If you want to be one of the first to start using an Apple Watch, Apple will start accepting pre-orders tonight — or rather, early tomorrow morning to be more exact. Starting at 12:01 a.m. Pacific / 3:01 a.m. Eastern on April 10, you can pre-order an Apple Watch on the online Apple Store. And starting tomorrow morning, you can go to an Apple Store and take a look at the watch yourself. The Apple Watch will not ship for another two weeks (you will be able to buy them in the Apple Stores starting on April 24), but my guess is that the initial supplies will be constrained, so if you want to be one of the first to start using an Apple Watch, plan to stay up late tonight, or set an alarm.
Early last week, Apple gave Apple Watch review units to a small number of journalists, and all of their reviews were posted online yesterday morning. Raymond Wong of Mashable posted this article with links to all of the reviews. Overall, the reviews are positive but mixed. All of the reviewers agree that the Apple Watch is far, far better than any other smartwatch on the market. Most agree that the Apple Watch can not just show you the time but can also save you time by moving notifications from an iPhone that you have to take out of your pocket or purse to a device on your wrist that you can quickly glance at. But some reviewers worry about this being a 1.0 product and recommend waiting to see what Apple does in the next version of the Apple Watch. If you just want to read a few Apple Watch reviews, I recommend that you read this one by David Pogue of Yahoo Tech, the reviews by Joanna Stern and Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal, and the review by Nilay Patel of The Verge. The embedded videos in those reviews are definitely worth watching.
If you decide that you want to be one of the first to try this new technology, the least expensive model, the Apple Watch Sport, costs $349 for the 38mm model or $399 for the 42mm model. The standard Apple Watch model starts at $549/$599 and goes up to $1049/$1099 depending upon which band you get. And if you are in the market for the high-end 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition, which starts at $10,000, feel free to buy a second one to send to me so that I can post a review on iPhone J.D., tapping into my vast experience of reviewing high-end luxury goods.
It will be interesting to see as smart wearables become more prevalent how the law will change in terms of allowing photos and videos to be taken in the court room and how that affects due process.
Great post. Thanks for compiling all of the reviews. I can’t wait to do some more exploring on the watch.
Has Apple said how long the battery will last on a full charge?
Apple has said that you’ll want to recharge the Apple Watch every night, which is basically them saying that it will last a day. Reviewers have reported that it lasts up to 36 hours before needing a charge, although when you use it to work out (and thus the sensors are doing a lot more work), that reduces the battery life and causes it to get down to 10% or less at night. I’ll post my own results after I have used the Apple Watch for a while.
-Jeff