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Slashdot Asks: It's Been a Year Since Apple Watch Release, What's Your Thought On It?
In an op-ed, Quartz's Mike Murphy writes that Apple Watch, the Cupertino-based company's first wearable device, hasn't been the success the company was hoping it to be. Apple unveiled the Apple Watch alongside the iPhone 6 at a media conference in September 2014. It wasn't, however, until April 2015 that the company began selling it. The Apple Watch has received a mixed response from people. While some have found the design premium-looking, almost everyone has complained about the battery life. Many have found the health-centric features of Apple Watch useful. though the lack of apps, in general, is a downer for many. Apple, which usually doesn't miss boasting sales number, remains tight-lipped on exactly how many Apple Watch units it has sold. Murphy writes: Every Apple product in the last 15 years or so has been two things: desirable and useful. They've made it easier for people to be creative, listen to a lot of music on the go, communicate with anyone in the world or find out any piece of information wherever they are. The Apple Watch looks good, but from a desirability perspective, some argue that the most interesting thing about it has been the collaborations it has had with Hermes, rather than the watch itself. Apple has always prided itself on 'thinking different', and has stood out by creating differentiating products. But different in the case of the Apple Watch right now just means "weird." Apple probably doesn't want a product where using one gets you referred to as "that guy." Do you own an Apple Watch? If not, are you planning to purchase one? Those who own it, what features do you like in the Apple Watch that you think other watches cannot offer.
I still don't want anything on my wrist. It's an interesting remote control but doesn't have that killer app/functionality you get with other apple products.
Twinstiq, game news
I thought I'd look cool like Dick Tracy when using it, but instead I just looked like a dick.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
I'm not sure it's junk, but it shows that the Apple "halo-effect" is a crack in its reality distortion field. It work up the world to IoT, but just because Apple makes it, doesn't mean people will come.
Now that they're being seen dumped on the secondary market (dailysteals, woot, etc etc), it's a sign that there's a product manager with a new job in the warehouse in Cupertino.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
though the lack of apps, in general, is a downer for many Apple, which usually doesn't miss boasting sales number, remains tight-lipped on exactly how many Apple Watch units it has sold.
Apart from the bad grammar here, I wonder if the lack of apps is because Apple hasn't released sales figures. If a developer doesn't know the size of the market, the developer can't calculate how many people might try an app and thus can't estimate return on investment. The same is true of, for example, clip-on gamepads for phones. Companies make games for PlayStation Vita instead of iOS-with-gamepad or Android-with-gamepad because Sony at least releases sales figures that are credibly greater than zero.
It's not that it's useless, it's that for something that costs between $300 and $700, it's not delivering all that much value. (Plus, you need to have first spent about that much on an iPhone to even use it)
If the watch had some value over your phone, such as being able to be a phone itself, or... something, people would adopt it. People love nothing better than shiny luxury trinkets that they think will set them apart from the common rabble as looking more affluent. The problem with this trinket is that it's just that. It doesn't really deliver real-world value that a fitbit doesn't also deliver.
I'm was never a fanboy or anything, but Apple really seems to have lost its way without Jobs. Products coming out that aren't ready for prime time, quality issues... never would have happened before.
The Apple Watch looks good and one day I hope to have one. Waiting for gen 2 or 3 before I commit.
Still rocking my original iPad though.
- We dream of the stars. Now let us return to them.
I'm certainly not Apple's core market, so I don't expect Tim to be crying into his beer over this; but in what is probably the least-favorable outcome for Apple(and 'smartwatch' in general); I basically don't have any thoughts on it. Depending on how you prefer to phrase it, it's been out for only a year and it has already dropped below even occasional attention without explicit prompts like this one; or it's been out for an entire year and failed to attract much in the way of visible fans, foes, nor has it carved out any niche applications where it is considered an absolute must-have.
Normally, that's not how Apple products work: there is often a sharp and bitter divide between those who love and those who loath; but people care one way or the other. The watch? It's just 'meh.'
not the apple watch but i just got a free gear s2 with my s7 phone, Ive had it for a few days now and so far the nicest thing for me is being able to use the watch to make and receive calls when driving. notifications are nice once you set them up properly, its cool but then again i dont normally wear watches so its taking some getting used to.
long story short not something id spend 300-700 on, but cool for free
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I bought my wife one at release. She is a big Mac user (iPhone since the iPhone 3, 4th Macbook, 2nd iMac) and although I wasn't sure about it, it seemed like a good present (it's jewelry AND tech.!). She has really tried it out as a USER, but it's a bit too difficult to really get into some of the features. She does like the health monitoring, but it really doesn't work very well at that. It doesn't seem to get her heart rate right much of the time, and it is vastly off base with her steps (it seems to totally not understand an elliptical). The ability to answer the phone is kinda ok...and she does use that occasionally, but with integrated bluetooth in her car, which would be the one time she might really use it, it ends up not being needed. She wears it only occasionally, and we may sell it. She does really like the butterflies.
