I thought I would post my thoughts on the Apple Watch after using it for a couple of weeks. Now, there are millions of reviews of it all over the web, so I’m not going to bore you with a review. This is just a quick note to jot down my thoughts on it. And maybe to also an excuse to post my Inception-style photo (above).

I bought this as a replacement for my Fitbit, so the fitness features were the most important to me. In that realm it is pretty fantastic. The daily goal is different from the Fitbit. With the Fitbit the focus is on daily steps. With this, the daily goal focuses on 3 things: active calories, exercise, and standing every hour. It took awhile to figure out a goal that would be sensible for me but I think I finally have it nailed down. I reach all three goals easily on the days that I run, but it’s much harder on the days I don’t because for cross training I don’t do things that raise my heart rate high enough to count as “active calories.” But that’s ok. It gives me something to work toward. I do like the nudges to stand and walk around every hour.  It’s great at work because I could easily sit all day and not move around, so this has gotten me up and moving more at work.

I love the heart rate monitor. I didn’t have that with my Fitbit Charge. It gives me a little more feedback when I’m running, which is nice.

I have tried a few of the non-Apple exercise apps like Run Keeper. My initial thought on those is that they are glitchy. I like the Apple fitness app. The numbers on the face are big and I can see them easily without my glasses. I like the little vibrations when I hit little milestones (like when I’ve run a mile, or when I’ve reached a halfway point.). I love that I can leave my phone at home and use it to listen to music with my blue tooth headphones. However,  the blue tooth headphones I bought bounce out of my ears and it’s frustrating, so I need to find some that work for running. They work fine at the gym on the rowing machine.

The biggest surprise is that I am absolutely loving that I can respond to texts on this thing! In fact, I am kind of blown away by the technology. I can actually speak into my watch and answer texts. On my watch. It’s like Star Trek, or something. Amazing!

I love that I can get notifications on it as well. When my alarm goes off on my phone it also goes off on my watch. I get notified on my watch when people “like” my shit on social media.  It’s nice to not have to be glued to my phone constantly.

There are a few apps that I have installed that I find very convenient. I installed a really great calculator app (I was shocked that it didn’t come equipped with one!) called Calcbot. I love the Sleep ++ app (I really enjoyed the sleep info I got from the Fitbit). I have an app called Cheatsheet installed.

I have some iPhone photos installed on it – my photo album from my trip – and am using it as the watch face. I am loving seeing my photos every time I go to check the time.

I still haven’t quite figured out how to use it with my camera. Today was really the first time I tried it out as a camera remote, and the featured photo is the result. I can see how this would come in kind of handy, though I mostly use my iPhone for snapshots.

So, in short, really loving it! Really glad I got it.