The Apple Watch, Is It Worth It?

The Apple iWatch

Now that Apple has introduced its smartwatch during its iPhone 6 launch, fans are surely excited to get their hands on it but sadly the Apple watch will only be available around early 2015. It’s only a matter of time till they’re commonplace and if you really want to know if it’s worth waiting for, here’s a short rundown about the Apple Watch.

Price

Apple has confirmed that the Apple Watch will start at $349 in the US, which equates to around RM 1,135.19 if it’s a straight conversion, but that’s too soon to confirm. We’ll need to wait until it reaches our shore.

Design

There are three versions of the Watch. They’re all functionally the same but with different builds. The Apple Watch Sport which comes in a choice of five different colours is designed to be as lightweight and durable as possible.

The Apple Watch has a stainless steel case and a sapphire crystal display, while for straps you get a choice of leather, a link bracelet, a Milanese loop or a “fluoroelastomer” similar to those found on the Watch Sport.

Lastly, there’s the Watch Edition which has a case made from 18-carat gold in either yellow or rose colours, along with a sapphire crystal screen, so expect it to be very expensive indeed.

Whichever Apple Watch you decide on, you’ll have a choice of two different sizes – 38mm or 42mm, which is very sensible as not everyone has the same wrist size. Another great feature – changing the strap of your Apple Watch without going through jewellers, so if you ever want a change, you can just buy a replacement and fit it yourself.

Specs

Apple hasn’t given out detailed specs but here are some things we know. For one, the battery life is said to be around a day, and it’s also going to charge wirelessly, but Apple’s using its own technology for this, so any existing wireless chargers you may have won’t work.

The Watch also includes a heart rate monitor and an accelerometer, which is comparable to other smartwatches out there that’s focusing on health and fitness tracking. It will show you your daily activity at a glance, including how much exercise you’ve done and how many calories you’ve burnt. It also tells you distance travelled, pace and more.

Software 

The Apple Watch has its own OS but it’s reminiscent of iOS. Like most smartwatches it relies largely on a combination of touchscreen interactions and voice commands, leveraging Siri for the latter.

Apple promises millions of watch face to choose from, so even though any number of people owning the Apple Watch, the face on yours could look almost completely unique.

As the Apple Watch is linked to your iPhone you’ll get notifications for texts and calls too and you can even use Siri to respond to messages straight from your wrist, plus make calls too. Using Siri to activate turn-by-turn navigation on your wrist, you can view photos, control music and more.

Also worth mentioning is the “Taptic Engine” which delivers haptic feedback in subtly nuanced ways, so for example the vibration when your phone rings will be different to the vibration for a calendar alert, so you can tell the difference before you even look at your wrist.

Digital Crown 

Besides using the touchscreen and Siri to interact with the Apple Watch, there are also two utility buttons. One is the digital crown and it has several uses. It gets you back to the home screen quickly and with a twist, it can also zoom in or out on things, since the screen is too small to easily pinch zoom. You can also twist it to scroll through certain things, such as dates and times.

Conversation Button 

Another button just below the Digital Crown, connects and communicates by tapping, bringing up a version of your address book and with the digital crown, you can easily select a specific person and call or message them. With Apple’s new feature via a tap, you can send a vibration to other Watch, subtly getting their attention.

Early Verdict

The Apple Watch is a device that many will want to own with the iPhone 6, as both styling matches really well, and let’s be honest: people are entrenched into the Apple ecosystem therefore it’s hands down on their buying decision.

It’s really annoying not knowing the price and exact release date and as a result, difficult to gauge its success. The battery life is a shame, but then again it’s not unexpected. But it’s a sure thing that Apple has brought visibility of wearables to the wider market and everyone will benefit through higher consumer traction.

Will we see it on everyone’s wrist? Probably not, but then again not everyone owned an iPad or iPhone at the start. This is phase one of a much longer product game but the Apple Watch is quite a good start.