Yesterday, Apple released the first update — I'm sure the first of many updates — for the Apple Watch, updating the software from Watch OS 1.0 to Watch OS 1.0.1. That is only a minor number change, which seems appropriate because this is only a minor update. No new features are added, and instead Apple improved the performance of Siri and several activity monitor functions such as measuring stand activity and calculations during workouts, along with some other minor improvements. If you open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone (which is what you use to update the watch) you can see all of the details of Watch OS 1.0.1:
Although this update is a minor one, it is nice to see that the Apple Watch is already starting to mature, even though it is a brand new device. And as I think back to the carefree youthfulness that was Apple Watch 1.0, I find myself thinking of the origin of my Apple Watch. How was my Apple Watch born? Well, um, when a mommy iPhone and a Daddy iPad love each other very much ...
Let's try a different question. When was my Apple Watch born? There may be a more ascertainable answer to that one. I learned from Episode 37 of the Upgrade podcast released this week, with hosts Jason Snell and Myke Hurley, about how you might be able to determine this date from the Activity app on the iPhone.
The purpose of the Activity app is to show how you are doing with your three circles measured by the Apple Watch — Move, Exercise, and Stand. The Watch wants you to stand up and move around at least once an hour for at least 12 hours, to exercise for at least 30 minutes, and to move around enough to burn a certain number of calories every day (an amount that varies based on how active you normally are). For example, last week I was able to complete all of my circles every day, and I can see that in the Activity app:
If I scroll back even further, I can see the first day on which I started to measure real activity on the circles was Friday April 24, 2015, which makes sense because that is the day that my Apple Watch first arrived:
But if I scroll back to the prior week, I see that my watch measured some activity on Tuesday, April 14 and Wednesday, April 15. That's around ten days before my Apple Watch was first on my wrist. On April 15, my watch even measured enough activity around 5am Central to record two calories being burned:
How was my Apple Watch measuring movement before I even had the watch? It's just a theory, but it makes sense to me that April 14 was the day that my Apple Watch was first born, the day that it was first turned on and able to measure something. It measured activity on the 14th and 15th, and was then powered down. It was then powered back on again on Thursday April 23, sent to me overnight FedEx, and then I had it on April 24. That would explain all of the movement measured by my Apple Watch.
Does learning an Apple Watch's birthday constitute useful information? Perhaps not, but you never know, maybe one day it will be important to know that my watch was born on April 14, 2015. My own horoscope sign is Scorpio, so hopefully Aries and Scorpio are compatible.
If you have read this far into this post, I suspect that you either already have an Apple Watch or you will have one someday. When you get it, check your Activity app to see when your own Apple Watch was born. And feel free to post your watch's birthday in the comments to this post. I'm curious to learn of the birthdays of the earliest Apple Watches to be sold.