[MUSIC]
It's been six months since I reviewed the Apple Watch Series 3 and it's been about three years since Apple first launched the Apple Watch.
That's a long time and it's a long time that I've been wearing the Apple Watch Series 3. What does it feel like to wear the watch?
Is it worth the upgrade?
And are there any things I love and things I'm really annoyed by?
Here's my check-in.
So things I love.
I like what the Apple Watch does with the music, and that was a surprise to me because I'm not a really big music listener on my watch in general.
But if you inside the Apple music ecosystem and you have music there, it syncs now in a way that automatically does it before you even decide you wanna do it.
And the fact that it puts recently listened to albums and a couple of play list automatically on there.
It's enough music to keep me going.
It's like an iPad.
However, because there is not head phone jerk on this, and if you wanna take phone calls, in that speaker on the speaker phone, you're gonna wanna use bluetooth head phones or ear pads.
And luckily, this ecosystem works very well.
Apple bet that with AirPods, and Apple watch, and the iPhone, that you would use them all together and they'd work seamlessly.
And they do, however, you have to buy them all, and that's a lot of Apple gear between the iPhone and the AirPods, and Apple watch.
If you've got two of the three, then getting the other, you know what?
You're gonna get a really good experience.
I'm gonna take these AirPods out Of my ears now and not wear them for this entire thing.
[LAUGH]
The Apple Watch also has pretty good fitness tracking.
And pretty good meaning that for everyday stuff that I need, it does a perfectly fine job.
It keeps track of my steps, gives me little nudges in the morning, in the evening to complete my goals and complete those rings.
I like the enhancements to heart rate tracking.
I like that it tells me my average resting heart rate.
I like that it tells me my average walking heart rate, even if I'm not tracking an activity.
For some reason, I like checking that.
It makes me feel better about myself.
I like how the Apple Watch handles messaging.
I'm not gonna respond to messages all the time on this, that would be ridiculous.
But I like being able to check quick text messages, to look at messages on Slack that might pop up.
Dictation's bit hit or miss, but again, it's the most hooked-in way to respond to messages if I've got an I like paying for things with apple pay on the watch, why?
Because it's right there and it's double click and pretty convenient.
It's actually a lot more convenient than paying for things with the iPhone 10 [UNKNOWN] center my face and click and do that.
Hey Siri, set a timer for ten minutes
[BLANK_AUDIO]
That's like the thing I do the most.
I basically just use this for setting timers.
I use it to find my phone.
[NOISE]
There it is.
It was in my lap.
[NOISE] What else is really good about this?
It's fast.
It's really fast.
This is kind of surprising if you haven't used an Apple watch in awhile.
You forget that three years ago the Apple Watch was really slow.
It took a long time to load apps.
It took so long you didn't want to do certain things.
Now the Apple Watch is generally so quick at loading things that it feels pretty.
And that's nice because it's basically at the point where I wanted it to be three years ago when I first reviewed one that looked pretty similar to this.
[MUSIC]
So here are the things I'm not so wild about.
Let's start with cellular.
A lot of people may love the cellular function and it works fine to use it as a phone away from the iPhone.
But I'm always carrying my phone with me.
And the amount it costs per month really needs to change.
It's more than $10 a month when you add in taxes.
And that amount to be able to use your cell phone plan on another device is way too much for a watch.
And I'm ok with the Apple watch general design.
But it has looked the same for a while.
That squircle has been around for a long time, the rectangular squircle.
I'd like a little bit of a change.
And I'd also like some new watch faces.
Because Apple's watch faces are very nice, but there is no watch face store, why is there no watch face store?
I want my New York Jets watch face, I want my Sonic the Hedgehog watch face, my NFL stats watch face.
Pebble had new watch faces, come on.
And as far as fitness tracking goes, it's not all perfect.
In fact, there are a lot of things I would still like to change.
One of them is the stand ring.
One of the three rings is supposed to motivate you to stand more.
And I always close the stand ring.
Look, I've almost closed it right now.
I've been sitting all day long.
I don't want to recharge this smart watch everyday.
I want to be able to wear the Apple Watch all the time.
Battery life is better now.
It's about two full days maybe but to be safe I charge it every night cuz I don't want it to run out.
And that's annoying, that's really annoying.
Other watches like Fitbit lasts longer.
Look at this.
I have a faded part of my wrist.
Because I've worn a watch nonstop since I was about 12.
I like wearing a watch all the time, day and night.
I know that's weird, but that's me.
Let me be me.
I also want the Apple Watch to be free.
To be free of the iPhone, to be its own device.
Why can't it be something like the iPod, which You could use the Windows computer and you could set up.
You still needed iTunes, but the iPod stood on its own.
The Apple Watch needs an iPhone and that's a lot of money to put into the Apple ecosystem again.
I would like if you could set this up with anything.
Or even people who didn't have the fanciest smartphones that could just use this to track or get notifications.
[MUSIC]
Connect in their home just let it be a standalone.
[MUSIC]
But despite my gripes the Apple Watch is still my favorite smart watch right now and that's because it's largely won the war of attrition on wearables because a lot of the competitors are now out of the landscape, and a lot of people are just not making great smart watches.
Apple has stayed true to the course and improved a lot of things over time, and that's paid off in making a much more refined product in the end.
It's not everything that I want it to be, but it's a lot better, comparatively, than other things that are on the market.
If you have an iPhone.
If you have an iPhone.
That's the big if.
