My Watch

I’ve worn my Apple Watch Sport (Darth Vader Style) every day since Father’s Day 2015 and I absolutely love the thing. I didn’t expect to own one quite so quickly, but my daughters and wife decided they’d gift me with one. It was a wonderful, unexpected, gift.

After a few weeks with the watch I decided it wasn’t worth owning if I didn’t wear it like any other watch I’ve ever owned. That means keeping it on when I’m working in rough environments, getting it wet, whatever. I have a few watches in my collection. Six in total. None of them are expensive watches. I’ve always bought watches with link bracelets and every one I’ve every one of them is broken where the band attaches. I broken them all while doing something a bit rough. Mechanically they’re all fine. They just need replacement pins for the bracelet.

As I was saying. When I got the new Apple Watch I eventually decided I shouldn’t baby the darned thing even though it’s terribly expensive, I should wear it like any other watch I’ve ever worn or why have darned thing?

To that end it’s been submerged in water a lot and banged around while working on bikes, cars, and my yard. I know, nothing terribly brutal, but it’s held up quite well.

A while back I wore it while cutting down a dead tree in our yard. I wish I had taken a picture of it before wiping off the face. It was covered in sawdust and dirt. Before I thought to grab the picture I wiped it off to check the time. This is how it looked.

A couple weeks back I was working in the yard. It’s time to turn the sprinklers back on and I was doing repairs in our front and back yard. When I got to the back yard I had a sprinkler that was busted off under ground, so I had to dig it up to repair it. As I was working on it I happened to completely submerge my watch in an icky, muddy, mess. This is what it looked like afterward.

When I showed this picture to my brother he was surprised it survived. I wasn’t, but I’ve been beating it up for quite some time and it’s bee terrific.

When I was finished with the sprinkler repair all I did was pull off my watch and rinse it off under the garden hose. When all was said and done it worked perfectly and looked as it did before caking it with mud.

Oh, and yes, I’m still using a green iPhone 5c as you can tell by the reflection in the watch face.

Overall I’m really pleased with the durability of my Apple Watch. Hey, is there a web site, or web sites, that feature Apple Watch action shots? If you know of any, drop me a line at rob.fahrni@gmail.com or leave a comment. Thanks!

What I want in watchOS 3.0

So, what would I like to see in watchOS 3.0? Simplification and performance improvements. I’ve written before that I use very few Watch Apps — two in fact; Dark Sky and Beer Timer. I’m not counting Apple’s apps in that. I really like glances and complications. I’d love to see apps embrace those two things in particular. I use the Dark Sky complication on my watch face, you can see it in lower left of the pictures above.

Performance, performance, performance. The one downside to launching an app is how long it takes to startup. When I tap on the Dark Sky complication it takes so long to load my watch face will often turn off. That’s clearly no good. I’d like to see that improved. At the very least keep the watch face on until it’s loaded up and give me time to view it.

Another annoying thing. When I bring the watch up to look at the time it’s off most of the time. That’s pretty frustrating. It means I have to tap the face with my other hand. If that could be sorted out it would make the watch that much better for daily use. I typically have 50% batter life when I go to charge it at night, so batter life is not an issue. Figure out a way to light the display more often.

What’s the one thing I want more than any other thing? Custom Watch Faces. I would be fine with Apple requiring a stringent review process for custom faces. I don’t want one that misbehaves and sucks batter. Come to think of it I’d be fine with that if it looked extremely cool! Let me decide which faces to use. I bet they would be the most popular item in the Watch App Store if you did it.

I’d love for someone to make a Dumbledore Watch Face! I’d have that thing day one! Yes, I have a pocket watch with this watch face. It’s a work of art.

Here’s hoping we get simplification, performance, and custom watch faces in watchOS 3.0.