Design, 'haptic' interface, Siri performs well
Lacklustre launch apps, time checking is problematic, expensive
First things first. I confess right from the top of this review that I have not been an avid fan of the emerging smartwatch products we have been inundated with since 2012 and the arrival of the Pebble, Sony SmartWatch et al. But then, neither have you, by the looks of it.
Global sales of smartwatches in 2014 reached just four million. Compare this to still relatively new fitness trackers (13.5m) or well-established smartphones (1.3bn) and you catch my drift. The devices have in general, with a few exceptions, overpromised and under-delivered.
Of course, this is all set to change, analysts are predicting. Thanks largely to the arrival of Apple Watch, smartwatches are estimated to skyrocket to 92m sales globally by 2018. Apple has, not for the first time, come along and legitimised a struggling market.
So, as this new Apple kit and how it performs will shape the future of this tech sector, Wired felt it only right and proper to give it a damn good try before pronouncing judgment. It is, after all, far too easy to get caught up the in the hype of any new product launch -- especially, thanks to the company's frighteningly effecting marketing prowess, when it is a new Apple device.
Design
Strangely, this is the first Apple product I have seen in many years that actually looks better in the flesh than in the promo shots or videos. Maybe this it due to the fact that it looks more at home on the wrist than looming large on a stark white background. The simple 42mm lozenge shape of the sapphire crystal covered face is inoffensive and pleasingly curved, while the stainless steel link bracelet on Wired's review sample is exceptionally well made – better in fact than many watch bracelets that adorn luxury timepiece brands four or five times the price. The super slim clasp is in particular a triumph. Likewise the Milanese bracelet with magnetic clasp is just as impressive.
The digital crown that allows the wearer to navigate the loaded apps via the small touchscreen does indeed work intuitively and is a nice touchstone to traditional watch design.
Somehow, despite its light 50g weight, the Apple Watch feels a little chunky on the wrist. This is down to that clean, minimalistic design. From the side view you see the full depth of the watch – whereas on traditional watch brands much of the depth of the case is hidden using visual trickery. Take Rolex, for example. Place a Submariner off the wrist on its side and you can clearly see the case depth is deeper in the middle of the watch while at the sides the design tapers towards the edge. The effect is to fool you that the watch "wears thinner" than it actually is.
Apple has shunned this approach and, while I applaud the honestly of the design, as a consequence you are constantly reminded of the thickness of the piece. Indeed, one of the first things I noticed as I put on the Apple Watch was that it was crumpling the line of my sleeve rather than neatly sliding underneath the cuff of my shirt.
As a result, Wired prefers the 38mm case with a 340 x 272 pixel, 290ppi screen rather than the 42mm with 390 x 312, 302ppi. Some have said the screen size makes it tricky to operate via touch – this was not the case at all for Wired. Only rarely did I select an incorrect app or menu option. An optical heart rate sensor is hidden away underneath the splashproof watch, so showers with an Apple Watch are possible, though not advised, but 30 lengths at the local lido is definitely out.
Battery
Smartwatches quite rightly live and die by their battery life. According to iFixit's comprehensive teardown of the Apple Watch the 38mm version has a 205mAh battery on board, though the 42mm power source will be larger. To put this in perspective, the Samsung Gear Live has a 300mAh battery.
In daily usage, Wired's watch did not drain of power as quickly as feared; it does indeed easily last a day of normal usage but Wired did notice a corresponding quicker power drain on the linked iPhone 6. Forget to power up the watch each night, however, and you have no chance of getting through the next morning on leftover juice.
The fact that Apple can squeeze so many usage hours out of the battery – claiming up to 18 hours wrist action – is a testament to how well the Apple Watch OS runs.
Features & UI
A bit of housekeeping: the Apple Watch needs to establish a wireless link to an iPhone in order to perform the vast majority of its operations such as calls, texts, maps etc, but with this in mind there is still much the Apple Watch does well.
The Taptic interface, where the watch taps your wrist in different manners to subtly alert you to different events works very well indeed. The highlight has to be when using the Apple Watch for directions. Lay in a course on the phone and put it away. No longer do you need to keep getting it out of your pocket to check you are still headed in the right direction, because the Watch will tell you via discernible "turn left" and "turn right" taps which way to head. To the outside observer they would never know you were following instructions from a digital assistant. It works brilliantly. The taps for calls or messages never get annoying, either, and in fact feel almost friendly, as if Siri was gently letting you know something of interest may be happening. This is a neat trick and most welcome.
Speaking of Siri, I have tried using Siri for dictation and commands on the iPhone many times and it is normally more than a little frustrating – however the accuracy of Siri on the Apple Watch is much better somehow. This makes no sense, I grant you, but nevertheless Wired found the dictated text and spoken questions were met with swift, accurate responses.
Certain apps can be accessed quickly via a shortcut "glances" menu, which simply requires you to swipe up on the watch face to enter the section. A long, hard press, a "force touch" within an app will bring up more options, and it is clever how the UI can determine between taps and pushes.
It should be said that the UI is not as simple and intuitive as the phone iOS, but with a little familiarisation you do get to grips with it. It is the combination of the digital crown and the favourite contacts button that may confuse some, pressing the wrong option was initially common for Wired.
