We suspect that the New York Times jumped the gun this morning by publishing a full-on review of the Apple Watch, [UPDATE: other outlets have been publishing reviews today, too] even though Apple won’t even start taking orders for it until Friday. On balance, though, we don’t think Apple will complain too much.
Tech columnist Farhad Manjoo pretty much ratified Apple’s aims for the gadget:
… the Watch became something like a natural extension of my body — a direct link, in a way that I’ve never felt before, from the digital world to my brain.
But it took a few days to get there. Manjoo talked about it taking time to learn the interface, figure out how to get just the right notifications to appear, and understand how the watch would fit into his life. And at this (early) point, he described most of the third-party apps as “useless.” But he raved about the haptics, and the different feels of different types of notifications. Apple Pay worked well, Siri much less so, and he had some issues with the design of some applications. Then there was this:
What’s most thrilling about the Apple Watch, unlike other smartwatches I’ve tried, is the way it invests a user with a general sense of empowerment… [T]he Watch builds the digital world directly into your skin. It takes some time getting used to, but once it clicks, this is a power you can’t live without.
And that’s a triumph of design, and of the seamless experience of hardware and software. You’ll probably see that last phrase in ads.
Now let’s see that the market thinks.