Apple Watch – Have Apple lost their direction?

Don’t get me wrong, after Apple announced their Apple Watch on September 9th, I was pretty much impressed by it (at least more than what the iPhone 6/6 Plus). It offered a brand new UI experience which the Android camp didn’t really innovate much on.

However, after giving it much thought when you digest all the features that Apple designed into it, I’m asking myself, how many of the features of the watch, how many of the apps will you actually use on the Apple Watch, with that 1-inch screen? Have Apple given too much thoughts into this new gadget and ‘lost’ their direction on simple and user friendly interfaces?

Did Apple just invent a smartwatch that an Android probably would have developed? That number of customizations, super lots of features and eye candy.

1. The Messaging feature

This was one of their ‘biggest’ feature during their keynote. It may appear to be quite a nifty and interesting feature at first. But seriously? Remember this point, you need your iPhone to be paired with your Apple Watch. What’s with the Morse Code sort of thing, when you can probably iMessage or SMS people straight? Drawing on that 1-inch screen? Sharing your heartbeat – probably to your doctor? Really? How many of these features are really that useful?

Apple Watch Messaging

 2. Photo Gallery

I’ll give them a thumbs up first for designing the ‘revolutionary’ way to view photos on your watch. However, once again, you have your phone just beside you, why not just use the phone to view your photos in your all new 4.7″ or 5.5″ screen instead of a tiny weeny 1″ screen? And usually you open that to share with your friends, your friends better have a good eyesight to begin with?

Apple Watch – Photos

 3. Customization of Watch Faces

Okay, this is not necessarily a ‘bad’ feature to have. The amount of customization on the watch face is huge! But really? Do you need to play with planets on your watch face? Probably interesting in the first 10 times, a little interesting another 20 times… By the “n” number of times, what do you use it for? educating kids about our solar system?

Apple Watch – Watchfaces

4. Playing the catching game

Let’s face it, Apple is not the first one to come out with smartwatches, though they might have accidentally created this category with their iPod Nano in the past. But the first to revolutionize smart wearables probably have to go one of the most successful Kickstarter campagin – The Pebble smartwatch. Of course, being the first doesn’t mean you have the best product. But all along, there’s the debate of whether people really needed smartwatches, when the amount of people wearing real traditional watches are already on the decline.

Personally, I’m already a proud owner of Pebble and Sony Smartwatch 2 and I don’t really think smartwatches are useless.

However, you just don’t need to use them that often, the most nifty feature for me is you can really read notifications straight from your watch, and ignore it if it’s not important, without checking your phone in your pocket/bag.

Apple seemed to me have forgotten the fundamentals of a watch and placed super lots of features to attract people to buy it? Android Wear however, is more simple and focuses really on the important stuffs, rather than having 1,000 apps available for your 1 inch screen watch.

For me, the best smartwatch to get now is either the Pebble (for it’s superb battery life and compatibility for both Android/iOS), or the Moto360, however this Moto360 watch is being battered by users who claims the battery life renders the watch useless as it can’t even really last a day.