When it comes to getting to know stuff the Apple Watch is the best device to have on you and find out what's important

Apr 27, 2015 20:13 GMT  ·  By

The Apple Watch is here. Or, at least, in a few lucky countries that can order it in the first batch. A month ago I was still trying to figure out why I need to wear the new smart watch from Apple.

My main point was: I do not wear any jewelry, or a regular watch. Why would I get this new one now and pay for it a hefty prime?

The notification avalanche

In my day-to-day job I work as a journalist. So getting notified and reacting fast to those notifications seems like a part of my Job description. I work on a retina MacBook Pro, I have an iPhone and an iPad so I am already part of the Apple ecosystem. However, my notifications are not only those related to Apple or the ones that come from the Cupertino servers and cloud services.

Sure enough, I am an iCloud, FaceTime and iMessage user. I use Calendar, Contacts and other services that are based on iCloud and Find my Friends and Find my iPhone are always ON.

Besides these, I get about 160 emails per day. Some of them are newsletters and junk mail, but about 100 of them are email that I need to react to. I tend to go by the Inbox Zero rule, so whenever a new email comes my way, I act on it right away – whether it is filing, deleting or adding it to my read later folder.

I am a news junky so I use an RSS Feed Reader on my iPhone and Mac. In my case, I swear by Feedly and Reeder - a great combination for my day-to-day operation. I keep about 140 websites in my feed reader so I get about 1000 articles every day. I wouldn't have time to read all of them, but I do browse the titles, open the ones that present an interest to me, whether it is for my personal blog, for Softpedia News or for my daily job.

A while ago I decided to remove notifications for new articles in my RSS Feed Reader, but I set up an IFTTT account for stuff that really matters. I use it in combination with RSS or just to send me text messages with important emails I may skip.

Then there's the Instant messaging stuff. I use Yahoo Messenger for work (yes, I know it's old and nobody uses that anymore). I am on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger all day. I sometimes get called on Skype or on FaceTime and iMessage is open 99% of the time. These are all apps that are set to wake me up even if I sleep, because someone may send me something important.

Did I mention I am on the phone for a total of about 120 minutes every day from Monday to Friday and a little bit less during the weekend? And if that was not enough, I keep Wunderlist close to me for my daily ToDos.

Getting sucked into the void

You can imagine my life is a constant notification sound. And this is not a problem. I set it the way I want and I like it the way it is because it keeps me on top of my game.

The problem is that for every notification I get on Facebook Messenger I spend a few more seconds and sometimes minutes watching videos and Liking photos on Facebook. For every email I get, I feel the urge to reply and sometimes get sucked into my Inbox for other things. Just by having a computer, phone and iPad handy doesn't mean you get to solve the problems faster. It sometimes means you will find things to distract you from your goal.

Also, when you take the phone out of your pocket, you always notice some other notifications you may have missed and you may feel the urge to act on those right away.

Here comes the Apple Watch

By now you may have guessed where this is going. The Apple Watch is the perfect way to avoid getting sucked into the void and at the same time get notified when you need to. There are even simple ways to reply or apply an action to a notification.

I could just imagine using the Mail.app on my watch. Not for replying to a new mail, but to delete it or just dismiss it. If you do not have to take your phone out of the pocket to call someone, you will not see all the missed notifications so you will just call, hang up and carry on with your work.

Facebook is another problem. If I see a notification from Facebook Messenger, I could just reply by voice using the watch and skip the Russian car crash videos for half a day.

Don't get me wrong. You will still get a lot of notifications and having all of those vibrate on your wrist may seem to bother you even more. But deciding how to allow only the most important apps to notify you is a totally different discussion.

The two apps that are truly useful on the Apple Watch

All working aside, I found two apps that are great on the Apple Watch and they both have something to do with my passion for reading and listening to audio podcasts. Instapaper has an awesome little app that will read your articles out loud. It uses Siri's voice for that and that's not always the best, but it also syncs read position with the Instapaper iPhone app.

The second app is also a player. Overcast, probably the best podcast playing app for the iPhone got on the Apple Watch. As you might imagine, you have all the important features present on the watch so you don't need to keep the iPhone around to be on top of your podcast game.