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Like many Apple products, Apple Watch It can be incredibly simple to start using – but that simplicity hides a surprising level of depth and customizability. If you’ve just received an Apple Watch, there’s a lot to do to make sure you’re getting the most out of your new wearable. Let us walk you through that process, from initial setup to optimizing everything it can do.
Establish
Of course, the first thing you’ll want to do is pair your Apple Watch with your iPhone. Even if you have a Apple Watch has mobility, an iPhone is required to set up and manage the device. Luckily, the process is super simple — after powering on your Apple Watch, simply place it near your unlocked iPhone and you’ll get a prompt to set up the device. During the process, your iPhone guides you through the initial pairing, as well as signing in with your Apple ID, assigning a passcode to your Watch, setting up things like Siri and Apple Pay, and deciding if you Do you want to migrate your compatible apps to watch? I recommend you don’t automatically switch all your apps this first time, because the Watch is so much more useful when you manage it with only what you want. need.
Some features you should definitely set up are fall detection and emergency SOS. The latter allows you to quickly place a call to local emergency services by pressing and holding the side button, while fall detection uses the Watch’s accelerometer and other sensors to detect if you have had a heavy spill. It will automatically initiate an emergency SOS call if it detects a fall and doesn’t detect you’re moving. Before making that call, the Watch will do its best to get your attention through notifications, vibrations, and alarm sounds.
The fun part: tweaking the app and notifications
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Once you’ve established the basics, it’s time to make your own Apple Watch. By default, Apple Watch mirrors all notifications to your phone. But I find the Watch much more useful with a bit of management. In the iPhone Watch app, you can customize notifications for all of Apple’s first-party apps, or turn them off entirely. For example, the Activity app’s notification panel lets you choose whether you want to show hourly reminders or notifications when your friends share activity milestones with you, etc.
Third-party apps don’t have the same level of granularity, but you can disable them so they don’t ping your Watch. For things that aren’t particularly time-sensitive (like updates from Google Photos, or if you don’t want the Apple News app to overload your wrist), turn them off. They will still attack your iPhone and you can always reactivate them later.
The iPhone Watch app also lets you choose which specific apps from your iPhone will be installed on your Apple Watch. I think this is more useful than just letting the Watch install compatible apps one at a time, as it could mean you have a few dozen apps to sift through your Watch to see if they’ll help. Are not. Instead, I like to go through the list and decide if there’s any benefit to using these apps on my wrist. In the case of apps like Google Maps or Ecobee to control my thermostat, it definitely does. But things like Etsy or Bank of America don’t really make sense on a Watch. And if you change your mind, you can remove an app from the Watch app, or by long-pressing it in grid view and deleting it – just keep in mind that this will remove the app from the Watch app. your watch, not your iPhone.
That said, I was surprised at what some developers had envisioned for the Apple Watch. Take the Bear note-taking app, for example. I often use it to create grocery lists and checklists that look great on my Apple Watch. So, if there’s an app on your phone that you think is essential, try it on your Watch.
See face
Another sometimes overlooked part of the Apple Watch experience is the watch face. Since this is really what you will see every time you raise your wrist, I think you should find ones that suit your personal style. While there are no third-party faces, the Apple Watch has more than 30 continuously customizable integration options. We’re talking a ton of colors, different typefaces and dials, complications (small pieces of information like weather, date, or music controls) and much more. You can have a simple digital time display with nothing else, or an information-dense one with eight different variations, or anything in between.
You can set up new faces directly on the Watch – but as with most advanced features, it’s easier on iPhone. The Face Gallery shows all available faces, along with many examples of how they can be customized. You can use them as a starting point to create your own creations. Once you’ve organized your favorites, you can simply swipe through them on the Watch itself when you want to mix things up. If you long-press a face, you can also edit it directly on your Watch, which is handy when you want to quickly change colors to better match your outfit.
If you’re using an Apple Watch Series 5, 6, or 7, you can also decide if you want to enable the always-on display. You can find this option in the settings app, under “Display & Brightness”. If you’re getting the most out of your battery life, turn the feature off, but most people would probably prefer it on. A new watch can still last all day while using the always-on feature, but as your watch ages a bit and battery performance declines, you might want to learn to live without it.
Fitness tracker
One of the Apple Watch’s biggest selling points is its fitness tracking features. Whether or not you actively exercise regularly, the Watch will track your steps and activity level and use that data to track your daily movement through three laps. you are encouraged to close. The “moving” ring tracks the amount of activity calories you burn in a day, the “exercise” band tracks activity at or above a brisk walk, and the “stand” loop tracks whether you get up and move in a single day. or two minutes or not every hour of the day.
When you set up your Apple Watch, it suggests daily goals for each of these, and the Activity app (or the Fitness app on your iPhone) displays how close you are to it. If you’ve never used an Apple Watch before, just use the defaults – weekly you’ll get a summary of how you’ve done, and it will even suggest increasing your Moves if you easily get over it. The default exercise and standing options are 30 minutes a day and 12 hours a day, but they can also be adjusted.
For extra motivation, the Fitness app lets you connect with other friends who use Apple Watch and see how much progress they’re making against their three hoops. Of course, you can use this information to mock them for their couch potato habit, but you can also challenge them to informal competitions. You earn points based on the percentage you close each of your rings each day, and the person with the most points after a week wins. It’s pretty casual, but it’s also a fun way to stay motivated.
If you want to track a specific workout, like running, walking, or weight training, you do that in the “workout” app. There you’ll find many different types of workouts the Watch can track. However, if you already have a favorite way to track workouts on your phone, chances are you can find it for the Apple Watch too. Nike Run Club, MapMyRun, Peloton, and others all have a Watch app that lets you track your workouts using your wearable’s sensors. Additionally, many apps can now connect to the Health app on your iPhone. It’s a database of all your activity and workout data from the Watch, so you can easily sync your workout data from there to the service of your choice. As with most things with the Apple Watch, it will only take a moment to see what works best for you.
Music
One of my favorite things about the Apple Watch is that it can stream music and podcasts — not just from Apple services, but also from others like Spotify and Pandora. You’ll need a portable Watch to play music without your phone, but the good news is that Apple Music, Spotify, and Pandora all let you save music directly on your Watch. Regardless of whether you like the mobile model or not, there is a way to listen to the tunes and leave your phone alone.
If you’re an Apple Music user, you’ll manage your downloaded music through the Watch app on your iPhone. Open the open button and go to the “Music” section and you will see a big button to add songs to your watch. There’s also a setting that will automatically download albums and playlists you’ve listened to recently – turn that on and you’ll always have some music on your wrist.
It’s easy to select specific albums or playlists you want to save. Just tap the big plus button and you’ll see your Apple Music library. From there, just navigate to what you want, tap another plus button, and it will be downloaded to your Watch. Note that music only transfers while your Watch is charging, so you’ll need to remove it from your wrist to sync.
If you’re using Spotify, just navigate to an album, playlist, or podcast on your phone and tap the three-dot icon – you’ll see an option to “download to Apple Watch” there. Then on your watch, there is a clearly marked “download” section where you can play content without a connection.
Test, test, test!
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Like many Apple products, the Apple Watch has a lot of functionality and complexity hidden beneath its user-friendly surface. But I noticed that the Watch hides a lot of features, so you should check out the built-in Tips app for suggestions on what you can do. Without such a guide, you’d probably never realize that clicking the side button twice summons Apple Pay, or you could display a grid of icons in the list if you wanted to. Chances are you won’t mess up something irreparable, so tap and swipe, scroll, and dig into the settings.
