We have almost one of every Apple product in the house, growing as the company did. We started with the colourful “toilet-seat” iBooks for the kids, a G4 Cube for all of us, various iPods, then iPhones, some iPads, watches, and several MacBooks Pro/Air. We used them all, and always bought a replacement for the older ones. Until now. Until my Apple Watch.
I retired my Apple Watch and have no plans to buy another. It is a stupid thing. Oh, it has potential, but in all its years since it was introduced, it has fallen so short of my expectations I can’t stand it. It’s the only Apple product that I hate.
Strong words, sure. Here’s why. It’s no coincidence that it was the first Apple product that Steve Jobs had no hand in designing. It’s a Jonny Ives design and you can love Jonny’s hardware but there’s no elegance in the watch software. Let me take that back – I dont like the hardware design. It’s thick, and it’s square. Literally. All the best watch designs are round. Ask anyone. Why is the Apple Watch square? it’s because Jonny saw that scrolling through a list on a round watch would be hard.
There you go. There it is. The watch is square so you can scroll through a list. Here’s the problem with that – I don’t want to scroll a list on my watch. I want it to know what I need to do. I need it to listen to me.
The Apple Watch is pathetic in its lack of awareness of me as its wearer. It intimately monitored my heart rate and blood pressure but has no idea how to help me do the things I do every day.
Case in point. I have my exercise times in my calendar. They have an address. My watch has GPS, it knows where I am. It has Apple Maps, it knows the name of the place I am right now. It knows the name and address of the place I am going to because it is in my calendar. A repeating appointment in my calendar. For years.
Sometimes I walk, sometimes I ride my bike. Every time I go my watch asked the same question, “Are you on a bike ride?”. Well, let’s see – I was travelling at 12 km/h so too fast for walking and too slow for driving, and the accelerometer could see that my hands generally are travelling linearly, not swinging back and forth as they would if I were running or walking. I left the place where I spend most of the time, called my house, and ending at a place I go to often, the studio. Do the math, Watch.
Then I arrive, and it says “Have you ended your walk/Bike ride?” – Well, my location is the same as the destination of my calendar event that starts like right now, so as Keanu Reeves would say, “Ya think?!” Then after my hour it says “Are you working out?” Well, just like I do every Tuesday Pinky, and it happens to coincide with the end of the appointment you didn’t bother to look at.
It’s just too much. One day, instead of pressing, “Yes I am ending my bike ride,” I pressed the button that said I am changing my activity, to being in our quiet neighborhood Pilates studio. No sooner after I did that the watch starts counting out loud, “Starting Pilates in 3,2,1!”
It doesn’t need AI to be a smart watch. Sensor fusion is a fancy way to say, let’s consolidate the various islands of information the watch as and use it to help the user live their fullest life. Instead of peppering them with the same questions with obvious answers every day for years, That’s just insane. When I say this watch is a piece of crap, I think Steve would agree.
Fortunately my lovely family sensed my desire for a simpler watch and bought me one for my birthday. My new Citizen Eco-Drive Axiom is just what I need in a watch. Simple, elegant, two-hands, and the date.
Plus, my wife bought me an Oura ring…
