Hands-On with the Apple Watch

david,do you think that when a notification comes in we can just raise our wrist and glance at it like sighted peers or do we need to stop and interact with the watch to get at the important information we are being alerted about?also, i wonder how the moon phases will work, the activity rings, and the battery level indicator on the face of the watch, plus, how can we install apps to the watch?again, thanks for this along with your other in-depth accessibility review.are you planning to do a podcast (or is one already produced) to demonstrate the features?

Thanks David and very nice description
Very nice review and hardware description but I didn't find nothing about speaker build on the device itself.
Seems as the Apple Watch docent include speaker Only you are able to listen voiceOver via some Bluetooth device

Hello Marco,

To the best of my knowledge, the Apple Watch does include a speaker. David's post references the speaker volume in item 14 under the "Speech-Related Features" heading:

14. Volume of the watch is reasonably loud in a quiet room, suggest Bluetooth head phones for out and about use.

No, the apple watch has a built-in speaker, the VoiceOver clicks that you get just weren't that noticeable until he connected a bluetooth speaker.

Hi,
Thanks for the look at accessibility features. I figured there would be a speaker as iun other articles say that you can talk on the watch. Well see if I can take a look at one once the cround calms down a bit and I don't feel crouded in at my local apple store.

Wow, this all sounds so exciting; thanks David for this excellent post.
I have to say, even though I don't exactly need one, I want one, really want one. :) Lol Though as I've read others say in other threads, I'd be waiting for at least the next build.

Thanks David. That's very helpful.. Now, shall I or shall I not.... Humm....

I want to thank David and the rest of the Apple vis team for this amazing and helpful information. I had no idea that anyone was going to get any hands on time with the watch before it was available in stores. I must admit that I questioned Apple vis's decision to discourage talk about the watch before things were made official, but of course now I understand that decision very well, and I'm glad the team is making efforts to have good relations with Apple; such relations are obviously paying off.

There is one question that I have, David, about a feature of the watch.

You might not have had access to the product long enough to be able to comment on this, but for a long time I have been very curious about how the raise to wake option will work for voice over users. I think its a really cool feature, but I have been worried that if voice over announces the time every time we raise our writs the watch could have too many false positives and get annoying. For example, I don't want to go to hug my fiancé, only to hear the time. The info you already gave about this feature was really good and informative; I don't think the true nature of this feature can be fully known without the daily experience of using it for a while, but I was wondering if you could say anything more about it David.

Once again I just want to thank the Apple vis team. your work on reporting about the watch has illustrated the power of this site to be a meaningful source for news.

While I like the review they did mention some accessibility bugs. for example sometimes voice over did not read what was on the creen. it seems like some of the same bugs that are in ios are on ios on the watch. I hope those get fixed or I will not consider getting one for any reason. good job on the review.

I would first like to thank David and the rest of the Applevis team for the work you do. This was a very well written review and much appreciated. Also, thank you to the poster who suggested calling ahead to make sure that I could see an Apple Watch with voice over… The person I talked to was very helpful and said that he would make a note of it so that there is one ready at my appointment tomorrow. This said… Does anyone know if there is a less obtrusive way to tell the time with the Apple Watch? I, for one, am not a big fan of talking watches. There is nothing quite as disruptive as being in a meeting and hearing a bunch of them go off to tell the time. I was hoping to see apple include a way to use the TapTic engine to do this quietly. Has it been done?
Thanks for the feedback!
Megan

I am curious to say the least but I will wait for the next generation.

I can't resist saying that while I certainly understand the reluctance of some to use a talking watch (and thus hoping for a less obtrusive way for the Apple Watch to convey the time), talking watches are great in meetings *precisely* for the reason most people don't like them: almost every meeting goes on far longer than it needs to and a dozen talking watches tends to make this obvious with a singular lack of subtlety! (grin)

On a different note, I can't fathom why Apple didn't make an option to install an expansion band on the watch. I absolutely refuse to use watches that don't use expansion bands. I can't fathom why American companies tend to get this and all "ferin" companies don't! (tongue firmly in cheek)

I ware an expanding bane for a while and let me tell you, they pinch and leave a nice impression of the gismo on your rist when you take the watch off.

Ah makes sence. Not easy if you have a cane in your hand and are walking. But good to know.

take care.

It would make sense for Apple to add an announcement option for speech without touching the screen. Given the accelerometers used, one could easily add a wrist flick motion to get notifications or glance information spoken without touching the screen. Raising the wrist alone would be too prone to inappropriate activation when brushing your hair or reaching for something across the desk, for example. But by adding a simple rotary flick motion of the wrist, one could be sure that it was a specific request for information.

An extension of that could then be to introduce single, double or even directional flicks of the wrist to denote different requests. There would be a limit, of course, but for the main types of response, I wouldn't see the need for more than half a dozen wrist actions.

I do wonder about the requests for a haptic method for telling the time though. The vast majority of blind people don't know things like Morse code, which is antiquated anyway. Coming up with a sufficiently brief and easily understood vibration code to tell the time isn't that easy. I don't want to have to stand there counting how many times the thing vibrates for the hour and minutes, as that could take quite some time at 11:59. What might work is if touching the screen produced a vibration based on whether you were touching the hands of an anologue watch. Simply running your finger around in a circle would produce two quick vibrations when your finger meets the hour and minute hand locations. It would only be approximate, but since most sighted people only use analogue hands for a quick glance to get the rough time, it would be serving the same purpose. I can't think of a practical haptic method to accurately tel the time that wouldn't be tedious or complicated to learn.

