Questions for other Watch owners & pleasant surprises

[Cory Bauer]

Hello fellow  Watch owners! I have some questions for others and also wanted to share some pleasant surprises I discovered upon receiving the watch.

1. First question is regarding the "time to stand" notification. On multiple occasions now I have received this notification even though I literally just sat down from walking around a moment ago; what's the deal there? Is the notification just set to a timed interval, instead of actually detecting whether you are sitting or standing, or is it just really bad at determining wether or not I've been standing?

2. Second question is in regards to email; I received an email this morning but the watch only displayed the subject of the email and a block of blue text reading, "the full version of this message isn't available on Apple Watch. But you can read it on your iPhone". Anyone else see this? Kind of defeats the purpose of receiving emails on the watch! Every email I've received until that point had shown up on the Watch properly.

3. Third question is in regards to heart rate; using the heart rate glance, the watch seems to take 15 seconds minimum to get a reading; other times it just flat-out fails. I have the sport band as tight as I can comfortably go. Is it supposed to take this long or should it be faster?

Pleasant surprises

1. The watch automatically unlocking when you unlock your iPhone with Touch ID is awesome! Was not expecting this.

2. I thought the watch was limited to the proprietary animated faces, hearts and clown hands crap for emojis, but it turns out it also contains the full gamut of standard classic emojis. This was unexpected as I'd seen no mention of it whatsoever and was one thing I really wanted to see added in a future software update; turns out it's already there!

3. I didn't realize you'd be able to see iMessage conversation history on the Watch by launching the Messages app. I thought you'd only be able to view messages you'd just received, and sent ones would immediately vanish. Again, great to see.

4. Being able to just raise your arm and say, "Hey siri" without pressing anything may just be the Watches killer feature.


One big unpleasant surprise:

I was super-excited for the Apple TV Remote capabilities; I thought I'd be able to queue up an iTunes radio station or playlist right from the Watch and see what was playing (complete with Album art) right on my wrist. Turns out, nothing could be farther from the truth. The Apple TV remove app on the watch is worthless if you're not physically looking at the tv screen - it's just a way to navigate the on-screen interface of the TV - totally pointless. I also thought the music would show up in the "Now Playing" glances, but again it does not. Remote controlling iTunes works more like I expected, but still can't queue up what you actually want to play from the Watch and it still doesn't appear in the "Now Playing" glances.

Thanks everyone!

 

[KPOM]

To your second question, the Watch can't display complex HTML code or other features that creep into our e-mail. When it can, it will show the text. Yes, it's a bit annoying, but there's only so much you can do on a screen the size of a postage stamp.

 

[sayheysarah]

To your first question, I believe you actually need to move around for an entire minute to get credit for standing for that hour.

"You close the Stand ring when you’ve stood up and moved a little for at least one minute in 12 different hours during the day." - From Apple.com

I have read that if you have not moved by the 50th minute of the hour, it will send you a notification to stand.

 

[Cory Bauer]

Thanks fellas, that helps. I'll pay closer attention to how long I've actually stood prior to receiving the "time to stand" notification. Anyone have answers to my other questions?

 

[Runt888]

Mine takes about 15 seconds to show my heart rate from the glance regardless of tightness or location on my wrist. It seems to be faster when sending my heartbeat to someone else (but maybe that's because it's not measuring so it doesn't need to take anytime extra time calculate). I also have a fairly slow resting heart rate (40-50BPM) so maybe that plays into it a little?

I will be looking into this fairly closely in the next few days when I do various workouts (I just received mine this morning so I haven't had much time to play around with it).

 

[Cory Bauer]

Mine takes about 15 seconds to show my heart rate from the glance regardless of tightness or location on my wrist. It seems to be faster when sending my heartbeat to someone else (but maybe that's because it's not measuring so it doesn't need to take anytime extra time calculate). I also have a fairly slow resting heart rate (40-50BPM) so maybe that plays into it a little?

I will be looking into this fairly closely in the next few days when I do various workouts (I just received mine this morning so I haven't had much time to play around with it).

Yeah I wonder if the Watch doesn't require at least a 15-second measurement to provide an accurate "beats per minute" value. After all, measure just a second or two of heartbeat isn' really enough to establish a minute's average.


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One other point I forgot to add to the "pleasant surprises" is the OLED display; either I had forgotten it had one or Apple never advertised it, but because it is OLED, blacks are completely black - there is no backlit illumination of the display if there are no "active" pixels. Which means if you check the time in the dark, the watchface itself is illuminated against a completely black face and it is absolutely gorgeous. You don't see a light-up rectangle in the shape of the screen like you do with every other display.

 

[Runt888]

One other point I forgot to add to the "pleasant surprises" is the OLED display; either I had forgotten it had one or Apple never advertised it, but because it is OLED, blacks are completely black - there is no backlit illumination of the display if there are no "active" pixels. Which means if you check the time in the dark, the watchface itself is illuminated against a completely black face and it is absolutely gorgeous. You don't see a light-up rectangle in the shape of the screen like you do with every other display.

Yeah, the screen is absolutely gorgeous. I was a little worried about what some of the reviewers were saying (especially about a noticeable air gap) but this is perfection.

 

[Joe HS]

To your second question, the Watch can't display complex HTML code or other features that creep into our e-mail. When it can, it will show the text. Yes, it's a bit annoying, but there's only so much you can do on a screen the size of a postage stamp.

I think it would be better for the user to be shown (possibly a static version of) the email that they can zoom and pan on, allowing them to get the information they need from it if they choose to, with the option of opening on the phone.