You've already seen a plethora of comments slamming the idea of an expensive smartwatch (or in some cases slamming the idea of a wristwatch entirely). I'm a huge Smartwatch fan -- I spend virtually all my day in meetings, often not being able to use my laptop (tells you all you need to know about my job, I suppose). I was using a Pebble for years before my spouse got me an LG G Watch. Then a year later my spouse got me an Olio and as soon as I verified that it couldn't make it more than about 10 hours without needing recharging, I returned it.
When I got the LG G Watch, I made peace with the idea of charging my watch every day, which felt a bit blasphemous to begin with, but ... no big deal. I already charge my phone every day (though it's a bit annoying that there are practically no standardized Smartwatch charging standards). I just needed it to last until I go to bed at night, which is where the Olio failed.
These days, I'm using a big, chunky, Huawei Watch (http://www.gethuawei.com/huawei-watch) which I like quite a bit and makes it to bedtime with about 60% charge remaining.
So why not the Apple Watch? Simple -- I'm more interested in continuing to use my Android phone than I am using the Apple Watch. Apple, in an attempt to create a vertically integrated stack and bolster up the iPhone (or maybe just because they're lazy), has made their watch only work with the iPhone.
I've only known like two people that have them and they are overly eager to tell me how wonderful they are. A surefire sign of latent buyer's remorse.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
My wife works for Apple, and at the end of last year they had a deal to allow Apple employees to buy an Apple Watch for nearly half the retail price. She didn't really want one, so she bought one for me.
TLDR: Definitely useful, but I doubt I would pay full price to replace it.
The biggest feature for me, actually, is the notifications. Basically, with just a phone, you have the choice between cranking up the volume on notifications and having them be super-loud when you're in a quiet environment, or turning them down and miss missing them if you're in a loud environment. The watch has a dynamo that actually taps your wrist when you get a notification; so you're likely to notice it no matter how loud the environment is, but in a quiet environment the sound isn't too disruptive. (When I mention this to people they say, "But I wouldn't want to get notified all the time" -- no of course you don't, that's why you limit the notifications to only things you actually care about.) The notification aspect is handy when you're driving as well -- it gives you a little tap before you're supposed to turn to "wake you up".
The watch faces are pretty cool, with lots of pretty well thought-out features. It's nice being able, for example, to see what the temperature is like outside by just glancing at your wrist; and with the 2.2 update there's a watch face that cycles through photos from a designated photo album, so every time I look at the time I see photos of something that makes me happy.
The heart-rate monitor is pretty useful, but it seems like it's only mainly accurate for aerobic sports -- when I'm weightlifting it will often report obviously incorrect numbers (like, 40 BPM after I've just done a set of lifts and am breathing heavy).
The timer is quite handy, particularly with the "Hey Siri" feature -- "Hey Siri, set a timer for 5 mintues". The "Hey Siri" functionality is quite useful in a number of other situations as well: "Hey Siri, remind me when I get home to put the garbage out."
The Dick Tracy-style phone is a bit gimmicky, IMHO -- it's actually quite uncomfortable to try to talk to someone with your wrist held in front of you. It's almost always worth the 3 seconds of effort to just pull the phone out of my pocket / bag instead.
The awkwardness of holding up your wrist for long periods is the reason I don't use many of the other apps as well -- stocks, weather, browsing maps -- most things are much better just done by taking out your phone.
All in all, I'm glad I have it; and if it was like $150 I'd definitely recommend people buy it. But at the current price, it's a bit steep for what it provides.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Apple is in serious decline right now but few people have taken notice.
The iPhone 6 was a design disaster. The SE is a weird counter-cyclical throwback. The iWatch was a dud. The iPad Pro was a fail. The new iPad is meh. The Mac Pro is an overpriced disaster.
Apple needs not just one, but a series of major wins or they're done.
