{"id":142,"date":"2015-06-08T15:41:42","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T19:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/?p=142"},"modified":"2015-06-11T08:34:19","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T12:34:19","slug":"an-uncritical-look-at-the-apple-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/2015\/06\/08\/an-uncritical-look-at-the-apple-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"An Uncritical Look At The Apple Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2015-04-25<\/a>I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for quality timepieces. When LED watches first came out, I bought a Pulsar, and then several other “multi-function” watches. As I matured, gimmickry gave way to elegance, and I moved to Cartier, Movado, and Omega.<\/p>\n

More recently, I’ve gone more to the sport watches, including several iterations of Garmin’s GPS watches, which I use to track my running activities.<\/p>\n

But, as an Apple aficionado, when the folks at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino announced they were releasing a watch, I was fascintated.<\/p>\n

At first, I said to myself, “No, I’m not interested in another watch. \u00a0Even if it comes from Apple.” \u00a0Then I convinced myself that I would wait to see how the one-dot-oh release fared with the early adopters.<\/p>\n

Yet, I found myself at midnight on April 10 on the Apple web site, curious as to how the “pre-order” process was going to work. \u00a0After minutes ticked by, I realized that “midnight” meant Pacific time — a full three hours later my time. \u00a0No way I was going to stay up. \u00a0And I wasn’t disappointed.<\/p>\n

Somehow, for reasons I can’t explain, I found myself waking up in the pitch dark (I was staying at my daughter’s home at the time — that’s another story, for another time). \u00a0Fumbling for some light, I tapped my computer keyboard, and up sprang Apple’s pre-order web site. \u00a0Curious, I selected a watch (38mm stainless) and a strap (leather classic buckle) and hit the “order” button. \u00a0Wow! \u00a0Order accepted.<\/p>\n

I thought nothing of it until later that morning. \u00a0I heard on the news that pre-orders for the watch had sold out in something like 15 minutes. \u00a0I guess the combination I ordered didn’t sell out as quickly, as I was a good hour “late to the party” as they say.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, my watch arrived on April 24, as promised. \u00a0Good thing, too, as I was heading out on vacation the following day (I’ll post something about my vacation later). \u00a0The first “test” of my watch came as I used it to have my airline boarding pass scanned (passed!). \u00a0I also used the Map application in conjunction with the watch to help me find destinations I had never before visited.<\/p>\n

To cut to the chase: \u00a0An article I read spoke about the value of the Apple Watch is in “glances.” \u00a0There is no point to having a full-blown app that you navigate on a tiny screen. \u00a0What makes the Apple Watch valuable (for me) is that I can pick up data (message, news headline, map instructions, etc.) through a quick glance at the watch, which doesn’t require me opening an app and pointing, clicking, swiping and otherwise getting distracted.<\/p>\n

I’m not always an early adopter, but at this point (which, ironically, is on the same day Apple has announced WatchOS 2.0) I’m very pleased with my choice.<\/p>\n

(Postscript: \u00a0I have since added two more bands to my watch. \u00a0My experience has shown me that during hot and humid days, my perspiration causes a lot of wear on leather straps. \u00a0Since bands are easily interchangeable, I added a Sport Band and a Milanese Loop. \u00a0I keep the leather band stashed away for “dress” occasions!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for quality timepieces. When LED watches first came out, I bought a Pulsar, and then several other “multi-function” watches. As I matured, gimmickry gave way to elegance, and I moved to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-apple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}