Tim Cook believes the Apple Watch is the next game changing product in Apple‘s history—on the same level as the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. While our reviews won’t come until early 2015, when the watch is set to go on sale, our first look on Tuesday suggests that this is, at the very least, the best looking smart watch we’ve seen so far.
The bar set by the competition isn’t incredibly high–sorry Pebble and Android Wear. The Apple Watch looks great in all three variations: the standard Apple Watch, which will be available in a polished stainless steel; the Sport, which will be sold in anodized black and gray; and the Edition, which will be rendered in 18-karat rose or yellow gold.
And each of the three tiers has its own collection of watch straps that can be swapped out as you like. They range from sporty to luxurious: You can have neon-colored polymer bands, stainless-steel mesh bands and various leather bands. There are different buckles and clasps to choose from, some traditional, others magnetic. And each variation of the Apple Watch is available in two sizes, 38 millimeters or the larger 42 millimeters.
You choose different watch faces with Apple Watch’s software. Some look like traditional analog watches; there’s one that displays the planets moving around the solar system and a read out of the time; and there’s even an old-school Mickey Mouse option. (Yes, his arms rotate to point to the minutes and hours.) At first blush, the best thing about the Apple Watch just might be how much choice you have in how it looks.
One thing that you can’t change is its square display. If you prefer round watches, this might not be the wrist computer for you.
On the wrist, it’s still chunkier than a Swatch, but even the larger one fit better than any competitors. The ability to combine bands, finishes and sizes will likely go a long way to fit the Watch to more wrists, though—like the iPad before it—it’s hard not to wonder how much slimmer the second generation of this product will be.
As for performance, we don’t have much of a sense yet. The demo units were on a fixed loop, and though the OLED touch display looked attractive (and comes with a sapphire coating on the high-end models), we don’t know how it looks in direct sunlight. Also, we never got a chance to try the “digital crown,” the fat dial on the right hand side that can be used to move around apps and, with a double tap, take you back to the watch’s home screen. But, the idea of a touch screen paired with the crown does sound like an improvement over the smart watch competition, which largely rely solely on finger-swipe interfaces.
There were a few key details Apple didn’t mention today, such as battery life, water resistance, and how well it holds up in direct sunlight. But Apple has clearly put a lot of thought into this product, and it will try hard to create iconic status for it, as it has with the Mac, the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Courting app developers will be crucial in determining the Apple Watch’s success—and the fact that it’ll work with the iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6 and 6 Plus should help lure in developers. But getting someone to pay $350 (or a lot more) for an Apple Watch may depend less on how cool it is, and more on whether or not they want to go back to wearing a watch.
