Apple Watch Review Roundups
Apple Watch Review Roundups
The press embargo has been lifted, and the reviews are flooding in. Select tech press have been fiddling with their Apple Watches for the past week or so, and while Apple’s newest product sure is shiny and, well, new, there is only one thing clear about the smart watch at this point. There is plenty, plenty of room for improvement.
Said Bloomberg: “The Apple Watch is cool, it’s beautiful, it’s powerful, and it’s easy to use. But it’s not essential. Not yet.”
First, the good stuff. Apple Pay is a fun, easy way to pay for things. The novelty will eventually wear off, we’re sure, but reviewers are nearly unanimous that holding up your watch to pay for coffee or McNuggets or whatever is a magical experience. Now, people have been paying for things with their phones for a long time now, especially in Asia. Now that mobile payments work on pretty much any new iPhone or Android device, it’s not like you need the Apple Watch for this feature. But it’s a great example of those magical technology moments where it makes your life just a bit easier, and works exactly as it is supposed to work. Don’t you love that feeling?
Said Re/Code, almost poetically: “I’ve used Apple Pay on the Watch twice in the past week, and it was pretty cool.”
Here’s another great feeling. Fashion! You know, filling the hole in your soul with a new consumer product, that new pair of jeans, t-shirt, piece of jewelry, and/or tattoo that makes you feel like a complete person? Good news, the Apple Watch does that, at least for a while, as is sadly the case for all fashion.
Said the Wall Street Journal: “Like many Apple products of the past decade, the watch is a status symbol, a sign of wealth and taste. But unlike a MacBook or an iPhone, this Apple product works to help you look—and feel—good.”
Then there’s the novelty factor. Remember seeing the first iPhone in the wild back in the day? Now, it’s a dinosaur. But back then, what a machine! You had to touch it. You just had to swipe back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The Apple Watch is like that. Probably a good PR move to let reviewers fiddle with it early. Nothing makes techies love a product more than the tech envy it produces in others. You know, cute girls in a bar walking up and asking, “Oh, hey! Is that the new Apple Watch? I didn’t think it was out yet!” Eyelashes are batted. And the tech reviewer casually replies, “Oh yeah, I got one early. Just testing it out. No big deal. Want to try the force touch feature? Wink Wink?”
On the flip side of that coin, continually glancing at those pesky notifications instead of the dark sultry eyes of a potential mate may send exactly the wrong message, as the Verge noted in its review.
Now, the bad news. Performance is sluggish. Apps can take a long time to open, and anything slower than instantaneous on a watch is just too long. It’s way more expensive than other options, and it doesn’t really do anything particularly well, at least not better than your trusty old smartphone. But we knew that going in right?
Back to the good news. The platform is ripe for growth. Just like the smart phone before it, the Apple Watch is only as good as its Apps. Apple may have not yet given us a compelling reason why we absolutely must have a smart watch, but just you wait. Give the world’s best mobile developers a little wrist-bound computer to play with, featuring a taptic engine and heartbeat sensor, and we don’t think it will be long before sparks really start to fly. That day is coming.
If you still have Apple Watch questions, please contact our mobile app developers in San Francisco at Appstem today!
