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I bought an Apple Watch right before moving to D.C., not too long after switching to iPhone. Thought it would help with biking/walking directions, step and workout tracking, and D.C.’s very different weather.

Turn-by-turn on your wrist is pretty nice, but so is looking up at street signs and using your senses. It was neat to see my calories burned after long workouts. But I mostly used that to justify eating, like, a whole Wegmans medium sub.

I spent a *ton* of time fine-tuning profiles and notifications, trying to avoid getting pulled out of every moment because “Slack is happening!” or “REI is having a summer sale!”. But the tuning never ends. You either pick 5 emergency apps and that’s it, or you’re an unpaid dispatcher.

There’s a lot of talk about AI-derived “deskilling,” and that colored how I thought about the watch. “What’s the temperature?” “When is my next meeting?” “What time does my plane board?” I started thinking about giving up a full smartwatch, and I considered the learned helplessness.

20/6/26, 12:15 am0 reposts0 likes

Caveats! I don’t do serious fitness tracking. I don’t have disabilities or medical conditions for which an Apple Watch might be helpful. And, I guess, I’m ready to die upside-down in a car crash, unable to reach my iPhone, as the Apple Watch promos suggest?

So, new watch. Looks just like the F-91W, but the custom board fits a lot more. I can cycle through these “faces” with a button, wrist gesture, or holding the light button: * World time * Step counter (fed to Apple Health!) * Timer * Stopwatch * Alarm * Sunrise/sunset * Flashlight

I’m in the honeymoon phase, but I’m loving how light it feels. I will _really_ dig not having to bring a single-device charging cable on every trip. And I’m particularly looking forward to having maybe more than one watch, some even more analog, to try on.

Every day, a few times a day, I feel this limbic urge to look down at my watch to see what I can only describe as “Am I missing something?” All I see when I look now: the time. It’s 8:22pm. That’s it. That’s what’s going on. If you need more, pull out the little computer and check that.

Kevin Jones

@vcsjones.dev