The Apple Watch can run a full web browser

Yes, the Apple Watch can do a lot of cool things, but running a web browser on a 1.5 inch screen isn't one of them. BUT, that’s not because it can’t – rather, Apple thought no one would want to surf the web on such a small screen. Well, one hacker disagreed, and has shown that it can be done!

In the hacker’s video, he shows the Google homepage on the Apply Watch’s screen – though the images haven’t loaded properly. And when he taps the search bar, no keyboard pops up, so he can’t search for anything. But nevertheless, it is possible.

He double taps to zoom out, and long-presses to bring up the sub-menu with copy and define options. So it is definitely working.

If you think about it, the screen isn't too much smaller than some old dumb phones which managed (poorly) to run usable WAP browsers back in the beginning of time. At the very least this shows that some interesting hacks of the Watch hardware are on the way.

The web just wasn't built for screens this small. It took years for smartphone browsers to become more usable than frustrating, and a lot of the usability gains there came from massive screen spec jumps. A 1.5 inch smart watch screen never becomes particularly web-friendly, no matter how many pixels you cram in that screen.

Of course it was only a matter of time before hackers started playing around with the Apply Watch. Now its slightly more widely available. Some models still won’t ship until July. The verdict to this point has been fairly mixed on how useful the device actually is. It certainly has a lot of functions, but how much you’ll actually find cause to use it is an open question.

Fortunately, now the Apple Watch is in the hands of real people (and hackers) it’s possible to explore the capability of Apple’s wearable with a broader scope.

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Written By: Christine Romans
CopyWriter at The Computer Guyz Cape Town