In part one, I took a look at one promising new feature of the Apple Watch in the new Siri Watch Face. I also talked about one not so good area in the current app situation for the platform. As I continue to play with the watchOS 4 beta, and the rumors of a coming hardware refresh continue to swirl, now is a good time to jump back in and look at more good and bad of the Apple Watch.
I’ve been using an Apple Watch since release day, other than a very brief period after I sold my first gen and thought I was moving on. It seems that the Watch was a little stickier than I thought it would be, and I ended up buying another one soon after and have kept one on my wrist since. Even with the flaws of the Series 0 hardware and watchOS 1 and 2, I found myself missing the instant notifications on my wrist, music control, and the ability to triage messages. After two weeks, I just got tired of looking down at an empty wrist.
This week brought us a couple of reports that a new Watch will be coming sooner than many tech experts thought. The Series 1 and 2 Apple Watches were released in September of 2016, and as with the 1st Gen, or Series 0 Watch as some call it, there was reason to think Apple would give them more than a just a one year product cycle. However, according to both Mark Gurman and others at Bloomberg and John Gruber of Daring Fireball, a new Apple Watch will be here before the end of the year.