The Apple Watch As A Fitness Device
I don’t know what it is — the color-coding, the awards, the occasional notification nudging me to keep going — but I find this design highly compelling. In fact, I would go so far as to say the Activity app is my favorite thing about the Apple Watch, aside from the stylish hardware. On the rare day I forgot to put on the watch when I left for work, it was the Activity app I missed most; I wasn’t going to get credit for all my moving, and that was a shame. Otherwise, for the most part, I didn’t fiddle much with the watch in day-to-day use; occasionally a notification would come in and I would check it, but for much of the day, the watch just sat on my wrist; little more than a high-tech piece of jewelry. With the Activity app, though, the watch often felt like a really nice fitness tracker; one that, unlike competing products, I actually liked enough to wear every day.
It’s interesting to see how different people value different parts of the Apple Watch. As I’ve said multiple times myself, fitness is one of the things I love about the Apple Watch. But it’s not the only thing. While Wollman admittedly says he hasn’t tinkered with it much, I suspect that if he does continue to wear it, he will find more things to love about it. I also imagine that as Apple improves software, possibly allowing for third-party complications and native apps, the Watch will become even more desirable. Like with the iPhone, the device is just a gateway. Most of us love our phones not for the phone itself, but for what it does for us, usually through some sort of app or service.