It's been a year since my kids gave me an Apple Watch for my birthday. Aside from being another year older, I'm another year wiser, and I've concluded that while the Watch is a dazzling wristwatch, its practical applications are few. It's a toy.
There's no denying that the Watch dazzles, and it still prompts curious _ even envious _ questions about what it is and what it can do. The answer is that, if you read the 100-page manual, it can do a lot. It also tells the time with a choice of many watch faces, along with the temperature, sunset and sunrise. The Watch's face can be customized to suit your fancy. Big deal.
If you're walking along and your iPhone rings, you can answer on the Watch. Passersby will look at you strangely, as if you're an escapee from a Dick Tracy comic strip. Dick Tracy, for millennials' benefit, was a square-jawed cop who sported (imagine this!) a 2-Way Wrist Radio on which he could call precinct captains about how he had apprehended villains such as Flyface.
Email can be read, along with text messages and notifications. The Watch will prompt you when it's time to get up from your computer and get some exercise. It has an array of apps that includes news websites. Ask Siri on your iPhone to give you directions to the nearest Costco warehouse, and the Watch will guide you.
But therein lies its major drawback. The Watch is not a standalone device. It has to be tethered to an iPhone via Bluetooth. Many of its functions, such as text messages, can be mirrored from iPhone to Watch, so there's a case to be made for not having to take your iPhone out of your pocket in order to read the messages. But, come on, paying $350 or more _ much more, depending on screen size and quality of the wrist band _ for a toy like this is tantamount to admitting you're a babe in toyland.
I don't wear my Watch much these days. I don't want to risk damaging its face, although you'd have to put some effort into scratching it. I find that the sport band that comes with the Watch is insanely hard to mount on my wrist. The band seems cheap compared to the rest of the watch. It's easy enough to swap bands, but the nicer ones made by Apple are expensive. A cottage industry has grown on Amazon and other websites for much cheaper knockoff bands. I haven't tried them yet.
Then there's the matter of battery life. In normal use, I get about a day from a single charge. If charging your watch is something that makes sense for you, this won't be the annoyance it is for me.
When I dropped hints about wanting a Watch for my birthday, I knew the device would be from toyland. Now that I've had a year to use it, I think I would have dropped hints about wanting another semi-useless gadget. The Amazon Echo comes to mind.
