Admittedly, I’m a bit of a late adopter... and apparently I didn’t wait long enough.

I’ve been on a bit of a fitness kick in my developmental journey. As such, I finally found a reason to get an Apple Watch.

Sorry, not sorry... I don’t like it.

Apple has fallen a long way from the iPod, iPhone glory days. One of the things I always raved about my iPod is just how intuitive it is.

It’s a device I could hand to my grandfather, and within seconds he’d be listening to music. So simple, you hardly need to figure it out.

Fast forward to the watch—the SIXTH iteration—it is still not ready for prime time.

This device is not intuitive. At. All.

I recall my complaints about the iPod touch when it came out, most of which were apparently not original as they were eventually addressed.

However, the iPhone has evolved to the point it is barely intuitive. Since Jobs, I have had to Google what to do on Apple devices too many times to count.

I don’t understand how people simply LOVE their watch. I don’t.

Again, six versions in, I’m sure my submitted feature requests will fall on deaf ears, but this is what I see as missing on my watch:

1. Why bother putting album art from music on the watch at all, if there’s no way to make it the default view? Plus, why make us jump through three hoops to view it... only to make us back out to actually use the music app?

2. Faces. The original iPhone had the ability to submit apps and to change your wallpaper. Granted, a face is a li’l more involved, but one could conceivably build one the same way they’d build an app. In fact, the screensaver I use on my trusty MacBook is simply an “analog” clock.

   Also, six iterations in, there should be MORE options. A. Lot. More. I, for one, would like to see one I’d call Minimally Retro. It’d feature the 80s style digital watch numbers in white on black. And nothing else. Since there are variations of faces, I could see adding the “complications” as options around these numbers.

   Is there a face that only shows hands? No other markings? That’d be elegantly minimal too.

   I’m scratching my head as to why this doesn’t exist. The design of the hardware is screaming for this as an option. Yet, end users cannot even submit designs. I understand the values of the closed ecosystem, yet there are great designers that do not work for Apple who could submit great faces.

   Perhaps Apple is skittish after stealing the Mondaine Swiss clock face for the iPad a while back?

3. There needs to be an override for requiring the watch to be charging in order to sync. Assuming the device would “just work,” I put it on, fired up my favorite trusty running app, and was about to head out the door when I was informed I needed to set it up through my phone... which I was about to leave behind.

   So, I stopped, the app on my phone “sensed” the watch’s presence and led me through the steps to set it up.

   Then. Nothing.

   Wait. Nothing.

   Ah, okay... I took off my watch, put it on the charger, woke up my iPhone, and voilà. Again... for small bursts of data (or power users who KNOW what they’re doing), it’d be nice to have to option to sync without external power.

4. Finally, why does it take. so. long. to. sync? Can’t we use WiFi when connected? Like the AppleTV? Overnight is a bit extreme for a couple of gigs of music.

   Reminded me of syncing my original iPod nano on my iBook G3.

We’ll see if I warm up to the watch over time. These note are from the first twenty-four hours...

What i'm listening to:

good for you
Olivia Rodrigo
SOUR