A top developer said the Apple Watch is a 'confused product' -- and lots of people agree

Max Slater-Robins

Marco Arment, a developer who helped found Tumblr and then Instapaper, has written a blog post describing the Apple Watch as a “confused product” that needs to be “rethought to do less, better.”

“The Apple Watch is a confused product, designed like a tiny iPhone,” Arment writes. “To be great, the Apple Watch needs to be rethought to do less, better.”

Arment has now ditched his Apple Watch for a mechanical one.

John Gruber, a top Apple blogger who ditched his Watch in November last year, linked to Arment’s blog post and offered an agreement.

“[The lack of software] is a huge part of the appeal of mechanical watches for me,” he wrote. “No electricity. Just mechanics. They’re tangible in a way that software never can be.”

A number of high-profile Apple blogger, developers, and watchers linked to the piece on Twitter, offering agreement.

Some of the initial reviews of the Watch also expressed concern about the complexity of the software, which is essentially a paired-down version of the iPhone’s.

“On first use, the device felt a little confusing and clumsy,” wrote Stephen Pulvirent in a review for Bloomberg. “Sometimes it seemed to do one thing; at other times, just the opposite.”

“At first, it was really cool … But I suspect some buyers will feel overwhelmed by all the things you can do with the Apple Watch,” wrote Rachel Metz for the MIT Technology Review.

Wristly, a research firm, found that some users who ditched the Apple Watch blamed the performance, likely driven by the complexity of third-party apps.

For its part, Apple touts the high satisfaction with the Watch — around 96% of users are happy — as a sign that the product is popular.

Apple does not break out sales of the Watch specifically, but revenues for the “Other” group of products — which includes the Watch and new Apple TV — grew around 40% year-over-year to $4.3 billion (£3 billion) in the three months leading up to January.

Apple is expected to announce an updated version of the Watch in March, alongside a smaller iPhone and updated iPad Air.

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