Would Apple Watch change my life?
Background
I have always wanted to buy an Apple Watch when it came out, but I also was not completed sold about it. As an Experience Designer, I wanted to test it myself before I draw conclusions on whether it is evolutionary or not. After asking people who own Apple Watch, I grab the chance to test one bought by our NabLabs. I have conducted 5 days experiment to see how sticky it is for me.
5 days Experiment
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Surprising
Originally I thought the biggest advantage would be getting notifications on your watch, but I found I get very distracting because the smaller font size of notification took me longer to check the whole message compared to bigger screen on the phone.
Camera is very interesting, you can basically place your phone in another place and use watch camera to monitor and take photos from distance.
I quite like activity app, possibly the best experience so far.
Not so surprising
The touch space is quite small, the interaction is not that intuitive compared to iphone.
In terms of phone call, I found myself seldom use a watch as it suddenly makes it a public conversation.
Pin your phone is handy, but again, you got find iphone on mac or just get someone to call you
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Surprising
At the point of 45% battery, I wanted to see how long does it last if I try the reserve power function. Turns out once you turned power reservation on, you cannot turn it off unless you charge it (or not easy to find out how).Once it's on reserve power mode, it becomes a very slow reacting digital watch. I was expecting to flick my arm or raise it to a check position, the time will show automatically, instead, I have to click on the home button, and after 2 seconds the time showed up.
Not so surprising
Not many of my apps function well on the watch, at this stage Apple Watch is merely an extension of iphone. However, would it be changed if apps are mastering the small screen design? I guess so.
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Surprising
Found some handy functions that is not available on the phone. The message app on the watch has reply function with suggestive answers (similar to google inbox).
Not so surprising
In general, I found notifications on Apple Watch actually create some sense of anxiety because you know something but most of the time you cannot act at that point of time.
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Day 4 and day 5 testing of apple watch.
As I said earlier, Apple Watch is kind of an extension of your iphone at this stage, which means, you need to charge it daily, because it cannot hold on for 2 days. At 6pm on day 4, I realised the battery ran out, and I forgot to charge it because I got too many devices at home.
So day 5 testing becomes a test of how disappointed would I feel if I don't own it any more.
The result is, i didn't miss it too much.
So far by asking people who have an apple watch, the most useful feature seems to be checking meeting rooms and times on calendar when you choose to check (in corporate environment), also I noticed my colleagues who wear apple watch grow to completely ignore the notification even though I can see the flick of lights when it comes.
In conclusion, I will more likely to buy a watch when the a lot of apps I use are functional on Apple Watch in due time, in the future.