I've been generally happy with mine, and in spite of the couple of times I've become annoyed enough to switch back to the old watch, I've always come back to it after a short time. My biggest beef has been with the pulse monitoring--it's accuracy has been unpredictable enough to make it worthless for me. I don't even bother tracking it in the Health app any more. I'm hoping newer technology in a future model will fix the problem.
I wouldn't say it's junk. My wife loves hers. Like a smartphone provides a subset of a full computer's functionality, a smart watch provides its own small set of functionality. The primary functions are really useful: time and weather at a glance; reliable notification of a phone call or SMS message in a noisy environment; health data which is very useful during exercise; Siri; and Apple Pay. Is that worth more than the cost of an iPhone? Different question.
It also shows its lack of ability in the "apps" available. Just because you can produce a "tap 17 tiny buttons in the arcane sequence and you can view the state of your coffee pot" app won't ever make it a useful or practical app. And the non-primary functions that might be of value still require some form of setup, like telling the watch you want driving directions to be signaled on your wrist.
Some of this is first-gen product limitations; some of it is inherent to a small form-factor device that simply doesn't have an interface matched to the size of human fingers. What that says to me is it's overpriced for what it can do - that doesn't make it junk, but it means they aren't going to sell like smartphones.
John
I admit, it's getting harder and harder, but walled gardens are bad.
The last time I owned an iOS device was the ipad2. It was astonishingly limited. Couldn't share the storage on the network, couldn't use anything other than iTunes to load files onto the device, and even then you could only load files into defined buckets that apps create. Couldn't read any file off an sdcard unless it was jpeg. Couldn't upload or download arbitrary files from the internet.
I mean, this is not something that "just works". It doesn't in fact, "just work". It barely works at all. I was able to get some functionality out of it by jail breaking. It's currently running ios7, so maybe these complaints are out dated now? Probably not. I have no idea why I would want to buy a watch, or anything of any brand or functionality, that is locked down and prevents you from doing whatever you want with it.
It's sadly becoming harder to do this.
My wife has had workout GPS watches and was very excited for the latest Garmin smartwatch, but found it frustrating in use and featureset. The screen was also not as nice as she was hoping. She ended up exchanging it for the Apple watch and enjoys it. She did look sort of crazy when testing it out, wearing it and her old GPS watch to see how accurate it was and all. She'd been carrying her phone for music anyhow, so that it required a smartphone for full functionality wasn't ideal for all situations but worked for her. The biggest downside is probably battery life: the old style Garmin GPS watches can be forgotten in a drawer for months and still have enough charge to be used for a weeklong camping/hiking trip, whereas she generally charges the Apple watch each evening. The most useful feature for me is that the watch can ping her phone so she no longer needs help finding it every 4 minutes. Unlike younger folks, I actually almost always wear a watch but I've not felt compelled to get a smart watch myself.
I tried one at a store once. It did not find it intuitive. I would swipe on the screen and unexpected things would happen. I would use the dial and unexpected things would happen. It made no sense. But then again, most Millennial/Hipster-"designed" UIs don't make sense to me. I found the watch experience to be a lot like the Slashdot Beta or the GNOME 3 experiences: they check off every box in the hipster trendy-UI-effect-of-the-week checklist, but I couldn't actually use them to do what I wanted to do!
Really, the whole idea behind it was to try and jump into the luxury watch market nothing more. Personally I don't have any desire to buy one, I haven't worn a watch in 20 years(habit from an old job). To me, it doesn't add anything and seems pretty damned useless from my pov.
I'm was never a fanboy or anything, but Apple really seems to have lost its way without Jobs.
Not the first time either, but last time they had the chance he would come back and fix their mistakes. This time, it likely won't happen and we'll see Apple decline into irrelevance again just like before, but no one will be around to bail them out from their own stupidity.
Om, nomnomnom...
It's much better for health apps than a Fitbit. Its running / walking exercise app in particular is really well thought out. Its map app is great for walking, too. Little details like the four steady beats for turning right and the four beats in a heartbeat pattern for turning left really make it stand out. The calendar interface is also decent. Some of the other apps still need more work; I'd like more mail options, for one.
My previous watch was a Traser, purchased at a similar price point as the (very slightly used) Apple Watch Sport I currently have.
Pros (Traser):
~3 years battery time
Relatively unobtrusive "always on" light (H3 capsules)
Pros (Apple Watch):
Silent notifications that I never miss - even when I forget the phone in the other end of my house.
Never having to set the time (even a good Quartz watch will eventually go out of sync with the real world).
