Bought the Watch

Let me start by saying I love watches and have owned many over the years. But this is the first one that has had so many features!

I wanted some of the notification it provides. I tend to have to keep my iPhone on vibrate and will miss messages until much later. I like the fact the watch will give me a tap and light up with the message or appointment reminder.

I have decided I am not fond of the reminders to exercise. Hummmm.... will have to figure out how to disable that! I wouldn't want to become health or something. ;D

So far I like it. The display is very nice. Much much nicer than the others that some of my friends have.

BTW: I assume this is the correct place to post this since we don't have a Watch specific area.

Lisa

I was very impressed by the readability (my eyes are kinda shot from all these years staring at a monitor) when I tried one recently.

Your post reminded me of one I read recently:

Living With: Apple Watch | MacNN

Which watch Lisa ?

I only ask, to determine which screen you are reading on. Was it the 38/42mm face ?
I have been reading more and more that this is the main reason people are buying it for. Now with watchOS 2 on the horizon, having native Apps on the watch will be a interesting step forward too.
Its my Bday on Friday, so i have my fingers crossed haha

Congrats Lisa! I'm counting on lots of details (good & bad) as you get to "know" the iWatch better.

- Nick

p.s. Yes...I think that this is probably the best area at the moment for iWatch "stuff".

WellI am finally getting to post back. Work is going to be very busy the next couple of weeks.

Today was my first full day with the watch. I purchased the 42mm Sport, white band. I love large watches and I wanted to make sure I could see and manipulate the screen.

Battery life is great. Currently 12 hours on and 54% battery left.

I really like the message notifications. I can leave my iPhone on silent and the watch notifies and shows me incoming messages. I get offered a list of standard answers or I can dictate one and send it by voice or text. The voice recognition is very good. It seems to understand my Ohio twang very well.

The screen is very easy for my old eyes to see. I can view the watch - even in sunlight - clearly. I pleasantly surprised with how well it did in sunlight.

There is a learning curve when selecting apps and maneuvering through them. I will admit I powered up the watch and jumped right in. It did not come with a manual, just an instructional picture paper that was a quick start. I have since downloaded the manual and done a little reading but most I could figure out.

Taking a call on the watch is just.....weird...that's all I can say about that. "**** Tracy" I am not.

Lisa


P.S. - Hey, TattooedMac - my birthday is tomorrow! I am hitting the big 60! You?

lclev said:

Let me start by saying I love watches and have owned many over the years. But this is the first one that has had so many features!
…
I have decided I am not fond of the reminders to exercise. Hummmm.... will have to figure out how to disable that! I wouldn't want to become health or something. ;D
...
Lisa

Click to expand...

Funny that you mentioned that as one of the first things, and also what I see being posted at many Mac sites — how to turn the "feature: Off!!!

So much for Apple's programmers and sales people expecting the exercise part of the A Watch to be the most popular. Yeah right Jony Ive, get real!!! ;D

One thing the activity app does is remind you to stand up every hour. That really is not a bad thing for me as I will get involved in a project and the next thing I know 3 or 4 hours are gone. Getting up and stretching is something my massage therapist has been trying to get me to do for years.

I walk for exercise and I used the workout app to track me. It worked great counting my 10,000+ steps, 3+ miles walked, and heart beat. But when I switched to look at the activity app, it said I had only exercised 16 of the 30 minutes for the day. I think the activity app may have a few issues.

I noticed if I receive a call through my car bluetooth, the watch does not show the call but it will show if I get a text message.

Battery after 15 hours still had 34%. It charges fast too.

Lisa

lclev said:

Today was my first full day with the watch. I purchased the 42mm Sport, white band. I love large watches and I wanted to make sure I could see and manipulate the screen.

Battery life is great. Currently 12 hours on and 54% battery left.

P.S. - Hey, TattooedMac - my birthday is tomorrow! I am hitting the big 60! You?

Click to expand...

Good watch to have too. I would be going for the larger screen, but they were marketing the 38mm at women, being smaller watch face, and I thought that was a bit rude. It should have just been a 38mm & 42mm size for all.

I'm not surprised at the battery life actually. If Apple had of said that it can get a lot more than they published, and it didn't, then every Tom, ick and Harry would of been bashing them, because of poor Battery life. When watchOS 2 comes to fruition, then I expect you would be getting better battery life out of it again. There are some vast improvements with wOS.

Happy Birthday for tomorrow, I hope its a happy and fruitful day
I'm hitting a sprite full, yet broken 43. Yrs of Military service has broken my body, but I happy waking up each and every day My partner asked if I wanted a watch, but I couldn't justify it yet, when I'm receiving new watches soon, from a Kickstarter project I backed. There is 2 in that package, so wearing them will take a lot, let alone 3 lol
Not until I develop something that will work well on the watch, so give me a year or 2. I usually come around by the 3rd iteration . . .

Have a great B-day and welcome to the club...

bobtomay said:

Have a great B-day and welcome to the club...

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Thanks! And a distinguished club it is! ;D Now if I was only 25 and knew then what I know now.... guess that is why wisdom comes with age!

