29 July, 2017 by Simon Descoteau

Do I Regret Getting an Apple Watch?

Bit of a cheat because I didn’t buy mine. It was a gift from my boss for doing well on a particular project however…

At first I didn’t see the point of it besides the Micky Mouse clock face and if I had paid for it I would have regretted it. I barely used it to be frank.

Then, I slowly started to set up the watch to my work and personal life and suddenly I got “it”. I understood why someone would love it. I’ll briefly highlight the key features I use it for below:

1. Apple Pay – Yes I know you can do this on the phone as well, but I use this daily on my watch for all my travel on the train, getting my breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee and it is so convenient just tapping my wrist on the scanner instead of getting my phone out. Last thing you want to be doing in a crowded train station is rooting around for your phone to get out of the barriers with a queue of people behind you and your hands full of things. Those who use the London Underground during rush hour will know what I mean.
2. Apple Health – Knowing how much I am doing activity wise is really useful. It may not be accurate down to the last calorie but it is useful for a trend or indication of what I am doing. Working an office job, this is a very important thing.
3. Notifications – After I properly tweaked the notifications so only the important ones came up on my watch, I found it really useful to have a buzz on my wrist to inform me I had a message. A glance to my wrist lets me see the message and see if it needs to be responded to or not. Additionally, in crowded or loud places it is easy to miss your phone ringing and the vibrations don’t always travel through jeans but you always notice your wrist buzzing.
4. Navigation – Being out and about in strange places it is much easier and less obvious to glance at my wrist to see where I need to turn instead of having to walk around staring at my phone. Obvious advantages here.
5. Weather – I use Dark Sky (a most excellent weather app and very accurate), and it has a watch companion so I have at a glance, the outside temperature and rain warnings.
6. Calendar – Having my next appointment on my wrist at a glance is a life saver when jumping between calls and meetings on a day to day basis. It has helped me avoid missing many an appointment.
7. ToDoist – Another excellent application for keeping track of what you need to do. Literally just an intelligent to do list. The watch companion app reminds me how many things I have left to do today with a quick tap telling me what they are. More convenient when working during the day to have that visual representation.
8. Time Zones – My boss is in New Jersey, I am in England. Being able to see at a glance what time it is where he is, makes life much easier.
9. Pokemon Go – Yes I still play this game and this won’t be relevant for most but it honestly totally transforms the distance based challenges of that game as it uses your steps rather than GPS which isn’t as accurate. It was very frustrating losing steps because GPS sucked.

There are other little ways my life has been improved with the Apple Watch. Yes, it sucks the battery only lasts 1 day and I have to charge it every night. The new ones are much better in this regard and supposedly they’re bringing out another one this Autumn that gets even better!

I think the best way to answer this question is that when the next iteration of the Apple Watch comes out, I will definitely be putting my own money where my mouth is and buying it!

Closing thoughts: I originally wrote this post elsewhere, but I felt that it would be a good excuse to get back into writing, and it gave me a chance to give my latest toy a bit of a workout. I will post a review shortly of the iPad Mini 4 and keyboard case I'm currently getting to know better.

#Apple#Reflection#Review#Smartwatch#Watch