Versus: Apple Watch vs Moto 360

Display, design, straps and watch faces

At long last, Tim Cook has shown us the Apple Watch that he's been hiding up his sleeve. But is it really better than Motorola's new Moto 360?

The duelling smartwatches feature premium stainless steel designs and only work with their respective operating systems. Apple Watch needs an iPhone and Moto 360 an Android.

You can pick one or the other in this Apple Watch vs Moto 360 comparison, so it may come down to which has the best features and price if you're sitting on the Android or iOS 8 fence.

Display

Circle beats square, even though both smartwatches boast impressive displays. It's just that we're tired of boxy computerized watches.

Moto 360 offers something ambitious with its round 1.56-inch LCD screen, while Apple Watch sticks with a tried-and-true rectangular shape in two height: 38mm (1.5 in) and 42mm (1.65in).

The iPhone-compatible watch has the advantage of a "flexible Retina display" laminated with a single crystal layer of scratch-resistant sapphire.

Winner: Moto 360. We're not sure of the Apple Watch resolution, among other specs. It'll likely beat Motorola's good-but-not-good enough LCD, but the round look wins out.

Build quality

Neither watch falls into the trap of looking plastic. The tiny smartwatch components are housed in premium metal cases.

The Moto 360 is encircled with a stylish stainless steel frame. It contrasts with the plastic found in Android Wear watches like the Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch.

Apple Watch takes things a step further with three editions. The standard "Apple Watch" comes in a polished or space black stainless steel and Apple Watch Sport features either a space gray or silver anodized aluminum case.

Apple Watch Edition really steps things up with an 18-karat rose or yellow gold case. There's also two sizes of Apple Watch - perfect for those with smaller wrists.

Winner: Apple Watch. For once, the Cupertino company is offering customers more choice than its Android-based competitor.

Straps

Whether you call them straps or bands, Apple Watch brings more variety to the wristwatch in this category too. There are six watch straps materials, each available in a range of colors.

Leather options with various fasteners include Classic Buckle, Modern Buckle, Leather Loop, while the Sport Band is ideal for gym-wear thanks to its elastomer makeup.

The two metal bands are both stainless steel. There's the Link Bracelet with two fasteners (we demoed a similar one for Moto 360 in Chicago last week) and flexible magnetic mesh Milanese Loop.

Best of all, it's easier to swap out the default straps depending on your mood or the occasion.

Winner: Apple Watch. Sure, Moto 360 has metal bands coming too, but there aren't as many choices and they're not as easy to change out.

Watch faces

One of the biggest beefs I've had with Android Wear smartwatches is the lack of watch face options, and circular Moto 360 is no different.

Motorola smartwatch includes six pre-loaded watch faces, and none of them can be altered. There are several third-party watch faces in the Google Play Store, but they're more difficult to find - for some reason Google refuses to feature them in its store's Android Wear subsection.

Apple Watch on the other hand has previewed 11 different watch faces and all of them can be customized. Don't like the color, design element or functionality? Tweak it. Apple claims that there are millions of different watch face available this way.

Winner: Apple Watch. Google hasn't done a good job of laying out Android Wear watch faces and you can't adapt the default options. The win goes to Apple for now.

Specs, interface, apps and fitness

Internal specs

At the heart of the Apple Watch is a custom-made S1 processor that confines its key specs to a single miniaturized chip. It sounds powerful, but we can't know for sure until next year.

Also onboard is what Apple calls its Taptic Engine to initiate haptic feedback that feel like taps on your wrist. Alerts, notifications and friends' conversations all produce a unique vibration.

We know more about Motorola's smartwatch at the moment. A Texas Instruments OMAP 3 processor makes it tick along with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.

The Moto 360 is noticeably slower than the Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch, as both Android Wear rivals went with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor. It won't ruin your day, but we expect the Apple Watch S1 processor to surpass both chipsets.

Winner: Apple Watch. Truthfully, smartwatch specs are boring without monster processors and state-of-the-art graphics chips. Apple Watch could push it with new chip innovation.

Interface

Android Wear's Google Now-inspired interface isn't perfect, but it's an impressive start for the rather new product category for the company, given its July 7 launch.

Google's know-it-all software predicts what we're interested in before we even move. I looked up the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field and my Moto 360 nudged me that it's 24 minutes away.

