Watch depths on watches are basically lies. Look at the "Water Resistance Classification" table in the linked "Water Resistance Mark" Wikipedia page. 50m means you can barely submerge it. 100m is snorkeling.

I learned this the hard way when I got a new 30m watch for a sailing trip and it died the first time I stuck my hand in water. Timex even used to print something like that table in the paper that came with the watch. So I'll upgrade my "lies" characterization to "shameless lies".

(That said, I want Apple to do better, and I expect they will in the future. Underperforming on the first products would be a disaster. Better to under promise.)

It means that in a sealed water resistance test thing, the watch, sitting there surrounded by water, will still function when subjected to, in the case of your watch, 3bar of pressure. That is without moving the watch, with the crown fully tightened/pushed in, etc. Yours was probably defective, or was advertised in bad faith, even though by those water resistance tables they say 30m isn't suitable for swimming. However, I've taken both 3 bar and 5 bar watches to the sea many times with no problem. It's supposed to handle shallow swimming

Apple Watch has a water resistance of IPX7, that's the same as a Garmin, for example. It is fine in a shower. There's no point comparing it to other sport watches because unlike the Apple Watch, they can actually be used under water. A smart watch (at least one with a capacitive touch screen) cannot. Why make trade-offs (e.g. making it bulkier, perhaps) when there's no benefit?

Addressing your second point, there certainly are touch screens that work whilst wet - however I suspect there will be significant draw-backs, such as responsiveness, colour clarity, etc. Again, I don't have the details but if Apple could make Apple Watch usable underwater without any compromise, I'm sure they would have.

However, it would have been interesting if they had released the "Sport" model as a bulkier, water-proof version, leaving the regular Apple Watch as the dress watch. There certainly could be interesting applications for divers, etc.

Edit: check out this review of the CAT phone you linked. http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/cat-b15/

"Very poor screen" and "The screen has been designed to operate when wet, too. You can't use it underwater, but it's fully functional when covered in flecks of water". As subnaught says, it's all about trade-offs.

You can't use typical sport watch underwater either -- the instructions say not to press any of the buttons.

Tim Cook said he wears it in the shower but to what extent we won't know until launch.

http://www.techradar.com/au/news/wearables/apple-watch-is-sh...