The Apple Watch Seems Alarmingly Complicated

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Apple released WatchKit - its software development tool for Apple Watch - on Tuesday, and one thing sticks out like a sore thumb: there are a lot of ways to interact with it.

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There are at least fifteen distinct Apple Watch interactions, as pointed out earlier by Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel.

There's short look and long look notifications and a separate kind of "pull" notification called glances, which we detailed here, plus vibrating feedback. You can also swipe in several different ways and use a control called force touch, which lets you control the watch based on how hard you press the display.

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And that's not even the whole list. Users can interact with Apple Watch through the digital crown (the knob on the right-hand side), too.

That's a lot of ways to use something you can cover up with your thumb.

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With over a dozen ways to use Apple Watch, there's a real possibility for consumers to become confused or frustrated by it, which could hamper sales.

Apple is known for making devices that are easy for normal people to figure out. Think about the iPod's scroll wheel, or the on-screen keyboard with the iPhone that magically just seemed to work. That sounds like it might not be the case with the Apple Watch.