I’m thinking about returning it…
1. IT’S A LOUSY WATCH
I’m addicted to time, I want to know what it is, and the Apple Watch performs this function very poorly, in that its face is not always on.
I could live with that if it came up when it was supposed to, but every time I flipped my wrist it didn’t. Especially when I’m lying on the floor doing my back exercises – it can’t cope with that.
Worse yet, I can do no timing.
Because the damn thing shuts off almost instantly, or at best stays alive for 20 seconds, and most of my back exercises are 30 seconds. So, how can I study the watch when I can’t see it? And often times I can’t touch it, because my hands are holding my knees!
And when I’m in the bathroom, I can’t time how long to clean my contact lenses, nor can I prop it up while I’m in the shower to see how much time I have left before I have o leave.
All of those things I can do with my Rolex.
Or even the cheap Timex I wear to third world locations. It’s frustrating. And I could buy a series of clocks, but…
2. I CAN’T SEE IT
I’m too old, my eyes are too bad.
Actually, they’re not that bad, since I’ve started wearing RGP contact lenses my reading power is actually pretty good. My prescription is +1.25, which is miniscule. But so is the type on the watch. If you’re older and you don’t wear bifocals 24/7 I’m not sure the Apple Watch is for you. There’s great functionality, you just can’t see it an arm’s length away.
And that’s a huge problem, the No. 1 reason to return the watch, but it gets worse.
The glare.
Do some research and you’ll find out the cheaper Apple Watch is better in sunlight, but the middle one, with the sapphire glass… in sun, it’s hard to read. Why is this? My aforementioned Rolex with sapphire isn’t hard to read in sunlight.
Worse yet, the damn thing keeps coming on when I wish it wouldn’t. Like when I’m driving at night, and turning the steering wheel, it keeps going off and on…
So, the damn watch is awake when I don’t want it to be and asleep when I need it.
CONCLUSION
Now, I could wear two watches – one on each wrist.
Or I could just suck it up and try to look cool, but it’s too expensive for that, and lacking too much usability.
I’m sure there are workarounds, but I don’t have long to send it back, and I certainly don’t want to damage/scratch it, which happens with watches on a regular basis.
And I’m completely flummoxed how Apple screwed up so bad.
Really makes me believe the company is doomed. Because there’s no Steve Jobs, there’s no VISIONARY – no one to say what’s right or wrong, when to go or stop.
First and foremost the watch should be BIGGER!
As I’ve already established, it’s a lousy timepiece, but a good computer.
As long as you can see it. Why not a bigger screen? If the Watch survives it’ll have a Plus iteration. But Apple was too busy thinking “watch” when it should have been thinking “computer.”
And the UI is comprehensible after study, far from intuitive.
Steve Jobs would say not t0 build it if you couldn’t make it easy. This iteration of the watch will never go mainstream, not because people don’t have a need, but because they won’t be able to figure it out!
That’s techies for you.
Talking on and on about wearables. It seems we continue to live in a Microsoft world, where there’s too much functionality and not enough usablity. That’s the problem with the Watch, it can do a lot of things, but the basics are performed poorly.
Sometimes you’ve got to say no. Maybe Apple shouldn’t have made a watch.
Sometimes you’ve got to break the paradigm. They were so busy making it look like a watch, they should have begun with a blank slate.
My heart says to keep it.
But my brain says no.
It is enough that Maxwell Smart wore one to turn me against them.
I wanted the Apple Watch to work, and Bob is right…
If this goes down in flames it will be a monumental failure and call into question the future of Apple as we now know it and the future of Steve Jobs replacement.
Making some obvious improvements on the iPhone is one thing, charting a future that he envisioned quite another.
I’ve wondered from the get go about the size of the screen being too small for some of the functions Apple is trying to get out of it.
But here’s the deal, Lefsetz is older.
And like many of us who are over 40 – that’s when people’s eyesight can start to go south – and there’s a whole lotta people with money in this country who buy watches that are 40 and older.
My teenage daughters can read print so fine it’s barely discernible to the human eye.
But at this stage of their lives, they’re not in the market for an Apple Watch. Apple needs that watch to be fully useable and fully readable for most adults.
And Bob’s points about the functionality are credible.
Let’s see if Apple can make this right ASAP before it becomes a billion dollar bumble
I thank my lucky stars that I never gave much of a crap about Apple products. My workplaces have always been Microsoft based, and my cell phones and tablets are all Android. Which are considerably better for what I need them for.
Guy, Guy, Guy….
I’m so disappointed in you.
Look the Apple of today is not the Apple that many of us in the publishing and creative field fell in lust with. It’s a manufacturer of adult toys.
The Apple I was loyal too for so many years blew Microsoft away.
Windows was as joke and remains one.
Lots of techies prefer Windows and Android because it’s harder to use and in theory they can do more with it.
But in the real world, Apple software is so superior to both that the company has become the biggest on earth. And most people still don’t know how much better and easier Apple computers are to use than ones using Window.
Unfortunately, coming up with products like the watch – and having them perhaps fail – jeopardizes Apple’s future as a titan.
I really don;’t care about that. I liked Apple just as much (or more) when it was at death’s door in 1998 right before the first iMac.