Everything You Want to Know About the Apple Watch, Except for Everything Apple Refused to Tell Us

Yesterday I slipped the fabled Apple Watch on my unworthy little wrist, and yet my life did not change. Yet, if everything Tim Cook said today in Apple’s blockbuster presentation is true, this gadget is likely the most advanced of its breed.

It has the most sophisticated health and fitness tracking features of any smartwatch on the market. The interface is truly innovative, and the look is indisputably chic. The watch is almost certain to inspire unbridled lust in the hearts of both enthusiastic techies and normal people.

But Cook’s presentation, no matter how compelling, left many essential questions unanswered. The fact we don’t know every detail yet makes sense: The actual product won’t be out until “early next year,” according to Apple. Still, it would help to know a little more.

Here’s what my demo with the Apple Watch taught me, and which questions Apple’s showroom employees wouldn’t or couldn’t answer.

Wait, haven’t we all been calling it the iWatch this whole time?
Yeah, we, the media, guessed the name wrong. For this we deeply apologize. It’s the Apple Watch.

OK, well, how much is it?
Apple says it will start at $350, which is probably the company’s way of saying that the cheapest of the three versions — even without any of the fancy watchbands or expensive enclosures — will still set you back a pretty penny, relative to other smartwatches. 

You also need to have a fairly new iPhone in order to take advantage of the Apple Watch. It’s compatible with both models of the iPhone 6, as well as the iPhone 5, 5s, and 5c.

You mean there’s more than one watch?
Yep. Crazy, right? Though Apple hasn’t revealed what the more pimped-out versions of the watch will cost, they seem to be split into three income brackets: rich, richer, and richest.

The first is the Apple Watch. This model is meant to replace whatever timepiece you currently wear on your wrist. It comes in polished stainless steel cases that are either metallic or, as Apple calls it, “space black.” The display is protected by sapphire glass, that ultra-luxurious and durable material that everyone has recently been buzzing about.

The basic Watch comes with five choices of bands. There are two styles of leather bands (Venezia pebbled leather or a classic Tannery buckle); a traditional stainless steel link bracelet, a magnetic metal mesh that wraps around your wrist for a customized fit — which Apple calls a “Milanese loop” — or a band made from something called fluoroelastomer, which is supposedly sweat-proof but sounds like a word Apple just made up.

You can choose from two screen sizes of this watch: the 38 mm or the 42 mm.

Sounds pretty cool. What’s next?
Then we have the Apple Watch Sport, which — if you haven’t already guessed — is for people who want to take advantage of all the fitness and health software Apple is releasing. 

The body on this one is made of anodized aluminum, which is 30 percent lighter than the steel model and comes in silver and “space gray.” Instead of sapphire glass, it’s protected by “strengthened Ion-X” glass (we’re still investigating exactly what that means). The default band is the impossibly named fluoroelastomer that I mentioned above, and it comes in five iPhone 5c-like colors: green, pink, blue, white, and black.

It’s unclear whether the Sport watch can use the interchangeable bands that are available for the presumably cheaper steel model. I asked an Apple helper named “Marcus” on the floor, and he was unable to provide that information (or his last name). At press time, the Apple website was showing the Sport with only its default rubberish band.

This one also comes in the small (38 mm) and large (42 mm) screen sizes. I tried on a small one with a pink band, and it was very light and comfortable. Though I didn’t get a chance to really play with it — the models available for press use weren’t fully functional — I could definitely visualize strapping this watch to my wrist.

Oh, so it fits lady wrists?
Yes! I come from a long line of women with small wrists, and most one-size-fits-all wearables slide right off my arm. The adjustable strap on the fluoroelastomer band was easy to secure and sat snugly on my arm.

Plus, from an aesthetic perspective, the sport band and the leather options are — dare I say — stylish. It seems all Apple’s major fashion hires have paid off.

There’s more?
Apple is also prepping the ultra-luxurious Apple Watch Edition. I didn’t see any of the six iterations of this watch out of their cases in the show room, and I think I know why: They’re going to be very pricey.

This watch has a case made of either 18-karat gold or rose gold, which Apple says is twice as hard as standard gold (can’t wait to see a YouTube video testing this). The display is protected with sapphire glass, naturally.

Band options include a modern leather buckle available in a few colors, including red, gray and “midnight blue” (very Upper East Side chic). Or you could opt for the sport band, which appears to have its own customized gold and rose-gold enclosures.

Just how much do these other bands cost?
Here’s where that “starts at” price I mentioned above seems a little sneaky. No one on the floor would tell me the pricing of the additional bands. This leads me to assume the Sport and Edition could be relatively expensive, especially considering the high-end luxury lingo (“Venezia leather,” “Milanese loop”) packed into each band’s description.

Is this thing waterproof?
An Apple helper on the floor confirmed that the Apple Watch’s body is “water resistant,” meaning you can sweat on it, maybe spill a drink on it, and “run through sprinklers” while wearing it. (Something I try to do every day.) It can’t be fully submerged in liquid, however, so your dreams of using the Sport to track pool laps will have to wait.

What’s its battery life like?
An Apple “helper” (who proved to be less and less helpful as the day went on) said they don’t know the specs on that, but that battery life is “a pretty long time.”

