Apple Watch is in...

can you customize the canned responses?

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Early impressions are it's going to be pretty useful for me. I normally keep my phone in silent mode and in my pocket. Now I get a light tap on the wrist and I can tilt watch to me to see what the notification is, text or incoming phone call or whatever notifications I have set up. You can decline call or accept. And also brings up list of canned responses to a text. Will be handy when driving etc.

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yep, pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Thanks for the review so far. Did you order yours on preorder day?

Walked into the store on launch day and they didn't have any. Said it would probably be a month before they're readily available in store. I would rather purchase it there.

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Thanks for the review so far. Did you order yours on preorder day?

Walked into the store on launch day and they didn't have any. Said it would probably be a month before they're readily available in store. I would rather purchase it there.

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Yes. I ordered as soon as preorders opened. my understanding is they won't have any available until June.

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this is what I'm doing as well

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So two days in I'm pretty well done with the learning curve.

The basic UI is ugly but functional
The battery life does appear to be all day with moderate use.
It recharges in 2-3 hours.

Much of the customization comes from the Watch application on your phone, there is no desktop application ( as far as I know).
It uses force touch on the screen so tapping does some things, force touch does others.
The are a great variety of watch faces that are very customizable. You can have different "widgets" on them --stock, world clock time, calendar , sunrise sunset etc.

The watch stays off until you raise your arm to look at it. This works very well, unless you raise it too slowly and then not at all. Just use a normal glance at watch gesture works well.

Notifications I'd say I'm getting 85% of , but it took me awhile to figure out while your phone is still in "Wake " mode you don't get them on the watch at all. So possibly my failed ones are form the phone still being in awake mode. It makes sense but I don't like the feature. I hope they make it customizable in the future.

You can make and receive calls from the watch, in quiet settings this works pretty well and is total Dick Tracy. I'm not sure it's much actual use in public, but for a very quick conversation pretty handy. If you get a call you just put your hand over the watch and the alert stops.

If you have an App on your phone that also has a Watch app available that App auto syncs on your phone. So far I have Amazon, Uber, Weather Channel and Apple Insider.
The amazon app is a search button. You press it and speak your search into the phone.
You scroll to find what you want and Prime is one click away.

Uber when you click it a timer comes up how long away your ride is this is synced with your phone app. You press request and Uber is on the way.

Apple Pay from the watch.

The heart rate sensor works fine for me. I'm too fat to worry bout the other health stuff yet.


"Neat" tricks. You can ping for your phone from the watch if you've misplaced it, The watch controls iTunes on your phone, the watch acts as a remote control for the camera on your phone so you can take selfies and group shots.

I noticed more than a few people staring at my watch. I'm not sure if they are wondering if it's the Apple Watch or if they can't figure out why someone would have a watch with a blank face on it.

Overall impression? It's not a must have, but once you have it, you won't want to go without it. I'll know more 15-30 days in.

Solid unbiased review. People will be shocked haha.

Some pretty cool concepts. Love the idea but I couldn't get rid of wearing my other watches.

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What do you think about the bands? Which version did you get and did you get any extra bands to swap out? I'm thinking about getting the sport base model and then getting a nicer metal one as well.

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I got the Black Sport with the sport band. it's pretty adjustable and very secure. I plan on doing the same thing. I'm going to get a nice metal band for work but I'm just going to wait on the 3rd party market. Apple is too proud of theirs.

ETA: looks like I'm going to get a custom LSU/Mike the Tiger one for Football season-- LINK

As for the Round v. Square argument-- the watch is able to display a surprising amount of text and info in the square form. I can't see anyway it could do the same as effectively with equivalent real estate in a circular form. We type and read on square pages, not round ones. See the pic below.




I've read some reviews that think it has a version 1.0 feel to it. I disagree, I think it's more just getting used to how it works as a "new" device, once you do to me it seems very smooth and well thought out. Nor have i noticed any software glitches yet.

It's about 5 pm, I've worn it & received notifications all day and have 66% battery left.

I haven't seen any unusual drain on my phone, but I charge my phone often during the day so I may just not be noticing.

Apple pay is a snap. Hit the button twice and it's up and it's instantly up and running to hold next to the scanner. That's it.



Downsides--

Apple says you can also "quickly" mute an incoming call by pressing the palm of your hand on the watch display and holding it there for three seconds. I don't find this quick. When you don't want to hear it 3 seconds seems a long time. I don't know why there is no setting to make it mute faster.

I've only looked at and have about a dozen 3rd party apps, I've yet to find a really compelling 3rd party app. But there's a bunch out there and thousands more on the way, so we'll see.

It's a little annoying that you can't really "sneak " a glance like you can at a normal watch. You have to make the noticeable look at it gesture with your wrist for the display to show. Not as "rude" as looking at your phone in mid convo though.




I'm mostly using this face instead of a clock face as I like most info I can see at a glance.



To switch up you just force press and scroll through the watch faces so it's quick to change up--
The animated Mikey Mouse is a real crowd pleaser


That's about it for now...

Is it water proof or resistant, and how much. My watch gets wet all day, and this would be a big factor for me.