Will you be rushing out out get the Apple Watch?
Chris Hogan, 13th June 2015, Gadget
The Apple Watch has been a long time coming, but are we really going to take to a phone on our wrists? Here's our take on what it can do and whether or not it could be useful.
We thought that by the time of writing the Apple Watch would finally be in the shops, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It can at least now be bought online from the Apple website, with a 5-7 day delivery, but not all models are available.
Does this mean that demand is so high that it's hard to keep up, or have there been problems getting the watches made? It seems to be a bit of both.
Difficult birth
Apple, usually very secretive with their launches, were to some extent forced to release news of the watch before they wanted to, to cut speculation down. This made it seem a longer wait than we're used to.
Then there were production problems with one of the key components, the Taptic Engine. This is the bit that makes the watch tap your wrist when there's a notification, making it quiet and discreet. The original manufacturer delivered on time but the devices proved unreliable so Apple had to switch to a different supplier.
But finally you can buy them in the UK, with the cheapest Sport models priced from £299, the regular Watch from £479 and the higher-level Watch Edition between £8,000 and £13,500. And you'll also need an iPhone to pair it with - it's not a phone in it's own right but a phone accessory.
Not first to market
As is usual with Apple, the Watch isn't the first watch phone accessory. Android phone users have been able to buy watches from Samsung, Sony, Motorola, LG and many other manufacturers for a good few years now and they are a lot cheaper than even the cheapest Apple Watch Sport. Some of them are actually phones in their own right, so you don't need to carry a phone around as well.
But they haven't really sold in great numbers and many people expect Apple's involvement to make smart watches really take off. That's exactly what happened with the iPod, iPhone and iPad - other manufacturers had had similar products out for years, but in each case Apple's designs and usability effectively created a new market.
So what can it do?
Well, it tells the time, for a start, and you can make and take calls on it, as long as your phone is within nine metres. It will also tell you when you have a message, whether it's a text, email, reminder or a prompt from a social media platform like Facebook or Twitter. You can be notified by a sound or the wrist tap we mentioned earlier.
As standard it can play music and show photos and videos or act as a remote control for your phone's camera. There are fitness and health tracking and monitoring apps, a stopwatch, timer and alarm functions.
Intuitive
The Watch is normally in a semi-standby mode but just raising it to your face will wake it up and you can then swipe through information on screens (called 'Glances'). Using Digital Touch you can also draw messages on your screen and they'll be sent to another Watch user as a special wrist tap - you can even send your heartbeat to someone!
The crown of the Watch (called the 'Digital Crown') can be used to navigate through menu's, a bit like an iPod scroll wheel, and zoom in and out.
Mapping is one application where we can see the Watch being better than a phone - it'll be much easier to look at your wrist to check if you're going in the right direction than digging a phone out of a bag or pocket. Mapping will also tell you whether you need to turn right or left with different types of wrist tap.
Expanding the Watch
It will be the standard and functionality of Watch apps from other developers (and Apple as well) that will determine whether the Watch will take off or just become a curiosity. There is a new update to Apple's iOS and the Apple Watch operating system coming out shortly which will allow other developers to write apps, so it's really a work in progress.
But the real question is - will people in the UK take to wandering around shouting at their wrists, or will our natural reserve prevent the Apple Watch from taking off?
Who knows - but if you have managed to get hold of one please let us know how you've been getting on.
