My First Apple Watch – Series 1

First I want to mention that I’ve never actually bought an Apple Watch for myself. My old friend, Dave, who was a real Apple tech geek and always wanted the latest everything (and who taught me about digital photography when I was still using film) upgraded his Apple Watch Series 1 to a later version and gifted me his Watch years ago.

It was fun, but after a while, under warranty, it stopped working. Apple did a remote diagnostic and said they would send a carrier to pick it up and replace it with a Series 2.

Moving on to Series 4

Then in 2021, my friend, Sue, decided it was time to upgrade her Series 4 to Series 9 and gave me her Watch. All I paid was the small amount she would have gotten for trade-in. The Watch was under monthly warranty, and I sent her money each year to keep the warranty going.

Zoom ahead to 2026. The battery clearly was fading. I had Apple do a remote diagnostic and the logs showed the battery had degraded, and they said they would exchange it for some newer model, and would confirm what I would get and call me back.

Then an Apple Problem

I hit an unexpected problem. It turned out Apple Japan didn’t want to honor the warranty. They said it was a U.S. warranty. This was my feedback to Apple. I was upset:

“To be honest, I feel cheated by Apple. I feel like I wasted 5 years of monthly Apple Watch warranty fees. The bottom line is this: my friend in the U.S. gifted me her Series 4 watch when she upgraded. We have continued to pay the monthly warranty since then, under her name. Apple here in Japan did a remote analysis and determined my battery had degraded and needed a replacement. But instead of acting like an international company and doing upgrades like they do here in Japan when needed, Apple had me contact Apple in the U.S., where they insisted I mail the Watch back to my friend in the U.S., get her to go through the whole upgrade rigamarole there, and then have her ship a replacement Watch back to me here in Japan. Why can’t it all be done by me here in Japan? It’s a ripoff.”

It was a huge nuisance. Not only to me, but to Sue, who had to sit through annoying calls and would have to go through a ton of extra effort to complete the exchange. It was just really annoying.

Apple Comes Through and Makes Things Right!

Then Gemini (sorry, Sylvia) suggested instead of doing what Apple U.S. told me, why don’t I just pay for an out-of-warranty repair here in Japan? That should be ¥17,400 ($110) and Apple would probably send me a newer model, and that would cost less than shipping back-and-forth to the U.S. and take less time.

It seemed like a better solution than shipping it to Sue, so I talked to Apple Japan again and this time lucked out by reaching a fantastic support advisor who looked over the case record and agreed with me it sounded like a ripoff. She decided to take charge of the situation and get me a replacement, here in Japan, under the warranty I had been paying for all these years.

We had a quick three way call with Sue, who gave voice permission to cancel just the Watch warranty under her name. Then the advisor confirmed that Apple would send a courier to pick up my Watch 4 and send me a brand new Watch Series 12, which was just released last month!

Pickup, Delivery, and new Watch

After that, things followed the typical speedy course it does when doing AppleCare+ exchanges in Japan. A courier came and picked up the Series 4 on Saturday. I got confirmation that I would be getting Series 12. The Watch would be 42 mm, light gold, aluminum. And they were including a radiant gold Milanese Loop magnetic closure band – a weirdly expensive watch band.

The Watch arrived on Wednesday morning, 3 minutes before I had to leave for (yet another) dental appointment. I left it with Pao, went to the dentist, then my normal morning walk and shopping errands, and came back, looking forward to trying it out.

Side-note: The dentist went surprising well. I was in the dental chair for almost 90 minutes, which was totally exhausting, while he probed and drilled and did whatnot. But surprisingly enough, it didn’t hurst. And when the anesthesia wore off it still didn’t hurt. Plus drinking cold water didn’t trigger pain either. It’s been two full days with no tooth pain! Why couldn’t he get to this point before my recent U.S. trip? Anyway, I digress.

Opened the box and – it just worked!

Remember when Apple used to promote, “it just works”? But as their tech got more and more complicated it was rarely that simple. However, when I opened the Watch box the Watch was on, and practically leaped out of the box to pair with my iPhone, connect with my Apple ID, and restore my last backup from iCloud. I didn’t have to do anything. And it was all working within a matter of minutes!

Anyway, box opening.

They also included a new type of Watch charger with a USB-C port. It’s supposed to be a much quicker charge, but I haven’t used it yet. My old charger also works just fine.

The size is a bit larger than the Watch 4, which was 40 mm. And that was larger than the Watch 2, which was 38 mm.

I didn’t have to do anything but bring my iPhone close to the Watch. It did it all from there. Paired. Connected to my Apple ID. Restored my last Watch 4 backup, All within what seemed like 1 minute.

Instead of the Milanese Loop band – which I’ll keep for a rainy day (except it’s apparently not waterproof) I elected to keep using the inexpensive silicone magnetic closure band I got a few months ago. It’s comfortable, and easy to adjust.

All my wallpapers were still there. Hi Monta.

One new feature I noticed right away was a display of monthly walking summaries.

Another new feature was the way it syncs info to my iPhone. This was while on a walk, tracking it with my Watch, and also listening to music.

The Watch 12 is running WatchOS 27 so there are various new things I haven’t seen. I like using the Watch to track “move calories” during the day so I can keep track of calories in-and-out in MyFitnessPal (today is streak day 5,255). It’s brighter, slightly larger, quicker to charge, and the battery truly does last all day, even with tracking walks with the Watch Workout app, and listening to Apple Music during my walks. The display is “always on” and brightens up when you tilt your wrist to look at it. That’s a nice improvement. And there are some cool, new gestures, like twisting your wrist to dismiss notifications or double-tapping your thumb and index finger together to answer a phone call or reply to something. Siri also works really well. There are lots of other new features I haven’t gotten around to trying yet.

I will be adding a one or two year AppleCare+ warranty to my new Watch. This time completely in my name. And who knows, maybe think about upgrading my iPhone 13 Pro?

And the old Series 2 Watch?

Final note: So what happened to my Watch Series 2? When I got the Series 4 I gave it to Hirokazu, and kept it under monthly warranty. So at some point he’s going to do a diagnostic and probably also get an upgrade to the latest model!