Apple Watch after 10 years: the feature that changed everything for me

I did not sell immediately on Apple Watch. But five years ago, he alerted me to a serious health problem, and I got it a permanent spot on my wrist. Ten years after its launch, Apple Watch is still far apart, even in a flood of other wearable devices and Fitness followers The market struck.

It took several years to find the Apple Watch its place beyond just being the iPhone companion. Over the past decade, similar health tracking devices such as Samsung, Google and OURA have escalated competition. march a report From Counterpoint Research revealed a 19 % decrease in Apple Watch shipments in 2024, due to high competition and less frequent promotions. Nevertheless, the Apple Watch clung to it in the world’s best -selling watch, with a lineup that now includes the 10th, Ultra and SE series.

For many people, including me, it has become a way to make data personal and meaningful. It is an easy way to maintain tabs on their loved ones. Perhaps more importantly, it was a changing literal life.

An unforgettable thing …

Rumors about Apple Watch, or “IWATCH” as most people called them collapse long before it was launch. In 2014, fitness followers and smart watches such as Fitbit, Jawbone Up and Samsung Galaxy Gear Watch were already offered and were competing for a place for people’s wrists. I liked to test these followers and early hours because they made me out of the office, but sooner or later, modernity was wearing it, and I will retire them to my office staircase. I was not a wearer or a bracelet at first, and most of the early smart watches did not provide me with a sufficient incentive to continue wearing it.

Then, in September 2014, Tim Cook revealed the Apple watch During the keywords for iPhone 6 (I arrived at stores on April 24, 2015). I remember I was carrying Apple Watch for the first time in the experimental room after advertising and believing that it was a better smart watch. But this was not much courtesy, given that most of the wearable devices before Apple lacked the attractiveness of fashion and had a more utilitarian atmosphere. Galaxy Gear “Gadget” with a huge camera on the tape and a microphone on the clamp. Favorite worship Gravel It looked like a plastic game more than an eternal piece. (Sorry, lovers Pebble.)

I appealed to me the first Apple Watch on two levels. It was the first category of new Apple products since the launch of 2010 from The original iPad. It was also the first major technical event that I covered as a journalist. In the end, in my country Apple Watch Review for CNET En EspañolI concluded that I was a nice iPhone companion, but I was not sure I needed it.

The turning point: When my heart exceeded a rhythm

by the time Series 4 Features such as LTE and Onboard on Apple Watch helped start freeing from their dependence on iPhone. I still don’t wear it every day, but one feature changed it.

“We got this turning point with series 4, as we had a little leap forward in the sensors. We had advanced movement sensors that allowed us to provide the detection of the fall, and we had an electrical heart sensor that allowed us to provide the ECG

This coincided with the release of other heart features such as high and low heart rate alerts, and irregular rhythm notifications, which use optical sensors per hour to notify users of signs of possibility of atrial fibrillation, a possible heart condition of life.

In December 2018, I was at the UCSF Medical Center with the cardiologist Dr. Gregory Marcus, and tested the new electrical planning feature for CNET story -Its comparison with the electrical planning of the full medical degree in the hospital. The last thing I expected is to hunt Apple Watch with something abnormal about the rhythm of my heart.

But she did.

I had 12 strands of the EKG screen in the attached hospital in my body while I was once I took the ECG reading with Apple Watch, using my index finger on the digital crown. Marcus referred to something on the machine – a small violation that disrupts the rhythm of my steadfast and melody. She looked down, and the same small wave appeared in place on the Apple Watch. My heart was literally overcoming the pulse.

At that time, I felt fear about what all this could mean. But after some research and a follow -up visit, Marcus concluded that early ventricle shrinking was not dangerous or always. This is likely to be due to sleep deprivation and stress. I was a new mother for one girl, after all.

My story took an unexpected personal turn, and I left I feel completely different from the Apple trained technology. If it is strong enough to clarify such a delicate heart condition, what can appear to me?

By Christmas of the same year, I bought the Apple watch for both my parents. They are in the seventies of the last century and live in El Salvador. I was thinking that if I could not be physically there to see it, I at least I want them to have the Apple watch to inform them if there is something.

