As a watch-wearing Apple fan, you would think I'm in the target market for the Apple Watch. I'm heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem already. I even ordered a new MacBook on April 10. But, I declined to order a watch. And I probably won't get one until I need to write a WatchKit app (or more likely, a native app). Some people are surprised when I tell them, so I'll lay out my reasoning here.

My primary use for watches is to tell the time and the date. John Gruber's review warned that the Apple Watch is actually inferior at telling the time than a regular watch in one respect: the screen stays off unless it (imperfectly) detects you need the time. Since I already have very well established habits of glancing at a watch without much movement, the imperfections in detection would likely be annoying. It's hard to talk myself into a downgrade in timekeeping.

The Apple watch does not want to be just another watch in a collection, worn once a week. Many features of the Apple watch reward wearing it all the time, or could be valuable enough to want to wear it all the time. So if it's not compelling, I wouldn't want to wear it one day a week — but if it is compelling, I wouldn't want to wear it less than seven days a week. So I need to wait until the watch is good enough to justify obsoleting my entire swiss mechanical watch collection.

I don't doubt that it will eventually improve, and offer a superior experience to mechanical watches. It's just a matter of time. When I switch, it will be because the watch is so capable and exciting I no longer mind shelving the rest of the collection. Tough to imagine, and bittersweet.