Apple Watch Tips To Get More Out Of Your Device
Undeniably, the Apple Watch is one of the hottest wearables on the market today – and for a good reason! It’s a pretty high ticket item with a huge variety of awesome features for owners to utilize.The Apple Watch is a smart yet handy device that can do a whole lot more than you’d think. We compiled a list of useful Apple Watch tips and tricks so you can personalise and improve your user experience.
1. Use Your Palm to turn Off the Display
Even though the Apple Watch display turns off automatically after a few seconds of inactivity or lowering your wrist, you might want to turn it off immediately to save battery. But did you know that you can use your palm to turn off the display of your Apple Watch?
Here is our first Apple Watch tip: Just place the palm of your hand over the watch and it turns off the display and also, mutes incoming calls. Smart, isn’t it?
2. Use the Digital Crown to Navigate
The ‘digital crown’ on your watch acts similar to the home button on your iPhone performing many of the same functions such as activating Siri and accessing the home screen of your watch directly. Return to the home screen by tapping the digital crown twice.
Double-tapping again brings you back to the previous app.
3. Use the “Music/Now Playing Glance” to take Photos
Use the “Music/Now Playing Glance”
The camera app in the Apple Watch allows you to remote-control and preview your iPhone camera. But how would you take a picture in third party apps like SnapChat or WhatsApp?Here is how: while the third party app is active on your iPhone, swipe up on your Apple Watch to accesses your glances screen then select the ‘Now Playing’ (Music) glance. Turn the Digital Crown on your watch as if changing the volume. This activates the camera shutter and you take a picture straight from your wrist.
Another Apple Watch tip: You can tap on the live preview of your iPhone camera’s view on your watch to define what in the frame it should focus on, just like you can on the iPhone.
4. Find your iPhone and Make it Flash
Ping and Find your iPhone
You can use your Apple Watch to locate your misplaced iPhone. To use this feature, activate the settings screen on your Apple Watch and tap the iPhone icon that’s located around the bottom of the display. This sends a wireless signal to your phone causing it to ‘Ping’ loudly. Tap and hold the same button activates the phone’s flashing LED giving you visual help to locate it – an Apple Watch tip especially helpful in a dark environment.
5. Clearing Notifications
Clearing Notifications
When Your watch gets flooded with notifications, here are three Apple watch tips to get rid of them: A. Swipe each notification to the left and click ‘clear’ to remove one notification at a timeB. Clearing out all of your notifications at once by pressing the Digital Crown, removing all of them from your iPhone and Apple Watch simultaneouslyC. Tapping the Digital Crown to clear the watch screen without removing them from your iPhone
6. Apple Watch Tip: Use Shazam Automatically and Never Miss a Song
Use Shazam Automatically
Like Android, Apple also uses third party apps to create a plethora of cool features for your new device, and some of those features were delivered to your new watch by the Shazam application.Sometimes, when you hear a great song, you just don’t want to go through the effort of unlocking your phone and opening up Shazam to find out.You can set up Shazam to constantly listen to your environment. In this mode, it will keep track of all the songs that were playing in your environment throughout the day.
To activate this feature open Shazam on your Watch and press the force touch button to bring up a menu option. Then select the option “Auto-Start Shazam” which allows the application to listen to your environment, detect songs automatically and curate them into a Shazam playlist that can then be exported to Spotify for easy listening.This might use a lot of your battery power but you’ll never miss a song again.
7. Unlock your iPhone with Your Apple Watch
Unlock your iPhone
Whenever you remove your Apple watch, you’ll be prompted to enter a passcode that allows you to gain access to your watch. It doesn’t take very long to enter the passcode, but sometimes you don’t want to mess with the whole process, and you’d rather just avoid pressing the tiny little buttons.
When setting up your Apple Watch, it will ask you if you’d rather unlock your it using your iPhone. We recommend you select ‘yes’. Now you can unlock your iPhone and your Watch at the same time. If you set up your Apple Watch without reading these tips first, there’s still a way to select this feature.
With your Apple Watch connected, open the Apple Watch companion application on your iPhone and go to the Passcode menu. Here you can enable the “unlocking with your iPhone option” without having to reset your watch.
8. Tell Siri You’re done Talking to Her
Tell Siri You’re done Talking to Her
Siri can be of great help by setting alarms, sending voice messages or converting your speech into text messages.
Apple Watch tip: If you’re not sure what she can do for you, raise your wrist and say, “Hey Siri, what kinds of things can I ask you?” and you’ll get some guidance.
The part she has great difficulties with is to detect the end of your diction, especially when the environment is noisy. Tapping the screen of your watch will make her stop listening and help you to get more precise results from her.
9. Open Apps with Your Digital Crown
Open Apps with Your Digital Crown
There are a variety of ways to navigate your Apple Watch. Most applications on the Watch can be opened with a single tap, but sometimes tapping is too inaccurate and the Watch will open the app next to the one intended.
