Brains and beauty make Apple Watch worth the wait

When my love affair with computer technology began decades ago, no one was interested in making the IBM System 360 beautiful.

When my love affair with computer technology began decades ago, no one seemed interested in making the then IBM System 360 mainframe computers beautiful. Their panels weren’t lined with 18-carat rose gold.

But these days with wearable tech such a fashion item, beauty means so much in modern tech. And yes, despite its square, rather than traditional round watch appearance, Apple Watch is really attractive, with a compact and extremely clear display.

But what’s really important to me is functionality: usability, attention to detail and whether it really makes a difference. So here are my observations after a few weeks wearing Apple Watch.

My first piece of advice is to not expect the world from Apple Watch. The overpowering hype has set enormous expectations. What you get out of it will depend on the effort you put into configuring it and becoming acquainted with its features. And don’t try to master everything at once. Learn about one function at a time.

Apple has done a great job in devising a watch ecosphere that’s usable. You can access virtually everything in one action either by swiping or pressing the display, pressing or rotating the digital crown, or the button beneath.

That’s so different to Google Android Wear where you traverse system settings to get to apps.

While Android Wear was pioneering, the Apple Watch interface leaves it for dead. Indeed Samsung with Tizen and LG, with its webOS on the upcoming LG Watch Urbane LTE, have chosen proprietary operating systems ahead of Android Wear.

Functions such as voice dictation of text messages, and taking calls from Apple Watch, work effectively. Thankfully, Apple Watch requires you to confirm a message before sending it. You choose whether to send a text or audio before it goes off.

There’s a few things that irk me. The cloudlike menu, accessed by pressing the digital crown, takes getting used to. You have to become familiar with what app is associated with each icon as there is no text description. I’d suggest rearranging icons via the Apple Watch iPhone app so that like-category apps, such as all your fitness apps, or all your music apps, are together.

Those little circular app icons too are tiny. It’s easy to mis-hit the watch display, and open the wrong one. You can enlarge the icons by turning the digital crown. But Apple should give users a scrollable main menu as an alternative.

And when you’re scrolling through notifications and encounter a long but uninteresting email, you can be scrolling for ages before you can dismiss it. That needs to be addressed too.

Sure, there’s oodles of Watch app which are adapted from iPhone apps. But many need refinement. Only some functionality works on a watch, some is better left to an iPhone. And many apps have glance screens that take an age to load, such as Foursquare and TripAdvisor. You shouldn’t be waiting for this information to appear.

We’re used to seeing the time instantly on regular watches. On Apple Watch, twisting your wrist will turn on the display, but there can be a short delay. Occasionally you look at a blank watch which you then tap to see the time.

Some people have complained about relentless notification. It’s really a matter of configuring your watch to fix this. Go to settings/notifications on your iPhone and for each app, decide whether you want to display its notifications. What you chose for the iPhone will be replicated on the watch.

One useful setting is to turn on ‘unlock with iPhone’ in the Apple Watch app. You will only need to enter a PIN once on the watch, as long as you keep it on your wrist.

Lastly there’s battery life. You’ll need to charge it daily but I never had worries about it lasting a full day. Some days there was well over 50 per cent of charge left at nightfall.

What do I use Apple Watch for? There is no one killer purpose, but lots of contributing benefits.

Being able to screen emails and SMSs from my watch and only take out my iPhone when I receive an important notification is one.

I’ve found the activity and workout apps useful when on my night walks. Being able to listen to music on those walks with a Bluetooth headset and without carrying a phone is liberating. Not missing calls because I’m buzzed on my wrist, and answering them even if my phone is in the next room is another. So the benefits add up.

Apple Watch is the best example of the smartwatch genre to date, but let’s see what the rest of 2015 brings.

Rating: 9
Price: From $499 (Watch Sport), $799 (Watch) and $14,000 (Watch Edition)