Why I Absolutely Have to Have the Apple Watch Right Now
On Friday morning at 3am, my husband silenced his alarm, logged on to his computer and ordered two Apple watches. A few hours later, I opened my eyes and wired him $350 (plus tax), because one of those watches will be for me.
Why am I buying an Apple Watch? Because I’m curious. And why, exactly, is curiosity worth nearly $400?
I should first acknowledge that I am not a typical customer. I have more reasons than most to bother buying Apple’s latest gadget. For one, I have already written about it multiple times and I’ll surely write about it again. Unlike a piece of fashion, which gets reviewed once and then cast aside by critics long before the next collection hits on the runway, the virtues and frustrations of my Apple Watch are begging to be examined multiple times over its lifespan. (Potential stories might include, but aren’t limited to: “It’s Been Four Months, and the Apple Watch Feels More Disposable Than Fast Fashion,” or something more hopeful, like, “One Year Later, I Still Heart My Apple Watch.”) Whatever the real headlines end up reading, it’s all but guaranteed that there will indeed by more headlines.
Another factor is my husband, a tech reporter with an obligation to wholly understand this product. We communicate a great deal—more than most couples, I think—virtually, either through Google chat, iMessage and occasionally Twitter and Instagram. We are, to many, weird. And I want to get even weirder by pinging him my heartbeat in the middle of the day.
I’m also looking forward to using the watch’s apps to track workouts, check email and receive meeting alerts. These are things I can do on my iPhone, sure, but there’s something futuristic—novel, even—about it all happening on your wrist. To be clear, I’m also mentally preparing myself for the experience to be a little disappointing. “It’s slow,” says Racked features editor Julia Rubin, one of few fashion insiders to have played around with an Apple Watch review unit. What’s more, “It’s so heavy, it’s so present, that it doesn’t seem like something you’d want to wear at the gym.” I still want to try.
There is one thing I’m all but ignoring about the Apple Watch: Its looks. “It photographs really beautifully, but the face is much thicker and more bulbous than you can tell in any of the photos,” Rubin says. The truth is, the more I see of it, the less I care about the visuals. After all, I don’t wear Birkenstocks because they look hot, I wear Birkenstocks because they’re comfortable and are therefore more attractive to me than a pair of sexy stilettos. Could the Apple Watch be a normcore icon in the making? Maybe. It is true that I’m not buying one to show it off, I’m buying one to see if it’ll make my life better.
So I’ve stated my personal case. Now we must ask: Should you buy an Apple Watch? The only honest answer is: it depends. Those in the market for nothing more than a nice-looking timekeeper might be better off trying something that doesn’t have a “smart” prefix. Those after a watch that does as many nifty things as a smartphone might wait for the next generation. And if you simply want to send goofy emojis to your nearest and dearest via their wrist? Sign yourself up!
Truthfully, the only real reason to buy an Apple Watch today is because you simply have to have it. Being able to act on that feeling is a luxury in itself, even if the watch isn’t necessarily as perfect as we had hoped it would be.
Related: Apple’s iWatch: It’s About Time Tech Got Stylish
