Four years ago, I wore an iPod Nano on my wrist and I loved it. I liked the novelty of it, the way it played music on my wrist, and could go with me anywhere. At the time, I wished the strapped-on music player, with its watch faces and little assortment of apps, could do more. And I dreamed of a day it might connect to my phone.
Well, here we are. The Apple Watch is a brand-new Apple product, the first from-the-ground-up product line since the iPad and since Tim Cook took the helm. This watch is, in a way, a new type of wrist-worn super-iPod. It's also a symbiotic iPhone companion. And, it's a fitness device.
It also embarks onto a churning sea of smartwatch launches -- many manufacturers have set sail with ambitious wearables; very few are bona fide successes. Most people aren't even sure they need one. Can the Apple Watch succeed where others have foundered?
The Apple Watch comes in three different models, two different sizes, and six different finishes, with a range of swappable bands and prices ranging from $349, £299 or AU$499 all the way up to $17,000, £13,500 or AU$24,000. It's designed to be Apple's most personal product: fashion as much as it is tech. Apple's products have been fashionable for years, but now Apple wants these watches to transcend into jewelry.
Smartwatches may one day be the future of phones, or a seamless extension of both them and your home, or any number of connected devices. Right now, they function as phone accessories. And that's where the Apple Watch lands. Apple designed the watch to help us look at our phones less. I'd call it more of a smaller screen in Apple's spectrum of differently sized screens. I used it instead of my phone, sometimes. Then, I'd go back to my phone. Has it changed my behavior? It's too early to tell yet, but it might.
I've been using the Apple Watch for a week. I've worn it on my wrist every day, doing everything possible that I could think of. I've tracked walks and measured my heart rate, paid for lunch, listened to albums while exploring parks without my phone, chatted with family, kept up on email, looked for Ubercars, kept up on news, navigated on long car trips for Passover, controlled my Apple TV with it and followed baseball games while I was supposed to be watching my 2-year-old.
The watch is beautiful and promising -- the most ambitious wearable that exists. But in an attempt to do everything in the first generation, the Apple Watch still leaves plenty to be desired. Short battery life compared with other watches and higher prices are the biggest flags for now. But Apple is just setting sail, and it has a long journey ahead.
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