Watch interface slowness in reviews

[bumpylumpy]

The one thing that really has me worried is something Nilay Patel wrote in his review; he even opened with it:

Let’s just get this out of the way: the Apple Watch, as I reviewed it for the past week and a half, is kind of slow. There’s no getting around it, no way to talk about all of its interface ideas and obvious potential and hints of genius without noting that sometimes it stutters loading notifications. Sometimes pulling location information and data from your iPhone over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi takes a long time. Sometimes apps take forever to load, and sometimes third-party apps never really load at all. Sometimes it’s just unresponsive for a few seconds while it thinks and then it comes back.

He then says Apple promises this is fixable with future software updates, and I hope he's right. But this is the kind of thing that would drive me nuts. It's actually got me worried enough that I think I will not be joining the pre-order phase until I get to actually play with one in person.

I'm even more worried because apparently even in the upcoming Apple Store try-on appointments, you will not get to use the watch interface. It will be loaded with a demo video so you can't really experience these bits and decide for yourself if they are too slow. To me, this is confirms that they aren't really ready yet. I *hope* it is just software, but if they are trying to do things that the CPU is just not capable of handling yet, we may see a hardware update in v2 and it will be sad if the first versions of the watch end up being left behind (or just stuck operating more slowly) because it really depends on the CPU itself being upgraded.

Anyway, hopefully my concerns are unfounded, but I think I will sit out the pre-order launch and wait until a few more devices are out in the real world with updated software.

 

[samiznaetekto]

Also, touch sensitivity/accuracy. Watch how he taps the button on top left several times and it just doesn't register the touches.

 

[Lennyvalentin]

The one thing that really has me worried is something Nilay Patel wrote in his review; he even opened with it:

Not having had a chance to use the Watch myself, it's of course hard for me to judge the merit of this reviewer's words, but it seems to me it's not a terribly technically minded person, and the review overall doesn't impress me much on the whole.

For example, the writer mentions an "air gap" in the display - that's purely the writer's imagination, as we know the display is laminated to the front crystal. Then goes on to complain about how glances and notifications aren't available everywhere, in all apps, without considering that you might simply not want to have glances and old notifications folding out on top over your current app all the time as you swipe around on that tiny screen. It would probably become rather aggravating and distracting, and Apple likely restricted these views to the watch face app only for this very reason.

 

[Rogifan]

I believe Apple told The Verge that a software update was coming that would fix some of the UI lag. I'm a little surprised that Apple wouldn't have said something in advance so the reviewer would have that context.

 

[bumpylumpy]

For example, the writer mentions an "air gap" in the display - that's purely the writer's imagination, as we know the display is laminated to the front crystal.

Yeah, I totally didn't get what he was saying there either! I looked at the pictures of the watch and I have no idea what he's even talking about. If someone can post a picture with an arrow pointing at what he's calling the "air gap" maybe I would understand.

 

[technosix]

I was standing in a relatively short line, conversing with a friend while waiting to order my latte at Starbucks.

It was taking longer than normal, I looked and sure enough three customers were each paying with their iPhones. A show-offs dream, we weren't impressed.

And they weren't having problems, this is Silicon Valley where everyone and their dog has an iPhone.

Oh how I dread the hipsters with their Apple Watches and even more iPhones as these "cool people" create longer and longer lines.