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Apple Watch the iPhone Gear is Good, Bad or Ugly?

After the long wait and hype Apple finally launched its most awaited Apple Watch the gear for the iPhone. Now the question is whether this
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After the long wait and hype Apple finally launched its most awaited Apple Watch the gear for the iPhone. Now the question is whether this gadget is really what it was boasted of or something that still needs improvements. The prelaunch reviews of the Apple Watch are out, and though they’re generally favourable, they include a few niggling complaints.

A select group of reviewers were loaned an Apple Watch for a week. Overall, their consensus is that it’s a fine device for tracking health and fitness, it’s great for making digital payments, and it has excellent battery life. Also, taking phone calls on the Apple Watch was easier than they expected. However, there’s a dearth of third-party apps, the icons are too small, it’s slow to respond, the screen takes a while to light up, and it took reviewers some time to figure out what to do with the device and how to do it.

The Limitations of Apple Watch

  • It works only within the Apple ecosystem, if you’re not all-Apple person, you’re out of luck.
  • Even if you are all-Apple, you need the iPhone 5 or later running the latest version of iOS.
  • Users have to think carefully which iPhone notifications they want mirrored to the watch.
  • There are no pre-programmed default responses the three built-in emojis are “creepy.”
  • Outbound email is restricted.
  • Siri doesn’t have as many capabilities on the Apple Watch as it does on the iPhone
  • The battery life is longer than expected, but recharging it to 100 percent takes too long approximately two and a half hours
  • The watch sometimes stutters loading notifications; also, pulling location information and data from the iPhone over Bluetooth and WiFi takes a long time
  • Apps take a long time to load and some third-party apps don’t load at all.
  • Apple watch needs your iPhone to do most of these things. And it either needs to be in Bluetooth range (30 feet), or it can connect over Wi-Fi in a home or office to extend that range further.
  • The Apple Watch looks like a small fusion between iPhone 6 and iPod Nano. It’s not unattractive, but it is on the chunkier side of things.
  • The Apple Watch is neither a fitness band, watch or fashion accessory though, despite taking a bit from each of those camps. It’s hard to define what it really is, which means that users may struggle to justify the purchase.
  • As a smart watch, the Apple Watch is a pretty nifty device too. Its discreet dimensions mean that while it’s obvious when it lights up, most of the time most won’t know you’re wearing a smart watch.
  • With the phone you’ll need to hold the TouchID element to confirm it’s you that’s paying, and without that on the Watch it’s hard to see how you’ll manage it.

“I don’t want to knock Apple too hard on features and functionality at this point because, first, the devices aren’t generally open to the public,” said 451 Research analysts Ryan Martin. “Second, Apple has the wherewithal and the technical capability to roll out improvements to the product through software and firmware updates before shipping,” he told

According to Farhad Manjoo of New York Times “Mirroring notifications doesn’t always make sense because of the lack of third-party apps”  Further, it takes time to figure out which types of actions are available on which screens, he found. Users can’t swipe left on notifications about email messages to archive them, because that feature is available only in the Mail app. They can’t move the map around if they’ve called up glance for the Maps app they have to go to the full Maps app instead.

According to Susan Schreiner, Senior editor analyst at C4 Trends it’s too early to decide the perfection of apple watch “I think the Apple Watch is imperfect at this point but it is by far one of the best smart watches out there, Within the next 30 days, there likely will be “a significant uptick in the number of third-party apps that will be available,”

According to the available information the Apple Watch goes on sale on April 24. However, consumers in the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong and Japan only can pre-order it online starting at 12:01 a.m. PT on Friday. They can have it shipped or choose their model online and reserve it for pickup at a store. The prevailing wisdom for consumer products, especially high-tech devices, is that consumers want to touch and feel them before making up their minds. However, Apple apparently is going the other way: Potential buyers who want to touch and feel the Apple Watch before making a decision will have to schedule an appointment to do so, starting April 10.

The Apple Watch is coming in six different versions: there’s the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Sport and the Apple Watch Edition. And each of these comes in two sizes, for those that like a larger or smaller device for their wrist.

Early verdict

  • The Apple Watch is a device that many will want to own with the iPhone 6, as the styling match really well, and let’s be honest: people like buying wholeheartedly into the Apple ecosystem.
  • One thing’s for sure – now Apple has brought visibility of wearable 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.

Source: TechNewsWorld.

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