A Weekend with the Apple Watch

One definite improvement is the beautiful display on the Apple Watch. It is a massive step up over the ePaper display of the Pebble, however it has its own drawbacks including visibility in direct sunlight and battery consumption.

I’ve had a Pebble smartwatch for a little over 18 months and am very happy with the idea and current implementation of the smartwatches. It may sounds strange to people, but I have been happy with the smartwatches as they have been, not just what they promise to be. I am writing this through the lens of owning, using and benefiting from them.

Build quality

Comparing the Pebble to the Apple Watch as soon as I took it out of the box when I put it on charge. The difference in built quality is quite marked.

The Apple Watch is built far better than the original Pebble I have. Evidently it has been built by the maker of many premium devices with its aluminium, glass and “Fluoroelastomer” (read ‘very nice rubber’) band. Although this is the lowest-end of the three Apple Watch models, it feels far superior to the Pebble and definitely a premium device. The Apple Watch’s screen is beautiful, the band is comfortable and very well designed and the buttons click solidly. It’s bands have an ingenious connection to the body — they click in and out solidly and feel incredibly secure. I can’t wait to pick up a few more — I really want another sport band in bright orange!

The admittedly low-end Pebble I have is built mostly of plastic and therefore scratches more easily. It’s e-paper display doesn’t look as good and is comparatively very pixelated and obviously monochrome. I’d liken it to looking at the Nokia phones of yesteryear. The strap and its securing loop isn’t as well designed or as premium feeling, but it still gets the job done. It also has the benefit of being an industry standard 22mm, so it is easier to swap straps on and off. It isn’t the higher end Pebble Steel or the soon to be released Pebble Time or Time Steel models and I will be interested to see what the new Pebble Time models bring to the smartwatch product category when they are released in May and July. Nonetheless it has been perfectly serviceable.

Day to day use

The screen remains blank unless woken, meaning no surreptitious glances at the time. I miss that.

Looking at a watch and not actually seeing the time is a strange experience for me. Moving through all of the watches I have owned, analogue, digital and even the Pebble smartwatch, the time is always on display. However on the Apple Watch the screen is off until woken. The watch needs to be raised, a button pressed or the screen tapped for it to display the watch face. I’m used to being able to type or on a computer keyboard and glance down and see the time, but the Apple Watch doesn’t let me do that. This is definitely something that will take relearning. I would much prefer a simple digital clock to display all the time and then perhaps a more complex watch face to be displayed on wake, but I understand battery life is paramount to the watch. Interestingly, the Apple Watch has algorithms built smarter than those in the Pebble. Even if I shake my wrist, if it isn’t facing me, it won’t light up or turn the screen on, whereas the Pebble’s backlight turns on with any type of shake. This has to be turned off before going running to prevent the backlight repeatedly coming on.

The Pebble with a large digital watch face with time, seconds, day and date. This was created by a third party developer. Apple doesn’t allow these, but I hope they will soon.

Almost all of the Apple Watch faces is modular in some way, with small, but useful “Complications. These can be seen in the corner of the watch faces, displaying information like battery remaining, alarm time, stopwatches, a different time zone, and many more. They are great and I’d love to see them transfer over to the iPhone lock screen. There is just so much information relayed in so little space! However as the user you cannot add any extra faces, you can only use and edit Apple’s ten designs. I love that my Pebble can install whatever watch faces have been created by developers, and find Apple’s a bit restrictive, e.g. why would I want Mickey Mouse on my watch when I could have a nice large digital display as on my Pebble?

The Mickey face? I mean really… Some will love watching his tapping foot in time to the seconds. It’s not really my thing.

I thought battery life would be an issue, but paradoxically having less battery capacity actually makes me less likely for it to run out on me. It has not got below 30% by the end of the day with full use and I put it on charge next to my phone in the evening. The Pebble battery might last me 4+ days, but that varies wildly depending on how I use it. This means I don’t have to charge it as often, but that I won’t really know when I should charge it. This means I have to curtail my usage of it at random occasions when it alerts me it only has 10% battery remaining. Would that be enough for an always on digital clock in the corner of the screen? I’d be interested to see.

The Pebble has one button on the left and three on the right that correspond to actions on the screen. In this case, Play, pause, fast-forward and rewind in the media playing app.

Sport

As a reluctant runner, the Pebble has been a big help for me by displaying RunKeeper, my activity tracker of choice, on its watch face as I run. It shows my distance, time, pace, or any other measurements. The Pebble also allows me to use the watch’s physical buttons to change music tracks, fast forward through podcasts and pause the activity tracker.

The Apple Watch requires some serious work as a user compared to the Pebble. Fast forwarding the track on the Pebble is easier, as chunky physical buttons are easy to press by feel alone. Using the Apple Watch requires opening the audio player app of choice and looking at the watch to make sure I was pressing the correct section of the screen. That isn’t easy when you’re walking, let alone running!

If you’ve done that, trying to return to the activity tracker app is even harder! Trying to navigate Apple’s homescreen to find the right app is nigh on impossible while you are running. Tapping one of a series of small circles with their tiny touch targets is a game of Russian Roulette to make sure you get the right one. I failed enough times that I had to slow to a walk, just so I could be sure to press it. That is definitely an inferior experience for a runner. A simple list would have been far more functional, this honeycomb-like screen is a nightmare to navigate.

This is not particularly useful, especially when running! Pressing the beautiful little circles is a study in frustration!

The Watch is at a great starting point, for a 1.0 product with 1.0 software, but I am not sure I could rely on it to do the same things as I am used to using the Pebble for when exercising; at least not as easily. While it is definitely the far superior device, with loftier ambitions, there are still plenty of improvements to be made.

Originally published at www.dcxiii.com.