Activity rings (even after several months of ownership I still move a lot more than I did before, and I get regular reminders that keep this behavior up. My changed moving behavior has in turn affected my eating behavior so I'm down 5 kg compared to before getting the watch (I wasn't spectacularly fat to begin with, but now I'm getting lean)).
I can control my most used media players from my wrist.
Not having to surreptitiously fish my phone out of the pocket in the store to check my shopping list.
Both watches can be rinsed in water but shouldn't be subjected to diving or fast pressure changes (I have an old Casio beater for that).
I have never had less than 40% battery left when I put my watch on the charger for the night - battery time was what I was most afraid of before I purchased the watch, but that hasn't been an issue at all.
To be honest I don't use many apps on the phone, and no third-party apps at all on my Watch, but for what I have it do for me, it has been great. What I most like about it isn't that it changes anything radically, but rather that it makes a few very common tasks a little more convenient.
The only thing I'll do differently the next time around is that I'll go for the stainless steel/sapphire glass version to get a more resilient case, since I wear the watch at pretty much all times when awake.
With daily charging required, the Apple watch is impracticable for many people. If a charge lasted as least one week, I believe there would be more takers.
weather at a glance
I've never understood this, unless that's a forecast. In which case, surely you have to select how far in advance the forecast is. If not... well, that's just one of the many tasks that windows are good for.
health data which is very useful during exercise
Personally, I've never really been convinced about that either. I mean I've played with health gadgets and they're neat and all, but ultimately, I don't need one to tell me I've been a lazy git and skipped an exercise session or taken the bus instead of walking.
But then again I don't have much interest in a fitbit either for exactly the same reasons. It provides plenty of data but not much in the way of actual information.
To each his own, I guess, but I'm kind of curious how these health devices actually help long term after the novelty has worn off.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
For free and you have to change your habits? Sounds to high of a price for me.
And receiving calls while driving:
1) This is dangerous, regardless if it is done hands free
2) A car radio with Bluetooth is much cheaper if it is not already implemented.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Steve Jobs was a self declared products guy. He wasn't really an engineer, or a designer, or a particularly great manager, but he had a great talent for knowing what products the market needed. He was certainly not a "marketing guy" since he spent most of time and effort developing products rather than promoting and positioning them, though he certainly liked an input into how his products were promoted, those inputs tended to be more like "bigger", "more groundbreaking", than anything more specific. In fact, I seem to remember he was sometimes quite critical of marketing folks displacing product guys like him in the decision making process.
1) This is dangerous, regardless if it is done hands free
Talking to a passenger is dangerous. Changing the radio station is dangerous. Having a screaming child in the car is dangerous. Driving is dangerous, get over it.
2) A car radio with Bluetooth is much cheaper if it is not already implemented.
Cheaper than a free watch?
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
I've had the watch several months - since the fall of 2015. So far - I'm not sure I need it. My calculation also includes cost and features of competing devices - including plain old watches. I keep telling myself "I'm first - this is an experiment - watch and learn - maybe it will be something cool." Short version - cool concept but not worth the money. Poor battery, poor apps, poor interface mode.
What I do like - having notifications and information right on my arm without needing to pull my (ever increasingly large) phone out of my pocket (and soon probably a napsack). Being able to quickly be alerted or acknowledge a text is nice. Monitoring my health activity (have I exercised this week?) is a nice nag. And I'll admit the Dick Tracy phone call on the arm has been unexpectedly useful. Bending your arm and taking 2 second to decided if the alert requires action is fabulous "we're waiting in lobby upstairs" - great. "reminder to pay bill (tonight)" oh thanks - almost forgot, "Twitter says multiple people retweeted same photo" - yeah Ignore.
Siri on the arm has been less than useful. Usually goes, "okay Siri ...okay Siri...OKAY Siri" (nothing)... ohh oops It's "Hey Siri" (sorry Dave - I'm not available right now). Most become "Please unlock and continue operation on iPhone." Apps on the watch are lame (and can't use Siri) - most are just extensions of the notification bar. "new podcast available" -- so what!? Twitter is lame because they notify you that "a friend liked a post" -- also ...who cares?! The arm is becoming a noise source. I'd like higher signal. I find myself uninstalling apps or turning off notifications. Even a pizza company has an app - but it doesn't show Progress. Just silly text - but the website has a progress tracker (Order recvs, making item, in oven, out for delivery). That would be a cool watch app (we order pizza for the baby sitter when we decide to stay out later). I think most are lame because the available UI is limited.
