Rod Chester gets to test drive the Apple Watch

WE got to test drive the Apple Watch and all its features, including one that lets you send fellow users the feeling of your heartbeat.

THE moment you strap on an Apple Watch, cliches start bouncing around your head.

“It just works,” is the first one that came to mind. “This makes smartwatches cool,” was another.

They might be marketing phases but they’re also, in this case, very true.

I have worn an Apple Watch before, strapping one on my wrist when Tim Cook unveiled the product last year.

That was a novelty but one of limited use because the Apple Watch models then showed to the press were on a demonstration loop. You got the idea without the real experience. Like driving a car but one where the wheels are guided by a track.

How much you will need ... Pre-orders for the Apple Watch start April 10 and the device costs $349 for a base model, while a luxury gold version will go for $10,000. Picture: AP/Eric Risberg

This time around the demonstration mode was gone and I took control.

It turns out, controlling an Apple Watch is simple.

Like with an iPad or iPhone, the first thing you learn is that there a couple of ways you can do things and both are simple.

The first thing you can do is touch and swipe, but that’s only one way. The watch has a traditional wheel on the side with a not traditional name: the digital crown. As a navigation device, it’s not dissimilar to the scroll wheel on the original iPod. Below the wheel is a button which, the Apple Watch demonstrator informed me, is called the Button. In Apple Watch land, everything has a capital.

To give an example of how you might use the Digital Crown, a swipe shows you your contacts which are displayed as a wheel. As you scroll the Digital Crown, you select from one of the names on the rim of the wheel, with that person’s avatar displaying in the centre.

Gadgets galore ... The Apple Watch has a range of features and will vibrate on your wrist if contacted by a fellow user. Picture: AP/Eric Risberg

The advantage of using the Digital Crown to navigate is that you’re not covering up the screen with your finger.

Tap the person’s face and, assuming they are wearing an Apple Watch, you can communicate in a few easy ways. One is to simply touch the screen a few times, and they feel the vibrations of that touch on their arm. Another way is to touch the screen extra firmly and you send the feeling of your heart beat.

A third is to draw a smiley face. You start with a palette of colours, you choose a colour and then draw on the watch screen. You don’t have to hit send — the smiley face just dissolves on your screen and appears on the other person’s. One of the side effects of the Apple Watch is that we will all soon be communicating with dissolvable badly drawn smileys.

That “extra firm touch” feature of the watch is simple and powerful.

Hold the screen and the Watch launches Apple Pay, which would allow you to swipe and pay at a check-out — or would if Apple launches Apple Pay in Australia.

Touch the screen and swipe up from the bottom and you’re in notifications. Some are simple, like weather information. Some are a bit more detailed, like the Instagram app that lets you dig into your feed and like photos.

When you talk about the Apple Watch, you are actually talking about three models. A sporty aluminium body, an up-market stainless steel version and a super up-market gold model — and with each model comes a range of bands.

So, while there is one Watch, there are many watches. It sounds like something Yoda would say if he were marketing the Apple Watch, but it’s true.

That concept of personalisation is no more obvious than with the watch face. Hold your finger on the watch face and you can customise it. You begin by scrolling through a choice of display, but within each choice you have further customisations.

Must have gadget ... Many analysts have expressed the view that it is going to be the must have gadget of the year. Picture: AP/Eric Risberg

I started by selecting a digital face and then, by twirling the Digital Crown, selecting a colour. Then I inserted a display in each of the four corners — I chose moon phases, weather, heart rate and date.

Apple tells me that it works out to be about 2 million possible options for display — and that’s before you start downloading the no doubt countless apps that will come, offering extras to the Apple range of displays.

You can imagine sporting teams released Apple Watch face apps, that show a logo of a team and a news feed about the players. Or you can imagine personalised data points, like a display that shows you the time and your choice of stocks.

While the Watch is an impressive unit, arguably the really exciting features will come through third-party apps, like the one demonstrated in today’s Apple event that let someone control their smart home through their Watch.

Swipe and pay ... Apple Pay available with the Apple Watch would allow you to swipe and pay at a check-out. A feature not yet available in Australia. Picture: Stephen Lam/Getty Images/AFP

I tried on the 42mm Apple Watch. It didn’t look overly large on my skinny wrists and certainly was more compact than the usual running watch I wear.

There are still some questions that need answering about the Apple Watch. Today we learnt you will be able to get about 18 hours average use a day. What we didn’t learn was if the rumours were true and Apple has somehow improved the waterproof function of the Watch.

How do you judge something like the Apple Watch? I judge it like this. I’m addicted to my iPhone and can’t go more than a few moments without reaching for it.

The Apple Watch, in just a few minutes of wear, makes me want to leave my iPhone in my pocket.

The Apple Watch will be released on April 24. Many analysts have expressed the view that it is going to be the must have gadget of the year.

My view is that it deserves to be.

Rod Chester travelled to San Francisco as a guest of Apple.