While the Apple Watch isn't available for purchase until April 24, many tech news outlets got their hands on the device so that they can review it and help customers determine if it is as practical or as useful as they appear. A number of outlets published their first reviews, and they noticed a number of things.
First off, reviewers were mostly impressed by the device's design. "The little cube of metal and glass wouldn't seem out of place in a futuristic lab or sci-fi movie. It is very much an Apple product: clean, sleek, remarkably solid. But as a piece of jewelry, it's similar to other digital watches, " wrote Joshua Topolsky of Bloomberg Business. Reviewers were also impressed with the device's functionality. Nilay Patel of The Verge noted that the device was slow and, at times, inconvenient. However, Patel recognizes that these are just the typical glitches of a first generation device that Apple will have to fix as they develop the device.
A core question that all reviewers asked of the Apple Watch was why users would want to buy a wrist-based screen that performs the same function as their smartphone. "The Watch is not an iPhone on your wrist," wrote Farhad Manjoo in the New York Times. However, Manjoo does think the device could provide a new way for people who are "inundated with notifications" to interact with their busy world.
Patel found that there are three particular ways that he tended to interact with his Apple Watch: "the watch face, the app launcher, and the communications app." Topolsky noted that the watch face, which is only active when the watch thinks you're looking at it, is a bit sensitive and often required him to exert extra energy so that the watch "knew" he was looking at it. Manjoo said that most of the third-party apps he used were broken and would require updates before the device's release on April 24. However, he was impressed with the App interface. Finally, Patel said that the watch's notification system simplified his work and decreased the time he spent cancelling or removing notifications on his smart phone. Patel is impressed with the "Taptic Engine" in particular, which used vibrations to communicate a variety of messages through unique sensations. After a week of wearing his Apple Watch, Patel believed that the Taptic Engine was under-emphasized in Apple's keynotes about the device, and that the simple vibration functon had a lot of potential functionality behind it.
What about the Apple Watch's health tracking functionality? Patel notes that this is the one thing that the iPhone could never do. As he experimented with the Activity and the Workout apps on the Apple Watch, he found that they were useful, even if they were a little basic.
What were the critics' final take on the Apple Watch? " .....even if it's not yet for everyone, Apple is on to something with the device. The Watch is just useful enough to prove that the tech industry's fixation on computers that people can wear may soon bear fruit" wrote Manjoo in the New York Times. Topolsky of Bloomberg Business was also impressed, though he believes the device has a long way to go. "So Apple has succeeded in its first big task with its watch. It made something that lives up to the company's reputation as an innovator and raised the bar for a whole new class of devices. Its second task-making me feel that I need this thing on my wrist every day-well, I'm not quite sure it's there yet."
The Apple Watch will be available for in-store previews and pre-orders on April 10 and available for purchase on April 24.