Imagine having the iOS Notification bar on your arm. Like many of you, I've turned off most notifications because there is always a notification somewhere on this planet being routed to my phone (ding - Notification that a notification is available). But the default mode of the watch and most apps are no better - if anything more noise and less signal. Google Inbox uses many characters to show message date/time/from/subject which leaves little space for the actual email. I was at the museum with friends and we'd all text "we're at the fish tank, heading to dinosaurs" and I could simply look at my arm -- Yup, got it!! Headed that way now. Didn't need to press buttons. Just done. got it. move on.
Which brings me back to...WTF is this thing supposed to do? Tell me the time? $30 Timex does that. What else? Text messages - yeah that's cool. Health monitor ? okay but can't swim with the watch ($30 Timex is water resistant to 10atm). Rubber Band on the basic sport model stinks - only $200 to replace it with a metal one. Bands for the $30 Timex cost ~$20. Can't wear it to the beach. So it isn't a watch replacement. Okay - Not a Watch.
Plus having battery charge anxiety at the end of the day. $30 Timex is still using the same battery it came with 6 years ago.
So why am I paying $400 for a device that can't replace a $30 Timex? $400 buys a very nice plain old watch - Solar powered, dive watch, deflects bullets. Seriously - if a high end watch company came out with a watch that showed text messages it would put an end to Apple Watch.
If it cost under $100 my ROI would be justified. A useful toy. I fear this may be another Newton.
According to The Washington Post talking hands-free is the same level of impairment as talking to a passenger and holding the phone is negligibly more distracting. Listening to an audiobook is almost as distracting as talking.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
I'm not sure it's junk, but it shows that the Apple "halo-effect" is a crack in its reality distortion field.
Rather than a crack in the RDF, it's evidence that there never was an RDF. Apple has sold products hand over fist because they've been highly desirable products. When they release a product that isn't so desirable, such as the Watch or the Apple TV, then it doesn't sell so well. (Unlike what RDF theory would suggest.)
At the moment the apple watch is a cool toy but in the future it will be more. For now if I wanted to be more info stimulation I'd certainly strap on this Digital Ben Wa Ball. Each ping, boop, or glance triggering a dopamine release.
But in the future some time there's going to be a tonne of uses for this. If my house becomes an internet of things then I don't want to fish in my pocket for my phone or talk out loud like a street corner preacher to my google glass. I want a device that instantly accessible and no bigger than it needs to be. IoT devices that need frequent adjustment aren't going to need much of an interface (heat up/down Lights on/dim/off, garage door open). But to be useful high access is needed. Sometimes voice willl be the right mode but not all the time so you need something you can bring with in ear shot, not a stationary Amazon echo. When I'm walking to my garage I want to say "SIri, open the garage door". Or as I'm driving around the corner "Siri, did the garage door successfully close? is any appliance left on".
In five or so years ubiquitous medical monitoring data will start to become useful to understand what normal metabolic and heart activity is, and to detect long term trends. Right now were just getting started on the data collection part. We've never had a way to do this at population sclaes before, so it's terra incognita.
As more and more things become digitally secured, (doors, payments, cars, elevators) and we even start to lose human interfaces like waiters, newpaper stands, baristras having a fast access to our keys and authorizations will matter more. And a device that can have some biometric locking to the owner is going to become an increasingly useful (finger print scanner, voice print, heart beat, or quick doodle on the screen).
You are going to need one of these eventually. At the moment they are just a fashion statement and an amusing digeratti toy.
If you are old enough you will remember that home computers were for hobbiests when they started. They were not useful.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Your 'free' gear was not free, no matter what they say.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
I have had an LG Urbane for almost a year. It was a gift from my wife and kids for my birthday. I don't think I ever would have purchased a smart watch on my own but I have really enjoyed it. I have a lot on my work schedule and the notifications are very handy. The directions on my wrist are appreciated especially when walking so I don't have to stare at my phone and look lost. I find it handy to leave my phone on my desk and not have to carry it to get notifications. In general, as someone else said, the extra source of notifications is very useful. There are other applications but personally I didn't invest much effort after I realized I couldn't reliably press the tiny buttons on the calculator applications.
