Apple Watch Late Adopter
I started using an Apple Watch SE in January. I’d always thought that I’d get a watch eventually, but I’d long expected to wait for it to mature for a couple more generations. In the end, I gave in to the frustration of not being able to use Face ID to unlock my iPhone while wearing a mask. Naturally, Apple then delivered watch-free unlocking with iOS 15.4, but I’m still glad to be using the watch.
Overall, I’ve found Apple Watch to be both more useful and more thoughtfully designed and integrated with the phone than I expected. The speed is much better than what I remember from trying earlier watch models; I rarely feel like I’m waiting for it. The hardware, even at the smaller size, still feels big to me. But the build quality is excellent, the screen is amazingly sharp, and it seems to be more scratch-resistant than my iPhone. The Nike Sport Band is comfortable. Battery life has never been an issue in regular daily use.
Unlocking my iPhone with the watch is really, really nice. It also feels slow. It usually works with a COVID-19 mask, but it never works with my ski gear on. I think Apple really needs to redesign the phone security settings to allow for common use cases where Face ID can’t work. Until then, at least I can view and reply to messages directly from the watch.
Unlocking my Mac with the watch is also nice, but it only works about 95% of the time. When it fails, it takes a while to spin and give up, which is annoying.
I thought I might wish that it had an always-on display, but I don’t. I actually kind of like that the display is nondescript when I’m not using it. The Infograph Modular face is great when I want to look at it, but it would be quite busy to see all of the time.
I like being able to see notifications without getting out my phone. Unfortunately, syncing read states between the watch and iPhone doesn’t work very well. This was already glitchy between iPhone and Mac, so now I sometimes see the same notification in three places. Also, sometimes the phone notices a new iMessage—but doesn’t beep or vibrate—and the watch doesn’t notice it at all, so then I don’t find out about the message until later because I was assuming the watch was correct. (Sometimes, not only do I not get a notification, but also the message itself doesn’t appear in the Messages app on the watch or Mac, only on the phone.)
If there’s a surprise killer app, it’s Siri. It’s so much more convenient to use via the digital crown than taking out my iPhone or using Hey Siri. I also prefer to use Siri via the digital crown even when I’m wearing AirPods because it doesn’t interrupt the audio. (Raise to Speak is also nice but doesn’t work every time, so I avoid it except when I can’t use my other hand.) Siri on the watch also works much better in the car than Siri on my phone. Maybe this is because the microphone is closer? Of course, Siri is still slow and unreliable. This is most annoying when controlling audio playback, and I can now do that better directly from the watch.
The runner up is probably having multiple timers. And it’s nice to get a tap on the wrist instead of having the phone play a sound.
I have the large Weather complication on my watch face, and it’s great. I like being able to see the forecast for the next few hours at a glance, without having to navigate to the right area of my phone. When at my Mac, I used to be able to do this quickly with the Notification Center widget, but since Big Sur the system has been deleting all my widgets every few days so that I tired of re-adding them. Unfortunately, the watch’s Weather complication doesn’t behave well when there’s no cellular signal. Instead of showing the last known weather data from 30 minutes ago, it just shows a useless loading indicator forever.
I expected to really like the Camera Remote app, but it’s been disappointing. It doesn’t always connect to the phone. When it does, it’s been great to be able to frame shots on the watch when the phone is propped up and its screen is not visible. The main feature I wanted, though, was to be able to click the shutter. This ends up not really working because the delay is only 3 seconds, not 10 as is possible with the iPhone camera timer. In practice, 3 seconds is not enough time to put my arm down and look towards the camera. Perhaps this is because it starts the burst before the time is fully up. In any event, I end up with mostly photos with my arm partially raised or where I’m not quite looking in the right place.
I don’t use many third-party apps, but I do use ATracker, OmniFocus, and Overcast a lot and have them configured as complications. Besides offering quick access to open the apps, this lets me easily see my current ATracker task and the number of flagged OmniFocus actions. Unfortunately, watchOS 8.5 introduced a bug that prevents complications from updating until you actually open the app, thus making these status indicators on the watch face useless. It’s not fixed in 8.5.1
I usually create new OmniFocus actions as reminders via Siri. But, when Siri isn’t available, I can use the OmniFocus app to create a new action using offline dictation. Normally, creating an action is as simple as pressing and holding on any OmniFocus screen. However, there’s a watchOS bug where sometimes the app stops recognizing this, even after rebooting the watch, unless I actually quit the OmniFocus app.
Overcast on the watch is what you’d expect. I just use it to control the playback that’s occurring on my iPhone, and that works well. I sometimes wish that there were a way to play the audio through the watch’s own speaker. It’s also a bit frustrating that it seems to handle volume control differently than other apps, with adjustments ignored until you’ve already turned the digital crown a certain amount.
Likewise, it is sometimes nice to be able to have a hands-free phone conversation using the watch’s speaker and microphone. Unfortunately, this only seems to work when the call starts on the watch. I can’t transfer it from the phone to the watch the way I can transfer it from phone’s speaker to AirPods.
I haven’t found a good hiking map app yet. Gaia GPS lets me do various track-related things, but I couldn’t get it to show the map. It also doesn’t seem to sync the route between my watch and phone. WorkOutDoors does show live maps, and it’s amazingly featured, but I don’t like iPhone app as much as Gaia GPS, and the maps aren’t as good. It wants to treat the watch as the primary device, which is not good because it uses too much battery power for anything but a short outing. I want my phone to do the actual tracking and only glance at my watch now and then when I’m nearing an intersection.
I thought it would be fun to display photos on my watch. Unfortunately, I can’t just give it a folder of photos. I need to put them in iCloud Photos and make an album. That means not being able to import photos to my Mac using Image Capture. Once configured, nothing happens for a while, but the photos eventually do show up on the watch. Unfortunately, even though I set it to a limit of 500 photos, it only ever shows the same dozen or so.
I love being able to use the watch to control a YouTube video that’s playing full-screen on my phone.
I was pleasantly surprised when, trying to log into my Apple ID on a Mac, the 2FA code appeared on my watch and I didn’t have to go to the other room to check my phone for it.
Everybody seems to love the Activity and Workout apps and their notifications, but I found them annoying and turned them off.
Apple Pay from the watch is convenient.
The official charging docks and pads seem expensive, and many third-party ones require their own watch charging cable. I settled on the basic Guyana stand, which takes a regular USB-C cable. The WAITIEE and MGG 3-in-1 charging stations also look interesting.
Previously:
