-
The Apple Watch Sport comes in a long rectangular case. From what we've seen, watches with loop bands are shipping in square boxes, and Apple Watch Editions come in fancy leather charging cases.Andrew Cunningham
-
The kind of watch and band contained in the box is printed on the side.Andrew Cunningham
-
The contents of the box, the serial number, and other markings on the bottom.Andrew Cunningham
-
Lift the top of the box off. Inside this second box is yet another box made of hard glossy plastic.Andrew Cunningham
-
The watch itself is laid out inside the hard-shelled case.Andrew Cunningham
-
The charger, located underneath the watch case: a standard iPhone-style USB plug and the charging dock.
-
The contoured part of the charger is the one that sticks to the bottom of the watch. Aside from the weight of the watch, there's nothing to anchor it to the surface it's attached to.Andrew Cunningham
-
The "Designed by Apple in California" part of the packaging contains a quick setup insert and a shorter bottom band for those with smaller wrists.Andrew Cunningham
-
So, for reference, here's the stuff that comes in the box that you actually want.Andrew Cunningham
-
...and here's the part of it that's mostly trash.Andrew Cunningham
Our Apple Watch arrived this morning.
However you feel about smart watches as a concept or the Apple Watch in particular, the fact of the matter is that this wearable already has momentum behind it by virtue of being a brand-new product from the world's biggest consumer electronics company. Developers are already here, although many of them are still trying to figure out how an Apple Watch app should look and work. An order placed today won't make it to your doorstep until four-to-six weeks from now. None of this guarantees long-term success, but it does mean that Apple's Watch is a product to... watch.
This is our first experience with the Apple Watch outside of controlled demos at Apple events and some limited hands-on time during Apple Store try-on sessions, so for your reference we've documented the process of extricating the watch from its multilayered packaging and pairing it to a phone. More detailed impressions will follow in the coming days—we'll be wearing the watch around for several days to get an idea of where it fits into our digital life and, more important, what it actually changes for people who buy it.
The Apple Watch Sport comes in what we would call "a lot of box." The watch itself is buried three boxes deep, and every layer is covered with some plastic covering you need to peel off first. Apple is normally known for its minimal packaging, but not in this case.
We bought the 42mm space gray model—we've seen a lot of "space gray" Apple products, and none of them is quite the same shade. The iPhone's coating is a bit lighter, the iPad's and MacBook's are a little darker, and the Apple Watch's is actually closer to the darker black color used in the iPhone 5. Not a big deal, just keep it in mind if you were really hoping your iPhone and your watch would match.
Poke the lower button on your watch to power it on, and then tap Start Pairing on the watch and on your iPhone's Apple Watch app to begin the pairing process. Apple's pairing method is sort of neat—it asks you to hold your phone's camera up to the watch, and if the animated pattern on the watch's screen matches what it's looking for, it will pair automatically. There's also a manual pairing method if that doesn't work, but we had no trouble with the camera method.
-
Finally, we can make that non-removable Apple Watch app do something.Andrew Cunningham
-
Apple's camera-based pairing process is actually sort of neat.Andrew Cunningham
-
Success!Andrew Cunningham
-
From here, the app asks you to answer many of the same questions you answer when you first set up an iPhone.Andrew Cunningham
-
First up are the terms and conditions, and then you sign in with your Apple ID.Andrew Cunningham
-
Location services. Note that this one and Siri aren't presented as options—they're things you need to turn on for setup to continue.Andrew Cunningham
-
Siri, necessary for any voice-based interactions with the watch.Andrew Cunningham
-
Diagnostic information.Andrew Cunningham
-
We recommend creating a passcode for your watch, just because the screen can still display a small amount of potentially sensitive information.Andrew Cunningham
-
Enable this option, and as long as you're wearing the watch, unlocking your iPhone will unlock the watch too. It's unclear how much time this will save you, since the point of the watch is to use your phone less.Andrew Cunningham
-
You've probably already downloaded some Apple Watch apps in the form of iPhone app updates. Choose to sync them all to the watch now, or choose them individually later.Andrew Cunningham
-
Now the watch syncs with your phone. This appears to configure iCloud and iMessage, as well as install apps.Andrew Cunningham
-
You get the same Apple ID notification as you'd get if you added a new iPad/Mac/iPod/whatever to your Apple ID.Andrew Cunningham
-
And we're good to go! Now the Apple Watch app becomes a hub for controlling and configuring your watch.Andrew Cunningham
There are a few you'll immediately be interested in: first and foremost, you'll want to shuffle your watch home screen icons around in the Layout tab. In General, you can download software updates (none available as of this writing) and set the watch to automatically download apps when you've installed an iPhone app that comes with an Apple Watch app. The Do Not Disturb setting is already set to mirror your iPhone—when you toggle it on your phone, your watch will pick it up, too—and the same setting is true for most app notifications. If there's any app you definitely don't want buzzing your watch, go to Notifications and take care of it. Configure the Friends wheel with some of your most frequently used contacts for easy access. And finally, the Activity settings will let you turn those "hey you've been sitting, get off your butt" reminders on and off and configure other fitness features that may not appeal to everyone in the user base.
Whatever the Apple Watch's other features, it's going to spend most of its time buzzing you with notifications. My iPhone is already set up to show me a few notifications, but I'll need to wear the watch for a few days to figure out if that balance needs to change at all. We suspect it will be the same for most of you, too.
-
The Apple Watch app. Note to Apple: when can we get this cool light-on-dark theme for our iDevices?Andrew Cunningham
-
Built-in and downloaded apps can be organized in Layout. Remember how you used to use iTunes to do this on your iPhone?Andrew Cunningham
-
Many settings, including Do Not Disturb, are set to mirror whatever your iPhone is doing by default.Andrew Cunningham
-
Set your watch to automatically download apps, and any iOS app you get that includes an Apple Watch app will install that app to your wrist.Andrew Cunningham
-
The Fitness settings. We're interested in finding out how these change our behavior, but you might not be.Andrew Cunningham
-
The Friend screen is where you put frequently used contacts so you can easily message or call them from your wrist. These must be manually populated.Andrew Cunningham
-
If you don't choose to automatically install apps, you'll need to toggle it manually. If an app has a Glances view available, you turn that on here, too.Andrew Cunningham
-
Choose to install an app, and your phone will beam it over to your watch.Andrew Cunningham
Most early Apple Watch reviews have already run, and we're not interested in re-covering ground that's already been thoroughly covered. We'll be wearing the Watch all the time over the next few days and writing up our impressions, but if you have specific questions you'd like answered that haven't been answered by other reviewers, let us know below.
Listing image by Andrew Cunningham
reader comments
125