I received my Apple Watch Sport (blue) last Friday, well ahead of my estimated June ship date. Thanks, Apple! Since then I’ve been continuously playing with the watch faces, customizing them all to my liking. Here are some of my initial thoughts on the 10 watch faces provided by Apple.
1. Utility
The cleanest analog face with a dash of complications. This is the only analog face that has an extended complication at the bottom, rather than two smaller complication at the bottom two corners. By far my favorite analog face.
2. Modular
All of the data! You can pack so much in this screen. Not sure if that’s a good thing at this point, though. When I raise my wrist, I have to make a split second decision on what area of the screen I want to read before the screen fades to black. Because of this, I feel like I’m really only utilizing a tiny portion of this screen at a time, which makes the rest of the screen feel like wasted space. But if you want your watch to be more of a dashboard, then this is perfect.
3. Simple
But what day is it? Also, why are there ten ticks between each hour? It doesn’t even make sense! Not a fan.
4. Motion
Pretty. Bonus UI: tapping on the screen gives you a new jellyfish!
5. Astronomy
One of Apple’s two un-customizable faces. Love how you get a map of the solar system in this watch face. Bonus UI: scrolling the digital crown advances the days in the solar system/moon and advances the hour on earth. Yes that bright thing above your head in the night sky is probably Saturn — you can learn that from glancing at your watch!
6. Color
I hate how the date is just a floating number on the top left corner and can’t be embedded in the face. Not a fan of this one either.
7. Solar
Apple’s other un-customizable face. Wish I could add a complication to the bottom for the weather or something. Bonus UI: scrolling the digital crown moves the sun around so you can figure out sunrise/sunset/solar noon/solar midnight. Great for farmers?
8. Chronograph
Way too noisy for me. Nice for those who need to use the stopwatch often because there is a mandatory stopwatch complication on the top right. Also, tapping the stopwatch complication keeps you in the watch face rather than switching you to the stopwatch app. Pro tip: if you want to kill your battery life as quickly as possible, customize the watch face background to white.
9. Mickey
It’s Mickey! As a musician, I have to say that this is the only watch face that can easily give you 60bpm. None of the analog watch faces tick (though technically you could say that the “:” in the digital faces flash every second). Here you can just look at Mickey’s foot for the beat. This is useful for guessing tempos or measuring heart rates old school style (pre-Apple Watch?). Bonus fact: Mickey blinks his eyes every 15 seconds on the dot.
10. X-Large
Too big.
Closing Thoughts
My favorite watch faces at this point is Utility, Modular, and Solar. Haven’t settled on one at this point yet, though. In Utility, I like how the time is front and center, but it takes me a little longer to read an analog clock. In Modular, I like how I have access everything and don’t have to go into a separate screen for information, but I’m only reading a tiny portion of the screen at any given time. In Solar, I like knowing how much of the day I’ve wasted, but I don’t like how you can’t add any complications. Time will tell which one I settle on.
