My Apple Watch

I’m still wearing it every day and I love it. Yes, I said I love it. Sure, it’s Just a Watchâ„¢, but it does everything I expect from a watch and a little more.

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about the usefulness of the watch, but I still wanted one. I had decided I’d wait to buy one when the old version went on sale after the announcement of Watch 2.0, which hasn’t happened. In the meantime I was given a watch on Father’s Day by my daughters and wife. I was pretty darned excited to get it and haven’t gone a day without since.

How I use my watch hasn’t changed since I wrote about it in August 2015. It’s still a great watch, I love the taps for messages and phone calls, and the fitness features are a lot of fun. I’m surprised I like the fitness features as much as I do, but they’re actually quite good.

I’m not a big app user. I use a couple; Dark Sky and Beer Timer. Dark Sky is a beautifully designed app. I always use it by tapping on the complication to launch the app. As for Beer Timer I don’t use it that often, but when I do it’s quite handy, you can’t explode a beer in the freezer, right?

I think I’m also in the minority when it comes to watch faces and complication use. I have always enjoyed analog watch faces, so much so I’ve never owned a watch with a digital watch face (until now.) Since getting the watch I’ve only used two watch faces; Utility and Color. I like Utility because I can set a complication at the bottom center of the watch face and I like Color because I can set the color of the face to orange, my favorite color. I’m currently sporting the Color watch face.

What about complications? I like the Date and Dark Sky complications. That’s it. I love the way my watch face looks. I have the weather in the lower left corner and the date in the lower right of the Color watch face. As for the Utility watch face I have Dark Sky centered at the bottom of the display and the Date is next to three o’clock.

If you’re hesitant about purchasing an Apple Watch because you’re afraid it’s fragile, don’t be. I wear my watch all the time. It’s been submerged in water, muddy, and filthy when I work outside in the yard and continues to work as expected. Heck, it’s even fine in the ocean.

There are not many things I’d change about the watch. I’d love to have an orange anodized aluminum Sport model and the ability for third-party developers to create custom watch faces. That’s all I need. I hope someone will create an app, or apps, I can’t live without, until then I’m completely happy with what I have.

Do I think the Apple Watch is doomed? No, not at all. I think it’s a great 1.0 product and it should only get better (you know it made $6 billion, right?)