Apple Watch Edition try on experience

Today I tried on an Apple Watch Edition. The 42mm Yellow Gold model, to be precise, with a black sport band.

Briefly, I wish to discuss the try-on experience…

I was greeted warmly by the Apple Store employee who would go on to be my Apple Watch expert. He lead me upstairs (middle level of a 3 level store), and not to some secret room as some other people have experienced. He took me casually to a table in the middle of the store, a part of the store where many customers pass through on their way to the Genius Bar or to One-to-One sessions. After filling out some details on his iPod touch communication tool, the employee spoke into his two-way radio and I heard him call for the model of watch I wanted to try on. About ten minutes passed in between this and the watch arriving, during which we made small talk about the Apple Watch, whereby he told me what he liked about his, explained just how much interest there really has been in the Edition model and finally his thoughts and opinions on Apple Music. Which, for the record, were as textbook as you’d expect from any Apple employee. It was apparent to me that he’d been well briefed on the features of Apple Music to point out to customers as he guided me through a discussion about the perks of Beats 1 and the usefulness of the Connect feature in Apple Music.

From a door which I presumes leads to the back of the store emerged another Apple staff member, carrying a small blue box - not unlike a fancy jewellery box. She headed towards the table where the employee and I were standing, and she was accompanied by a security guard. She gave the box to the employee I was with and walked off, while the security guard took his place about 5 meters behind me. Subtle and not hugely intimating, but his presence was still known to me.

The lid comes off the box, with the employee explaining to me how it doubles as a charging case. By this point I just wanted to try on the watch – come on, I’ve read enough about this thing to know you can also plug a lightning port into the back of it. And there it is, the seventeen thousand dollar Yellow Gold Apple Watch, in all of its glory…

So I tried it on and yada yada, it’s nice. Its beautiful. It makes me wish I had a spare $17,000, yet even then I don’t think I’d be crazy enough to spend it on a watch…

First impressions:

- Oh my, the gold

- Looks great

- IT’S GOLD

- Sport band is an appropriate fit… not too flashy, and very comfortable

- IT’S STILL GOLD!

- Noticeably heavier than the Sport and Steel models. In a nice way, it felt like a very premium watch.

After a few minutes with the watch on, it had run through the demo loop a few times, I felt the haptic feedback and heard a “ding” from a few demo notifications and I decided I was done with the try on. I’d seen everything I needed to.

I took the watch off, thanked the employee, and went on about my day. Overall, it was a pleasant experience, and one which was a lot more casual and laid back than I’d expected. There was no secret room guarded by 10 pin codes and 3 security guards. Just myself and an Apple employee at a table in the middle of a busy Apple Store, with the distant presence of a security guard.

I’ve seen, held and worn a $17,000 Apple Watch Edition. Is my life complete yet? Certainly not, but I suppose I’m one step closer to being able to say it is…

The New MacBook. In all of it’s golden - actually, Space Grey - glory!

I finally got around to looking at The New MacBook in store today, and I must say it’s rather impressive. Nothing really took me by surprise, although I was pleasantly surprised to find I like the new keyboard.

I need to say this… MARCO WAS WRONG!!! (If you have no idea what I’m taking about, read this: http://www.marco.org/2015/05/19/mistake-one)

I typed extensively on it, and there were a few typos here and there that I wouldn’t usually make, but after a while I got into a pleasant rhythm. I feel as though with a bit more time, I’d be significantly faster and more accurate typing on this thing that on the keyboard of my current MacBook Pro.

It’s still a “no buy” for me at the moment, for two primary reasons:
- A 12″ screen is just too small. There’s no two ways about it. Using a scaled resolution doesn’t help much either – it’s just too small. I’d be a lot more serious about a similar MacBook with a 13 or 14″ screen. But as it is, the 13″ screen on my current MacBook Pro does the job, albeit a little on the small side, and I certainly couldn’t move to anything smaller.
- It was noticeably slower than my current MacBook Pro. Not in a bad way and certainly not in a way that would be perceived as slow for most users, but coming from a computer with a powerful i7 processor, a 1.1GHz Core M chip just doesn’t cut it. Even adding an extra second or two onto the opening of most applications on the computer is enough of a performance loss for me not to be interested. And I didn’t even begin to compile code on it…

This is not to say the MacBook isn’t a good machine, because it is. It’s also not to say it won’t get better in future models over time, but at this point I don’t think the hits in screen real estate and performance are worth the benefit of a stunningly thin and light design.
There’s certainly a lot of potential for the MacBook – a computer that’s right for 80% of people, 80% of the time.