Got my repaired/replaced apple watch back a few days ago. If you read my last post about it breaking you know that I have misgivings about this device now. Do we need technology to be so personal? Do we need more immediate and constant distractions? I am working these questions out. Hang tight!
Since I have spent a week without my watch I noticed a few specific times that I miss having the watch on:
- Adjusting the volume or skip/stop a teack on any Bluetooth speaker or headset. This is something I do a lot apparently. There were at least three times when I reached for my wrist to
- Setting a timer for gardening, cooking, etc. the timer on the watch has preset values and the ability to set custom times. Siri is actually useful here: “hey siri start a timer for 23 minutes”
- Tracking workouts: “hey Siri start an outdoor bike ride”
- Getting texts and phone call notifications without having to grab my phone.
- Checking the time
Other than these types of interactions I wasn’t missing much. Knowing when other people had worked-out wasn’t that important. Being reminded to stand each hour wasn’t missed at all.
When I got my new watch I went to restore from backup. The problem is that the backup was from 2 years ago. How worthless is that? How did it not create a backup in the last 2 years? My web hosting backs itself up everyday!
So I went with a new install, which I prefer to do with my laptop every few years. Wipe the preferences and options clean. Then I went through every option in the Watch app on my iPhone. I turned off most notifications. I removed the activity rings from all of my faces. I added Favorites for my wife and my mom. Now I’m just a tap away from talking to either of them.
So far so good. I called my mom this morning to test it out and had a great call with her. I didn’t get distracted by any activity notifications. I’m enjoying the watch again.
Will I buy a new one or “repair” this one again? I’m still not sure. There are some nice to haves but nothing my phone doesn’t already supply.
The watch does make a number of tasks easier and faster. I use Alfred and other utilities on my laptop the same way. Does it make me better at work? Probably not directly, but if it helps me get non-work tasks finished it seems it would help me be better focused at work.
I will say that over the last few years of wearing the watch I have become more consistent with my workouts and exercise. I’m in some of the best shape of my life. A lot of that is due to the activity rings and tracking built into the app. The only issue I have with the activity rings is the lack of rest and recovery. Its all go go go which isn’t the best way to exercise. The apple watch is great for recording workouts but needs a lot of work for planning.
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