Wow, reading over those last few comments, my head is spinning! lets keep this nice and simple, guys. Remember this comes down to programming and what technology will allow. The more features you try to stuff into the watch, the more chances something else is going to break. I think it's amazing that the watch has what features it does, let alone new ones that haven't even been thought of yet. None of us have even seen it in action, this is all pure speculation.

Thanks for this very descriptive post…

But personally, I don't see why should I need a watch if I still need my iPhone? I think I'm going to wait for the next generation, when the AppleWatch will be an iPhone...

Cheers.

Nah, I'm not waiting for the next gen. I actually like the fact that the watch is tethered to the phone, so it allows the data to be sinced to the watch constantly. Agree that we need to keep it simple. No vibrations for telling the time. Honestly, talking watches have come so far now, no bong and annoying voice telling the time anymore if you go for the better watches in my opinion. I also like the activate VO by touching the screen and it announces the time, simple and easy.

I have never fully understood why people think that the watch having to be connected to the phone is a bad thing. I personally can not think of any tie where I would want to go out without my phone even if I could use the watch by itself. I guess if you run for exercise you might feel differently. Plus I have heard some professorers say that wearing a LTE device on your body all of the time could have serious health issues long term. I don't know if thats true, but its what I have heard. Its very good to hear that talking watches are better and less intrusive now. I have not used one for a long time, but I can't wait to start using the best and most accessible talking watch ever in a few weeks.

agreed tree. The watch will be a wonderful addition to the wearable arsenal of devices. I personally love the fact that the watch is tethered to the phone as it allows singing of data constantly. Plus it'll be using Bluetooth low energy so not much battery consumption at all for the transference of data.

I went to the Apple Store this afternoon. The fellow who was assisting me stated that he could not activate any of the accessibility features on any of the watches because all were in demo mode. This included the one that was tied to the iPad. When I questioned him he was told by the manager that "Voice Over and other accessibility features were not installed on the watch and I would have to hold off until version 2 of the device to get that functionality." My wife and I were a little taken aback by this. We had to go out of our way on a Saturday afternoon to look at the device. I think that my wife would have rather been doing something else than going to the Apple Store. She wanted to give me the opportunity to see if the device was for me or not. I can't say at this time if it is something that I require yet. The reason I can't is due to a possible lack of training on the part of staff or an incomplete training module. If apple wants to continue to make us happy they will have to pick up there game in the training of the staff in the Apple Stores.
I appologise for the rant but I wanted to tell others about what took place so I could prevent someone from feeling as my wife stated," You are treated like a third class citizin."

David,
Your suggestion for how haptic feedback could be implemented is almost exactly what I was thinking. A company called Tissot did this with their T-Touch watch several years ago, but the watch was unfortunately only made for men and as a result was too big for my wrist. The way it worked was that when you touched the area corresponding to the hour, you got a solid vibration. When you touched the area closest to the minute, you got a number of vibrations based on how far past the time you were. For example, if the time was 12:48 you would get a solid vibration while your finger was at the 12 position, then three short vibrations when you were at the 9 position, showing that you were 3 minutes past 45. It sounds complicated, I know, but in actuality it took about 30 seconds to get the hang of it. I think something like that could be very useful on the watch, but I'm also excited about Tree's idea of possible implementation as it sounds more straightforward. I don't really care, as long as there's a way to do it. :) hopefully Apple will either open face designs to third parties, or will implement it themselves. I'd be very interested in coding something like this.
For now, I eagerly await my Apple watch sport. Even having control over the volume at which the time is spoken is an improvement and makes me want to start wearing a watch again.
For now, time is a-ticking and they'll be in our hands before we know it. Happy waiting!

Right. As someone said yesterday, access solutions to the watch weren't implemented in the demo versions. I went to the apple store yesterday and they talked about the wrist bands. I'd wait like ya said till the 24th when the full version is available in a couple of weeks!!

I was told that it wouldn't be until after the first of May when the full versions of the watch were in the stores.

I heard at the store I went to they said that it would be available on the 24th of april.

The people at the store I went to seem to be all new. The store was just renovated in the last two months and I think that all the people are new. This could account for the issues I had with inaccurate information.

This is all interesting, but I still don't think the Apple Watch is for me. To those who get it and like it, that's awesome. I have enough things I carry on me to keep track of. Perhaps in the future, I shall reconsider, or perhaps technology will force me to get one which seems more likely at this rate. At any rate, I still look forward to listening to any podcasts and user experiences that come out. Cheers.

I was told that if i ring up the store this week they can find a working model as when i went in on Friday they were all demmo models. I'm still between convincing myself that i would like one for the workout app and telling myself just to keep on with the phone lol.

Hello. I would like to know whether I can turn on accessibility features (VoiceOver for example) by triple pressing on the Digital Crown without pairing Watch with my phone. Or it is necessarily to pair Apple Watch with iPhone and only after it to enable accessibility.
Thanks in advance.

No. David said somewhere in the article that you can turn on VO just by triple pressing the crown of the watch. You'd still want to pair the watch with the phone to sing the data though.
HTH

It is good it can be connected to the phone, and the watch app on the phone seem very nice, but I stil don't know if its werth the money at this stage to get something that cannot really function independently from the phone? I would hope that oneday both will be possible, so you can stil configure and control some things with the phone, but also work it without. I understand its the first version so I won't be to critical. Hopefully later this year when we get it I can go look and play on it at the store.

Ian using apple watch series 3 gps
Can any one guide me how to add battery complication on my watch face

Can somebody explain the uses for the digital crown? I understand that there are two ways to use it including controlling VoiceOver. However, what about if that toggle is turned off? On the watch face, when I turn the dial, I get numerical announcements but have no idea what they are for. Sometimes the digital crown is used to unlock the watch during Do Not Disturb or swimming. Anything else?

So far I really enjoy my Series 7.

Thanks