MasterMetals: Apple watch gets some critics wound up

April 10, 2015

Apple watch gets some critics wound up

The new Apple watch is due to go on sale on 24 April but the reviews are out, and they are a bit mixed.

On the one hand, it looks really cool, as one might expect, though it is not exactly dainty.

On the other hand, the device has a steep learning curve and the technology may not yet be ready for prime time.

Curious shoppers pressed their noses up against the window of Apple's shop in Sydney on Friday morning before being allowed in to try out - but not buy - the watch, which will be available for purchase or "click & collect" on 24 April.

Early reports suggest that Apple's sales people will have their work cut out to demonstrate all of the capabilities of the watch in a short demo session in a shop, with the reviewer in the New York Times saying it took him "three long, often confusing and frustrating days" for him to get to grips with the watch, but once he did, he loved it.

As is the way these days, a mobile device lives and dies by the apps that are available for it, and in the Apple watch's case there are plenty - maybe too many.

Focus so far has been on the fitness apps - in the new technological age smart watches are no more about telling the time than smartphones are about making phone calls - and these seem, by and large, to have got the thumbs up.

The hardware, though, is getting a rougher time of it from reviewers, with critics carping about battery life, response time.

Technology review site Cnet summed up the sceptical view, with reviewer Scott Stein concluding: “You don’t need an Apple Watch. In many ways, it’s a toy.”

The glass-half-full crowd counter that, of course you don't need it but, because it is from Apple, you will want it.

Even the hard-bitten investment analysts are in a quandary over how well the device will fare.

SocGen, which downgraded Apple shares yesterday from 'buy' to 'hold', reckons Apple could shift 8mln watches this year and 19mln next year but concedes "actual results could be much higher or lower".