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Now that I have had it for about a week, I thought I would share my initial impressions of the Apple Watch. Electronically all Apple Watches are the same, the differences in the various models are the case construction (aluminum alloy, stainless steel, rose gold); the face material (specially hardened glass or sapphire crystal); and the watch band material (plastic, stainless steel mesh, classic buckle leather, leather loop, leather modern buckle, stainless steel link bracelet).

WHAT IS THE APPLE WATCH
I think of the Apple Watch as a really cool wearable user interface to the iPhone 5 or later running at least iOS 8. You cannot even setup the watch without resorting to the Watch app on the iPhone, much less use the watch as anything more than a relatively crude digital watch. With the iPhone however the watch becomes an amazing and highly flexible and useful accessory relegating the iPhone to a pocket or purse for most purposes.

BATTERY LIFE
I have heard and read several critiques of the battery life. Apple claims a battery life for the iPhone of 18 hours, but there is a catch to that. Apple's 18 hour life assumes a specific number of different power consuming operations during that 18 hour period. Last night when I put my watch on charge after wearing it for 17½ hours it had over 70% charge remaining. I had talked to Siri, checked the time, checked weather, and responded to a couple of texts but I had not navigated anywhere nor had I used any of the fitness options. One day, It did run down, but it turned out the charger cable was not completed plugged into the power supply so it did not charge. So far I have to say the claim of 18 hour battery life is VERY conservative. Since then I have learned to look for the message on the face that indicates the watch is charging.

USEFULNESS
An amazing number of Apple and third party iPhone apps already interact with the watch. Some of that interaction is minimal and getting everything fully setup requires both the watch and iPhone to accomplish, but it is useful. For example I can use my watch to pay for my Starbucks drink, or anything else that accepts Apple pay and choose the payment method on the fly. Notifications, texts, etc. that might otherwise go unnoticed cause a discreet tap on the wrist that is virtually impossible to miss. I can send email and/or texts from the watch using either canned replies or Siri dictation. In church, at the symphony, or any place else where you don't want to be heard or noticed looking at the iPhone or iPad a discrete glance at the watch will let you determine how critical a notification is and often will enable you to respond without anyone else being aware you are doing it. Some pundits have criticized the depth of the menus but I have not found that off-putting at all.

COMFORT
The Apple Watch with the leather loop band is hands down the most comfortable and most adjustable watch I have ever owned. For optimal usefulness the Apple Watch needs to be fairly fixed on the wrist and not flopping around and the leather loop and milanese loop bands are perfect for this.

LEARNING CURVE
There are a LOT of icons that show up on the watch and learning/remembering which is which is a bit of a challenge. Getting all the apps set up takes time and the "how to" is not always intuitive — especially with some third party apps. I still have a way to go before I consider myself fully cognizant of all the functions and features.

SUMMARY
Admittedly there is a definite air of gadgetry with the Apple Watch — it is unavoidable. But I have always loved good watches and for the last 9 or 10 years I have worn a stainless steel Movado chronograph so it is my standard of comparison for other watches. The Movado with its stainless steel link bracelet weighs in at 234 grams while the Apple Watch with the leather loop band tips the scale at a mere 83 grams and does everything the Movado does plus infinitely more with greater precision and accuracy and costs ⅔ of what the Movado did 10 years ago. Even better, as my eyes age I can quickly choose and customize the face of the Apple Watch to improve both readability and functionality. By that comparison alone I rate the Apple Watch a really good buy and a great watch.

For a bunch of years, now, I've been appalled by the degree to which cell phones, in their combined talking and texting capacities, have invaded the workplace. They seem to have become a license for unsupervised and even supervised workers to divert their attention from their jobs and conduct their personal lives at their bosses' expense.

But when you - the husband of a minister, no less - condone the use of your Apple Watch in church, I consider it to be the ultimate indictment of a major part of the culture of which Apple Watch is a part.

As I look around me and see people talking and texting...virtually everywhere, many of them either diverted from or with absolutely no regard for whatever else they're doing or supposed to be doing, I constantly wonder whether this degree of connectivity has always been necessary but unavailable, or whether it's only recently become necessary, and only by virtue of its availability? And I also wonder whether it's as all-fired necessary as so many people make it out to be?

I can't decry all instances, but using your Apple Watch in church raises "conducting your personal life at your boss's expense" to an unheard of level!

Edit: Thanks for the excellent, in-depth review, but I'd never trade my IWC for any non-mechanical watch; it's not only a miraculous device, it's an incredible work of art at the same time.

