Product Review: Apple Watch

This isn't actually a review of the iWatch (I know that's not what it's called, but I'm going to call it that anyway, for short) but rather a review of how I use it and what it does for me.

I have a love-hate relationship with Apple gadgets. Dont' get me wrong: I LOVE gadgets in general! (Looks guiltily at the kitchen which is still waiting for me to do my promised gadget-decluttering.) But I've had to train myself to look beyond the "ooh, shiny!" to ask, "in what concrete, practical ways would this tool improve my life?" And secondarily "will it improve my life sufficiently in a concentrated enough way that I won't resent the frequency with which it becomes obsolete by design?" Apple gadgets are a dinner with the devil, and I've learned to measure the length of my spoon.

The iPhone was an easy capitulation, way back when, because I'd been (unsuccessfully) resisting getting a cell phone until they invented one that combined a PDA function. The tipping point for getting an iPad (which was also a long time ago) was identifying three specific tasks I knew I would use it for that no other workflow in my life would satisfy in the same way. (I remember that e-books and an electronic sheet music file were two of them, but I no longer remember what the third was.) The iWatch had an additional psychological hurdle: I was liberated from watch-wearing when I started carrying a PDA and I rather loved the esthetics of a bare wrist. Plus, not worrying about banging it into things. So while I contemplated the benefits of having various mini-functions directed to a form that was trivially easy to view and interact with, I also balked at what I'd be giving up.

What kicked me over the edge finally? It wasn't a concrete, practical function but an illogical security-blanket function. You see, back in November I had this pulmonary embolism...

And when discussing with the medical personnel whether it was useful to have a blood oxygen monitor at home (answer: "not really, but if it makes you feel better it wouldn't hurt, but we're not going to give you one because we need them for Covid patients") I recalled that one of the iWatch functions was a blood oxygen sensor.

Now, to be clear: APPLE WATCH HEALTH FUNCTIONS ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR SERIOUS MEDICAL MONITORING. THE APPLE WATCH IS NOT AN APPROVED AND LICENSED MEDICAL DEVICE. IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR HEALTH, CONSULT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL NOT A TECH GADGET. (Got that?) But as an optional security blanket, that thought finally kicked me over into "what the heck, why not?"

So let's go through the day and look at the various functions I use my iWatch for.

Night-time

The watch does sleep monitoring, based on movement. It tracks how often you get up during the night and when you're moving around in a way that suggests you're awake. This is of passing interest to me, but there's one problem it shares with the FitBit I gave up on several years ago. Overnight is the most convenient time for recharging. To be fair, although the watch requires daily charging, it only takes about an hour to top up and its trivially simple to do that when I'm at my computer desk. In fact, for a while I had a daily reminder set for the time of our morning staff meeting: "charge watch". But this brings in a second issue.

A number of the watch functions rely on close contact with your skin. (For that matter, since I turned off the audible alerts, the watch communicates with me entirely by vibration through skin contact.) The underside of the watch is intended to remain in constant close contact. Having a non-porous object fastened in immediate contact with your skin for 23 hours a day has biological consequences. I suppose I could have done something like rotate it to the inside of my wrist at night to allow my skin to breathe, and I may try that at some point. But taking it off at night (and also using the time to charge) is my current option.

I still get the benefits of the bedtime-alert and wake-up functions, because the former happens before I take it off and the latter is channeled through my phone if I'm not wearing the watch.

Calendar alerts

This is one of the biggest practical uses for me. The watch pings me for all my iCal alerts (though if I wanted to, I could set it to only channel alert for specific calendars so, for instance, if I didn't need it to tell me about holidays, or that it's payday, I could avoid that). It pings me for any time-related to-do list alerts. It relays my medication alert reminders. And I can acknowledge all those through the watch. That part of my brain that freaks out about forgetting things such that I'm constantly checking my calendar? It's learning to trust the watch. 7am: *ping* to unlock the side gate so the contractors can get in. 8am: *ping* to take my morning pill. 2 hours before some appointment (also 1 or 2 days before) *ping* to remind me of some place I have to be or something I have to do. *ping* to lock the gate again. *ping* to take my evening pill. *ping* to remind me of my zoom dinner date. *ping* to remind me of a regular phone call. But also: *ping* to ask if I've received a package scheduled ot have arrived by now; *ping* that it's time to schedule a podcast interview we'd agreed on several months ago; *ping* to do monthly cleaning maintenance on the roomba; *ping* to order a book that I heard about that wasn't available for pre-order at the time. *ping* *ping* *ping*. For some people, this might be annoying, but for me, the automating of my short- and long-term memory is immensely freeing.

I also have my default watch-face set up to display my calendar events, so I can easily note whether I have anything coming up. (It would be even better if I could integrate it with my day-job calendar, but those streams don't cross.)

Communications

I get too much spam email to want to have it all sent to my watch, but fortunately it works in integration with Apple Mail such that you can specify only email from "VIPs" are sent. This means I can set up my family members and close friends all as VIPs and make sure I notice their mail in a timely fashion (I often only read email once a day). I have almost no problems with spam through fb messenger or through text messages, so those all go to the watch. And similarly for DMs and notifications from twitter, from Discord, from Slack, etc.. My laptop screen is so busy that it's easy to miss the little icon indicating a message. Few of them are urgent, but it's really easy to glance at the watch to see, and then dismiss if they can wait. (In theory, I can also answer phone calls through the watch, but since I don't have a separate data account -- it goes though the phone anyway -- there isn't much point, since I'll have the phone nearby. Also: the one time I tried to answer a call through the watch I managed to hang up instead. But that's a me problem.)

