This past weekend I went out to do the fall leaves in the front yard. I didn’t want to work on it after four because I had someplace else to be. Usually I would bring my phone out to tell me the time, but now I have this new thing, a “watch,” specifically they call it an Apple Watch, if you “watch” it you can see what time it is.
When the sun got dangerously low I was elbow deep in leaves, so I leaned down and poked Mickey Mouse’s belly with my nose. “It’s three twenty-two,” he squeaked. Then he gave a giggle, but this time it sounded like a slightly more desperate giggle than usual.
About fifteen minutes later I looked at the watch and the face was blank.
I poked it. I spun the windy thing. Nothing.
“Oh man,” I thought, “I broke the watch. I used the blower and there was dust and I killed it.”
Dead. Last words: “It’s three twenty-two.” (Giggle.)
But with some throb of motherly instinct I brought it back inside and attached it to the charger, even though I knew it was fully charged. I went out to finish the leaves and put the tools away, and then when I went back in, hallelujah, it was born again. It showed the nighttime clock for some reason, but after I cradled it a moment, Mickey was back. Miracle!
I was then late, so I blew out of there without changing my dirty clothes or getting my purse. My joy over the resurrection of Mickey was short-lived, because while I was driving the screen went black again. Then the Apple logo. It was re-booting.
“Oh no, it has a short, because of all the dirt. I don’t deserve to have nice things.”
A few miles down the road Mickey returned, without any weather data. Finally I realized what was wrong. I had driven to Florissant, but the weather was pointing to my home half an hour away. Then I saw the red slashed rectangle icon and realized the watch was pining for the iPhone. I took it away from Mother iPhone to do the leaves, sat it on a charger where it could see the iPhone, then I left the iPhone behind and drive the watch further and further away from its home base.
Really, Apple, just a little sheet of paper with some instructions. That would be helpful.
4 responses to “Apple Watch Drama”
It’s possible that the watch originally came with instructions but your brother threw them out? But, yes, a watch that doesn’t work when it’s too far away from the iPhone for too long seems like a… less useful… watch than it would otherwise be.
KC – he did pass on the documentation he had, which was how to install the watch band.
Because having a functioning watch band is so much more important than having a watch that continues to function…
Although, there is that whole “if this product was exclusively tested by people joined at the hip to their phone 24/7, would anyone notice if the watch had problems if it got too far away from the phone?” thing, as per the “keyless” cars that were initially only tested by men, but then a woman went to test-drive them and had, of course, the keys in her *bag* in the passenger side, instead of in her pockets, and… nope.
So maybe they just don’t know that this is a problem! 🙂
KC – I think it would all have been self-explanatory if the “phone” icon had just one bit of detail. Even just a home button or an Apple logo would have been enough.