When other people see it light up for a notification, I often get the "is it an iWatch" question. I politely explain that Apple isn't the only company that makes smart watches. The LG Urbane is a round faced watch which actually looks like a nice men's watch. It isn't gimmicky looking. It feels comparable in weight to the Seiko Titanium watch it replaced. It will last about 36 hours on a charge for me but I charge it every night. I show them the features and they usually come away impressed.
If you want a status symbol or expect a magical capability, then you will be disappointed. At Apple prices, a smart watch is a very questionable purchase. But the feature/price ratio is better on the Android side. Plus you have more choice on style.
Whenever a new piece of technology comes out, there's always a transition period involved in figuring out what works on it. When the web came out companies tried to make "virtual shopping experiences", complete with 3D models of stores with products on shelves, for online shopping. They flopped. The Amazon model of just having a webpage per product worked. Early iPad apps were lame because the developers just made their iPhone apps bigger to fill the screen size instead of using the screen effectively. And early Apple Watch apps trying to just squeeze their iPhone apps down to a smaller screen are doomed to fail too (looking at you, Twitter).
So consequently figuring out what makes sense on a Watch screen is going to be the real hurdle to overcome. All kinds of information could be handy on a small screen. A lot of people decry the Watch by saying "why not just save your money and pull out your phone?" but I think one day we'll be saying "why pull out your phone when you could just look down at your watch?"
My company's app has a lot of info for our employees and customers. But there was some info our CFO wanted to know on a fairly regular basis and he didn't want to log into some web site to see it. Or some app. He would instead pester someone to run a SQL query for him. So I added a Watch complication to our app. It puts these numbers on the screen for him. He can use Time Travel with the digital crown to go back throughout the day. He can drill down to the actual app and refresh on demand to his hearts content (Complications are only refreshed on a particular budget). He loves it. And the people who used to have to be pestered for it love me for putting it on his watch screen.
That's the sort of thing the Watch is good for. Quick pieces of info on demand or refreshing in the background. Instances where it would be easier to glance at your wrist than pull out your phone, unlock it, open an app, etc. Instances where you don't want to walk around with your phone in your hand where it can be bumped out and dropped or stolen. I use the Wallet app on the phone and the 7-11 app to scan my 7-Rewards card barcode and everyone just thinks it's the coolest thing ever even though I feel like a dork doing it. And then it feels incredibly primitive to dig out my wallet to pay when I could just use the watch with Apple Pay except 7-11 doesn't take it.
I think some day when the right apps are out for it it'll be as vital as our phones.
Schnapple
Apple get trust because they are trustworthy. Trustworthiness is a very delicate attribute. Sony had it, and lost it. Microsoft too (many here won't be old enough to remember when).
Apple still has it because they haven' betrayed their customers. Not because of magic (the RDF).
Things I like:
1) Notifications on wrist. #1 use of device. Makes it worth the cost.
2) Super easy to see upcoming events/meetings. I just look at watch face and tap the tap the calendar in the lower right. Brilliant.
3) Paying with your watch for a coffee at McDonald's. Sometimes I'll just go there to buy a coffee just to impress the people behind the counter.
4) Looking at temperature and weather at a glance. See #2.
5) Design is nice.
7) Health tracking feature.
Annoyances:
1) Most apps are totally worthless. By the time you find and launch an app that does anything useful on your watch, you could have the real deal on your phone. Only the simplest of apps make sense like the stop watch or the timer.
2) Siri is worthless. It's very unreliable and only good for the simplest of requests.
3) Taking phone calls on the watch is kind of ridiculous. Very hard to hear what someone is saying unless you are in a quiet room and it's a hassle to hold your arm in the air to talk and listen for any length of time. Again, it's just much easier to whip the phone out. Though I will say it has saved me when phone is in the other room and an important call has come in.
4) Battery life is a joke if you use the exercise tracking feature over the course of the day. Then you'll be lucky to get to bed with it still charged.
5) Nothing is more annoying then when you go to look at your watch and it doesn't turn on and you have to tap it with your other hand.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
I freed my wrist from the sweaty, uncomfortable watch band thing about 20 years ago, and haven't looked back (or been late for that matter).
When I wore a watch I felt handcuffed to time.
These days I can easily afford the 2 seconds it takes to "draw" my smartphone out of my pocket if I need the time, and then I have a decent sized screen to do all kinds of other useful things with. Smart watch just not needed.
And as for status symbol. I've always looked at a fancy watch as a kind of inverse status symbol, indicating a lack of confidence and a need to assert their worth with bling. Be yourself and establish your status by your actions. Then you'll get some status.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?