I was originally pretty skeptical about the Apple Watch. I bought one mostly because I felt obligated to as a developer. I tend to be a minimalist, and I didn't know if the benefits of the watch would be worth the hassles that would come with it. Getting distracted by notifications on my wrist, feeling it against the desk when I'm typing, charging it every night, etc.
Turns out that, for me, it's totally worth it.
After 3 months, I'm still wearing my watch every single day. The watch enables me to do many things that I couldn't do before that not only make the devices worth its "hassle," but that are now a big part of my daily routine.
Checking the Time
Duh, right? But to be clear, time checking *alone* isn't reason enough for me to wear a watch. Which is why I haven't worn a "dumb watch" for years. But it's definitely a really nice side benefit of the device.
Checking the Weather
Just as easy as checking the time, but even more useful. The temperature complication on my Apple Watch face means I'm always .25 seconds away from knowing how hot or cold it is outside.
If i'm about to go for a run, I just flick my wrist and know instantly what running attire I need. And if it looks like it's about to rain, tapping the temperature complication launches the Weather app so that I can see a useful hour by hour breakdown of precipitation percentages.
Fitness
I only care a little bit about filling my rings. I mean, given the choice, I'd rather have them filled than empty. But it doesn't ruin my day or anything if they don't get done.
However, I really like being able to start running or biking sessions by touching my wrist instead of playing with an upside down phone strapped to my bicep. Every time I go out on a run or ride, I start sessions through both the Exercise and Strava apps, which is a little bit of a pain, but I want credit in both apps. And while I'm out, I can check my wrist at any time to see my duration and distance.
watchOS 2 (yes that's how it's capitalized) has APIs that will allow 3rd party apps to start the exercise session automatically, which is going to be pretty great.
Podcasts
I listen to a ton of podcasts, which means I've basically heard the sponsorship reads for a small handful of companies about a million times. Now when when a podcast starts to "tell me about something that's awesome" I skip right through that shit with a little help from my watch.
I flick my wrist, slide up from the bottom to get my audio controls, and hit the "+ 45 seconds" button to skip ahead. If the read is especially long, I can hit the button again to be 1:30 ahead, and if needed, hit the "- 15 seconds" button to go back a little bit. Usually this entire interaction takes me something like 2-3 seconds.
It may be worth noting that I never use the watch to start a new podcast; even if I'm in the car I always reach for my phone. The interface is just too small and requires too many steps to be done efficiently.
Apple Pay
Partially a matter of principle, I use Apple Pay whenever possible. And with the Apple Watch, I can just double tap the communication button, hold my wrist near the credit card scanner for a second, grab my groceries, and go. The longest part of the whole process is waiting for my receipt to print.
Notifications
This thing is really nice for notification triage.
My wrist buzzes when I get an iMessage, a Twitter mention, an email (I get very little email), and when a Tigers game has ended. It's nice to know about these things, but it turns out that most of them don't require a response, so my phone stays in my pocket.
Fashion
Since my son's been born, I've been getting photographed a lot more than usual. And every time I see these pictures of myself I appreciate how cool the Watch looks. I only have the blue band at the moment, but I can definitely see myself buying more in the future.
Conclusion
To be clear, I totally understand if you can't find reasons for the Apple Watch to fit into your lifestyle. In fact, I probably wouldn't even recommend the product to most people that I know. But I'm really glad that I have mine and I don't see myself putting it in the drawer any time soon.