The Apple Watch Review
by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on July 20, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Wearables
- Apple
- Mobile
- Apple Watch
Final Words
At the beginning of this review, I said that I haven’t worn watches in any consistent fashion for my entire life. In a lot of ways, this will be an accurate characterization for many people. With the rise of the cellphone and its network-synchronized time, it became pretty much pointless for most people to wear a watch. The ergonomic annoyances involved with wearing a wristwatch strongly outweighed whatever functionality it provided. In this context, Apple is really facing an uphill battle with the Apple Watch. Apple has to sell people on the concept of a watch all over again, and not just on the idea of a smarter watch, which is a challenge that they never faced in smartphone adoption.
There are so many aspects of the Apple Watch that really have to be considered before we figure out whether Apple has succeeded, so we have to break this down into multiple aspects. The first is the design, because people that wear wristwatches all the time don’t really approach this the same way others would. What seems normal to people that wear watches all day long is easily uncomfortable and annoying to people that aren’t used to wearing watches.
As a result, this kind of discomfort can easily result in a wearable that ends up thrown in a drawer somewhere to be forgotten, which won’t bode well for long-term gains. I’ve tried other wearables, but nothing really interested me because everything was uncomfortable in some way. Over time, these small annoyances just made it easy for me to decide that the functionality of the wearable was outweighed by the discomfort of the design.
The Apple Watch on the other hand doesn’t suffer from discomfort issues at all, and in this regard, Apple has arguably pushed the industry forward. For the most part, it’s a pretty safe bet that pretty much anyone will find a band design that they like. In the case of a band like the Milanese Loop band, the problems I’ve always had with traditional leather buckle bands are pretty much eliminated. The Sport band is rather traditional, but the material used helps to alleviate discomfort when sweat starts to wet the band and evenly distributes tension around the wrist.
Meanwhile, although Apple’s wristbands use a proprietary mechanism to lock into the watch, like the Lightning connector it makes a huge difference in user experience because it’s incredibly easy to swap out bands compared to just about every other watch or wearable I’ve seen. The design is also executed well, which is good enough that it doesn’t look out of place when comparing it to analog watches. We can talk about whether the watch is too thick but on the wrist it blends it well without significant problems. The one problem that I’ve noticed in terms of ergonomics is that long sleeves are a significant impediment to usability because I have to pull my sleeve back to use the watch.
One crucial aspect of the Apple Watch's design and accessibility is its size. Apple sells two versions for people with different wrist sizes, and this alone is something that distinguishes it from most other smart watches on the market today. Even with two sizes, the larger 42mm Apple Watch is still substantially smaller than most other wearables. This makes the Apple Watch accessible to a wide range of people, and it highlights an issue that is prevalent within this section of the wearable market which is that smart watches tend to be sized quite generously to accommodate large batteries and PCBs. While this is fine for users with larger wrists, it ends up excluding a large portion of the market. A user who feels most comfortable with the 38mm Apple Watch, for example, will almost certainly find a watch like the Moto 360 to be far too large.
Outside of design, the other critical aspect to getting a modern watch right is SoC, which sounds absolutely absurd for a timepiece. However, it's important to emphasize that Apple cannot afford to only sell Apple Watch to people who already believe that it is sufficient for a watch to only tell time; Apple Watch needs the performance to do more.
In this regard, Apple has targeted the SoC correctly for a 28nm HKMG process. A 520 MHz Cortex A7 is ultimately the right choice to make to focus as strongly as possible on perf/W for this platform, given that average power draw over the course of 18 hours can only be about 40-50 mW at most it’s important to make sure that the CPU voltage and frequency curves are in the right place for the TDP of a watch and that the CPU spends most of its time in an efficient mode of operation. The use of an appropriately-sized GPU for the watch form factor is also important, and helps with making power stay at the 40-50 mW average power consumption over the course of a day.
The one catch here is that at 28nm the performance that the watch can deliver is on the edge of what’s acceptable in terms of frame rate and loading times. Apple Watch really needs a better process technology in order to deliver more performance without compromising power consumption, and a move to a leading-edge FinFET process would go a long way towards accomplishing this thanks to the rather significant voltage improvements FinFETs afford.