Exercise and Activity

Regular readers of my fb account may have noticed that I stopped posting my Cyclemeter workout data. The iWatch exercise app, though it measures slightly different things, is more convenient. One-touch (since I have it set up as a screen icon) and I can start and stop workout tracking. I also very much like the hourly reminders to stand up and move around. I even like having the daily target for "closing the rings," i.e., meeting your exercise, standing, and general movement goals for the day (even though I find the "encouragement" messages a bit patronizing). I have to work just a little bit not to get defensive about not "closing the rings" every single day. (My personal goal is meeting the exercise target 5 days a week.) But on the whole it does it's job.

Tangentially related to exercise, I have the weather app displayed on the default screen, showing current temperature and today's hi/low. (On a secondary screen I have weather as the central display, also showing projections for the next 4 hours.) This is also helping me with my calibration shift to thinking in Centigrade, since I get an easy check between numbers and "feel."

Health

I do occasionally use the heart rate and blood oxygen sensors, especially to check recovery after exercise. But I don't use it with my food tracking app (too much fiddly data to deal with) or my temperature and weight tracking (no reason to interact other than the morning data entry).

I suppose the handwashing timer would be more practical if I were out and about interacting with people more, but when it's just me at home, I'm not quite as worried about the duration of handwashing sessions.

The watch has an "emergency alert" function if you press a certain set of buttons, but I'm not sure that I'd remember how in an emergency. And the alert would only work if I had my phone on me, so it makes sense to use that instead. (One of the phone functions that I enabled after my PE was the one where my medical information is available on the lock screen. Hmm, that is, it's supposed to. I was just checking and I can't see where it is. Must follow up.)

Other Functions

I've curated which watch functions are displayed even for the apps I use regularly. And not all the apps I use regularly have a watch function available. (Starbucks, yes; Peets, no.) And some of the ones I have available aren't used much under quarantine. But here are the items I can imagine using under "normal" circumstances:

Siri - believe it or not, after resisting Siri on the phone, I've warmed to her a little on the watch. Sill working on remembering the best syntax to request things.

Wallet/Apple Pay - I don't typically use the plain Apple Pay function (and I'm not sure I'll remember the specific combination of gestures necessary to invoke it if I ever do), but in the Before Times I used the Wallet function a lot for things like movie tickets, boarding passes, etc. and I expect I'll use the watch version in the same way.

Starbucks - What can I say? When I return to my weekend coffee shop habits, I'm sure it'll be convenient. Now if only Peets would have a watch app, I'd be good.

Misc. travel apps - When travel is again an option, I could see temporarily turning on specific airline/transit functions that are relevant to particular trips, though I'm not sure I'd want them cluttering the watch up all the time.

Do Not Want

There are also watch apps that I've specifically excluded or ignored. I don't use any of the audio-broadcast functions (audiobooks, podcasts) because there's no benefit to running them through the watch. It may be that I haven't gotten the technique right yet, but my perception is that I need to have the relevant app running on my phone to be able to control it through the watch. (E.g., while driving "Hey Siri, play podcast") And I've gotten in the habit of closing apps on the phone when I'm not actively using them because my battery is getting tired. (Need to replace it.)

I don't allow news apps on the watch. News comes in tiny bites too much as it is, I don't want to consume it in watch-sized views. Also, no maps, no photos, and I'm relieved that Apple doesn't even pretend that the watch would be useful for reading ebooks.

Conclusions

The functions that I can only get through the iWatch are few (the health monitoring ones) but it makes me feel good to have them available.

The most consistently useful function the iWatch serves is to be my short-term memory: reminders, alerts. timers (oh, yes, forgot to mention that above).

The most beneficial thing it does is tracking and encouraging my various forms of physical activity.

Who would I recommend it to (assuming one is an Apple person and has the disposable income to spare)? People with time-awareness issues (assuming that you can get in the habit of setting alerts in the first place). People who find it convenient to have some types of information more easily accessible that via smartphone. Possibly people with physical issues that get in the way of manipulating a phone but where voice commands through a watch are convenient. (Note that I've never used voice commands through my phone, so I'm not able to compare, but the idea is not having to get the phone out in the first place.)

Is it worth the price? Not the right question. Apple gadgets are all luxuries at some level. But except for the health-monitoring functions that require direct contact, the functions all duplicate things that *can* be done with a smart phone. So the watch has a lot of redundancy with other systems that you're likely to already have if you're contemplating getting an Apple Watch. Note: You can run the watch's data connection either as a bluetooth piggy-back on your phone's connection, or you can get the watch its own data account and use it untethered from a phone. When I did the research, it looked like the price for a separate data connection was unreasonable. And besides I can't imagine any context in which I'd be using my watch and not have my phone on me, largely because my phone case is where I keep my ID and I don't leave home without it.