Apple Watch review: Elegant, delightful ... and completely optional
In terms of innovation, the Apple Watch is more like the iPod than it is the iPhone or iPad. The iPhone was (and is) Apple's most important product. It was like nothing else before it, pulling us all into the world of mobile multitouch that we live in today, one curious shopper at a time.
Three years later, the iPad took that same interface and adapted it to a much bigger, more immersive display.
At launch, both were without peers.
But the Apple Watch? Like the iPod, it doesn't really do much that its competitors weren't already doing. It just squeezes it all into a smaller and more elegant package.
That analogy only goes so far, though, because the quality and design gap between the Apple Watch and the best smartwatches to come before it is much smaller than the gap between the first iPod and its clunky predecessors. Wear watches are far from perfect, but they're infinitely better as smartwatches than the Creative Nomad and Diamond Rio ever were as MP3 players.
The Apple Watch is a delightful smartwatch that's a ton of fun to use. Of all the wearables we've handled (and we've handled quite a few), the Apple Watch is the most refined and human-oriented, as well as the easiest to fall in love with.
Apple squeezed its wearable tech into a smaller body than we've seen from any of the Android Wear or Samsung Gear watches. It's actually the closest in size to Pebble Steel, which has a black & white, non-touch display and primitive processing power. It's quite the feat that Apple crammed some pretty advanced tech into a casing that's around the same size as Pebble's barebones watch.
The Apple Watch isn't trying to look like a regular timekeeping watch, but the fact that it's as small as one makes all the difference. We find this approach to work a little better than watches like the Moto 360 (above, with the Apple Watch) or Asus ZenWatch, which look a bit more like standard watches than the Apple Watch does, but are also noticeably bigger.
... and keep in mind that we're only handling the 42 mm Apple Watch, which is the bigger model. The 38 mm model stretches that size gap between it and Android Wear watches even farther. The Apple Watch is the first smartwatch that women with smaller wrists can wear without looking like Dick Tracy's awkward twin sister.
The Apple Watch Sport that we're using is the entry-level model, but it doesn't feel cheap at all. Its aluminum body looks and feels smooth, and its fluoroelastomer (synthetic rubber) band is, somewhat paradoxically, a rubber watch strap that actually feels pretty high-end. If you were thinking about paying a few hundred bucks more for the stainless steel Apple Watch, mostly out of fear that the Sport is "the cheap one," then don't worry. We think this space gray Apple Watch Sport looks very sharp.
Apple is all about simplicity, so you'd expect its smartwatch software to be the simplest, right?
Well, not this time. Apple's "Watch OS" actually has the most complex wearable interface we've used, with its user interface and input methods requiring a bit of a learning curve. Unlike an iPhone or iPad, this isn't something that a child can pick up and just "get" within a minute or two.
Though the Watch is more complex than we'd (historically speaking) expect from Apple, it's every bit as intuitive as you'd expect. After learning the software layout and different ways of interacting with the watch (this took all of half an hour), we realized how naturally it was all laid out.
While that slight complexity the first time you put it on may be surprising to Apple Watch buyers, it also gives developers more ways for users to interact with their apps. Once everyone learns how to use the Apple Watch (trust us, it won't take long), and developers get some time to cut their teeth on it, there's a lot that we'll be able to do on these tiny screens. More so than other wearable operating systems, Watch OS feels like an exciting new frontier.
That's because the Apple Watch doesn't rely solely on a touchscreen and a button or two. It has the touchscreen and it has two physical buttons, but it also has a second, never-before-seen way of touching your screen, known as Force Touch, along with the winding "Digital Crown" you see below.
Here's a quick breakdown of all the different ways you can interact with the Apple Watch:
regular touchscreen input is still the first way of getting around: you know, taps and swipes like you'd use on any smartphone or tablet
pressing down farther on the touchscreen activates a "Force Click" – a secondary touch that often brings up menus or other options (also seen on Apple's latest MacBooks)
pressing the Digital Crown (again, that's the winder on the watch's top right side) serves as a back button and shortcut to your apps screen
twisting the Digital Crown lets you scroll up and down lists and messages, as well as zoom in and out of your app collection and images
double-pressing the Digital Crown jumps to your most recent app
long-pressing the Digital Crown starts Siri
single-pressing the lower right side button jumps to a list of your favorite contacts for easy messaging
double-pressing that messaging button activates Apple Pay
That's eight different input methods, all on a teeny-tiny device with only a screen and two physical buttons. So while the Apple Watch's UI might not be the simplest from the moment you pick it up, it still does more with less than any other wearable we've used. Once you learn the ropes, this is the most advanced and intuitive smartwatch OS today.