Ultimately, hardware is just one part of the equation. Hardware innovation is impressive in its own right, but without an application there’s no value to the end user. Fortunately, WatchOS delivers in a very big way. Force Touch is consistently used throughout the UI to provide additional controls that otherwise would reduce information density. The Digital Crown is used to allow for information density that allows for precise zoom and scrolling in a way that I never really experienced with other wearables, and is really an integral part of the WatchOS UI as capacitive touch is almost never used outside of tapping in everyday use.
Key features like fitness, music playback, text messaging, and email are all executed well with very little need for end user intervention which is really critical on a device where any sort of text input is difficult to say the least. Notifications are also well-handled and work as expected, with no strange behavior like not dismissing notifications on the phone if dismissed from the watch, and appropriate haptic feedback for various notifications. Apple Pay also works well from the software side even if there are some ergonomic pitfalls.
Out of all the wearable OSes I’ve seen, it really feels like WatchOS is what iOS was for smartphone OSes. Of course, Apple Watch isn’t perfect in the software department. Due to the relatively weak SoC in this version of the Apple Watch there’s a lot of time spent staring at loading screens when the app is loading from the phone or if the app needs to pull information from the network. There are also a surprising number of cases where the UI visibly runs below 60 FPS or otherwise stutters, which suggests that an extra CPU core and/or higher clocks would help a lot. There are also some problems with how multiple notifications from either the same or different apps are handled, but overall the execution on the software side is excellent.
Getting back to hardware, aspects like the display and battery life are also solid when examined in a vacuum. The display could probably be improved upon from an energy efficiency perspective, but given limited testing tools it’s difficult to have the same data that we do on the smartphone side, so this assumption is almost purely based on power testing of LG OLED and Samsung OLED displays in various smartphones. The brightness of this display is acceptable, and the calibration is excellent by any standard which surprised me given the reduced need for color accuracy in a wearable display. Subjectively, I didn’t have a lot of trouble with seeing the display in daytime but given the use of the more conventional glass on the Sport edition reflection should be greatly reduced relative to variants with the sapphire lens.
Although we don't have an objective battery life test, the Apple Watch never failed to last a full day, and charge time is acceptable although nowhere as fast as something with wired fast charging. This sounds like a relatively short comment, and it's because I sincerely never worried about battery life. Range anxiety just isn't a problem like it is on smartphones.
The Taptic Engine is also a seemingly simple change, but the result of a modified linear actuator incorporating the speaker has a pretty enormous effect because notifications become impossible to miss. Apple claimed that the haptic feedback would feel like someone is tapping you on the wrist, and that’s actually entirely accurate. I normally don’t pay that much attention to haptic feedback in something like a smartphone, but in this case it’s such a big deal because it’s far quieter than conventional vibration yet immediately obvious no matter the situation. I’ve missed notifications before on my phone despite strong vibration feedback, but I’ve never missed a notification on the watch because of this new haptic feedback system.
In light of all of this, we have to try and split up this review into multiple parts. Although this is a review of the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch will ultimately be quickly forgotten with the launch of future iterations of the Apple Watch. After all, Apple is not trying to sell the world on the idea of a smarter watch, but the idea of a watch altogether.
For those still deciding on whether the first Apple Watch makes sense, I have no reservations in saying that it’s the best wearable I’ve ever used. However, at the same time I find it hard to recommend this first-generation Apple Watch. It’s clear that there are far too many obvious areas to improve upon, areas where Moore’s law will help to dramatically improve the experience. In the case of smartphones, Moore’s law made it possible to deliver true all-day battery life and fluid app performance. After spending a few months with the Apple Watch, all I can see is a need for more compute and battery life, like what happened with smartphones.
Finally, we get back to the question of whether Apple will be sell people on the concept of a watch. In the months since I first used the watch I’ve ended up wearing it every day. I distinctly noticed its absence when I forgot the charger on a trip. I don’t know if Apple will succeed in convincing others of the utility of a watch, but they’ve definitely convinced me.
