

Apple Watch Review – A Day in the Life - mnkypete
http://www.theverge.com/a/apple-watch-review

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danso
Seems like the Watch, whatever its ultimate potential, may be something better
purchased in its second iteration:

> _Let’s just get this out of the way: the Apple Watch, as I reviewed it for
> the past week and a half, is kind of slow. There’s no getting around it, no
> way to talk about all of its interface ideas and obvious potential and hints
> of genius without noting that sometimes it stutters loading notifications.
> Sometimes pulling location information and data from your iPhone over
> Bluetooth and Wi-Fi takes a long time. Sometimes apps take forever to load,
> and sometimes third-party apps never really load at all. Sometimes it’s just
> unresponsive for a few seconds while it thinks and then it comes back._

Data transfer between the phone and watch should be something that feels as
seamless as magic...else, what's the point of getting the watch?

~~~
FreakyT
I get the impression a lot of this is due to the lack of native apps -- since
every app is just running on the phone, it's guaranteed to be slower than the
speed of your phone. (And, as the author here points out, that adds a
significant incentive to just pull out your phone instead of using the watch.)

I wonder when Apple plans to add native support to the WatchKit SDK -- in a
few months? A year? Or maybe they'll just wait for the second generation.

~~~
cheshire137
I didn't realize the apps run on the phone. So this means that unless I have
an iPhone, I couldn't even use an Apple Watch?

~~~
FreakyT
> unless I have an iPhone, I couldn't even use an Apple Watch

That's the case with everything the watch can do, I believe. I know it can
only receive notifications from iOS devices, and I'm pretty sure that, similar
the original iPhone, it won't even tell the time without first pairing to an
iPhone. (The original iPhone wouldn't do anything without first being
connected to iTunes).

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jscheel
So, brand new battery, one day of use, and he was at 10% by 7pm and was
"hyper-aware" about how little battery life he had left, triggering a "wave of
anxiety." According to one analysis ([http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-
de-evolution-of-my-lap...](http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-
of-my-laptop-battery.html)), Apple battery capacity can decay by 15% in a
year. This means that by next year, his watch could be at 10% by 5pm. No. No
way. Heck no. Not happening. Really regretting that I didn't get in on the
Pebble Time Kickstarter now.

~~~
bryanlarsen
That assumes they don't improve the battery life in software over the next
year, which they probably will. But it also leaves you much less slack to
install new and interesting apps on your watch. My original pebble used to
last a longer than it does now, even though newer versions of the software
have improved life dramatically. It's just so much more useful than version
1.0 that I use it more. It's OK for the battery life to drop from 6 days to 4;
it's not OK to drop from 18 to 14...

~~~
commandar
The extremely short battery life also precludes one of the best use cases I've
found for my Pebble: sleep tracking.

~~~
gress
It's not extremely short. This reviewer is an exception.

~~~
commandar
Anything reasonably under a full 24 hour day precludes sleep tracking. That's
extremely short compared to the Pebbles that get the better part of a week and
can be used for sleep tracking without issue.

Squabbling over 16 vs 18 vs 20 hours doesn't matter.

~~~
gress
You're right that it's not suitable for sleep tracking. But 'extremely short'
is a gross mischaracterization.

~~~
commandar
It's just over half of what some Android Wear devices are doing, and I'd
characterize them as having short battery lifes.

It's 15-20% of what the Pebble gets.

In my book, that adds up to extremely short.

~~~
gress
Comparing battery life with other wristbands that have very different
functionality doesn't mean much. By that measure, Android wear devices have
infinitesimal battery life compared to a Rolex Oyster perpetual.

For what it is, the Apple watch has a much longer battery life than most
people expected. Calling it 'extremely short'is misrepresentative.

~~~
commandar
>Comparing battery life with other wristbands that have very different
functionality doesn't mean much. By that measure, Android wear devices have
infinitesimal battery life compared to a Rolex Oyster perpetual.

An electric flying car with a two mile range may have drastically different
functionality than an old diesel hatchback with a 15 gallon tank, but that
doesn't mean that the electric flying car has sufficient range to meet the
needs of more people.

See? I can do hyperbole, too.

>For what it is, the Apple watch has a much longer battery life than most
people expected.

The fact that expectations were low doesn't change the fact that the battery
life is still very limited.

I think smartwatches have potential to be highly useful devices. I think that
usefulness is also significantly curtailed by current battery life. The fact
that the Apple Watch can't be relied on to remain useful for even a single 24
hour day would lead me to call the battery life extremely short regardless of
other wearables are doing. The fact that it's being outpaced by those other
options just exacerbates it.

~~~
gress
Actually you've walked back some of your hyperbole.

The fact is that battery life that satisfies the needs of the vast majority of
users cannot reasonably be called 'extremely short'.

The Apple watch can clearly be relied on to remain useful for a single 24 hour
day. Your statement to the contrary is flatly false, and is contradicted by
both Apple's testing and reviewers experience.

I am not convinced at all that not supporting sleep tracking is a valid reason
for wanting longer battery life for the Apple watch. It has to be charged at
some point, so what happens then?