In the favourite contacts section this is where you can make calls through the watch powered by your iPhone. I tried this feature on the street, and due to the low speaker volume couldn't hear a thing so ended up pressing the watch to the ear manically while pulling all sorts of faces, straining to work out what was being said. Far from Dick Tracy, Wired looked more like the Hunchback of Notre-Dame as a contorted product editor bumbled down London's Wigmore Street. In a quiet room and the car, however, it was much better, and worked well.
I have been putting this off, but we do need to talk about the Wrist Raise Activation function. For me it is perhaps the biggest failing of the Apple Watch, and a real shame as it gets so many other things right. To conserve battery life, the screen of the watch illuminates once you raise your hand to check the time or a notification. The trouble is there is a small but noticeable lag between raising the wrist and the watch screen coming on. This not only becomes annoying very quickly, it also make it impossible to quickly and surreptitiously glance at the time.
All those occasions in meetings or in presentations where you want to check the hour, and not offend anyone – this is not possible with the Apple Watch. It is all too obvious you are doing a time check.
What's more, the Wrist Raise Activation only works when you perform the required slightly exaggerated movement. On many instances Wired tried to look at the time but the screen simply refused to respond and stubbornly remained black. For a device that is sold as a watch, however smart or dumb, being able to tell you the time quickly and easily must clearly be key, so this is an unfortunate minus for Apple Watch, especially as it is clearly marketed as an "incredibly precise timepiece". The saving grace here, though, is that this can be tinkered with via a software update – so Wired is confident future iterations of Apple Watch will not have this issue.
Apps
It is easy to say the apps on offer at launch are not a stellar collection, but this is being churlish – there are still many to try and you just know there are shed loads on the way. Some were very useful such as Citymapper, Maps and the UltraTuner guitar tuner (most handy during an acoustic session), others not so much. What's missing, of course, is obvious -- essentials such as WhatsApp etc. Wired borrowed a BMW i3 for a week specifically to pair it with its Apple Watch app. The interface was clear and useful, and it allowed you to remotely monitor the car's status, charge level and also precondition the vehicle from the watch so that it was just the right temperature on entering.
Remote flashing the headlights from the wrist to locate the i3 in a car park was pure schoolboy fun. All this can be done from the phone app, of course, but in the next few years BMW is working on a version of the i3 that will be able to park itself remotely. Wired tried this prototype at CES in January and the control to call the car to come and collect you was indeed a smartwatch -- so it won't be long before you could be sitting at dinner, asking for the bill and a tap on the wrist will bring your autopiloted i3 round front of the restaurant. For now, though, think of the selection available as a starter kit to get you used to the hardware, and by the time you are the big hitters should have arrived.
Fitness
It makes complete sense to bill fitness tracking as one of the Apple Watch's main draws. Your daily activity is split into three areas, Move, Stand and Exercise. Move tracks your normal movements; Stand again is obvious as the watch prompts you to rise from your chair every so often to walk about (though on more than one occasion Wired was told to stand up when we already were); while Exercise is a bit more detailed with a number of sub options to choose from if you are about to be good and exert yourself.
Open up the menu and select between indoor run or walk, outdoor run or walk, outdoor or indoor cycle, elliptical, rowing, stair stepper or "other". That's quite a list. What's odd is that "weights" is not listed, which is one of the most popular activities in the gym -- but indoor cycling is covered? This is what the "other" category is for -- a catchall for anything not specially categorised.
Wired found the Apple Watch when compared with a Fitbit on the same workouts to be a little off with the calorie burn counts, but only a little. For example, on a 3km run Apple Watch awarded Wired 203 calories down using the Indoor Run setting, Fitbit 222 set on "Treadmill". A weights session was 144 cals from Apple on "Other" versus 148 from Fitbit using the "Weights" setting. Minor differences and it should be noted that the Apple Watch was more accurate on distance run than the Fitbit, too.
Conclusion
When Guy Sémon, Tag Heuer general director, told Wired back in March that the Apple Watch was not a watch but a connected device for the wrist, he was more or less correct. But this is not a bad thing. Having a second screen for your iPhone is most definitely useful, and the attention to detail given to the minimalist design and UI of the Apple Watch is laudable. The battery life is not the issue we all feared it would be. However, I can't say that it stopped me using my phone as much as before, in fact, quite the opposite. I became so aware of all my messages, calls, emails and alerts that I found I was checking my iPhone even more often than pre-Apple Watch days.
It should also be said that the Apple Watch's few shortcomings are fixable with updates alongside the inevitable slew of Watch apps on the way. Also, Apple has a track record of absolutely nailing products on the second or third iteration – just look at the evolution of the iPhone and iPad for proof. Right now this is a fun, good-looking piece of tech for the Apple fans – but just you watch Apple do its damnedest in the next year or so to make it as essential as the rest of its kit.
So am I a smartwatch convert? Not yet. And certainly not for the top end price of £13,500 -- there are quite a few Swiss watches I would like to shell out that sort of money on. But if Apple keeps improving on the Watch experience they way I expect it will, it may well win me, and everyone else, over.
Screen: Retina Display with Force Touch
Hardware: Digital crown, heart rate sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope, Speaker and microphone
Sensors: Ambient light sensor
Battery: 18 hours depending on use
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
