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When you respond to a text message on Apple Watch, there are a number of autoreply options. One of them:
一个字。非常棒！👊
I translate this to English as "One word. Excellent! 👊". This makes a lot of sense in this translation. However, can the entire phrase "非常棒" (excellent) be considered one 字 (word)? Or is a 字 strictly considered a single character?
No it's not correct. "非常棒" are definitely three 字s. So the proper form should be
一个字。棒！👊
or
三个字。非常棒！👊
According to the context this kind of wording might be used on purpose for joking; you might not need to take them seriously.
1.字 = character, 词 = word
2."一个字，非常棒" can be either an incorrect translation (which is not rare in big companies' products) or a net slang phrase("一个字，XXX" where XXX is intentionally more than one character, similar to "brief comment: XXX")
Yes, a 字 is strictly considered a single character. 非常棒！ should be 三个字.
The sentence can be rephrased as:
一个字。棒！
两个字。很棒！
三个字。非常棒！
非常棒 can be taken as a phrase or a short sentence.
非常: very
棒: good; excellent;
All of above answers are definitely correct but I just want to say apple watching might be making a joke. Let me clarify,
In Chinese seriously - 字 = character. So 非常棒 is three 字s.
But humorously we usually make a joke like what your apple watch did
一个字，非常好！
一个字，你真的很棒！
一个字，北国风光,千里冰封,万里雪飘。望长城内外,惟余莽莽;大河上下,顿失滔滔
