I’ve had the Apple Watch now for about 48 hours and wanted to share some of my initial thoughts – both what I’ve liked and have not.
Activate on Wrist Raise
“Activate on Wrist Raise” activates the watch when raising your wrist to a viewing position. It rarely has a false-negative; that is, when you raise your wrist to viewing position it will most often activate properly.
It is smart enough to not activate by only raising your wrist  – it has to be at the proper angle. Nose scratches rejoice: If you reach up to scratch your nose the watch will not turn on.
Specificity is not as good. It falsely activates when it should not such as while driving and turning the steering wheel. Typing on the computer does it often too. I don’t think there is much Apple could do to fix this unless it could detect eye contact like a Samsung Tab 4.
Suggestion for Apple is I would like the “Do Not Disturb” function to also disable Activate to Raise. This would be especially helpful when I’m paranoid to turn my wrist a certain position, such as in a dark movie theater, and activate the Watch.
Watch Customization
I have loved the customization that can be done to the watch face. Apple has a solid line of watch faces available at launch. It wasn’t that long ago that you bought a watch and were stuck with the face until you bought a new one. Beyond customizing the face I have found great utility in the “complications”, the individual modules of information beyond the timekeeping piece. When I travel across time zones it will be nice to have the time for home in one of the complications.
Notifications Need Improvement
Unexpected Notifications
As a new user of the Watch, notifications are a point of confusion for me. I did not install Instagram on the Watch as I saw little utility in the app on the Watch. I was a bit surprised then to see a notification about a new user following me on Instagram on my Watch. “How am I getting a notification from an app that is not installed on my phone?”, I wondered.
I went to the notifications section of the Apple Watch app and I was further confused. Instagram fell under the “Mirror iPhone Alerts From:” section. What exactly does “mirror” mean? I have tailored Instagram to only show “likes” from people I follow. Is this what it means to mirror? To use those same push customizations?
I just want to not show notifications on my Apple Watch from Instagram. Turning of “mirroring” does turn off the notifications for me. I think “mirror” Â here meant “whatever shows on the iPhone show also on the Watch”. Clearer wording I think would be “Display notifications from these apps”
Notification Drawer
Another point I’ve not liked: If I have one notification in my notification drawer and dismiss it, Watch leaves me at an empty notification drawer. It seems more logical to close the drawer and return to the watch face after dismissing the last notification. It does do this if you force touch in the notification drawer and dismiss all notifications at once, however  [Update: I’ve also seen where closing the last notification does close the drawer. I’m not sure what’s going on here.]
Notifications no longer cause iPhone to activate
An odd behavior with Facebook Messenger. I receive a Facebook message and my Watch taps my wrist and beeps. However, my iPhone does not activate the screen. I’m not sure why it is doing this.Â
On one hand I like this behavior: It saves battery on the iPhone by not constantly illuminating the screening.Â
On the other hand I don’t. I’m sitting at my desk and the phone is placed there in my view. I can no longer just glance at the phone to see a quick preview of the message when it arrives. I need to either tap the iPhone or tap my watch. (For the watch I’ve turned on notification privacy so that my texts are not displayed to the world. This requires an extra step of me to tap on the app to see the message contents.)
Notifications don’t obey “vibrate onlyâ€
For Facebook Messenger my phone is in vibrate mode, yet each new FB messages causes the Watch to emit an audible tone. If the FB Messenger is going to “mirror iPhone†notifications, why does it not obey the vibrate request?
Other oddities
For an iMessage I got at least 3 notifications even though I’ve set for two. After the 1st notification I had activated the lock screen on my iPhone to look at the message. I thought that action would “tell†the watch that I’ve seen the notification, but I received two more taps at my wrist asking me to look at the iMessage.Â
Extension of the iPhone
Like other users I have noticed that I pull my iPhone out of my pocket much less frequently. I constantly pulled out my iPhone to check the time before the Watch. Also is the convenience to see contents of text messages, Facebook messages, etc. I still prefer composing longer messages on the iPhone, but the Watch has provided a convenient portal to information on my iPhone.
It also makes acting on notifications easier. Is the phone buried deep in your pocket and you hear it ring? Just look at your wrist to see if you want to answer. Decline the call if you want or take it on your wrist.
Weather App Lags
The weather app is well designed but I have found it lags. If I click on the weather complication on the watch face I often see “Weather” with a loading indicator for an extended period. The watch display often times out before it loads, forcing me to activate the watch again. I also don’t think the temperature on the complication is updated frequently.
Other apps lag too. The Delta app is a notable example.
Another problem: In the weather app I have about 7-8 cities. Once I loaded the app and saw the city I was in as the weather for all 7-8 cities.Â
The Sports Band
The rubber (ok the “fluoroelastomerâ€) band feels great. It has little friction so men will not have to worry the discomfort of it tugging wrist hairs.Â
Do I love it?
Yes, I do. It is not the quantum leap in utility that the iPhone brought, it has made my life easier. Like the iPhone I don’t “need” it, but I’m very glad I bought it.