The Apple Watch Review
by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on July 20, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Wearables
- Apple
- Mobile
- Apple Watch
Apple Pay
I normally don’t cover mobile payment solutions, but in the case of the Apple Watch I suspect this is the fastest way for anyone not using an iPhone 6/6 Plus to get Apple Pay access. Although I’ve never written anything about Apple Pay on the iPhone 6, in my experiences it’s probably the best solution around when it comes to easy payment due to the NFC boosting that makes the iPhone 6 send and receive NFC with no real orientation dependence and TouchID payment authentication. Coming into this review, the real question for me is whether Apple Watch could have the same seamless experience.
To try and figure out the answer to that question, there are really a few elements to the payment experience that have to be figured out. The first is authentication, which can easily be the biggest downfall in the experience. To this end, Apple has figured out a pretty smart system of wrist detection combined with a PIN code which ends up making for a pretty seamless experience. At the start of the day, you input your passcode when you put on the watch, and any time the watch is removed you have to input the passcode again or else pretty much everything (including Apple Pay) is locked out. If you lose your watch, no one can access the payment component without your PIN.
This effectively means that when you’re paying for something with the watch, all you have to do is double-tap the side button to activate Apple Pay. I’m not sure why it’s strictly necessary for NFC to be off unless the user activates it, but it’s likely that even the standby power of NFC would be significant with the battery of the Apple Watch.
This payment terminal was at head-level in the back of a taxi
The second potential roadblock is ease of use with payment terminals. To this end, the RF component is actually without issue. I didn’t find myself particularly constrained in terms of distance or orientation of the watch to interface with readers. However, I think the problem with payments on the Apple Watch is that in some cases readers are just placed in positions that require some really odd contortions to get the watch to the reader, regardless of whether the NFC RF subsystem is well-designed. Anything at chest or waist level was usually without problems, but I noticed that readers mounted at head-level were remarkably difficult to use with Apple Watch. Other issues like setup for card payments were really without issue, and I suspect most people won’t have any problems setting up their watch for Apple Pay.
Ultimately, while Apple Watch will work just as well as an iPhone 6 for payments, the real downfall here is mostly a problem of physiology. While in some cases using the watch for payments is a natural gesture, there are a number of edge cases that require a lot of contortion to get the watch to the payment terminal. If you don’t have an iPhone 6/6 Plus and you want to use Apple Pay, Apple Watch is probably the best way of getting Apple Pay. However, I still think the smartphone is a better platform for payments for ergonomic reasons.
WatchOS Final Words
The Apple Watch has a completely new OS, which warrants some especially close scrutiny of the OS as any early design decisions made have a tendency to snowball in terms of momentum, so it’s almost impossible to make some changes once applications are widely using shared libraries and APIs that are expected to work in a temporally consistent manner. To recap for those that don’t want to read everything previously discussed, there are a few areas that are worth examining in WatchOS, namely the watch functionality itself, notification handling, glances, apps, communication, fitness, and Apple Pay.
The watch functionality is solid, and Apple has created a number of compelling, useful, and deeply customizable watchfaces. The use of Force Touch and digital crown here makes a lot of sense when it comes to training the user for the rest of the UI, and the ease of use in customizing the watchface is truly great. There is the issue of no public API for watchfaces, but I suspect that this will come with time as it’s important to ensure that such an API is properly designed for long term support. 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 as anything important to me ends up as a complication on the watchface. In practice, I think glances are best thought of as quick settings toggles rather than sources of glanceable information. To this end, the ability to turn on power reserve mode, toggle airplane mode, silent mode, do not disturb mode, and ringing the paired iPhone, and other controls like music playback control are definitely welcome and make a lot of sense.
When it comes to notification handling, once again I think Apple has done an effective job from a UI perspective as the notification shade uses familiar constructs from iOS/Android and the use of Force Touch to dismiss all notifications is a nice touch. However, I do have issues with how multiple simultaneous notifications are handled, which should be converted into a list view of all notifications rather than a single notification that indicates there are multiple notifications from the same application. Other than this, I think Apple has done a solid job with all the necessary features (do not disturb, actionable notifications, dismiss all, smooth UI). From a broader UX perspective the Taptic Engine is good enough to be worthy of a separate discussion, but within the context of notifications it works well.
Apps are ultimately what make a platform, because at the end of the day the reason why people use any general purpose computer is because of the apps that it can run. To this end, there’s currently a huge division in quality and functionality between first-party and third-party apps. Apple’s applications are executed well, with pretty much all the functionality that makes sense and great design. I never really had any frustrating moments with Apple’s apps on the watch. For any kind of input, there was always the ability to use Apple keyboard predictions or Siri voice input, which covered just about every case in which I wanted to input some kind of text in reply.