Instead of trying to tap the right app, you can also use the Digital Crown to zoom in and open apps.
10. Organize Your Apple Watch Home Screen
Apple Watch Tip: Organize Your Home Screen
The small screen on your Apple Watch can easily get cluttered with a larger number of installed apps.
The easiest way to rearrange your home screen is by tapping and holding icons until they begin to wiggle, just like they do on your phone. Then drag the icons to their new positions.
Another way of doing this is by using the companion application on your phone. Access the ‘App Layout’ menu and easily rearrange the apps by tapping, holding and dragging them to your desired location.
Looking for a way to de-clutter your bedside table? This phone and watch stand is a must have for you.
11. Set Up Your Apple Watch on Your Right Hand (For Left-Handed People)
Apple Watch Tip For Left-Handed People
Here is an Apple Watch tip for left handed people and those who prefer to wear the Watch on the right wrist:
Open the companion app and navigate to ‘General / Watch Orientation’. Now select the wrist on which you prefer to wear the Watch and place the digital crown accordingly. This way your Watch will know when to wake up the display and how to orient the screen.
Hidden Features, Apple Watch Tips And Tricks
12. ‘Prominent Haptic’ Notifications
‘Prominent Haptic’ Notifications
The taptic engine opens a whole new dimension of privacy regarding notifications. While the ‘vibration mode’ of my iPhone sometimes turns out everything else but silent when it’s placed on a glass table, the taptic engine of your Watch will gently ‘tap’ your wrist upon incoming calls or messages.
If this tap turns out to be too gentle however, you can navigate to the “Sound & Haptics” settings in the companion app on your phone and toggle on the “Prominent haptic” feature to receive two vibrations on your wrist when you get a notification instead of just one.
13. Answer Calls, Straight from Your Watch
Answer Calls, Straight from Your Watch
While everyone knows that you can use the Apple watch to answer incoming calls, few know that they have more options than just accepting or declining them. These hidden features are available through the digital crown, scrolling the dial up or down.
The first option is ‘send a quick reply’, which disconnects the call and send a message (especially useful in a business meeting or while you’re at work).
The second option available is to answer an incoming call on your iPhone rather than on your Watch – honestly, the sound quality is not that great. This option places the caller on hold until you have your iPhone ready to talk.
When replying to messages, you can pick from a list of canned replies set by Apple, but you can also write your own Default Replies in the Messages section of the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
14. Share Your Location
Apple Watch Tip: Share Your Location
If you’re traveling to meet your friends, you never have to text them your location if you’re wearing your Apple Watch. All you have to do is open up your messages, click through a thread and instead of replying, force touch the screen and send your location via GPS. This sends your iPhone’s current location to your friend in the selected message thread.
15. Take a Screenshot
Apple Watch Trick: Take a Screenshot
To capture your Watch’s screen, hold both buttons on the side at the same time. The screen will flash and you’ll feel a haptic feedback. The image will be stored to the Camera Roll of your phone, from where you can use it just like any other photo.
If the screenshot function is not working, check your settings in the Apple Watch App on your iPhone. In “General Settings”, Enable Screenshots.
16. Make a Backup of up Your Apple Watch
Apple Watch Tip: Make a Backup
We’re all familiar with how to backup our iPhones to iTunes or, more commonly these days, to iCloud — but what about the watch? If you lose your watch, have you lost all your settings? No; turns out, your Apple Watch is constantly backing up to your iPhone, so if you do lose it, then you should be prompted to restore from that backup during the pairing process for a new watch. (These backups on your phone are themselves backed up to iCloud or iTunes whenever you backup your iPhone.)
17. Switch Off
Apple Watch Tip: Switch Off
It sounds basic, but it might not be obvious how to turn the watch off. To do so, press and hold the side button (the one under the Digital Crown). You will see sliders on the screen with the options to “Power Off” and “Emergency SOS”. Slide the “Power Off” button over to the right to shut down the watch. Use the “Emergency SOS” slider to issue a emergency call to contacts defined in the Health app on your iPhone.
18. Bonus Apple Watch Tip: Use Your Apple Watch As An Alarm Clock
Use Your Apple Watch As An Alarm Clock
Here’s a bonus tip and a must-have to fully maximize your Apple Watch – the LXORY Apple Watch Charger!
This smart watch charger comes with a unique foldable design that activates Apple Watch’s Nightstand Mode, a function that turns your Apple Watch into an alarm clock when positioned on the side.
It comes with two color variants that meets your style.
With all these Apple Watch tips, tricks and hidden features to explore, we’re sure you’ll enjoy your Apple Watch even more. Got more tips in mind? Leave them in the comments section below!
Apple Watch Infographic
Here is a fun infographic showing 20 things you can do with your Apple Watch by TheWatchStrap.co:
Courtesy of: The Watch Strap Co