Stefan Mileschin

The first Apple Watch reviews are coming out right now. The Verge's review is incredibly detailed, and also, brutally honest: the Apple Watch has major issues right now, but it does have a lot of potential. The biggest issue highlighted by The Verge is performance, and the video review shows stuttering, loading screens, and unregistered taps on the screen. But right now, it's disappointing to see the Watch struggle with performance. What good is a watch that makes you wait? Rendering notifications can slow everything down to a crawl. Buttons can take a couple taps to register. It feels like the Apple Watch has been deliberately pulled back in order to guarantee a full day of battery life. Improving performance is Apple's biggest challenge with the Watch, and it's clear that the company knows it. These seem like the same issues the Moto 360 had when it first came out. Android Wear updates eventually addressed most of these issues, while also increasing its battery life, so I'm sure Apple Watch updates will do the same. Still, it's disappointing that such an expensive, high-profile device suffers from performance issues, especially since it leads to a huge problem for the Apple Watch, highlighted perfectly by Nilay Patel: "there's virtually nothing I can't do faster or better with access to a laptop or a phone". The other major issue is one I also highlighted in my Moto 360 review and other smartwatch articles: smartwatches make you look like a jerk, and the Apple Watch is no exception. It turns out that checking your watch over and over again is a gesture that carries a lot of cultural weight.

http://osnews.com/story/28460/The_Ve...e_Watch_review