Sleep tracking is certainly valuable, but why is the watch the right hardware
for that? Many people don't like wearing watches in bed, and sleep tracking
can be done with much simpler hardware than the Apple Watch. Why not do it
using a $30 headless sensor instead?

~~~
commandar
> Your statement to the contrary is flatly false

Apple themselves only rate the watch for 18 hours. So you're contending that
Apple is intentionally listing a battery 50% lower than what the device can
actually do?

....or it can't be relied to remain useful for a continuous 24 hour period.

So where's the flatly false statement here?

>Sleep tracking is certainly valuable, but why is the watch the right hardware
for that? Many people don't like wearing watches in bed, and sleep tracking
can be done with much simpler hardware than the Apple Watch. Why not do it
using a $30 headless sensor instead?

Sleep tracking is just a single, obvious use where it makes a difference
_now_.

What I'm contending is that wearables that require the use to actively think
about battery life aren't going to live up to the potential of the devices as
a class.

I went absurd with the flying car thing because I feel like you're being kind
of ridiculous here, but electric cars actually do highlight exactly what I'm
talking about. Electric cars didn't become viable for the vast majority of
people until ranges got to the point that they could easily _exceed_ the
distances people travel on a regular basis.

And because you _still_ don't seem to understand what I mean by "extremely
short" and want to keep harping on it - if the rumor mill thought an electric
car was going to launch with a 5 mile range and it launched with a 10 mile
range, it might be exceeding expectations, but I'd still call that "extremely
short" and feel it worthy of criticism. It may be better than what people were
expecting and it may even do things its competitors don't, but it's still a
fundamental problem.

I will say this again: I'm interested in wearables, I think they have a ton of
potential, and I think you're insane if you don't think 18 hours of battery
life drastically limits their realistic utility.

~~~
gress
You said originally:

> The fact that the Apple Watch can't be relied on to remain useful for even a
> single 24 hour day...

This statement is false. Apple's 18 hour battery claim clearly supports that,
because the vast majority of humans sleep for 6 hours or more.

In your reply you added the word 'continuous' to your earlier statement to
create: "...or it can't be relied on to remain useful for a _continuous_ 24
hour period."

That's not what you originally stated, and it's irrelevant anyway because
humans don't need 24 hours of continuous use from devices.

Charging a device every night while you sleep requires you to actively think
about battery life _less_ than a device that only needs to be on some nights
because for those devices you have to think about whether to charge them or
not. Of course you can always mitigate this by charging every night.

Therefore, if not having to think about battery life is an important
criterion, the Apple watch does live up to the potential of the devices as a
class every bit as much as a device with longer battery life.

Of course a device with longer battery life does have advantages - e.g. Going
camping away from power for a few days, etc. but this just illustrates the
point that longer battery life supports less common use cases, and is without
question not a 'fundamental problem'.

Lack of support for uncommon use cases cannot be reasonably said to
'drastically limit realistic utility'.

Like I said, I agree that longer battery life provides an improvement, but it
is a marginal one.

Claims like 'extremely short' and 'drastically limited' are exaggerations.

~~~
commandar
>Charging a device every night while you sleep requires you to actively think
about battery life less than a device that only needs to be on some nights
because for those devices you have to think about whether to charge them or
not. Of course you can always mitigate this by charging every night.

>Therefore, if not having to think about battery life is an important
criterion, the Apple watch does live up to the potential of the devices as a
class every bit as much as a device with longer battery life.

Okay, I concede. You win the mental olympics gymnastics competition.

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mladenkovacevic
The Apple Watch marks a new stage in consumerism in that it is effectively a
gift FOR your iPhone. It doesn't work without an iPhone but it makes the
iPhone's workload a little easier. It's also precious, expensive and intimate.
What better way to show affection to your beloved iDevice.

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mkr-hn
Is there some way to get rid of the background animations in this article? I'm
sure it seemed real neat in the design meeting, but it's _very_ distracting. I
couldn't finish the article.

~~~
cheshire137
I thought they were kinda painful, too. Please don't make my browser stutter,
websites that are just trying to display an article whose whole point is the
text.

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mnkypete
Whatever your opinion on the watch might be, the review is just beautiful.

~~~
bwindels
Interesting, the css fails to load for me.

~~~
bydo
It's the typical overly "rich" parallax-scrolling-images-behind-the-text
stuff, though now some of them are videos, too, and sometimes they stay
anchored for a while, and sometimes they play at the speed you are scrolling
the text, for some reason.

I find it incredibly distracting, personally.

~~~
cryodesign
Agree, yes it might 'wow' you at first, but when you see this used more and
more on other sites, the novelty is gone.

What does it really add, other than slowing down your scrolling (my laptop:
i7, discrete gfx) and briefly distracting you while you focused on the text.

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TheSoftwareGuy
>Paying for coffee at The Café Grind in Manhattan involved nothing more than
double-clicking the communications button on the Watch and holding my wrist
over the terminal; it beeped and the payment processed instantly.

really? No authentication at all?

~~~
bentruyman
A passcode you specify is required every time you put on the watch.

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cheshire137
I really hoped for a TL;DR or some kind of summary at the end. It looks like
the review just has sections and then stops.

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petrosh
barely 16 hours battery? better for apple it recharge with telepathy...

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morbius
Unequivocally pretentious, bloated, and comically self-aggrandizing. Much like
the watch and its makers themselves.

~~~
arsenide
Can you elaborate on your reasons instead of stating non-obvious "truths?"