Lisa

I am really impressed with the readability of the screen. I am glad I got the 42mm though. I need glasses to read, see computer screens and for driving distance. Not totally blind but just enough to be annoying.

I can see and read a text on my watch without my reading glasses. It is fuzzy but in a pinch, I can figure it out. That is nice.

While I am not in love with the look of the white sport band, it is very comfortable to wear. I have one of the quilted venezia leather with the adjustable magnetic closure coming. I really fell in love with it when I tried it on at the apple store. It will also give me a dressier look.

Lisa

Thought I would post a picture of my Watch with the magnetic band. I love the band - very comfortable.

Lisa

lclev said:

Thought I would post a picture of my Watch with the magnetic band. I love the band - very comfortable.

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Looks great Lisa! But I hate to say it…those bands are "friggin" expensive!

For the price of the bands. When the iWatch 2, iWatch 3, etc. come out. Those bands better be compatible!

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Looks great Lisa! But I hate to say it…those bands are "friggin" expensive!

For the price of the bands. When the iWatch 2, iWatch 3, etc. come out. Those bands better be compatible!

- Nick

Click to expand...

Now where would the marketing sense be in doing that Nick??

Patrick
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Hey! I just had a BIG birthday.... and as I informed my husband, I am the best looking, most loving and wonderful wife... and I wanted one. He agreed (smart man).

They will have to make huge strides to convince me to upgrade. I really love this watch. The text feature alone is a real plus. It has saved me missing messages several times already.

As for upgrading, I don't tend to rush out and to get the newest latest greatest. I have a 2013 MB Air, a 2009 (flashed to 2010) Mac Pro, a 2011 MB Pro and an iPad Mini 2. So I predict I will stay with the Watch 1 until it becomes incapable of doing what I need it to do. When it lacks speed or can't run an essential app then I will see what is out there. Just like I will keep my iPhone 6+ until it becomes too old to do what I need it to do.

I'm thinking it's an old age thing. I don't want to put them out to pasture before their time. ;D

Lisa

Congratulations on the birthday and present

I got an email today letting me know my watch was at last on its way, so I should soon be joining the club too.

Just be careful of any Apple Watch upgrades with your new addition, and some unhappy users out there:

Users struggle with Apple Watch downgrades as Apple charges service fees to fix watchOS issues | 9to5Mac

dbm said:

I got an email today letting me know my watch was at last on its way, so I should soon be joining the club too.

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Will be looking forward to your impressions. My watch arrived two days earlier than the notice Apple sent me. So it might be there sooner than you know! ;D

As for the article Patrick posted about updates. I guess I will have to do some research. I am not sure if you can make an update wait like you can on other Apple devices. Yes!!! More research!

I figured there will be bumps along the way especially with a new device. Still I am amazed at how useful it is turning out to be and how well it is working - so far.

Lisa

It's due Monday, but I'm out of town until Thursday so more delayed gratification.

My Apple-buddy got her's about 3-4 weeks ago and loves it.

So, I've had the watch for a few days now, and have some initial impressions.

Some pics:


Old vs new:


I went for a red theme:


First, it's a good looking watch, and feels a quality piece of kit. In terms of customising the watch face, there is a lot of choice so you can do a lot to make it yours. I opted for a simple, red scheme as red is easier on the eyes in the dark.

Notifications are awesome. I have mine silenced, so only I know when I am being alerted. Unlike the vibrate function on a phone, the watch is completely silent in operation. I like how the watch reminds me to move around when I have been sitting for too long, and it tracks how much activity I do throughout the day. I've been on a bit of a health kick for the last couple of years but exercise have never been my thing. I am using the watch's activity monitoring as an encouragement.

In terms of use cases, one of the main reasons I wanted the watch was for use in the car. My setup is that I have my iPhone Bluetoothed to the car handsfree kit. I also have a Tune2Air dongle attached to my car, meaning that my music can play over Bluetooth too, just as if it was plugged into the head unit directly. I have all my music collection on my phone - over 11,000 tracks. My car's iPod integration is rubbish in terms of its music controls. All you have is a rotary control which allows you to choose from folders, and push to select an item. Navigating to a specific item is practically impossible. My pragmatic solution to this has been to primarily use a small set of playlists which have the albums I am currently mostly interested in listening to on them. But that's really a quite poor solution, and losing a lot of the benefit of having all my music with me.

With the watch, I can use Siri to tell my system to play any album, artist or playlist I like. You don't even need to touch the watch, just move your wrist to activate the screen and then start with 'Hey Siri'. The watch does the rest and the music goes straight to the head unit.
Similarly, initiating telephone calls via the watch is a breeze. Just tell it who you want to call and the call itself is seamlessly directed to the car handsfree.

I have a lot of Apple kit at home, with two AppleTVs and two AirPorts sending audio to stereo systems. Whilst the Remote app is quite limited on the watch is does allow me to stop, start and move tracks. So it does as much as the physical remote does. My guess is watchOS2 and the next gen AppleTV will allow you to use Siri to select music or media from your library.

So, all in all, it's a classy watch that makes all my other associated tech work better. watchOS2 is going to bring lots of software upgrades to the device, but even the gen 1 product with watchOS 1.0.1 is worth it for me.