Apple’s “Spring Forward” event has unveiled the highly anticipated Apple Watch. Check out all the latest hands-on reviews of Apple’s newest product below.
Apple Watch Reviews & Hands-On
Wired is dazzled by the watch’s responsiveness.
“The touch experience on the screen is exceedingly swift and responsive. You can tap or scroll on the screen using a fingertip, or use the digital crown on the side to scroll or zoom. Being accustomed to using an iPhone, using the crown for navigation feels kind of awkward and foreign for now, but I could see myself getting used to it in the future. For zooming into apps on the home screen, I had trouble spinning the crown to the exact zoom level I wanted (again, something that probably comes with practice). However, even without optimal zoom levels, I was usually able to tap the exact app I wanted to open. Apple’s circular icon-filled home screen is markedly different from other smart watches. I’m interested to see whether it is in fact easier and more convenient to use than swiping through a couple of pages to reach your app of choice, like on Android Wear.”
The Verge feels the current design isn’t all that intuitive.
“That feeling of not knowing exactly where you are or what’s going to happen is pretty disorienting for an Apple product — the steady iterative updates of iOS and OS X mean that it’s traditionally been quite easy to pick up a new iPhone or MacBook and understand how to use it. But the Watch is really different, in ways big and small. To customize a watch face, you Force Touch on the screen, and then regular tap on various elements, which Apple calls “complications.” But then you don’t drag on the screen to change them as you would on an iPhone, you move to the Digital Crown and scroll. Nothing prompts you to do that, you just have to know. Does this sound complicated? It is. It makes sense over time — it gets your fingers off the tiny screen — but it’s not immediately intuitive.”
Tech Radar thinks Apple is taking a step in the right direction.
“One thing’s for sure – now Apple has brought visibility of wearables to the wider market through the Apple Watch, everyone will benefit through higher consumer traction. Will we see everyone wearing one? 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 One is a quite good start.”
Macworld is impressed with the styles available at launch.
“The best news was that Apple didn’t just launch a smartwatch, it launched a whole raft of smartwatches. By combining the three different Apple Watch categories, the two different face sizes and the accompaniment of straps, there is the potential for 34 different Apple Watches, so there is a style to suit anybody. And crucially, since Apple is offering two watch face sizes, the Apple Watch will be as comfortable on a female wrist as on a man’s wrist.”
Tech Crunch is convinced it’ll take some getting used to.
“Features will require more time to assess – the notifications and quick replies seem very interesting and worthwhile, but the new paired communication mode that Apple demoed, which allows one user to connect directly to another for real-time sharing of hand-drawn messages, customized animated smileys, heartbeats and more, initially strikes as a bit of a strange concept. Apple’s messaging is all about the novelty of the feature, however, which means that whether it catches on or not, it’ll take some acclimation.”