Tuesday 10 March 2015

Hands On With a Working Apple Watch


This is the second time PCMag has had some hands-on time with the Apple Watch. The first time was in September, when Cupertino's smartwatch was first announced. We were not allowed to put it on, and although we could tap a few buttons, it was pretty clear the watch was in demo mode and only capable of a limited number of tasks.
As a result, most of the story involved how it looked, which admittedly is pretty important for a smartwatch. Looks are the biggest reason people don't want to wear watches. The other reason is that no one seems really clear on why they need a smartwatch.
Apple Watch
Yesterday, I got the chance to try on a fully operational Apple Watch for the first time. It is no slam dunk, but this watch does a lot more than people realize.
Before we get into the details, it is important to understand where the smartwatch market is today. Smartwatches kind of suck. Big companies like Samsung, LG, and Sony have released multiple models, and none of them have been very successful. The only real success in the space has been the Pebble, a small Kickstarter-backed firm whose modest product has found a number of fans, but is hardly a household name. Despite the best efforts of the consumer electronics industry, there is little sign that consumers really want a smartwatch.
But Apple, of course, is different. And so is its smartwatch. For the purposes of this story I want to look at the Apple Watch from three perspectives: The Watch, the Smarts, and the Apps.
To succeed, Apple needs to do something every other smartwatch vendor has never done before in all three categories: succeed, across the board. It won't be easy. When Piper Jaffray recently polled 968 iPhones owners, only 7 percent said they would buy an Apple Watch. Then again, they have never tried one on. And they certainly don't know what it does. Those users will get the chance to see the Apple Watch in Apple Stores on April 10. It will be available for sale on April 24.
The Watch
The first hurdle Apple needs to clear is to simply build a great watch. In an age when most of us rely on our phones to tell the time, that is no small feat. Ironically, this may be where Apple is strongest. The Apple Watch face is a solid piece of metal, either aluminum, steel, or a preposterously priced solid gold version (starting price: $10,000.)
Even in its more affordable aluminum and steel construction, it looks and feels like a $349 watch—that is no small feat. A lot will be made of the bands; there are six different styles and multiple colors. All of them feel well-made, although the Sport line is the most plasticky. Even so, the bands will be interchangeable so one watch face can have multiple looks.
Battery life is 18 hours, so more than enough for one day, but not enough for two. As a watch, this is a downside, but unless you are using an e-ink display like the Pebble, it is to be expected.
The watch face itself seems nearly infinitely customizable. You can scroll between digital, analog, hybrid, and even animated watch faces with a few clicks. There is even an animated Mickey Mouse face that will point out the hour and minutes, although it was a little too animated for my taste.
Apple Watch
But that is the thing, it allows you to customize the face to your individual tastes. The Pebble also does a great job with this, but Apple's options seem just as robust.
Learning how to navigate the tiny touch screen, however, will take some time. There is a home button, a rotating smart crown, and the touch screen itself. All of them initiate actions. The Smart Crown is pretty sweet, and has the advantage of keeping the screen clear while you navigate. I have more trouble mastering the deep force click—basically pressing harder—but it is just a new UI trick, and will take time to learn. Once I started thinking of it as equivalent to a "right click" it made more sense to me. Suffice to say, it is more complicated than your average watch, but it is learnable.
To me, the first hurdle is cleared. It looks and works like a watch. And a pretty cool one that can be customized with lots of different faces and bands.
The Smarts: Calls, Notifications, Siri, and More
Next up, the smarts. No matter how much you like the looks of the Apple Watch, it won't be a commercial success without the smarts. Here, too, Apple manages to rise above a lot of the competition. Just keep in mind, none of this works without being paired to an iPhone via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The Apple Watch is an extension of your phone.
Apple Watch Alerts
Dick Tracey fans—if you are still dreaming of a watch phone—rejoice. The Apple Watch will indeed let you make and receive calls directly from your wrist. The call quality isn't stellar, but neither were the room conditions. For quick calls or if you need to keep both hands on the wheel, the Apple Watch works fine. When a call comes in, the screen lights up just like a phone would, but you can also get a haptic notification. From there, you can click to answer, reject, or text a canned response.
Indeed, notifications are still the killer app for the Apple Watch. Any notification that can appear on an iPhone can be displayed on the Apple Watch. Text messages, upcoming meetings, travel alerts, tweets, news reports, you name it. Of course, not everything *should* be sent to your Apple Watch. Although the smart crown makes it relatively easy to scroll through an email message, it isn't an ideal reading experience. For catching texts that you may have missed, the Apple Watch is a better bet.
One area Apple had to reportedly scale back was its health features, but the basics are still in there. There is a pedometer and a heart rate monitor. The phone comes with an app for evaluating your overall activity that will prompt you to stand up if your have been sedentary too long and will provide positive feedback when you have had an active week. There is also an app that serves as a workout companion, allowing you to set caloric burn goals for running, biking, and other activities.
Obviously, these weren't features I could test, but the apps seem to work. The real value here is what will happen when your activity data gets connected to all of the other profile data your device collects—GPS and barometric pressure and cloud-based databases, perhaps air quality in New York City.
That reminds me, Apple also announced ResearchKit, an open-source platform that will use iPhones as research tools for data-driven science experiments. It sounds awesome, and because it is open source, Android users may get the benefits as well, but that is another story for another time.
All of that sounds pretty cool, but not all of these bells and whistles will matter to users. The ability to send other Apple Watch users virtual, temporary sketches seems pretty gimmicky. Then again, so did Snapchat.
Perhaps the most important smart feature in the Apple Watch is Siri. Love her or hate her, if you buy an Apple Watch you will be getting to know Siri a lot better. Tap and hold the smart crown, and Siri is at your beck and call. From starting Web searches to initiating phone calls, the Apple Watch puts this virtual assistant within arm's reach wherever you go. And you will use it differently. Tap and ask, "Siri, set a reminder for 2 p.m. today" and she will do just that. If you pulled your phone out you probably would have set it yourself, but the watch lets you skip that step and all those nested menus. The Apple Watch is still an extension of your iPhone, but because it is on your wrist you are using it in new ways.
When it comes to smart features like notifications, wrist calling, and activity-tracking features, the Apple Watch is on par with the Galaxy Gear, LG G Watch, or even Moto 360. Siri has her problems, but Google Now and Cortana do, too. And you won't be wearing Cortana on your wrist any time soon.
The Apps
Apps are where Apple could break away from the pack. Android Wear has attracted some developer support, but the Apple Watch seems to offer a more refined experience. The biggest news here is that the Apple Watch supports Apple Pay. Technically, that is a feature of the device and not an app, but it does require third-party support of banks and retailers. In the six months since it launched Apple Pay, Cupertino has processed more transactions than rivals like Google Wallet and Softcard have done in years. With the Apple Watch, you can simply hold your wrist to the NFC reader to initiate a payment, and the watch is authenticated to your phone for security.
Apple had other apps on display. Facebook and Twitter look more or less like notification services brought to the small screen, but there were other more compelling partners. Tap the Uber app and you can request a car directly from your wrist and get an estimate of how long it will take to arrive. American Airlines has an app that lets you carry your boarding pass information on your watch—including the bar code. One of the stage demonstrations showed an app from Alarm.com that allows you to open the garage doors of your home remotely from the watch—pretty cool stuff.
Again, all of these things could be done through your iPhone as well. Indeed, without an iPhone, there is no reason for the Apple Watch to exist. That said, it is a good-looking watch, with a ton of smart features, and a growing base of third-party developers building wearable experiences for it. Even in its nascent form, I kind of want one.

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