As the Apple Watch turns 10, disabled users demand real accessibility

Apple is gearing up for its annual fall event, where new iPhone and Apple Watch models traditionally make their debut. This year marks a significant milestone: It's been 10 years since the launch of the original Apple Watch. To commemorate this anniversary, the tech giant is expected to unveil a special edition, unofficially …

[Annihilator]

In all honesty, even the "raise to activate" function quite frequently fails to activate Siri regardless of the users abilities.

Curious though, I would have thought that the limitations of Siri activations would extend to the watch entirely. You have to be able to turn the watch towards you for the screen to activate too?

[bud-weis-er]

Yeah, I like mine, but there is plenty of weirdness.

- I get congratulated for standing up all day, even though I'm mostly sitting down

- The later models have the screen on all the time, but I keep mine off to save power. It doesn't always wake when I look.

- Find my devices is completely ****ing useless and rarely can see the devices. It's great on the phone and Mac.

- I barely pay using mine due to the number of times I'd get to the front of a drive thru, try and pay, only to be told "card updating". However far away from me you live, you'll have heard the cursing.

- No idea about Siri, it's shit on every device.

There's plenty more. They're off the top of my head.

[GlenP]

I get similar issues, although I mange to pay most of the time without issue.

Siri is disabled/ignored on all my devices!

[DS999]

I get congratulated for standing up all day, even though I'm mostly sitting down

As far as I can tell, Apple Watch determines "standing" based on the orientation of the watch. If it is oriented in a way like it would be if your arms are hanging at your sides you are "standing". If the position you sit in has you e.g. hanging your arm over the arm of the chair so it is facing down it will think you are "standing".

That's understandable as something on your wrist can't tell whether your butt is in a seat or not, but it is weird that you don't get "credit" for standing if your hand is not at your side when it should be able to determine you're standing in other ways. If for instance were you walking around your kitchen putting away dishes that have dried after hand washing you might not get your watch oriented in a way that would trigger the detection of "standing". But since it does know you're walking (presumably based on G forces from your steps - I'd bet if you tried to sort of "glide" you could fool it into missing your steps) you'd think it would give you credit for standing while walking. Since, you know, walking is kind of hard to do while sitting!

[elsergiovolador]

Tedious

I bought a smart watch just to see what's the fuss about.

Honestly I cannot see the point of these devices. Very much everything is much quicker to do and managed on the phone.

It takes a split second to pull out the phone, unlock and check notification. On the watch it is a menu diving nightmare.

It only wins when you quickly want to check the time (provided battery has juice), but then you can just buy a cheap casio with forever battery and be done with it.

[DS999]

Re: Tedious

I don't use my watch for any tasks. I don't have text messages going to it, don't use it to answer phone calls, etc. I bought it for tracking workouts, and have found it also somewhat useful in sleep tracking. I agree that a watch for getting notifications and so forth is silly in most cases - the exception being if you often have your hands busy and can't easily pull out your phone to look.

If you don't care about workout/health tracking there's no point in owning a watch as far as I'm concerned.

If I set a timer (like for baking) and put my phone down and go do something else in the meantime, it is nice that the watch will notify me of the timer I set on the phone I left in another room and might not otherwise hear. But that's hardly a reason to buy one lol

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Tedious

I mostly do walking and running and phone seems to be more accurate for tracking that.

In terms of sleep tracking - I tried this too, but after the day using the watch, I typically found watch running out of juice in the middle of the night so it was useless.

Having to remember to charge the watch after work just so that I can use it for sleep tracking was a no go. I try to minimise number of things I have to babysit.

One day I realised I have not worn the watch for over a week after putting it to charge. Then I just never worn it again and have not missed it.

For baking, I have a timer on the counter that is quite loud, so I can hear it from another room and I have a phone very much always on me.

[Tron]

I thought these had been quietly phased out years ago.

People are still buying them?

[ICL1900-G3]

Mechanical

I think I shall stick with my mechanical watches, thanks all the same. As far as I know, they don't report what I'm up to and they will still be worth a fair amount of dosh when these upstarts are landfill.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Mechanical

I can't ever remember how to set an alarm on the basic Casio watch. I managed to set one alarm couple of years ago.

I still hear beeping around 11pm every night from the wardrobe and that puts smile on my face.