Mike Ward At Large
Second Chances
If you’ve been reading this column of mine since day one, may I just ask you two quick questions? First, are you in some way disturbed? And second, do you recall the one I wrote a while back about the Apple Watch, and how I’d sent mine back for a refund within days?
You do. Splendid. In that case you’ll be suitably amazed to hear what I’m about to tell you. Namely, that I went out and got another one.
Yes, after everything I’d said (I seem to recall the expression “I hate it” cropped up quite a lot) I changed my mind and gave the Apple Watch a second chance. What kind of weak-willed, pathetically manipulable nincompoop does that make me? Please don’t answer that.
In my defence, I didn’t change my mind at once. I didn’t chase after the postman, screaming: “Stop! Oh, yes, wait a minute, Mr Postman,” because I know how much he hates it when I do that.
No, what I did instead is conduct a little more research into what this watch could really do for me. Things I stupidly hadn’t allowed myself time to explore originally.
“What kind of weak-willed, pathetically manipulable nincompoop does that make me?”
And where did I find the information that helped me in this quest? Well, remarkably, if you go to a website called apple.com and click on the bit that says “Apple Watch”, there’s a whole stack of useful information, plus some really rather lovely videos, about this very product.
And here’s the absolute clincher: it doesn’t have a single bad thing to say about it. Not one. Isn’t that incredible?
So, yes, clearly I’d been wrong all along. After all, who could be better placed to offer sound, impartial advice on the Apple Watch than apple.com, eh? Exactly. I get that now.
In case you’re wondering, the functions of this watch that I’ve now come to appreciate include counting how many calories I’ve burnt up each day (rumour has it, the display for this can even accommodate double figures), adding more pies to my Ocado grocery order and, most important of all, answering phone calls in a way that makes me look like Captain Kirk.
Most of all, though, I love being able to speak into this watch to set myself reminders, making it so much easier to get through my day-to-day tasks.
“Remind me at 4pm to fetch my suit from cleaners,” I’ll tell it, for example. And hey presto, at 4pm on the dot, my wrist feels a gentle tapping, a written message pops up on my Apple Watch screen and, with no further effort on my part, I know it’s time for me to fetch my suit from Venus. Bargain.
Mike Ward is the TV Critic of the Daily Star and the TV Editor of the Daily Express Saturday magazine. Hear him every Monday afternoon with Guy Lloyd on Brighton’s Juice 107.2