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name99 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Regarding ARMv7k, check out the following story:http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/09/support-for-q...
Note the date --- Sept 2011. Further evidence that Apple plans these things a LONG time in advance,
(Relative to which, it is interesting to note that over the past month there has been a flurry of activity by Apple people on working LLVM targeting M-class processors. Maybe Apple are planning more IoT peripherals in a few years, or maybe they want to stick a small MPU in every Beats headset for some reason?
Or maybe they are moving from whatever they use today for PMU and sensor fusion on iOS/Watch to an M-class core?)
hlovatt - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
First, thanks for a great review. Excellent to have such detail.I don't wear a watch so won't be getting one. However I know 4 owners who are all very happy. They all previously owned smart watches, Garmin, Pebble, Fitbiz, etc. and universally prefer the Apple Watch. The tap thing sounds like a gimmick, but just try it - it's really well done.
Gripe: If you hate Apple so much that you can't be rational just leave Anandtech. There are plenty of places were you can have a mutual we hate Apple session. You are spoiling the site for others who want to discuss tech. If you prefer some other product just buy it, don't sling insults at others that disagree with you. Get real the reviewers said they wouldn't recommend the 1st gen device and you go off saying they have sold out etc. Totally unfair to them.
name99 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
While investigating the CPU details in interesting (and thanks!!! for doing this) I think it's important to appreciate that the CPU is probably the least important thing about aWatch performance as it matters to the average person.There are IMHO three primary performance problems with aWatch today:
(a) There is far too little caching (in a very generic sense) so that third party apps (and some interactions with Apple apps) require communicating with iPhone. Much of this will disappear with WatchOS2; some of it may be an inevitable fact of life regarding how BT LE works and, in particular, the minimum possible latency when one side wants to talk to the other. But it's also possible that this latency could be reduced in future versions of BT by changing the rendezvous algorithm?
(b) The touch screen controller (I assume to save power) only seems to take initial sensor reading at around twice a second. The result is that the first time you touch the screen to scroll, there is an obvious halting until the system sort of "gets it" and starts smoothly scrolling. This is obviously a touch screen issue because using the digital crown (when that is feasible, so for vertical rather than horizontal scrolling) acts immediately and smoothly. The fix, presumably, is to ramp up the rate at which the touch screen controller does its initial sensing, but who knows what the power implications of that are.
(c) The heart rate sensor is on "full-time" (which means, I don't know, sensing once every 10 seconds?) when you are in the Workout app, but otherwise runs at a really low rate (once every ten minutes?) At least the way I use my aWatch, I'd prefer a higher rate.
I'm guessing that Apple was overly cautious about battery life in WatchOS1, and now that most people understand what to expect, and have about 40% battery at the end of the day, they can afford to bump up the sampling rates for all these different things (touch screen, heart rate, maybe even BT LE) and if that moves the battery life down to 20% battery at the end of the day, that's a pretty good tradeoff.
But nowhere in any of this is CPU performance actually an issue. I can't think of anywhere where CPU or GPU performance affect the experience.
name99 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
A few comments about fitness:The primary thing using the Workout app does, as far as I can tell, is switch to ongoing (rather than coarse) monitoring of heart rate and position, which is useful but not essential. However it DOES also give you a nice display of whatever you consider important. My Pebble used to kinda sorta track steps and thus calories, but the fact that the watch tracks and displays heart rate on the Workout app screen is actually really useful. With the Pebble I'd kinda slack off when doing a run or step climbing being that's only natural, but when your heart rate is displayed you have more incentive to keep pushing.
The workout app is also nice if you're trying to hit your calorie burn goal every day. If you get to say 10pm or so and are 150 calories short, you can set a calorie goal (rather than say a time goal or a distance goal) and then just start stepping while watching TV or whatever.
Two useful facts to know (which I don;t think you mention). You can launch Workout (or any app) through "Hey Siri launch workout" rather than navigating to the app screen. (It's also useful to know that Hey Siri as a way to start speech ONLY works when the screen is lit up. If you don't know this, it's maddening at first as half the time it seems to work and half the time it doesn't.
