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Apple Watch Hack Adds a Browser For Your Wrist
TechCrunch reports that the Apple Watch now evidently has an tantalizing, but unofficial, feature: a browser, created by the jailbreak developer known as Comex. "Not great" is their headline-level assessment of what it looks like to use, which can't be too surprising: even a large watch face is still a small screen, by comparison to a laptop, a tablet, or even a phone. Venture Beat's assessment is similar: "As you’d expect, it’s an awkward mess." Making hardware do things it wasn't intended to is still a worthy pursuit, though, and TechCrunch notes: Out of the box, running arbitrary code like this shouldn’t be possible — while a native SDK is inbound, only stuff built with Apple’s somewhat limited WatchKit framework is supposed to run on the device for now. Is this a subtle demonstration of the world’s first jailbroken Apple Watch?
Maybe someone can port a text mode browser like Lynx, Elinks or W3M or something really hardcore, a command-line browser like edbrowse (http://edbrowse.org/). Then we don't have to worry about all the panning and dragging around the small screen.
I've been wearing one for a week, and I've really been enjoying it. Some points:
* I was really surprised at how battery life wasn't a problem at all. The first week I was reaching the end of day with 50% charge left. Definitely requires overnight charging, but other than that no battery problems. I even took the battery indicator off the homescreen cuz it wasnt an issue.
* I'm of two minds on the notifications. Good in theory. But the "wrist tap" is a little subtle for me and I often miss it. also, I wish the notification was available for longer on the screen.
* the killer killer app for me, the thing that once I tried it once became indespensible, is seeing my next appointment on my watch face. holy cow it just blows me away how handy this it. it requires a bit of work to keep your calendar up to date and consise (the entry names should be less than 16 characters), but once that's in place it's super handy.
* I like the ability to change watch faces, but it's not a big deal. I have a workday info-packed face, a weekend relaxed face and an evening chill face. no big deal, but it's nice.
* the thing is really small and light. I can easily wear it all day and not notice.
* the apps are mostly a pain in the ass. jury is out on that one.
* an exception is the watch's remote app, which among other things can control my apple tv. it's surprisingly handy! good thing, too, because I lost my apple remote about a week ago and don't know where it went!
so there you go, first impressions on apple watch.