The New Apple Watch Makes Me Not Hate Smartwatches Quite As Much
Swim tracking is where Series 2 shines.
BuzzFeed News / Apple
Apple crammed a ton of new health and fitness features to go along with heartrate-tracking and step-counting into its second-generation wearable – including GPS, swim-tracking, built-in meditation, and a collaboration with Nike.
After a week of reviewing the Apple Watch Series 2, I think this $369 mini computer is worth its price for athletes, but maybe not so much for everyone else.
This Apple Watch is... different.
Nothing makes me feel more alone in this world than when I'm mid-conversation with a person looking down at their Apple Watch while nodding to indicate they're still listening. Presumably they're just "taking a glance" at their daily step goal progress or a non-urgent text. But a glance can feel like a goddamn eternity when whatever is happening on someone's wrist is infinitely more interesting than you.
All this to say that I was largely in the camp that smartwatches of any kind – not just Apple Watches – turn the people I love into insufferable assholes. Fitness trackers are uglier and dumber, but are less annoying somehow. It's not like anyone's trying to read the news on their Fitbit.
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News
But this new Apple Watch might have changed my mind about all that.
It's .9mm thicker than the original, but I haven't noticed it at all – and this time around, my experience was generally more enjoyable. That was thanks to three *crucial* under-the-hood tweaks that made this version feel more useful, and more like an actual watch.
- "Raise to wake" works much better now (perhaps thanks to a 50% faster processor) so you can actually tell the time when you raise your arm (fancy that) — something that wasn't always true in the previous version.
- The screen is brighter so you can actually SEE the time when you're outside.
- Finally, it's water-resistant, so you don't have to worry about taking this precious little computer off every time you want to take a quick shower or give your dogs a bath.
Plus, Series 2 has more features that stand on their own, and don't require connecting to your screen jail — I mean, smartphone. I didn't constantly feel like I needed to pull out the iPhone from my backpack.
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed
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