However, the same can’t be said of third-party apps. Probably the best example of this is Uber, which is literally just a button to request a pick-up with no other options when I can easily imagine a UI leveraging the digital crown to precisely indicate pickup, and swipes or Force Touch to select the type of Uber I want to use. This kind of UI is simple, but arguably too simple for a watch with as many UI tools as Apple Watch. I’m not sure that “native apps” will necessarily fix everything here, but native apps combined with developer experience and more powerful hardware will probably deal with most of the complaints I have about third party apps for WatchOS 2.
Communication is really a part of apps, but deserves specific mention because it’s such a critical task of the Apple Watch. To that end, there are really three key native apps that fall under this category. These are the phone, messages, and email application. All of these are well-executed, and in practice the user experience around all of these is pretty much painless. One could argue that email is missing some functionality, but for at a glance email viewing it works pretty much as it should. Fitness falls under a similar category in the sense that it’s a subset of the apps category, but if nothing else, Apple has made a great fitness tracking application when it comes to information presented, design, and ease of use. Apple Pay is also well-implemented in terms of ease of use, but there’s a fundamental issue with ergonomics that prevents Apple Pay on the watch from being as great as it is on the iPhone.
Overall, I think Apple has created an OS that is forward-looking and fully capable of supporting future iterations of Apple Watch without too much trouble, although many details will change as time goes on. However, for early adopters I suspect there will be some objection to performance. As one might be able to guess from our S1 CPU analysis, the S1 SiP is not going to be able to come close to a modern smartphone for performance, which means that even basic UI tasks can be a bit of a struggle with visibly-dropped frames when scrolling and swiping through some parts of the UI like the fitness app. There’s also the issue of app load times, but I suspect this will disappear with the inevitable advance of Moore’s law and native apps can load almost instantly in some cases.
Currently, third-party apps are lacking either from the lack of native app support or from general unfamiliarity of design principles for the watch. Probably the only real criticism I have for the OS overall is that there’s currently a distinct lack of watch independence, as if I set the iPhone to airplane mode but keep the watch able to connect to the internet applications like weather are unable to download anything even though it should be able to connect to my home router and download this kind of information anyways. Given the number of constraints that come with the wearable form factor, WatchOS is probably one of the best OSes out there for wearables.
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Tams80 - Tuesday, July 21, 2015 - link
One more point to add:While this is essentially a piece of jewellery, it is also a throw away commodity. The battery will degrade quickly with it's intended use, and as far as I know is not replaceable. This is more acceptable for a base piece of technology, so prices can be high. For an accessory though? The price is far too high.
It can't really be compared to jewellery though. Jewellery lasts a long time, and is often handed down. What it lacks in features, it makes up for in longevity.
dan98 - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
"You haven't tried many watches, and by the sounds of it, none to the same extent as the Apple Watch. If that is the case, then I don't think you are qualified to make a comparison to them, as a professional reviewer. "Bizarre point. The reviewer doesn't make any comparisons, other than to those he has tried.
"You do know that there are smartwatches out there that take standard watch straps? You do know that there are countless different designs of standard watch straps?"
Bad point. Where did he mention just the strap? He's talking about the discomfort of the wearable as a whole.
"What ergonomic annoyances? The watch goes on your wrist, and in many cases never needs to come off. In return watches tell the time, often the date and day, and sometimes more. How is glancing at a watch less ergonomic than getting your phone out of wherever it is and checking it?"
Bad point. The ergonomic annoyances of watches are clear and obvious to most people. ie. they catch on things, add bulk to the arm, and require care to avoid damage in certain situations. Its a question of whether these annoyances are outweighed by the advantages of the watch in question.
"Total fluff, and no shit Sherlock"
? This is a non-point which only serves to underline the commenter's bizarre stance.
yhselp - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
The first proper, in-depth review of any wearable that I am aware of. Thank you for taking the time to do it right, the end result is a very valuable (in many respects) piece of work. This, in my opinion, is the most 'AnandTech' article since Anand left and it's very welcome -- I've now read one too many articles here where the reviewer explains himself and tries to justify his opinion in a manner as if to ward off the expected flamers in the comments. I believe that loyal and regular AnandTech reader values your opinion as it is, unbiased and as objective as possible; do not be deterred by fanboys and haters -- there's no need to cater to them.beggerking@yahoo.com - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
review is totally biased... 12 hr battery life?search for android watch phone. there are android watch phones that are FULL phones with dual core/ quad core cpu that has 3 day battery life, along with waterproof , micro sd, etc etc and the price is between $100-300
beggerking@yahoo.com - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
"I don’t know if Apple will succeed in convincing others of the utility of a watch, but they’ve definitely convinced me."right. now how much $$ did Crapple deposit into your bank account?
