IT’S GREAT BUT WHO NEEDS IT?
ICan live without Apple Watch: critics
The muchanticipated Apple Watch is an “incredibly cool” and “personal” new gadget — but it’s not essential for people who already have iPhones, critics saidWednesday.
The device— which offers the same features as the iPhone 6, plus a fitness tracker — doesn’t hit the market until Friday, carrying a price range of $ 349 to $ 17,000.
But tech reviewers who scored a sneak peak said the wearable computer is a “powerful” and “stylish” “natural extension” of the body — even if they could live with out the upgrade.
“The watch is not lifechanging. It is, however, excellent,” said Joshua Topolsky of Bloomberg News.
The watch’s small screenmade some users feel less rude while texting in the company of others. And its vibrating reminders encouraged them to stay fit, the critics said.
“It gets physical, gently tapping my wrist when something important needs my attention and lighting up when I lift my arm to look. It nudges when I’ve been sitting too long,” wrote Geoffrey A. Fowler of the Wall Street Journal.
He added, “I’ve found the AppleWatch isn’t a replacement for t he iPhone, but it’s the rightr screen for many important p things. I only look at it in blips, for rarely more than five seconds.
But the learning curve is steep, other reviewers griped.
It takes days to learn the watch’s complex interface and link it to your lifestyle, wrote Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times.
“It took three days — three long, often confusing and frustrating days — for me to fall for the AppleWatch. But once I fell, I fell hard,” Manjoo wrote.
“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 tomy brain,” he gushed.
It evenmade his wife happy, he said.
“People who’ve previously commented on my addiction to my smartphone started noticing a change in my behavior; my wife told me that I seemed to be getting lost in my phone less than in the past,” he wrote.
The Apple Watch goes on sale via online preorder Friday and will be available in shops April 24.
Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts said in a recent memo she’s pushing sales online to encouraging customers to avoid their Apple Stores, which have quickly sold out of new products in the past.
“This is a significant change in mindset, and we need your help to make it happen,” she said.