Apple Watch - First Impression

Apple Watch has been around for a few months. Well, in some countries at least. It arrived here, in Thailand in mid-July and I made sure I got it on the first day it became available. So, after calling all the people I know have anything to do with Apple, I got it reserved. Into a car right after work, 2 hours in traffic, another 30 minutes to find a parking spot and another 20 to find the shop and... I was finally able to put my hand of the watch. Or rather, to put Apple Watch on my hand.

The first thing you want to do it to link it to your iPhone and start playing with it but... you need to be patient. It takes a few good minutes to boot. It seems like forever as you want to play with your new Apple Watch right away. After all, this is very different from any other Apple product.

So, 5 minutes passed and I was at last able to play with my new toy. First thing I wanted to do was to check the watch faces. I expected 20 or 30 faces and was given a choice of just 10! Just 10 faces is not enough and, to be honest, they are not that exciting. Modular face is what I went for as you are able to add 5 complications to it. So I added things I use more often, namely weather, calendar, date, activities and battery status.

Next, let's have a look at the apps. There are some apps preloaded and more and more apps have the Apple Watch version now. You can upload apps to your watch via iPhone. The process is smooth and very fast. The menu of the apps might be a bit confusing in the beginning. All those little circles moving around might be something overwhelming at first but you will get used to it. And soon you will realize that it is probably the best possible layout. A long list of apps would not, most likely, work well. Also, you can change the layout of the apps on your iPhone. You should place the apps you will be using most often closer to the center for easier access.

On your hand, Apple Watch feels good, it is light, touchscreen works very well. Overall, the user experience is great. If only we had more faces and apps that run natively on the watch it would have been perfect. Yes, now the apps run on the iPhone and are mirrored on your Apple Watch. Because of this, they are sometimes slow to load. However, it should all change with WatchOS 2.0 where the faces will open for the developers and apps will run natively on the Apple Watch.

I am sure that once you spend some time with your Apple Watch you will find it easy to use and, what is even more important, you will find it very useful. But how you can use your Apple Watch is something that I will cover in my next article.