S2k15 - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
What has to happen in someone's life, that they become such a hateful and shitty human being like yourself? Do you have evidence that this author was paid off? If not, shut the fuck up and spare us your attempts at slander and character assassination.Also, I hope you're not older than 5 yrs old, which is the only thing that would excuse the sheer stupidity of the using the word "Crapple". It's sad that comment sections have been flooded with absolute trash posts like yours.
allajunaki - Thursday, July 23, 2015 - link
Wow, Anandtech Comments used to be filled with smart people. Sadly, most of the comments seems to come from trolls. And I have a sneaky feeling that most of it are from a few. Unfortunately, instead of reading anything constructive, all I read is haters hating, and defenders defending. And most of it has no objective, or constructive content.I have been an Anadtech visitor for the last 15 or so years. I never once had to question the integrity of this website. Its sad that other commentators do not share the same sentiment.
Folks, best way to shut a troll, is by ignoring them.
Anandtech, can we have Comment Votes (Like Arstechnica) ?
Spencer Andersen - Thursday, July 23, 2015 - link
It is sad to see so many negative people commenting on every tech site. I guess people just need to prove they have some superior intellect or knowledge that makes them better than others to be happy.I sometimes feel bad for these talented individuals doing these reviews who put their knowledge to the web only for it to be dissected and misconstrued by the masses every single time. The truth is if these commenters were happy with their lives they wouldn't feel the need to constantly challenge or put others down. It's a huge problem with the world today, rather than work together and bring each other up so we can reach higher existence we choose to be selfish and think about ourselves and drag each other down.
I for one love Anandtech and visit it because these people know stuff about tech I never will so I value their opinions. I got some great information from this article as I do from every other article and thats why I keep coming back. So to all the malcontents out there talking all that trash, take a magnesium calcium supplement for witch your probably deficient in and chill the flip out. Enjoy this great website built off the efforts and contributions of many talented people. And click on damn add every once in a while to support them, its not going to kill you to loose a few seconds of your life.
jonminchoi - Thursday, July 23, 2015 - link
As an owner of the Apple Watch, I'd like to provide some comments to the review, and to the general state of the comments.First, a review (and by extension the reviewer) is not the ultimate source of truth in the universe, but rather is a mere opinion of a collected group, providing some form of technical evidence to ground their claims. Depending on the site, the aforementioned evidence could be extremely detailed and scientific, or it could be somewhat subjective.
It is entirely your choice as the reader to agree with the reviewer's words, but please, do not belittle the reviewer or the article. Even if you are gifted with literary ability that far exceeds his (which I would think is extremely unlikely), it does not give you the right to bully and patronize others.
I, for one, agree with most of what the reviewer mentioned: the Apple Watch has never given me trouble with the battery life. I doubt there is a huge population of Apple Watch users who have actual need to keep the Watch on for longer than 18 hours (the battery life stated by Apple, which seems very underestimated). I have not had much trouble with the actual function of the Apple Watch, as I use it mostly for parsing notifications more effectively than the use of just my iPhone would allow. Taptic Feedback works very well, and I am able to respond to most notifications without disrupting my coworkers in an extremely quiet work environment. Although there is some noticeable loading time for apps that require the use of iOS, this fact has never bothered me to the point of being a dealbreaker.
At the end of the day, I'm able to afford the price of the Apple Watch, and have thus far enjoyed the benefits of ownership. While there are still some things I wish Apple could improve in both hardware and software, I have not regretted my purchase.
I think both the moderators of Anandtech as well as its readers would benefit from a more contributive and constructive discussion.
gamer1000k - Thursday, July 23, 2015 - link
While I'm no Apple fan (and will never own an iPhone and by proxy and Apple Watch unless some major changes occur at Apple), I will admit that this watch is a neat piece of technology. Sure it has some first gen quirks and will likely be orphaned rapidly as new and improved models come out, but Apple did put some effort into this and I look forward to seeing their competitors up their game in response so I can get those products once the prices come down. Still, I'm a little annoyed at how much media attention and hype Apple gets for a product that really isn't all that different from existing android smartwatches. (And yes, this article does read a little like a kid at christmas who got a shiny new toy. At least the final conclusion comes back to reality and recognizes this is a first gen product with some major drawbacks so we should wait for the next version.)Granted, it's not the piece of technology I would have designed (and I heartily agree that it costs entirely too much for what it is), but the same could be said for pretty much all smartwatches at this point. I'm a little disappointed with Apple's (and most other companies) approach to the smartwatch and trying to pack too much power into a device that doesn't really need it.
I think Pebble's approach is the most logical at this point. It displays notifications, has a microphone, and even runs simple apps all while maintaining a week's worth of battery life and an always-on e-paper display. The LCD and relatively beefy CPU on the Apple watch and others allow for flashier interfaces and apps, but I'm still not sure how that really adds to the smartwatch experience at this point.
I'll keep an open mind and see what happens over the next few months, but right now I see the smartwatch primarily as a notification accessory for a phone and have a hard time visualizing how it will work as an application platform beyond the most basic apps given the tiny screen.