Apple Watch: 15 Tips Every Owner Needs to Know

[svish]

Excellent article. Some very useful tips to keep in mind especially the countdown skipping for workouts.

 

[spartan1967]

I sold my Watch 5. Stopped wearing it, especially with working from home. After 10 years, the Watch still requires daily charging. After all these years, why hasn't Apple improved battery life? The $800 Ultra is not the answer. Most developers abandoned the watch. Doing anything on the watch felt tedious, and much easier to do on the phone with the larger display. So it became a redundant extension of the phone. Even now, Apple only advertises it as a fitness device, and the fitness apps are very well done, but still not worth it. The progression of the watch is pretty much stagnant. Not much improvement or change between the Watch 6 to the 11. So, I'll never buy another one.

Totally agree with developers and their dismissal of the Apple watch. I have a Vasa gym membership & they wont even put a simple barcode app to scan in so I have to lug my phone in with me to do so. MyQ garage door opener is on the watch, but no bloddy ability to put a complication on the watch face.

 

[switz]

We need to remember one basic fact. The engine in the Apple Watch (processor chip) has been the same basic chip for several "new" Watch models. How long has Chevy has the 350 cu in engine.....

So like the Chevy 350, stuff has been added (EPA related) that has absorbed some of the power along with the air conditioning compressor etc etc. It is still the same 350 block but "stuff" has been added on it so its is much larger in size from the stuff. There is just so much power one can get (longevity in mind) from that size block and still have street drivability.

So the non-Ultra watch cases have had basically the same size volume for years and one might think there is a thermal capacity the watch can disipate and not burn the user's wrist.

So Apple has not enticed many folks to develop apps for the watch leaving the users with not too many choices for dedicated watch apps. My Ultra app on the iPhone shows lots of the iPhone apps that can have their presence appear on the watch. Not sure when one of those apps are "added" to the watch if the action is being done on the watch or the iPhone. But there are developers making apps that are capable of "operating" on both platforms.

If I ask "Siri" on the watch to text my wife on my way home while driving, I really do not know if the text goes out over the Watch cell connection or the iPhone cell connection if both are in the car, but the watch still sends the message if the iPhone is not at hand in the car.

Lots of folks on this forum are too young to remember (or were not here yet) the Dick Tracey detective cartoons back in the 1950s. He had a telephone communication device on his wrist. To put that in perspective, we still were using rotary dial Ma Bell telephones. Touch tone was yet to come.

The Western Electric plant that mode those rotary dial telephones was in Indianapolis and I toured it in 1967 on a college course and there were thousands of women in the space making these phones. There was over a dozen young men including me that had lots of cat calls from the ladies. Interesting experience. That huge building does not exist anymore.

I grew up in the country on the Northside of Indianapolis and I remember that our telephone number was 163 (yes three numbers) on the Carmel (Indiana) exchange. A long distance call to Tucson took several hours as the patch panels had to be connected from every small switch board going from Indianiolis to Tucson.

Today we complain if the connection is not nearly instantaneous........

 

[CATiNTHESTORE]

If you didn’t now those “tips” how the Willy you are using your watch ))))

 

[I7guy]

We need to remember one basic fact. The engine in the Apple Watch (processor chip) has been the same basic chip for several "new" Watch models. How long has Chevy has the 350 cu in engine.....

So like the Chevy 350, stuff has been added (EPA related) that has absorbed some of the power along with the air conditioning compressor etc etc. It is still the same 350 block but "stuff" has been added on it so its is much larger in size from the stuff. There is just so much power one can get (longevity in mind) from that size block and still have street drivability.

So the non-Ultra watch cases have had basically the same size volume for years and one might think there is a thermal capacity the watch can disipate and not burn the user's wrist.

So Apple has not enticed many folks to develop apps for the watch leaving the users with not too many choices for dedicated watch apps.

There are enough choices. Maybe the small indie developers haven’t been putting effort toward this, but many major players have. Some good ones at that.

My Ultra app on the iPhone shows lots of the iPhone apps that can have their presence appear on the watch. Not sure when one of those apps are "added" to the watch if the action is being done on the watch or the iPhone. But there are developers making apps that are capable of "operating" on both platforms.

I believe the apps are in the watch. For example the Tesla watch app is capable of independent usage on a AW cellular model.

If I ask "Siri" on the watch to text my wife on my way home while driving, I really do not know if the text goes out over the Watch cell connection or the iPhone cell connection if both are in the car, but the watch still sends the message if the iPhone is not at hand in the car.

Lots of folks on this forum are too young to remember (or were not here yet) the Dick Tracey detective cartoons back in the 1950s. He had a telephone communication device on his wrist. To put that in perspective, we still were using rotary dial Ma Bell telephones. Touch tone was yet to come.

The Western Electric plant that mode those rotary dial telephones was in Indianapolis and I toured it in 1967 on a college course and there were thousands of women in the space making these phones. There was over a dozen young men including me that had lots of cat calls from the ladies. Interesting experience. That huge building does not exist anymore.

I grew up in the country on the Northside of Indianapolis and I remember that our telephone number was 163 (yes three numbers) on the Carmel (Indiana) exchange. A long distance call to Tucson took several hours as the patch panels had to be connected from every small switch board going from Indianiolis to Tucson.

Today we complain if the connection is not nearly instantaneous........

The Apple Watch is awesome and from what I’ve read is capable of being independent of the iPhone with a cellular connection.

 

[maknik]

I just wish notifications worked all the time. I would say for incoming text messages my watch only alerts me with sound and vibration alert about 1/3 of the time. VERY FRUSTRATING as I don't find out about text messages until much later when I happen to look at my watch or phone. Believe me I have gone through the settings many times. I'm probably better off doing away with the watch totally and just use my phone for alerts.

I like having a smart watch for a few things but it seems worthless for notifications.

Good info in articles like this, I'm sure it will help some people be aware of things they didn't know about.

I just don't understand how this isn't more documented and discussed. I switched to the Apple Watch from various other smart watches specifically so the notifications would always work, and they don't.

In particular, text messages often appear unsignaled in any way. I have spent at least 3-4 hours on the phone with Apple support over the years to fix this, usually prompted by missing key text messages, whose very purpose is often immediate, high-urgency information. It's sporadic and therefore hard to replicate, so we walk through all the tests, it works when we test it, and they dismiss me, only to have it happen again hours or days later. This is perhaps the most important function of a smart watch apart from keeping time, and yet it doesn't work 100%, and hasn't for years.

 

[pdaholic]

You guys are acting like you actually understand what Apple does with apps in the background, bahahaha!

 

[eifelbube]

It looks like this feature is only available on the Ultra models.
…
JC Apple! You think we are going to upgrade to the Ultra just to get this feature??

Typical ecosystempoly maneuvers.

 

[whatgift]

One thing to note about the Recent Apps action - if you double click the crown button and do nothing, it opens the last used app - no touching or other interaction required. I use this all the time!