so I have this 42mm stainless Apple Watch sitting here that I've owned 9 months but i haven't worn in a full month. i'm torn if i should sell it, but i don't exactly enjoy wearing it anymore. why?
well let's start with what i found good about the watch...
1. it looks good, and is relatively small for the size of the watch face.
2. it provides bar none the best experience receiving calls and notifications of all types from your iPhone to a watch. having limited ability to return those messages is also a big plus.
3. the interchangeable band system is great and let's you quickly customize the look of the watch.
but oh wow, the problems...
1. 3rd party applications are dog, dog, dog slow and have severe restrictions on what API's they access even under watchOS 2.2 to the point i simply don't use any 3rd party apps except for a limited few that act as complications on my main watch face to show weather for example.
2. the UI never got "easy" or elegant over time. sure i learned it but the watch is still a UI mess and the display of applications just plain stinks unless its only goal is to look nice in a glossy magazine ad for the watch.
3. the watch horribly underperforms as a fitness tracker. the lack of internal GPS requires carrying an iPhone on you during outdoor workouts and the GPS performance from the iPhone lags the accuracy from $99 GPS running watches. the workout app stinks (as do the 3rd party alternatives.) the display of fitness data to the phone is limited and inelegant. heart rate monitoring doesn't work as well as nearly every competitor's optical HR system in their watches (Garmin, Polar, Epson, Tom Tom and others) and doesn't really track all-day HR with its "every 10 minutes if you aren't moving" logic vs. for example a $149 Fitbit that logs HR every 5 seconds 24x7. fitness tracking doesn't extend to sleep at all. there is no social aspect to fitness tracking like Fitbit or Jawbone. basically fitness on the Apple Watch to me is a compromised joke for the $600 I paid and its obvious due to technology and battery limitations it won't get better until a future version of the watch and that assumes Apple will even focus on it other than glossy pictures of someone running with the watch.
4. battery life sucks that you have to charge it daily but i will admit it lasts a full day. the problem is you MUST charge it each night so forget about sleep tracking for example. also you have to hope you don't ever forget to charge it or you have a dead watch by noon the next day for sure.
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what have i found myself doing? after 5-6 months of just the apple watch i grew frustrated at the fitness issues and to a lesser extent just wearing the same darn watch daily. at first i wore the apple watch on one hand then wore a fitbit charge HR band on the other arm. i took the apple watch off during runs and used a garmin GPS watch instead (and still wore the fitbit band.) i used fitbit for social and high level full day tracking and Garmin for the specifics of individual workouts. for the last month i've abandoned both Apple and Garmin and went fully Fitbit wearing a combination of the Fitbit Charge HR band, the Fitbit Surge GPS watch, and even on occasion a Fitbit Zip clip to track my fitness, all of which sync interchangeably and which cost all together much less than my Apple Watch. The Fitbit Surge does alert me to incoming calls and texts but isn't as good as the Apple Watch, but good enough. When I want a dressier look I put on my classic mechanical watches and wear the Charge HR on the other arm, or just the Zip on my belt. For me I now have a system which solves all my fitness life challenges, gives me flexibility to wear different things in different situations, and tracks my sleep and HR properly.
the Apple Watch tried to do too much too soon and failed and nearly every goal other than looks and notifications. at least Apple is big enough and rich enough to play the long game and improve the platform in software and hardware over the coming years but for now my watch gathers dust...
