11-20-2015, 10:36 PM
I had the Apple Watch since launch and actually liked it a lot, but became dismayed as it did not live up to its full potential, even as a 1.0 product.
I really only wanted it for notifications, music control and fitness, so I thought the apps and complications were above and beyond my intended uses.
There are several problems I can note, including:
1. the "not always on" nature of the watchface
2. the incredible slowness of the apps, even under watchOS 2.0, which was supposed to speed things up considerably
3. the waste of the "friends" button on the side (waste meaning that the button could have been used as a "custom" button that the user is allowed to configure)
4. the overall complexity of the watch and user experience
I was hoping that the watch could make my life less complicated, but I believe it actually made it more complicated. The iPhone Watch app was almost too granular in terms of all the things that you can tweak and control, including loading of apps, which notifications you wanted, etc. I really just wanted something simple that sent notifications to the watch, allowed simple music control and some fitness tracking.
The Apple Watch wasn't good for my music control. I sit at a microscope all day and listen to music or podcasts while working. In order to play/pause the audio coming from my iPhone, I had to:
1. wake up the watch (either twist wrist or tap on the screen)
2. go to the music app or the music glance - the app would require a press of the digital crown, a tap of the music app and then another tap to play/pause while the glance would require a swipe up, a swipe left or right (if my music glance wasn't the last glance used) and then another tap for play/pause
This was just too cumbersome a user experience for me. I wish the side "friends" button could have been custom configured as a play/pause button. That would have been great.
The notifications worked great and being able to act on them (ie, reply to a text or email) was nice, but also tended to be slow. It was almost faster/easier to see the notification on the watch, but act on it via the iPhone.
Fitness tracking was hit or miss. I recently had some major issues with iOS 9.1 and so had to downgrade to 9.0.2 (before Apple stopped signing it) and, in the process, lost all previously accumulated Activity data and also lost any sync with my Apple Watch. I tried many different trouble shooting steps including unpairing and repairing from backup, unpairing and repairing as new, but it didn't fix the problem. I also realized that the whole Bluetooth connection is dog slow. Unpairing took forever, repairing took forever and any watch software updates basically had to run overnight b/c the bluetooth connection was so super slow.
Anyway, all of these things made me realize that the watch was not simplying my life or making it easier but rather making my life more stressful and complicated.
So, I decided to sell it and buy a Pebble. I got the Pebble Time Round about a week or so ago and am absolutely loving it for all the opposite reasons that I grew to dislike the Apple Watch:
1. Always on time
2. Although there are a lot of apps for the Pebble Time, many developers haven't ported their apps to the Time Round. And, that is actually a good thing, b/c I don't really want this watch for apps. I want it for the reasons stated above
3. The physical buttons allow me to control my music with one or two physical button presses at most - there's no touchscreen, so you have to push buttons to control; but, b/c there is no touchscreen, you can do this without even having to look at the watch
4. There's no complexity b/c there's not much "to do" on the watch. I receive notifications, but I can't act on them and that's fine. Like I mentioned above, I ended up acting on notifications directly on my iPhone b/c the watch was too slow.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share in case anybody was looking for real world experience from an Apple Watch user who switched to Pebble.
I really only wanted it for notifications, music control and fitness, so I thought the apps and complications were above and beyond my intended uses.
There are several problems I can note, including:
1. the "not always on" nature of the watchface
2. the incredible slowness of the apps, even under watchOS 2.0, which was supposed to speed things up considerably
3. the waste of the "friends" button on the side (waste meaning that the button could have been used as a "custom" button that the user is allowed to configure)
4. the overall complexity of the watch and user experience
I was hoping that the watch could make my life less complicated, but I believe it actually made it more complicated. The iPhone Watch app was almost too granular in terms of all the things that you can tweak and control, including loading of apps, which notifications you wanted, etc. I really just wanted something simple that sent notifications to the watch, allowed simple music control and some fitness tracking.
The Apple Watch wasn't good for my music control. I sit at a microscope all day and listen to music or podcasts while working. In order to play/pause the audio coming from my iPhone, I had to:
1. wake up the watch (either twist wrist or tap on the screen)
2. go to the music app or the music glance - the app would require a press of the digital crown, a tap of the music app and then another tap to play/pause while the glance would require a swipe up, a swipe left or right (if my music glance wasn't the last glance used) and then another tap for play/pause
This was just too cumbersome a user experience for me. I wish the side "friends" button could have been custom configured as a play/pause button. That would have been great.
The notifications worked great and being able to act on them (ie, reply to a text or email) was nice, but also tended to be slow. It was almost faster/easier to see the notification on the watch, but act on it via the iPhone.
Fitness tracking was hit or miss. I recently had some major issues with iOS 9.1 and so had to downgrade to 9.0.2 (before Apple stopped signing it) and, in the process, lost all previously accumulated Activity data and also lost any sync with my Apple Watch. I tried many different trouble shooting steps including unpairing and repairing from backup, unpairing and repairing as new, but it didn't fix the problem. I also realized that the whole Bluetooth connection is dog slow. Unpairing took forever, repairing took forever and any watch software updates basically had to run overnight b/c the bluetooth connection was so super slow.
Anyway, all of these things made me realize that the watch was not simplying my life or making it easier but rather making my life more stressful and complicated.
So, I decided to sell it and buy a Pebble. I got the Pebble Time Round about a week or so ago and am absolutely loving it for all the opposite reasons that I grew to dislike the Apple Watch:
1. Always on time
2. Although there are a lot of apps for the Pebble Time, many developers haven't ported their apps to the Time Round. And, that is actually a good thing, b/c I don't really want this watch for apps. I want it for the reasons stated above
3. The physical buttons allow me to control my music with one or two physical button presses at most - there's no touchscreen, so you have to push buttons to control; but, b/c there is no touchscreen, you can do this without even having to look at the watch
4. There's no complexity b/c there's not much "to do" on the watch. I receive notifications, but I can't act on them and that's fine. Like I mentioned above, I ended up acting on notifications directly on my iPhone b/c the watch was too slow.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share in case anybody was looking for real world experience from an Apple Watch user who switched to Pebble.
