Apple Watch Hands-on Review [Reader's Digest From Before the Blog]

I’m very sorry for not giving an earlier review, but it’s been two weeks since I started to wear my new cellular Apple Watch Series 8 (not the latest, the Series 9!) I got for my birthday, and I have some thoughts. First, my Apple Watch has been indispensable, especially right after/before school hours. My most-used app is Activity to track my rings and compete against Marine, with Workout to track my pickleball rounds, Voice Memos (I am using the app to record U2 songs (I'm serious: I'm just a 10-year-old, but U2 is my favorite band) and play them without AirPods in ears), Noise (a decibel meter) and Messages also in my top few (I never used most of the other apps). Even in Schooltime (a mode that lets you focus on schoolwork by only allowing you to check the time and date in a nondescript watch face), it’s great (although at first, we forgot to adjust the schedule for Wednesdays, shorter days that end at 12:50 instead of 2:30). I found out how indispensable it was the day I forgot to bring it Thursday (I kept missing it, whether not in school or in school), and on Wednesday I spent the last 10 minutes of chess class furiously trying to close my Stand ring while focusing on chess (even after all that, I still didn’t close my Stand ring). Speaking of watch faces, I have 11 watch faces, but Photos seems to be the sweet spot, with a library of Maman’s Favorited photos that changes picture every time you wake up the watch and two complications for Noise (that app I mostly use in complication form these days) and Activity. My big lament is that Apple Music acts like I’m not subscribed while both me and Maman who’s controlling the watch settings from her phone have done so (we are both in Papa’s shared Apple One subscription, which includes Apple Music). Maybe Papa has to share the subscription with my watch’s new phone number??? But even before we created the phone number, I had the same problem! Anyway, besides Apple Music problems, I’m loving my new Apple Watch right now!

By Leo