It turns out that stories like MINE helped Apple to see the innovative post -technology in Apple Watch and pushing the company in a trend in health, wellness and early discovery.

“What really inspired us and motivated us to do more and continue to withdraw these threads and pay the limits of what this device can do”, (he was) hearing stories from users about learning something about their health who did not learn otherwise because they wear this device throughout the day. ”

Apple Watch as a diagnostic tool

Recently, I signed with Marcus, nearly seven years after my original story, and spoke to him about how to use it now ECGS from devices like Apple Watch to help diagnose heart disease in his patients.

“When the consumer or user gets EKG, he will get a kind of reading – a possible, natural, normal, etc.”, “said Marcus.” These records can be saved, usually as PDF, and send them to a health care specialist. Health care professionals can diagnose atrial fibrillation using this EKGS. “

Marcus’s praise also came with a warning. Sometimes, the presence of all this information, especially for heart rate alerts, can lead to anxiety for patients unnecessarily, even if they are in good health and no other symptoms appear.

Marcus said: “If you are going to check a large group of population, when I define you almost, you will have a number of wrong positive results,” Marcos said. “The wrong positive results will lead to unnecessary anxiety, unnecessary test, and possibly unnecessary treatment.”

A starting point to the other vital point

ECG notifications and heart rate were just the beginning. Now, Apple Watch can sign the signs of sleep stop, total navigation, hearing health, change of menstrual cycles and cardiovascular trends to name a few.

For years, I tracked the exercises with Apple Watch and relied on the step rings to be held accountable for the amount of activity (or the amount of little) throughout the day. Over time, Apple has added more advanced standards such as Vo2 MAX, fitness, heart rate and training areas, allowing me to obtain more exercises and continue to focus on long -term health goals. The feature of downloading training helps me to determine the date of exercise. Partitions and notifications areas Push me during exercise. and Vo2 Max and Cardio Fitness Scores Give me a standard to work. As a mother of three children, I was very curious to 30 minutes for myself, this type of focus that Apple Watch was a key to making exercises more influential.

Maybe I had a few words from Watch Watch when I warned me that my fitness degree declined days after a person’s birth. But this was the batch that I needed to return to the post -home form after pregnancy. I am pleased to report that I have recovered my “high” degrees that I still wear proudly.

These features are not exclusive for the Apple Watch watch. In fact, Apple is not always the first to introduce them. But I appreciate how the watch translates it into something related, so they are not lost in the endless data sea.

Convert routine work into something smooth

Apple Watch has affected my life in other ways as well. I used TECH to track my menstrual cycle before appearing on Apple Watch in 2019. I used my first child, I used a smart heat scale to exchange base temperature readings (an indication of ovulation and fertility) to my iPhone. It was not smooth, because it required me to remember to do it before leaving the bed, but he won the pen and paper in the old school.

Once I presented the Apple Watch tracking the cycle, she abandoned the thermometer and started to record everything on my wrist. Initially, it may not be accurate because he did not track temperature changes. But the convenience of getting track on my watch helped me stay steadily and select the fertility window accurately.

Apple added two sensors to the 8th and newer chain, allowing them to track accurate changes in body temperature. A mixture of tracking the course and recording these fine temperature transformations helped me better in confirming ovulation, and perhaps her hand played in welcome to child No. 3.

What makes me really go back

the Series 10 Currently, my wrist is still (and it appears to feel a lot like the original Apple Watch watch that I reviewed again in 2015. It remains the basic features that make my life easier – such as my phone nomination (which I use an embarrassing number of times), and this exceeds the need to drill my cross Marie Popins is a portfolio My phone or wallet is out of exit. The battery life is still a pain point after 10 years, although at least I can now press a full night sleep before having to install.

Features such as tracking the course and fitness of the heart resonate with me more than others, but I know that my preferences will continue to develop alongside the watch. Perhaps as soon as my children grow up and began to get more consistent sleep, I will tend to more sleep tracking features or any new Apple tool for the hour that year.

The real Apple Watch development has occurred over the past ten years under the cover and not a single feature. What makes me (and my family) return to Apple Watch is the personal way in which it follows the standards related to me and fall behind when it is important, whether with a movement, health alert or craftsmanship to help in the state of emergency.