As I walked in a few innings into the baseball game, it told me the score whenever I asked "OK Google, what's the score of the cubs game?" Sitting in the stands, it reminded me about my flight back home the next day.

Apple's software could be equally impressive thanks to its time-saving Glances feature and Siri that could make "OK Google" seem "just OK."

It also has a digital crown input on the side of the smartwatch, in contrast to Moto 360's small-screen swiping. Zooming and scrolling won't get in the way on the Apple Watch.

Winner: Tie. For now. Apple isn't known for data mining to the same degree as Google, so its ability to surface our need-to-know information at a glance is unproven. But the digital crown is a nice touch considering our fingertips (and fingerprints) hog smartwatch touchscreens.

Apps

Apple Watch isn't even coming out this year, and yet the company is already demoing several apps for its 2015-bound smartwatch.

You'll know what to do with Calendar, where to go with Maps and how to check in with Passbook and Apple Pay. Set the tone with Music or Remote for Apple TV and iTunes, and remember the moment with the Camera Shutter remote and Photos app.

Stopwatch, Time and Alarm apps keep you on time, while Stocks keep you in the black. Weather should keep you dry.

The thing is, most of these apps are available on Moto 360 via Android Wear, and Google has a few months to grow its Google Play Store smartwatch subsection even more before Apple Watch launches.

Winner: Moto 360 for now. There are more apps and they're here right now. But Apple is giving WatchKit a big push, so iOS developers aren't too far behind.

Fitness

Apple is taking fitness seriously with the Apple Watch that tracks activity with three metrics. Move shows how many calories you've burned while wearing the watch. Exercise keeps track of your most active minutes and Stand actually measures how long you spend on your feet.

Dedicated cardio exercise makes use of the Apple Watch's Workout app, which has real-time stats for your total exercise time, distance, calories and pace. Keeping you motivated are goals, reminders and achievements.

Like me after eating a cheeseburger, fitness isn't Moto 360's forte. Google Fit tracks steps like a pedometer and monitors your heart rate.

Motorola's slightly more robust Heart Rate Activity app goes an extra mile with a motivating countdown to 30 minutes of daily brisk activity and week-long streak indicators.

It also features an optical heart-rate sensor to keep track of your active (or less than active) ticker, but we're waiting for a Moto 360 update to really get the blood flowing.

Winner: Apple Watch. There's more to come, says Motorola and while the Moto 360 does a fitness chores, it's mostly pedometer and heart-rate information. Apple Watch is already demoing this and more.

Battery charging

Moto 360 and Apple Watch are designed to be worn seven days a week, but it also requires recharging them on a nightly basis.

That's why it's extra important to make juicing the battery as straightforward as possible. What we like about the Motorola's recharging method over the Apple Watch is the Qi standard.

Moto 360 uses the more widely adopted Qi wireless charging. In addition to coming with a dock that doubles as a nightstand, the smartwatch can be powered back up using Google's own Nexus Qi wireless charger meant for the Nexus 7 tablet and Nexus 5 smartphone.

Apple Watch uses a similar inductive charging solution with magnets for proper alignment. It's modelled after the MagSafe adapter used by MacBooks, but it also looks as if it'll be proprietary.

Winner: Moto 360. Grabbing one multi-purpose charger for a roadtrip or borrowing a friend's Qi charger is a little closer to reality when owning the Moto 360. I tested it out and it works with my Nexus Wireless Charger made by Google.

Which one should you buy?

You can't get away with using both, as Moto 360 and Apple Watch are tied to their respective Android and iOS platforms. Then again, you can only buy the Moto 360 right now.

Is Apple Watch worth waiting for? It certainly appears to have better build quality, band variety and watch face selection thanks to Apple's incredibly rare gift of user customization.

It's also keener on fitness tracking compare to any Android Wear right now, including Moto 360. Google Fit really needs to catch up.

None of this changes the fact that Moto 360 sports a classic circular watch face that's infinitely more stylish. You can't go around knocking Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch for very computerized square displays and then praise Apple Watch for the exact same design.

In an ideal world, I'd fit the iOS 8-compatible Apple Watch into a round Moto 360 display, call it iWatch, and then call it a day. But that's not the ambitious design Jony Ive went with, at least not this time. Watch is worth the wait to see how it performs, but you may want to hold out for a circular version in the future too.

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