WIWIWW: The Apple Watch

What I Wish I Was Wearing: From a basic smartwatch at $449 in Canada right up to a gold luxury model at more than $13,000, the Apple Watch has arrived.

Here in Canada it will be available for pre-order on April 10th and in stores on April 24th. It’s a pricey option for a smartwatch but that’s kind of what Apple does. Charge you just a little bit more and make their product just a little bit swankier. There’s a status that Apple wants their users to achieve.

But, does it deliver for what you’re going to pay? 

There are two sizes, 38 or 42 mm, and three styles of Apple Watch, with different straps depending on the style. 

The Watch Sport model will cost $449 and $519.
The mid-tier Apple Watch version collection costs $699 to $1,459.
The top-of-the-line Watch Edition, with its rose or yellow 18-karat gold case and polished sapphire crystal, starts at $13,000 and will be available in limited quantities and only in certain stores.

So, what can you do with your Apple Watch? You can answer a text, track your activity and heart rate, scroll through Instagram, take a call, check the weather and, of course, see the time.

Cook showed off some of the available apps too. Call a car (Uber), unlock your garage door (Alarm.com) or your hotel room (Starwood Hotel). If you’re running iOS 8.2 you can already check in the Apple Watch App on your iPhone to see more of the apps that will be available, though we still don’t know how many of those apps will be ready when the watch launches.

As Apple’s first new gadget since the iPad made it’s first appearance five years ago, the big thing most sites are talking about is battery life. Apple is notorious for over-selling it’s products battery life. It makes promises that rarely actually pan out, especially in the first generation of it’s product. What we’re being told is that the Apple Watch will be able to go around 18 hours of regular use before needing to charge. That may or may not be enough depending on where you fall on the “regular use” spectrum.

Will I buy one? Probably not. For my lifestyle, I’m never far from my phone so don’t need the more subtler approach of a smartwatch. At least, not to the point that I’d shell out this kind of money on it.

But that’s not the point of this. This is what I WISH I was wearing 🙂

The display is gorgeous, the touchscreen is convenient and it’s an easy interface with my other Apple products. If someone bought an Apple Watch for me I’d be crazy excited to be wearing one. Sapphire crystal sounds fabulous. Hint. Hint.