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Apps Reminders app on the Apple Watch?

G

g2194315

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 21, 2015
2
2
Hi all. I was thinking about how I make extensive use of the Reminders app on iOS. I use it as a list and a to-do app. It's also the app Siri uses if you ask to create a reminder. It's useful for repeating and geolocated reminders, like, "Remind me every Wednesday when I arrive home to take out the trash," or if you ask Siri, "Remind me when I get to work tomorrow to do X", it will be created with the appropriate timeframe and geofence.

I do this all the time and I assumed it would be a natural extension to Apple Watch. However I was looking at the Guided Tours page, and then the Apps page, and then desperately googling for it, but I can't find a mention of the actual Reminders app getting any support for Apple Watch. Does anyone know more about this? Surely there's some way to push the iOS system-default Reminders to Apple Watch?

Thanks.
 
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Within the Apple Watch app, there is a toggle to turn on/off notifications for reminders you set on your phone. Assuming you have it turned on, all your reminders will now tap your wrist via your Apple Watch. No native app required - it will just use your phone's reminders to send to the watch.
 
MacFinnley said:
But does it work to raise my wrist and set a reminder via siri on my apple watch? Because the app is on the iphone.
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Yes. Raise your wrist, say "Hey Siri remind me to get milk when I leave work". Done. It creates a reminder in the reminders app on your phone. When you leave the work geofence, it launches the reminder in phone and to your watch.
 
That's for a single reminder in time. I have been using a list called shopping where I put my grocery items and check them off as I go through the store. I wonder if I will be able to pull up and scroll through this list as I shop.
 
AbeFrohman said:
Yes. Raise your wrist, say "Hey Siri remind me to get milk when I leave work". Done. It creates a reminder in the reminders app on your phone. When you leave the work geofence, it launches the reminder in phone and to your watch.
Click to expand...

Perfect. Thanks.
 
I currently use the iOS reminders app to store grocery and drug store lists and was looking forward to pulling those up on my wrist while shopping. It's also been great because I could just use Siri to add something to one of these lists on my phone.

I guess I'll start using Wunderlist to keep track of my shopping lists since I won't actually be able to pull up the reminders app on the watch.
 
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Yeah, I was wondering about Reminders on the Watch too. Seems like something they could've easily done with the initial batch of built-in apps. Hopefully, they'll add it down the road.
 
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I spent some time trying to figure this out today. As mentioned adding reminders via siri works fine on the watch, but what you're missing is a way to view them as a list. I tried a couple of alternatives and the best I've seen for reviewing a list on the watch is daily bread - smart grocery list. This enables you to scroll up and down your list from reminders with the crown and check items of as you complete them.

For more detailed interaction I'm trying tempo and up next although neither seems to let you view a full list on your watch rather just the next couple of items.

Keen to hear other people's experiences and suggestions
 
ishabazz said:
I wrote an app that will let you view your reminders on the watch. It does a ton more, including analyzing your calendar and reminders with due dates to help you focus on the most important upcoming tasks, but in context of the watch, I think will come in handy. Check it out.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/up-next-what-to-do-when/id808902193?ls=1&mt=8
Click to expand...

Reviews are a bit iffy but for 2 bucks I'll try it.

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NotSafeForWork said:
Reviews are a bit iffy but for 2 bucks I'll try it.
Click to expand...

Doesn't sync with Apple's built-in Reminders app so not a solution. Wasted $2.
 
NotSafeForWork said:
Reviews are a bit iffy but for 2 bucks I'll try it.

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Doesn't sync with Apple's built-in Reminders app so not a solution. Wasted $2.
Click to expand...

Syncing with Reminders is the whole point. The first sync does take a while depending on the size of your Calendar/Reminders database, it definitely syncs.
 
ishabazz said:
Syncing with Reminders is the whole point. The first sync does take a while depending on the size of your Calendar/Reminders database, it definitely syncs.
Click to expand...

Been 20 minutes and nothing. My Reminders are synced with a Microsoft Exchange account and I have 29 items in the iPhone Reminder app and nothing in Up Next.
 
NotSafeForWork said:
Been 20 minutes and nothing. My Reminders are synced with a Microsoft Exchange account and I have 29 items in the iPhone Reminder app and nothing in Up Next.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...That's weird. I test with about 13500 reminders and 1200 calendar events. The longest it's taken me is 4 minutes for the initial sync on an iPhone 4S. Is background refresh disabled on your phone?
 
ishabazz said:
Hmmm...That's weird. I test with about 13500 reminders and 1200 calendar events. The longest it's taken me is 4 minutes for the initial sync on an iPhone 4S. Is background refresh disabled on your phone?
Click to expand...

Nope. Up Next has background refresh enabled. Do you want to take this offline to see if we can work this through? I'd like to have this working and I'm sure you'd like to understand what is happening here.
 
NotSafeForWork said:
Nope. Up Next has background refresh enabled. Do you want to take this offline to see if we can work this through? I'd like to have this working and I'm sure you'd like to understand what is happening here.
Click to expand...

Solved it. I allowed access to Tasks but not to Calendar (just wanted regular tasks, not appointment based reminders) but as I was troubleshooting I allowed Calendar access and the Tasks appeared. Not sure why it works that way but thanks, seems to work now.
 
NotSafeForWork said:
Solved it. I allowed access to Tasks but not to Calendar (just wanted regular tasks, not appointment based reminders) but as I was troubleshooting I allowed Calendar access and the Tasks appeared. Not sure why it works that way but thanks, seems to work now.
Click to expand...

Sorry...stepped away for bit. Glad it's resolved. I put a ton of work into so it was heart breaking to hear it wasn't working.
 
ishabazz said:
Sorry...stepped away for bit. Glad it's resolved. I put a ton of work into so it was heart breaking to hear it wasn't working.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your work on this.

One more question - how do I get the "All" view on the iPhone also visible on the Watch?
 
ishabazz said:
I wrote an app that will let you view your reminders on the watch. It does a ton more, including analyzing your calendar and reminders with due dates to help you focus on the most important upcoming tasks, but in context of the watch, I think will come in handy. Check it out.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/up-next-what-to-do-when/id808902193?ls=1&mt=8
Click to expand...

This is one of the apps I installed yesterday, it looks great and synced flawlessly first time for me. So far I'm liking it but what I'd really like is the ability to scroll through a full list on the watch - at the moment I can only see the first three items. If I could scroll the list with the crown it would be truly useful to me. Do let me know if you're able to implement this in an update.
 
I tried it and it doesn't seem to keep in sync if I add a reminder in IOS native App unless I close/re-open the app with the task switcher. I have to do this every time.
 
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