPhone - it always takes a few seconds to load the map and lock on current position. Or the stocks app - call it up, and wait a few secs for it to update. Why should that be any different on the Watch?

Once loaded and active, things are obviously a lot quicker on the iPhone. Same with the Watch. Keep that map app open and it will stay current. The only difference is the Watch won't keep things current in the background.

Spending a bit of time with a live Watch yesterday - I love the interface, and there is a learning curve. It's not hard to master. I noticed a bit of "lag" (for lack of a better word), but it's the same as I would expect using the same function(s) on an iPhone or iPad.
 
Read the reviews of the iPad. Same
Read the reviews of the first iPhone, most reviewers still thought Blackberry was superb. Is RIM still in business?

Point is, reviewers and slow learners are going to hate on the iWatch simply because they have no clue.
 
I don't get why people are so concerned with "intuitiveness." Something is intuitive if you can understand the interface immediately and use it without training and experimentation. It's great for non-techies who were otherwise intimidated by computers who saw the iPhone as the first time they were truly comfortable with the Internet and everything it could do. Intuitiveness was a strength on the iPhone, but it came with limitations. Over time, the iPhone has grown much less intuitive, but the "language" of iOS has developed over time such that people understand how things work because they are now used to it.

But what about the watch? It is NOT intuitive. Let's just agree there. But it also does not follow the "language" of iOS. The watch is its own thing, and as such will probably need experimentation and training to master. Intuitive, it is not.

What I wonder is: is that really as bad as we think? After a month or two with the watch, people will become accustomed to its intricacies and quirks. The most important question to me is, will the interface be "efficient?" That is the crucial deciding point in whether the interface is good or not. You can't really make that judgment after 15 minutes, or a day, or even a week with the watch. I hope that Apple sacrificed intuitiveness for efficiency, since the watch isn't about getting grandma on Facebook, it's about getting heavy users' faces unstuck from the devices which consume them.

In the watch, intuitiveness is an unnecessary luxury. Efficiency is king.
 
matrix07 said:
I don't understand this. What's wrong with animated emojis? Is it the new "band on iPhone 6 back" people here seem to hate but no one else care about?
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It's a subjective thing, of course, but I find them very unappealing esthetically and also not very good at actually communicating emotions (which is the point of emoji, after all). So to see them making such a big deal about them just seems weird.
 
darcyf said:
Wondering what people's thoughts are after playing with one of the Apple Watch demos at an Apple Store with regard to the interface.

Did you find it intuitive? Easy to navigate?

What about smoothness and speed between screens and launching apps?

In the 5-10 minutes I had to play with it, I did find navigating around the Watch a little confusing. There's a lot of stuff crammed in there and a lot of different ways to interact with it and navigate through it. Maybe after a day of actually using the Watch it would become second nature - that's the Apple I expect. But walking away from a 5-10 minute demo left me feeling uncertain.

I also found certain apps - the ones that relied on the internet like weather and stocks, if I recall correctly - to be laggy. So that might have been a wifi issue. Just wondering if anyone else can speak to that in case there are other areas in the Watch they found were not as responsive - or even better, more responsive - than they expected?
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I found its responsiveness to be extremely good for this type of device, and was not at all confused by navigating the UI. I consider the negativity around this issue to be vastly exaggerated.
 
It was a bit bewildering trying to get around at first, but after just a few minutes of playing with it I was already starting to get the hang of it. There were a couple of "laggy" areas, but not a big deal. One of the posters above made some crack about it being "un-Apple like". That's nonsense. Everything about it screamed "Apple" to me.

I swear, sometimes when I'm on these forums I feel like some of us are living in a parallel universe. And it ain't me. :D
 
Exile714 said:
In the watch, intuitiveness is an unnecessary luxury. Efficiency is king.
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Good point. Not sure I agree with you 100%, but it's an interesting perspective.

What I'm sure of is that the watch isn't for 90-year old grandmas or 2-year old toddlers like the iPad was. I think we've been a bit conditioned to expect that level of ease of use from Apple, and that's where the "it's not intuitive" complaints are coming from.
 
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darcyf said:
Wondering what people's thoughts are after playing with one of the Apple Watch demos at an Apple Store with regard to the interface.

Did you find it intuitive? Easy to navigate?

What about smoothness and speed between screens and launching apps?

In the 5-10 minutes I had to play with it, I did find navigating around the Watch a little confusing. There's a lot of stuff crammed in there and a lot of different ways to interact with it and navigate through it. Maybe after a day of actually using the Watch it would become second nature - that's the Apple I expect. But walking away from a 5-10 minute demo left me feeling uncertain.

I also found certain apps - the ones that relied on the internet like weather and stocks, if I recall correctly - to be laggy. So that might have been a wifi issue. Just wondering if anyone else can speak to that in case there are other areas in the Watch they found were not as responsive - or even better, more responsive - than they expected?
Click to expand...

Just got back from my demo at the store. The OS is not hard to get used to. There is lag here and there in different areas of the OS however.

For example when I swiped to the Health app and wanted a break down of different elements it would lag a little when I'd swipe from one page to another
 
The main complaint in tech reviews were the 3rd party apps and confusing new set of controls. Since there were no 3rd party apps on the demo units, that can't be confirmed but in review videos it seemed there was an apparent slowness. However, that can be improved in future software updates.

As for the new set of controls, if you picked up an Apple Watch having never used one before, I'm sure it can be confusing. Then again, that was the same thing with the iPhone, but maybe not as pronounced. That's why they have the Guided Tours videos and people helping you with the Watch in stores.

I have to say though, after having seen many videos of the Watch and learning about it's functionality, I still forgot in many apps to use Force Touch to bring up hidden menus. Lance Ulanoff, who did the Apple Watch review for Mashable, mentioned in his review that he could not find a way to compose new tweets from the Apple Watch Twitter app, but later, in a Periscope broadcast, said that it is brought up by using Force Touch on the main menu of the app. Those kinds of things are definitely confusing.

In general, there is a clear learning curve with the Apple Watch, but people will eventually learn :p
 
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