Wednesday 6 May 2015

AppleWatch

Hey everyone :)

So if you follow me on social media - then you will know that I took the crazy-assed plunge and bought myself an AppleWatch!

I know I shouldn't have and I know I can't afford it but I couldn't help myself ... thanks PayPal Credit.

Firstly I will apologise for the quality of the pictures you're about to see - these were exported frames from the short unboxing video I did - I was too excited to take pictures and then my camera battery died - I mean what a time to die battery!

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

So I didn't do a big talkative review on my unboxing video - because - well it was an unboxing video not really a talk-review video so I thought I'd pop a more detailed analysis in my blog post.

Firstly as always - the packaging was amazing. Apple do know how to present their products to the customer. The sport edition comes in a longer narrow box compared to the other two editions which I believe are more square.

As you can see above we have a lovely white box, which 'AppleWatch' embossed on the top lid. It was sealed by cellophane and inside a cardboard box (for delivery) those are unseen as who cares about those.

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

When the lid is lifted you are greeted with a hard plastic box - containing the watch which has two tabs so you can lift it out the main cardboard box.

Underneath the watch box is the usual pouch with the paper instructions and you also get a second strap for the watch. I currently have the S/M strap so inside was the M/L strap. My wrists are quite small so I'm sticking with the S/M strap for now.

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

In the bottom of the box we have a magnetic charging cable which is similar to the magsafe cable on the MacBook. You just hold the circular connection to the back of the watch and it'll magnetically click on and start charging the watch. A full charge is estimated to give you 18 hours of life - obviously excessive use may mean less battery life. The cable is also 2m long - it's very long compared to the short cables you get with the iPhone.

They have also redesigned the plug you get - as you can see above in the picture the plug is 'open' but the prongs actually click into the housing of the plug meaning it takes up less room. So that's new.

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

Now the moment you've been waiting for ... as you can see again - fancy plastic covering on the box - you need to rip the seal off which you can see above. So I did that and threw the plastic to the side.

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

applewatch shoutjohn sport edition

There we have it - in all its awe and glory. The AppleWatch! Again packed tightly into its case and also covered in plastic coating to keep it protected so as you can see I ripped that off pretty quickly.

So for the sport edition there are two different sized available:

38mm (£299 GBP)
42mm (£339 GBP)

I bought the 38mm as I do have small wrists and I didn't want the 42mm as it might have looked stupid if it was too big for my wrist. This is why you should go into the store and try them on before buying a £299 watch.

There are also different colours available with the sport edition:

- White
- Blue 
- Green
- Pink
- Black

As you can see by the pictures I went with the white version. I'm hoping it doesn't get dirty easy - I work in a warehouse in an administrative department and there is a lot of dust so we'll see how long it takes before the band gets marks or dirt. 

I like the design of the strap and how it closes around your wrist - as you can see there is a pin and your normal holes - similar to a norma watch strap. You put the watch on and choose the correct pin - it needs to be tight enough to stay in one place - it's can't really be loose fitting or shaking around your wrist otherwise the sensors on the back won't be able to detect heart rate or pulses. Once you have pushed the pin through the hole you just push the end of the strap though the hole after the pins and you're all done.

Before I move on - I wanted to mention about payment options. Apple offer different types. You can obviously pay straight up with debit or credit cards. You can also opt for Apple's Barclay Finance Agreements however if its under £350 this option is unavailable however (yes there is a bright side) Apple also offer PayPal Credit payment. Which means you basically borrow money from PayPal - they pay it for you (you have to go through a credit check) and then you owe PayPal the money. They do 6, 9 or 12 month payments and its a 14.9% APR so the watch was £299 but I pay back £314 over 6 months so around £55ish a month - which is cool I think.

To get into the technical side of things:

- The glass is Ion-X glass, which is lightweight and resistant to scratches and impact.
- The watch has a retina display with force touch.
- One side has the 'new' digital crown which works as a scroller and a button and then also a power button.
- The other side has a speaker and a mic.
- There is a built in heart rate sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope.
- It has an ambient light sensor.
- It has built in wifi and bluetooth.
- Boasts a 18 hour battery life.
- It is also water resistant to a certain degree (meaning rain or when you wash your hands, not immersion like swimming or a bath or shower).
- There is also four health sensors on the bath - two for infrared and 2 for white light.

First Impressions

So I've been wearing the AppleWatch since about 10am this morning and I'm very pleased with it so far. It was very easy to setup and took about 10 minutes to sync to my iPhone during setup. I'm very interested in the health features that Apple spoke about. The watch currently records my heart rate periodically. It also gives you health goals to achieve each day based on your age/sex/weight and height. It estimates the calories you need to burn, how many hours you should be standing and how much exercise you have done (walking, moving, stairs etc). 

It periodically tells me to stand up and move around. I get text alerts and can reply with preset messages or can use Siri and dictate what I want to reply with.

The watch also detects when you turn your wrist to look at it - so right now as I type this it has a blank screen but as soon as I lift my wrist as if I was going to look at the screen - it will light up and show me the time.

When you sync your iPhone to the watch it downloads an additional app called 'Activity' The activity data (thats my exercise, standing and calories) all syncs to your iPhone so you can view it in more detail. Some of the data from the AppleWatch also syncs to the Health app (that was downloaded in the iOS 8 update) so I can view my heart rate in the Health app on a graph. It's only been recording for 1 day so it doesn't look that different.

During the AppleWatch reveal they spoke about a new open-source framework called 'ResearchKit' - this 'tool' turns your iPhone into a diagnostic tool for medical and health research. The app hasn't bene released yet but I'm speculating you download it and 'opt in' and any data the AppleWatch records about you - like your heart rate, exercise, when your standing, moving around - all what I've mentioned above it sent to these researchers and medical professionals along with thousands/millions of other peoples and used in research for diabetes or heart disease etc. 

I'll do another post on this possibly as it's very detailed and long.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this long review! Let me know in the comments what you think.

I am absolutely 100% satisfied and I love it.


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