Farhad Manjoo, writing for The New York Times, has also spent some time with the Apple Watch. His review makes an interesting point – that it took him three days to fully understand the role of the device in his everyday life. I found this bit about notifications and taps fascinating:

These situations suggest that the Watch may push us to new heights of collective narcissism. Yet in my week with the device, I became intrigued by the opposite possibility — that it could address some of the social angst wrought by smartphones. The Apple Watch’s most ingenious feature is its “taptic engine,” which alerts you to different digital notifications by silently tapping out one of several distinct patterns on your wrist. As you learn the taps over time, you will begin to register some of them almost subconsciously: incoming phone calls and alarms feel throbbing and insistent, a text feels like a gentle massage from a friendly bumblebee, and a coming calendar appointment is like the persistent pluck of a harp. After a few days, I began to get snippets of information from the digital world without having to look at the screen — or, if I had to look, I glanced for a few seconds rather than minutes.

Manjoo wasn’t impressed with the first third-party Watch apps he tried – a common theme among early reviews that suggests a native SDK could be a major aspect of the next WWDC.

Other problems: Third-party apps are mostly useless right now. The Uber app didn’t load for me, the Twitter app is confusing and the app for Starwood hotels mysteriously deleted itself and then hung up on loading when I reinstalled it. In the end, though, it did let me open a room at the W Hotel in Manhattan just by touching the watch face to the door.

Ben Bajarin has a thoughtful take on the Apple Watch as a new computing platform that uniquely blends new hardware and software.

Unlike other tech reviews published today, he’s a fan of notification filtering done from the Apple Watch app on an iPhone:

The Apple Watch became my primary notification panel/dashboard. It is not only the most natural place to be notified and to decide what action needs to be done but, because the entire user experience was built for quick interactions, notifications may have found where they were destined to exist.

Apple allows for a tight filtering of the notifications you want to occur. By limiting what I want to be notified of, I ensured only the most important things — from email, to texts, to calls, and even relevant app notifications — are exactly what I want to be notified about. It ensures each notification is meaningful.

In a tweet, he also confirms that the Watch automatically adjusted its activity goals over the course of a week.

@gruber @viticci mine had unreasonably high goals for me from the start. It adjusted downward ;)

— Ben Bajarin (@BenBajarin) April 8, 2015

The first Apple Watch reviews are out today, and the first one I read was John Gruber’s.

Gruber, I think, has a done a good job at covering the Watch from the perspective of a traditional watch wearer and iOS user. His article has some great points about the Apple Watch compared to traditional watches, as well as the Watch as a new Apple device with an array of new features.

Here’s Gruber on the Watch as a watch:

I’ve worn a watch every day since I was in 7th grade, almost 30 years ago. I’m used to being able to see the time with just a glance whenever there is sufficient light. Apple Watch is somewhat frustrating in this regard. Even when Wrist Raise detection works perfectly, it takes a moment for the watch face to appear. There’s an inherent tiny amount of lag that isn’t there with a regular watch.

And on Force Touch and the Taptic Engine:

This is the introduction of a new dimension in input and output, and for me, it’s central to the appeal of Apple Watch. By default, Apple Watch has sounds turned on for incoming notifications. I can see why this is the default, but in practice, I keep sounds turned off all the time, not just in contexts where I typically silence my phone. Taps are all I need for notifications. They’re strong enough that you notice them, but subtle enough that they don’t feel like an interruption. When my phone vibrates, it feels like it’s telling me, Hey, I need you now. When the Apple Watch taps me, it feels like it’s telling me, Hey, when you get the chance, I’ve got something for you.

Highly recommended read.

After confirming that pre-orders will kick off at 12:01 AM PT next Friday, Apple has launched a new webpage with guided tours for the Apple Watch.

To take advantage of its size and location on your wrist, we’ve given Apple Watch new interactions and technologies.These Guided Tour videos will show you how to use them to do all kinds of amazing things.

As the company did with the iPhone before, these short videos demonstrate the device’s UI, built-in apps, and user interactions. Right now, you can find videos for Messages, Faces, Digital Touch, and the general user interface of the Watch; more are coming soon.

Two details that stood out to me: Apple often says “press firmly” instead of “use Force Touch”; at one point, they clearly state that the Digital Crown is the equivalent of the click wheel on the iPod.

Good story by David Pierce at Wired on the history of the Apple Watch and the design process at Apple.

The article includes quotes from Kevin Lynch and Alan Dye, plus screenshots of the Apple Watch UI and San Francisco font. This tidbit caught my attention as it suggests Apple tested and discarded a timeline interface – one of the selling points of the Pebble Time.

As the testing went on, it became evident that the key to making the Watch work was speed. An interaction could last only five seconds, 10 at most. They simplified some features and took others out entirely because they just couldn’t be done quickly enough. Lynch and team had to reengineer the Watch’s software twice before it was sufficiently fast. An early version of the software served you information in a timeline, flowing chronologically from top to bottom. That idea never made it off campus; the ideas that will ship on April 24 are focused on streamlining the time it takes a user to figure out whether something is worth paying attention to.

Ahead of the Apple Watch release next month, Apple has begun approving the first wave of Watch apps from a selected group of developers. Here’s Juli Clover, reporting for MacRumors:

As of today, several popular iOS apps have been updated with built-in Apple Watch apps, including Evernote, Dark Sky, Things, and Target.

Additional apps with Apple Watch support will be rolling out over the course of the day, giving us a first look at how many of the apps on the device will function. We’ll be updating this post with a list of Apple Watch apps that are available as they come out in the App Store.

See iDownloadBlog for a running list of the updated apps.

I received two Watch app updates on my iPhone – Evernote and Lifesum. In both cases, the apps are indicative of the kind of functionality that will be enabled in the initial group of Apple Watch apps. Evernote will let you dictate new notes, view existing ones, set reminders and receive notifications, and even search for notes in your account. Lifesum will bring “simple” food tracking to your wrist, plus suggestions, exercise reminders, and daily tips to live healthy. I’m curious to see how iPhone apps will bring a subset of their functionality to the Watch, and especially how quickly I’ll find a balance between useful notifications and annoying interruptions.

I also think timing is interesting. For the first time in several years, a new Apple product will be reviewed by people who have access to third-party apps from the App Store. When the iPhone launched, there was no App Store; when the iPad launched, reviewers didn’t have access to public downloads from the iPad App Store.

That won’t be the case with Apple Watch, and this is a clever choice from Apple. Because the Watch is many things, it needs apps to offer a more complete picture of its potential. By approving the first Watch apps this week, reviewers (and customers at the try-on sessions in the retail stores) will get access to a selection of third-party apps that can show how the Watch will integrate in everyday life through the apps they already use.

Smart move, and good timing.

Smart take by Craig Hockenberry on the rumor that Apple may be using an OLED display in the Watch:

I’ve always felt that the flattening of Apple’s user interface that began in iOS 7 was as much a strategic move as an aesthetic one. Our first reaction was to realize that an unadorned interface makes it easier to focus on content.

But with this new display technology, it’s clear that interfaces with fewer pixels have another advantage. A richly detailed button from iOS 6 would need more of that precious juice strapped to our wrists. Never underestimate the long-term benefits of simplification.

Another possible argument that would explain Apple’s long-term vision for the iOS 7 redesign.