The Apple Watch is great. It’s a chance for iOS users to get in on the dream that is wearable tech, but that doesn’t mean it’s problem-free. Here’s what needs fixing. Like, yesterday.
Notifications Are Way Too Long
The Apple Watch is pretty handy for seeing what’s going on while your iPhone is in your pocket. It pushes all those notifications to your wrist from apps like iMessage, Calendar and Phone.
When it comes to apps like Mail, however, the phone decides to push the whole email to the user’s wrist, which makes dismissing it a pain.
Just grab your Digital Crown and *scroll* *scroll* *scroll* *scroll* *scrooooooooooool*.
If there was a headers-only mode for emails on Watch, that’d be so much more helpful.
Third-Party Watch Faces
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I’m a big fan of the faces and complications on the Apple Watch, but the best thing Cupertino could do to diversify the experience is to open the doors to third-party watch faces approved through the App Store’s moderation team.
Unfortunately, Apple’s policy for the Watch store says that apps that ship with the “primary function of telling time will be rejected”, according to 9to5Mac.
That needs to change right now, mostly because I want someone to make a Pip Boy 3000 face so I can give them all of my money for it.
Wrist Detection
The Apple Watch already has a pretty nifty feature with the accelerometer and light sensor where it detects when you’ve raised your wrist to look at Watch. Bringing the accelerometer to a sudden stop activates the screen, and lowering it again deactivates it.
The only thing is it requires you to be very deliberate with your wrist movements to activate the screen this way. Seeing as how I don’t want to look like I’m conducting a marching band waving my arms around all the time, it’s easier just to turn wrist detection off and single-tap the screen when you want it to be on.
It saves your battery and makes showing people stuff on your Watch screen much easier (when you move your wrist to show someone something on the Watch screen, Wrist Detection turns it off), but it denies you one of the Watch’s coolest little features just because of a few bugs.
Fix these, and then we’ve got a contest on our hands. Or wrists.