I bought an Apple watch a few weeks ago. “It’ll take a while to get used to it”, a friend said to me, and he was right. My expectations were low, based on previous experiences with so-called smartwatches, which were generally flaky. But because I have a policy of not writing about stuff that I don’t actually own, I bought the cheapest, and, as I thought, the least ostentatious, version of the Apple device.

And…?

Well, it grows on one. The battery life is better than I expected (and it charges quickly). The interface works. Most importantly, the linking with the iPhone is really seamless. What infuriated me about, say, the Pebble watch, was the flakiness of the ‘notifications’ system. It turns out that the main reason I want a smartwatch is so that it stops me having to take my phone out of my pocket all the time. The Pebble failed miserably in that regard, whereas the iWatch is excellent for that. When a message comes in, all it takes is a glance to identify the sender — and therefore to know whether it needs attention or not.

Apart from Quentin’s commentary, the most insightful comments on the watch that I’ve come across are by Ben Evans. For example:

Reading the Watch’s launch reviews, I sometimes got the sense that the tech press was writing about it as though the luxury goods industry didn’t exist and that the luxury press was writing as though technology didn’t exist: no-one spends money on things because they’re just nice and no-one buys things that don’t last forever. The gold version brought this out best – a tech product that’s $10,000 but has the same spec as the $350 one – heresy! And a gold watch that probably doesn’t last a lifetime – again, heresy! But all rules can be broken with the right product – that’s how progress happens. Meanwhile, the irony is that it’s not actually the gold that’s the luxury but the software – that tap on the wrist telling you to turn left. In a sense, the gold case is an accessory to the software in the same way that the strap is an accessory to the watch.

Spot on. Smartwatches are unlikely ever to be ‘must-have’ devices. They are luxuries.