"Don't Gift The Apple Watch This Year"

Joel Johnson writing for Fast Company:

The primary problem is simply that the current version of the Apple Watch is too slow; it needs a faster processor, which will only come in a future version. The failings of its baroque, do-everything interaction modalities are a close second, although to be cruelly fair it’s hard to critique them fully when they execute so sluggishly. The watchOS interfaces are mostly designed around a ticker-tape concept, and many alert screens, even those from Apple 1st-party apps, show half of a button at the bottom which must be scrolled up to click. (More unfortunate, that half-hidden button is usually “Dismiss.”) While Apple encourages designers to limit the amount of text shown in alerts, to a great extent that too-long text is exactly the information I want to see quickly; it’s a Glance-22. In designing the Apple Watch as a sort of mini-iPhone instead of a wholly new visual interface, the entire UX feels less than delightful. Again, more speed would help, but I often consider if Apple didn’t go far enough in exploring new ways to present text, like the quick-word-flash speed-reading concept used in apps like Read Quick. A smartwatch will never become a phone replacement unless it does something a phone can’t do better—or at least do the same thing in a new, snappier way.

Johnson makes some good points on his issue with the Apple Watch, and I agree with many of them. It may not be fast, but I know that will be fixed in the coming years. In fact, I’d wager that the second-generation Apple Watch will be substantially faster than the first-gen. Other issues like the UI design I also agree with. While I’d argue the Apple Watch UI is the best of any smartwatch, it still doesn’t feel like its right. My hope is that Apple isn’t married to the current version of watchOS and is more willing to make adjustments — something they don’t usually do, but have done in the past with products like the Apple TV.

That said, I do think the Apple Watch is still a nice product to have, particularly for someone whose New Year’s Resolution involves exercise. It’s not perfect, but we really have to remember that this is the birth of a new product. It’s not a bigger iPhone nor a smaller one. It’s going to likely require a few iterations in both hardware and software before Apple can solidify what the product is and what its roadmap will look like.