I just completed filling out a questionnaire from the Presbyterians Today magazine titled Is your church Seeker-Friendly?" One of the questions in the survey is…



My response to that question was, "NO — Thank God!" The truth is that is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged behavior in many churches — especially the evangelical mega-churches. Even more to the point electronic communications in church has been a fact of life since the advent of pagers. For many it is the difference between attending church or not. Most acceptably this applies to those in the medical and helping professions who are often if not continually on call. For those persons a quick glance at their Watch is far less distracting to everyone than hauling out their phone, and spending several seconds if not minutes staring at the screen and/or texting a reply. However even that recognition of reality does not extend teenagers and younger children, not to mention some adults, who spend the entire service glued to their screens either texting or playing games. IMHO their dedicated focus on electronic devices in any public venue is inexcusably rude behavior and incredibly annoying.



Thanks for your comments on my review.

As I look back I have not owned a mechanical watch since I bought a Rolex at the factory store in Switzerland nearly sixty years ago and it is a self-winding watch. FWIW I still have that Rolex and even with a solid silver Navajo indian bracelet for a band it weighs about half of what my Movado weighs. I quit using the Rolex regularly because it requires cleaning every two or three years to run properly and two years ago cleaning and servicing it cost as much as I paid for my Apple Watch and even with several Rolex dealers in town it was not easy finding one willing to do the job. Most wanted to send it back to Switzerland for service at an estimated cost running well into four figures. Since that time I have owned a number of watches ranging from Timex and Fossil through Mickey Mouse to the previously mentioned Movado and every one of them has been electronic. All but one has had a mechanical analog display but the time keeping mechanism has invariably been battery operated electronics. So it has not been that big a step to go completely electronic with the Apple Watch.

On my wrist is a Seiko "Bullhead" Chronometer - a gift from my wife 40 years ago when I worked in recording studios and needed to time album cuts. It will still be on my wrist when I become permanently horizontal.

UPDATE
Having had some more time with the Apple Watch I have a few more observations and perhaps a correction or two in my initial impressions.

BATTERY LIFE
Given that I don't use the Apple Watch to listen to music (bluetooth headphones are required), and seldom look at images stored on it, I am consistently using about â…“ of the available battery life each day. It appears Apple has been criticized enough they have elected to be very conservative in battery life claims for the Apple Watch.

USEFULNESS
I turns out the Apple Watch can do more things stand-alone (without the iPhone) than I initially thought. You can…

• Play music from a synched playlist (bluetooth headphones required)
• use the watch, alarms, timers, and stopwatch
• keep track of your activity (stand, move, exercise) {it just told me I have been sitting at the computer for an hour and it is time to get up and move around for at least 1 minute}
• Track workouts
• Display photos from synced photo albums
• Use Apple Pay to make purchases
• The Wathc cannot be used to configure WiFi networks on its own, but it can connect to WiFi networks that have been setup on the paired iPhone. If your Watch and iPhone are on the same WiFi network you can do the following on the Watch, even if it is not connected to the iPhone by bluetooth.
  • Send and receive messages using iMessage
  • Send and receive Digital touch messages
  • Use Siri

LEARNING CURVE
There is still a learning curve but Apple has excellent online how to… instructions and although the "instructions" that come in the box with the watch is useless the User's Guide is good and downloadable in PDF, Web, or iBook format. Although you probably do not want to attempt to read it on the Watch

If I take my IWC with me rather than pass it on to my older daughter who, like me, is a mechanical watch lover it will be accompanied by my fountain pens...if they, too, don't get passed on to her. (Her boyfriend, a college professor, no less, who's aware of her preference, bought her an electronic watch, and she's stuck with wearing it. )

There are certainly people who must be available...for whom todays devices are "enablers", but as for the rest, I wonder whether that "discreet tap on the wrist" will overcome whatever reluctance to return calls/texts at inappropriate moments remains?


My self-winding IWC weighs in at a nice, compact 65.5 grams with its buffalo hide band and minimal tang buckle; the factory stainless steel bracelet would add roughly another 55 grams. (Your Movado must be a "monster"!) It requires a $500 overhaul every 5 years (by factory standards) but can run several years longer in the real world, and yes, the work is costly, but when it comes time I just remind myself that it's the price I've got to pay for having bought a high-end watch in the first place.

On the other hand, though, Apple Watch obsolescence could actually cost an inveterate early adopter more in replacement costs than I spend on overhauls.

A while ago, a buddy of mine who's knowledge of watches is encyclopedic and who's not much of a Rolex fan told me that one reason he's down on them is because factory authorized service will not deal with a watch that's more than 20 years old but will insist on sending it to Switzerland for (as you've noted) exorbitantly costly work.

I wonder what percentage of those who've sprung for "Edition" watches will ever do anything more with them than use them to tell time?

That is, after all, the nature of the beast. isn't it?

Ooops….I should have said "when I drop for the last time". I certainly wouldn't want the watch to accompany me to the crematorium.

I too have a daughter who, like yours, has an appreciation of well-made mechanical devices and will inherit the watch….along with the original box and paperwork.

That's true enough. I just paid nearly 400 beans to service my Seiko which included replacing a gear and the seals. One thing that drives the cost up is that the watchmaker must locate parts which are now becoming rarer than bear eggs. In this service, the gear came from England.

