I was able to spend some time playing with the actual watch today, not the demo loop, but, the display watches that are functional.
At no point in using the watch did I have even the slightest impression that it was performing too slowly for the class of device it is. Furthermore, I had absolutely no trouble finding my way around the UI, understanding "where" I was at any given moment, or any of the other weird complaints I have been seeing from reviewers and such.
One theory, none of these reviewers have a working understanding of the iOS convention of swipe down for notification center, swipe up for command center? I don't know, but, that's just as complex as the watch gets. You're either on the face, in notifications, in glances, in the menu, or in an app. But it's actually simpler than that as the apps vs. the face/notification/glances is a separate, very secondary-feeling aspect of the UI.
Anyway, the take away here is that the UI is perfectly fine and if you can't figure it out after 5-10 minutes of playing, you may want to reconsider technology in general
My 7 year old who has basically no experience with watches had no trouble except that she was surprised you could both turn and press the digital crown.
The one thing that did trip me up was how sensitive the watch was in regards to a hard press vs. normal tap. But after a few tries I got it. Normal taps are super light. K, lesson learned and will never be a bother again.
Navigating around the watch was extremely responsive, with beautiful high frame rate animations, smooth transitions, and in the few cases where the watch maybe seemed to stutter a bit, it didn't stutter in the sense that you were waiting, it stuttered in the sense that it skipped unnecessary animations so you'd be where you wanted to be in the time you expected to be there (such as a swipe down to get to notifications, one time I did that it just went from the face to notifications with no animation, likely because of a momentary delay in rendering throughput.)
There are some contextual transitions that have a minor delay before executing, such as when you crown out of an app to the face, or between the face and apps, but, nothing that causes large delays for high frequency usage. No meaningful delays moving from face to notifications or to glances, for example. As far as individual app performance, that's going to be hugely dependent on the app itself. The native apps, once loaded, are as responsive as one could hope from a tiny computer that you might actually be able to swallow if you really tried.
So yeah, I do not agree with the observations that have been claiming this UI is too confusing or too slow. It's great for what it is, it's by far the best smart watch UI I've encountered so far.... by a large margin. Using it is a joy. Things like the animations in the watch faces are so buttery smooth and detailed, you will probably kill your batteries in the first few days just staring at the eye candy. I'm so glad Apple went the extra mile with this sort of thing.
Other than the UI, I found the finish and look of the real world devices to be excellent and beyond what I was expecting. They really are better in person. Every single model in every single combination looked good. My least favorite band styles, after seeing in person, are definitely the leather loop, but, it's a matter of taste, not quality. I am so glad that none of the watches seem overly bulky. Not a single model gave the impression off-arm that the enormous monsters like the Moto 360 give. These devices looked like ... well, watches! Size, shape, design, it looks like a winner to me.
I'm more excited than ever for my pre-order to arrive, on time hopefully, around the 24th. The only downside of today's visit is that now both my wife and daughter want one (and my wife wasn't even really sure why, that's a good sign for Apple.)
At no point in using the watch did I have even the slightest impression that it was performing too slowly for the class of device it is. Furthermore, I had absolutely no trouble finding my way around the UI, understanding "where" I was at any given moment, or any of the other weird complaints I have been seeing from reviewers and such.
One theory, none of these reviewers have a working understanding of the iOS convention of swipe down for notification center, swipe up for command center? I don't know, but, that's just as complex as the watch gets. You're either on the face, in notifications, in glances, in the menu, or in an app. But it's actually simpler than that as the apps vs. the face/notification/glances is a separate, very secondary-feeling aspect of the UI.
Anyway, the take away here is that the UI is perfectly fine and if you can't figure it out after 5-10 minutes of playing, you may want to reconsider technology in general
My 7 year old who has basically no experience with watches had no trouble except that she was surprised you could both turn and press the digital crown.
The one thing that did trip me up was how sensitive the watch was in regards to a hard press vs. normal tap. But after a few tries I got it. Normal taps are super light. K, lesson learned and will never be a bother again.
Navigating around the watch was extremely responsive, with beautiful high frame rate animations, smooth transitions, and in the few cases where the watch maybe seemed to stutter a bit, it didn't stutter in the sense that you were waiting, it stuttered in the sense that it skipped unnecessary animations so you'd be where you wanted to be in the time you expected to be there (such as a swipe down to get to notifications, one time I did that it just went from the face to notifications with no animation, likely because of a momentary delay in rendering throughput.)
There are some contextual transitions that have a minor delay before executing, such as when you crown out of an app to the face, or between the face and apps, but, nothing that causes large delays for high frequency usage. No meaningful delays moving from face to notifications or to glances, for example. As far as individual app performance, that's going to be hugely dependent on the app itself. The native apps, once loaded, are as responsive as one could hope from a tiny computer that you might actually be able to swallow if you really tried.
So yeah, I do not agree with the observations that have been claiming this UI is too confusing or too slow. It's great for what it is, it's by far the best smart watch UI I've encountered so far.... by a large margin. Using it is a joy. Things like the animations in the watch faces are so buttery smooth and detailed, you will probably kill your batteries in the first few days just staring at the eye candy. I'm so glad Apple went the extra mile with this sort of thing.
Other than the UI, I found the finish and look of the real world devices to be excellent and beyond what I was expecting. They really are better in person. Every single model in every single combination looked good. My least favorite band styles, after seeing in person, are definitely the leather loop, but, it's a matter of taste, not quality. I am so glad that none of the watches seem overly bulky. Not a single model gave the impression off-arm that the enormous monsters like the Moto 360 give. These devices looked like ... well, watches! Size, shape, design, it looks like a winner to me.
I'm more excited than ever for my pre-order to arrive, on time hopefully, around the 24th. The only downside of today's visit is that now both my wife and daughter want one (and my wife wasn't even really sure why, that's a good sign for Apple.)
