Why People Give Up On The Apple Watch

Tim Cook loves to cite that 97% of users are satisfied with the Apple Watch, a number pulled from Wristly Research, which conducts weekly surveys of Apple Watch owners. What he doesn’t cite, and righty so, is why the 3% of people who are unsatisfied stop wearing the Watch.

This week, Wristly was able to gather info on 340 people who bought the Apple Watch and have now stopped wearing it. The reasons are interesting.

According to Wristly, it took roughly 83% of folks 2 weeks or more to realize that it wasn’t worth wearing anymore. 17% realized they didn’t need it within days.

When it comes to the reasons why folks stopped wearing their Apple Watch, 89% of respondents selected “They didn’t find enough value in it.” Other top reasons include:

“I thought it was too limiting”

“I thought it was too slow”

“The battery didn’t last long enough”

“The tilt to check time ended up too annoying”

These seem like all valid reason to stop wearing the Watch, particularly the last one. After all, if the Apple Watch is well… a Watch, then telling time should be something it does really well. Unfortunately, it’s not better than a regular watch because the screen constantly turns on and off based on your arm position in order to save battery, something I hope Apple addresses with its next Watch.

Not surprising is that most who are super critical of the Watch also happen to be in the tech industry. Those of us who know how well something can be, can more easily see what’s wrong with a product early on.

Still, it’s important to remember that being critical is important for all products, especially if we want them to become better. There’s no doubt in my mind that this Watch will see some substantial improvements in the years to come, but perhaps Apple can learn from the 3% of folks who aren’t happy. After all, they do tend to be the loudest.