However, I want to be sure that my daughter gets something that will last and that she might eventually give to a son. At 140 grams with the bracelet (I wonder if that's why my left arm is longer than my right ), I doubt she will ever wear it.

Hopefully it won't encourage more distraction. If it does when a text appears on the Apple Watch there is an editable list of standard replies that can be sent with a single tap. I have turned off all the audible alerts on my Watch and find I recognize a haptic much faster and more readily than an audible alarm. Yesterday I probably got eight flash flood warnings, so I know it works — maybe too well. Recognizing the receipt of a text, reading it, and replying typically takes 3 to 5 seconds. Even my wife, who hates interruptions from texts, is seldom aware of my getting a text and replying to it. By-the-way even if you have audible alarms turned on, they can be silenced by simply cupping your free hand over the face of the watch.


The Movado IS a monster. It is nominally 42mm in diameter, machined from a solid billet of stainless steel. The back is not threaded but snaps into place and is then secured by an even dozen tiny stainless steel screws. Once when I had the battery changed the "watchmaker" failed to replace the screws. Later, when the back fell off it cost $600 plus 3 months time and shipping to and from Switzerland to get the back put back on and the screws replaced. Recently I am have had difficulty finding a Movado dealer willing to replace the battery when it wears out.


There is speculation based on tear down evidence that Apple has provisions for upgrading the internals as well as replacing the battery. But I will have to wait to find that out. I have already installed an upgrade to the Watch's OS which, not surprisingly has to be done through the iPhone.


Apple will not even accept a seven year old Mac for repair principally because the parts are no longer available and it would cost literally millions of dollars to setup a production line to build an obsolete chip. At least Rolex is willing to repair watched over twenty years old even if yo do have to send it to the factory where they can fabricate parts if needed. My Movado is less than ten years old and the authorized Movado dealer I bought it from no longer does repairs on any Movado and instead sends all repair work to the factory.

FYI Apple considers products "vintage" at 5 years, at which point service parts may not be available. Apple has been known to spool up manufacturing on a part for an out-of-production model that is under 5 years old where the part has been depleted more quickly than expected, usually due to a design flaw that makes it wear out faster, or due to a REP where there's a known defect and a lot of them need to be replaced. But as a model crosses the 5-year mark, they won't make anything new unless forced to.

At 7 years, the title changes to "obsolete", and no service parts are available in most regions. States like California and some countries have laws that guarantee availability of service parts for costly items for a longer time though. Cali is 10 years iirc. Apple sells off the surplus of parts and sits on a handful, available only to those regions required by law. (so... if you have a 6 yr old Macbook you want repaired, send it to a friend in California, as they can take it to a local Apple dealer and get it fixed!)

Apple could still run out of a part for a computer say in Cali though. They will do a "part search" where they reach out to any AASP or Apple Store that may have the part in stock, to try to buy it back. I saw this happen three times in my time at my AASP. Otherwise they usually offer the customer a discount on a new machine. I suppose it could go to court but I doubt most people would turn down a new computer.

The 802.11b and G cards unexpectedly went on "constrained" status, well before the last computer that used them hit 3 years old. At that point, Apple won't sell you the part for stocking purposes, they will only give it to you for a repair. This happened on several different items, and in many cases I was able to predict when that was going to happen, and we ordered a quantity of extras. (at least twice we got a "no you can't have 20 of that, we'll let you buy 10 since we're running out" response) But that allowed us to continue to have them on-hand well-after no one else did. The power supplies for the white iMacs (17" and 20") were a good example. I bumped up our inventory to 25-30 of each when the models approached the 3-yr point. (my manager was nervous, "don't worry, we WILL sell these, even if we end up obeying them for a profit") We continued to order them through apple for the repairs though, to replenish our surplus. Apple ran out suddenly around the 4 year point, and then NOBODY could get their hands on one, except the ones we had, which we started slowly working through. I suppose we could have marked them up at that point, but it was nice to be the only AASP in the region that could replace an older iMac's power supply, which were prone to failure. We went through them surprisingly slowly though, but did sell them all locally. ("Everyone else I called said I would never be able to find one of these, how is it you have FIVE of them??? Mind if I buy a spare?")

But ONLY after the first one has sounded, and even then, you've got to be quick enough to respond before the second one.


Bummer!

"Edition" owners will feel cheated if discarding the old one makes them stupid, rather than merely ostentatious...or will it make them even more ostentatious?


IWC maintains a stock of parts from every caliber it has used in its more than 150 year history, but I don't know if they're all available outside of Switzerland.

An unexpected benefit of having bought an IWC is that although they have many retailers and boutiques where I could drop it off for repair, one of only two US IWC Service Centres is a just short walk from my home, which, more than just saving me money, enables me to discuss my problems, face to face, with Jack, the master watchmaker/proprietor.

The downside of Apple Watch?
Check out today's Dilbert.