Also double-clicking the digital crown toggles between the most recent app and the watch face. I use it a lot to toggle between watch and workout.
Finally most readers are probably young and think the stand up stuff is dumb or pointless. It really isn't, at least for older people. I've got to the stage where, when I stand up I can feel a kind of stiffness in the muscles, you know that old person sigh when you get up. And I've found that since getting the watch and heeding the stand notices, that has pretty much disappeared --- it really does help older muscles to not get locked into no motion for two or more hours.
(Also if you find the standing irritating, it's worth noting that the watch wants you to stand for a full minute, with some motion. At first I just used to stand then pretty much immediately sit down. That's not good enough and it won;t give you credit for that. But if you stand and pace for a minute or so, it will always give a little ding and reward you with credit for the stand.)
The one thing I wish (there is so much we can all want them to add to WatchOS2 and then WatchOS3) is a data broadcast mechanism. In particular, if the workout data could be displayed simultaneously on a phone (placed near a TV or on a step machine control panel) that would be much more comfortable than having to flick the wrist every minute or so to check one's heartbeat. Oh well, in time...
navysandsquid - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
I've never seen such a butthurt bunch of people. Almost every review on the internet give the apple watch a favorable review. Maybe you guys should stop letting you hate consume you. Anandtech has done one of the most indepth review of the apple watch. Which they do with most products. If you don't like apple products don't read the reviews. Your pathetic for even comments such ignorant things like "Watch under 9 days of battery life is unacceptable" Like please name a watch device with this much capability that runs longer then a couple days. oh wait you cant. I've had the watch for about 2 months and this review is spot on weather you like apple or not. Anandtech is a good review site. So just look in the mirror and say "Why do I hate them so much" Let me answer that for you. You don't like paying for what you get. Wait let me rephrase that. you do like paying for what you get your just to cheap to pay for quality. so p1ss of and buy yours self a Samsung smart watch for 149$ and let it collect dust lol I'm donename99 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
"Glances are well-executed and a useful feature, but I don’t really get the point of integrating heart rate monitoring into a glance or similar cases of app information"The authors appear unaware that you can customize glances. Go to the Watch app on iPhone and look around. You can both hide glances you find unimportant, and rearrange those that you want to use. Once you've done this, you can basically prioritize so that the most important stuff is in complications, while second tier stuff lives in glances, and third tier stuff requires an app launch.
name99 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
"Moving on to the saturation test, we can see that Apple has put a huge amount of effort into calibrating these displays, which is somewhat surprising given that one might expect wearables to not be all that critical when it comes to color accuracy."A persistent (and STILL not fixed) problem with the Apple ecosystem is that the faces of contacts display slightly differently on OSX vs iOS. There are outright bugs in the system (.psd photoshop files get incorrectly cropped on iOS, and different gamma is applied on OSX and iOS) but these may be fixed with the new Contacts framework of iOS9/OSX 10.11.
Point is --- your eye is actually remarkable sensitive to these apparently very slight deviations, at least when it comes to faces. So it makes sense for Apple to line up their hardware so that when they (at LONG FREAKING LAST!) get their software act together, the face photos do look identical across the line.
(And BTW how long will we have to keep typing in triples like iOS10/OSX 10.12/WatchOS3? At some point, and I think we're reaching that point, it's time to just refer to AppleOS 2015 followed by AppleOS 2016 followed by ...)
aryonoco - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
I am not an Apple hater, and I am very curious in the Apple Watch and the whole wearables category. However I agree with those who say that this review was below Anandtech's standards. Overly wordy, with too little information. I don't think I have ever said this about an Anandtech review before, but after reading this, I really don't think I learned a single thing that I didn't know going into the review.whiteiphoneproblems - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Without wanting to "pile on," I agree that this review could have been 1/3 the length, and 3x as helpful. I usually look to AT for the "best" review of any mobile device, but I would not say that is the case with this particular review. Most other Apple Watch reviews I've read have been more useful. (I think it comes down to editing.)nrencoret - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
+1 on that. I think you nailed the fact that Anandtech's succes is after reading an article, you always come out at the end a bit (or a lot in some cases) smarter. This review breaks the trend.