[Update: Anonymous sources of Re/code’s John Paczkowski say “Apple isn’t yet happy with the watch’s battery life.” He reached out to Apple spokeswoman Nat Kerris, who declined to offer hard numbers but said the company expects Apple Watch owners to charge their gadgets nightly. Not promising!]

What apps will I be able to use on it?
Yet another topic Apple’s showroom workers were not eager to discuss! Let’s start with all the Apple-made stuff:

Of course, your home screen is a pretty clock app. The second thing you’ll likely look at is something Apple calls Glances. These are basically important information sources that you can program to display, like weather or stock prices, and view at a glance (hence the name).

Outside of Glances, you can access all the basic iOS-native tools like Mail, Weather, Stocks, and Photos. (You can’t take pictures with the watch, however; you can only look at them.)

Siri is also there, though I didn’t hear her speak during my time on the showroom floor. Either she’s mute or will show up in later iterations of the watch’s operating system, struggling to pronounce movie titles and the like. No matter what, you’ll be able to ask her things via the Apple Watch, just as you can with your phone.

Maps has a cool watch feature that feeds you directions with specific vibrations speeds and intensities each time you need to turn. This sounds great in theory, but I could imagine it being very distracting at times. And, as we all know, Apple Maps still isn’t the best at telling you where to go in the first place.

What’s this I’m hearing about some magical thing that lets me pay for stuff with the wave of my wrist?
Yes, today the company introduced Apple Pay, a supposedly painless and secure NFC-powered system. It works with the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, as well as the watch. You don’t actually need to wave your wrist around to purchase something, you actually just press the big button on the side of the watch twice. Though I’m still convinced that early adopters of this technology will be waving their arms around like crazy people in front of cashiers.

What about Messages?
This is one of the most enhanced of the native apps to be released with the Apple Watch.

As we saw in Cook’s presentation, Messages on your watch will analyze all incoming texts and offer suggestions of how to reply. If you’d like to do that yourself, there’s an option to dictate your message. Or you can reply with Apple’s custom-made animated emoji, a new and exciting contribution to the cutesy symbol canon.

Most exciting, however, is the entirely new, intimate avenues Apple has developed for you to communicate with your friends — at least, your friends who also own an Apple Watch. For instance, you can select a contact and tap your screen a certain number of times. Your taps will transfer to your contact’s watch as vibrations. This could be helpful for a number of things, but a favorite example among all the highly scripted Apple showroom workers was a bad party. If you’re not having fun and want to leave, just tap three times on the screen to let your party-mate know it’s time to bounce.

You’re also able to make and send basic drawings to your contacts. It seems you can make the drawings as simple or as detailed as you want, and there’s a whole color palette from which to choose. I could see this Apple Watch scribbling becoming a whole new genre of art.

Finally, there’s the strange yet intimate act of sharing your heartbeat with someone. The Apple Watch will measure your pulse and translate that into vibrations on the watch of whomever you feel comfortable sending them to. It’s kind of sweet, and as Ars Technica’s Casey Johnston said on Twitter, the makings of “a sci-fi romance in the year 2014.”

To sum it up, there wasn’t a keyboard in sight when it came to the Apple Watch presentation or the demos I saw on the floor.

Doesn’t the Apple Watch measure your movement?
Ah, yes, the Apple Watch is equipped with an accelerometer to track the distance, intensity, and speed of your movement. It also packs a gyrometer, which tracks the angle and orientation of your direction.

The Activity app uses these guts to gather information about your daily activity. Within it are three separate measurements labeled Move, Exercise, and Stand. Move keeps track of the calories you’ve burned, Exercise captures the amount of time you’re moving around, and Stand tells you how often you’ve been vertical in a day. The final measurement is particularly helpful, as we’ve recently learned that sitting kills you.

The Workout app, on the other hand, prompts you to choose a common activity (like running, rowing, biking, or StairMaster-ing). During your workout, it’ll show you how far, fast, and long you’ve been exercising. You can set goals ahead of time and watch as you move forward to fulfill them. Calling up this information on your watch as you’re working out is easy — just turn your wrist toward your face. 

As you continue to use the app, an algorithm will set higher goals based on your past achievements. It’s a bit of a virtual personal trainer, which can be worrisome, considering that it could, hypothetically drive you too hard.

I use other apps not made by Apple. Are any of those on this thing?
Yes, third-party apps do work with the watch. Cook announced a few during the presentation, including an app by Starwood Hotels that lets you check in with your watch, a BMW app that will lead you to where your car is parked using vibrations, and basics like Twitter and Facebook. We also saw nods to American Airlines and Citymapper.

When I poked around on the Watch’s home screen I saw a few others worth mentioning, like Pinterest, the MLB’s app, Nike’s in-progress fitness app, and Yahoo News, ironically enough. I was unable to see what any of these apps actually do, however. There will likely be many more to come, as PR folks are already pitching me in-progress apps compatible with the Apple Watch.

So, uh, I guess I’ll revisit all of this in early 2015?
Good idea. Hopefully we, the media, can find out more for you by then. At the very least we can try and get the names right.

Follow Alyssa Bereznak on Twitter or email her here.