Apple Watch, a 3 month update

After years of speculation, months of anticipation and weeks of waiting, I finally took delivery of my Apple Watch at the end of May (2015). It was a real buzz to be the proud new owner of a highly anticipated and somewhat envied piece of technological gadgetry. So after almost 3 months with the Apple Watch, what are my feelings? Well, in a nutshell, I am a left a little underwhelmed. There is no doubt that Apple have forever changed the way I look at a watch, and have really raised the bar from what I now expect from wrist wear. For example, all of my other watches (which just tell the time…) are pretty much obsolete, and I highly doubt I can ever look at them in the same way, reducing their functionality to aesthetics and jewellery.

You may have read my previous blog post about the Garmin fenix 3; this is what I consider to be my first ‘real’ venture into the ‘smart-watch’ market. It does so much more than simply tell the time and record my fitness activities; informing me of notifications from my smart phone, viewing the weather, my calendar and even having the ability to control music from my smart phone were all very novel and welcome features. The Apple Watch does all these, and probably better, but recently, I have still found myself wearing my Apple Watch far less, and my fenix 3 far more.

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Strava on the Apple Watch

I was very eager to see how the Strava app would perform on the Apple Watch, having now used the Strava platform to record my runs for the best part of 6 months. I decided to perform 2 test runs of 3.5km, one with the Garmin fenix 3 and the other with the Strava app running on the Apple Watch, and compare these experiences. The main point to note is that the Apple Watch currently acts as an extension of the iPhone, and uses the 4G signal and GPS from the Strava app on the phone itself, and relays that information to the Apple Watch. Quite simply, the watch acts purely as a second screen when you are running.

I will compare a few of the main running parameters between the fenix 3 and Apple Watch.

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So I finally got my Apple Watch!

After many weeks of waiting, my 42mm space grey Apple Watch is finally here! This model has been in particularly short supply and having ordered on the 10th of April, I was given an ambiguous delivery date of “June” which later changed to “4-6 weeks; May 27th – June 9th”. This was quite a disappointment considering that I had preordered on the very first day that preorders went live! I knew that the Apple Watch would be in short supply, but this has been one of the most frustrating waits ever. Fast forward to now, and I have finally received it. Has it truly been worth the wait?

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