Apple Watch review

Apple’s Cupertino announcement was its biggest in years. Not just one phone, not just two – the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. No, this year there were two iPhones and, as Tim Cook proudly said, “One more thing”, echoing Steve Jobs’s showmanship when he saved the biggest announcement until last.

Up his sleeve, literally as it turned out, was the Apple Watch, the company’s first wearable device. It’s a smartwatch designed to let you know when a text arrives, monitor your activity and even make and receive phone calls. It tells the time, too. Like most smart watches, this is a companion device and needs a phone to do more than just tell the time. You may not be surprised to learn that it works with iPhones only, from iPhone 5 onwards.

Apple Watch: Display

There had been rumours that the iPhone 6 would feature a sapphire screen to make it more robust. That was wrong but such a display has materialised on the Apple Watch (not iWatch as we’ve all been calling it for months). The watch will come in two sizes to suit different wrists. The larger screen has a height of 42mm, the smaller 38mm. That’s equivalent to diagonal measurements of 1.3 and 1.5 inches.

Apple Watch: Design and Build

The speculation about what the Apple Watch was ended up being entirely wide of the mark. Apple has opted for a square-with-rounded-corners shape in a slightly chunky gizmo. As well as the two sizes there are three different collections (Watch, Watch Sport and Watch Edition) and multiple watch strap options. So there are plenty of options to choose from.

There’s no denying this is a very high-end device and the Watch Edition cases are gold, so pricing will be considerably more than the $349 that Apple has stated as the starting price.

On the wrist it feels solid but still reasonably light, though heavy enough for you to feel it’s there. Build quality is as strong as you’d expect, with tactile, smooth edges.

Apple Watch: Features

Part of the thinking behind the Apple Watch is to provide a way to deal with notifications. If you hear your phone beep in your bag it’s not possible to tell if it’s the very important text you’re waiting for or some annoying interruption. Either way, you need to grab your phone to find out. With the Apple Watch, you can glance at your wrist and decide when you see what it is.

But as you’d expect, there’s lots more you can do and by the time it goes on sale early next year there will be much more as developers create extra capabilities. Already there are apps (which are iOS-based, but not the same as the ones on the iPhone) which do funky things such as tell you the charge in your electric car’s battery or unlock your hotel room door.

And the Watch has the same NFC capability of the iPhone 6, making Apple Pay a feature on the watch as well as the phone. Paying for something by waving your wrist, magic wand-like at a chip and pin reader may well catch on.

The microphone and speaker in the watch mean it’s possible to answer and make phone calls on your wrist. There’s no camera, though, so Skype or FaceTime calls are out.

The pinch-to-zoom interface that has been wowing phone users since the launch of the first iPhone wasn’t deemed appropriate for a small screen like this. Instead, and ingeniously, Apple has developed a digital crown – that little winder you find on, you know, regular watches – that solves this problem. Dial one way and the image zooms out, the other way and it goes in. You can also use it to scroll up and down lists.

Apple Watch: Siri

The microphone is also used to talk to Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant. You can use it to dictate text messages to send to your contacts, whose photos and details are accessible via the watch. You can ask for walking directions to your destination – it uses the iPhone’s GPS – and as you approach a junction it will vibrate to tell you to turn. In fact you don’t even need to look at the Apple Watch as it alerts you with different vibrations for right and left turns.

Apple Watch: Touch interface

The sapphire touchscreen is capable of recognising the difference between a gentle touch and a hard press and reacts accordingly. But you can even send little pictures to other Watch users by drawing on the screen with your finger. The image is sent and dissolves on screen. You can send more, as well, including your heartbeat. No, really. That’s because in among the health monitors is a heart sensor on the back.

Apple Watch: Charging

There’s no Lightning connector on the Apple Watch. Instead it uses something a little similar the MagSafe connector found on Apple MacBooks to provide wireless charging. Of course, the success or otherwise of the Apple Watch will largely depend on how long the battery lasts. Apple has time to finesse this between now and next year.