When the first Apple Watch came out, it didn’t appeal to me due to the lack of built-in GPS. The only way I could really justify spending that much on a watch would be if I was replacing my Garmin for running. The thought of requiring your iPhone to be close in order to get accurate mileage defeated the whole purpose of having a watch, in my mind. Then Apple announced the Apple Watch Nike+ right around the same time my Forerunner 610 died. A colleague offered to pick one up for me to try and I’ve been wearing it daily ever since.

Likes:

• The animated Mickey Mouse watch face makes me smile (every single time).
• Battery life is better than expected – I recharge nightly, but have never used more than 25% in a day.
• Unlocking my laptop when the watch is nearby works well and saves time.
• The personal tracking features (pulse, daily “circles”) are handy and should help me improve overall health.
• Once fine-tuned, the notifications between the phone and the watch are generally useful and reliable.
• The Nike+ watch band is easy to put on and is more comfortable than my old Garmin.

Dislikes:

• Just don’t like wearing watches every day (but don’t want to lose tracking data).
• Haven’t had a lot of outdoor runs yet, but the Nike run club app doesn’t seem very accurate for pace, sometimes doesn’t draw the on-screen route and has had issues synching with the Nike website.
• Indoor treadmill runs are way off – I manually add miles to my run log and just wear the watch to earn the exercise circle time.
• Speaking of the circles, right now it just creates anxiety about filling or not filling all three daily – don’t really need something new to remind me all the time about how I’m falling behind in my health goals.
• The special exercise awards are a great idea, but when you fail to award them when earned, people will get pissed off (looking at you, Thanksgiving award that is still missing).
• The watchOS seems to be a little flakey, restarting at odd times.
• Siri is Siri – I’d even take 50% accuracy at this point.

Looking at the latest Garmin products, I probably would’ve spent more and had less in terms of total features and future growth options. The reduction in features might actually be a good thing, but the Apple Watch should get better over time via software updates. I don’t really use any third-party apps right now (outside of the Nike app), but new ones get released all the time. Once I start running and biking outside again, I’ll report back…