Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How to Choose and Customize Your Watch Face on Apple Watch

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
68,065
38,788



With all of the amazing features Apple Watch has to offer, it's almost easy to forget that it's also a watch. Apple has made it possible for you to change watch faces like you change your socks. Not only that, but you can customize each face with a variety of features, called "complications," for a fully personalized experience. We've got a tutorial for you today that explains how to change from one watch face to another, the complications available for each face, and how to customize each face with your favorite ones.

Changing the Watch Face

Browse-Apple-Watch-Face-250x313.jpg
Currently, there are 10 different watch faces available on Apple Watch, but Apple has hinted that additional watch faces will be released in the future. For now, switching between the 10 watch faces is simple.

Press firmly on the screen that displays the time (what Apple calls a Force Touch).
Swipe left or right to browse watch face options.
Tap "Customize to see available complications and other options for each face.
Tap the face you want to use.

Watch Faces and Customizable Complications

Astronomy-100x100.jpeg
Astronomy
The astronomy face displays the solar system, day, date, and current time. There are no complications to customize, but you can move the planets forward and backward in time by turning the Digital Crown. You can also tap the moon icon to see its current phase and tap the solar system icon to see the position of the planets.


chronograph-100x100.jpeg
Chronograph
The chronograph face is perfect for precision timing down to the millisecond. You can change the face color and dial details. You can also add the following complications: date, calendar, moon phase, sunrise and sunset, weather, stocks, activity summary, alarm, timer, battery life, and world clock.


color-100x100.jpeg
Color
Colors is a basic analog watch face with multiple bright color options for the face. You can add the following complications: date, moon phase, sunrise and sunset, weather, activity summary, alarm, timer, stopwatch, battery life, world clock, and your personal monogram (your initials, taken from your contacts list, displayed above the center).



Click here to read more...

Article Link: How to Choose and Customize Your Watch Face on Apple Watch
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/choose-apple-watch-faces/
Great post. Most of the stock watch faces look really nice. I wonder though why there isn't a square clock face.
 
Last edited:
Hey, whatever happened to the Time Lapse face they showed off in the beginning?

Screen%20Shot%202015-05-01%20at%2018.50.00.png
 
Astronomy

On the Astronomy face, you can spin the earth and the moon with your finger on the screen as well as go back and forth in time with the crown (and see for example in how many day each moon phase is). On the planet view, you can also go back/forth in time.
 
Menopause said:
Hey, whatever happened to the Time Lapse face they showed off in the beginning?

Image
Click to expand...

It shows the edges of the display... that goes against the HIG for the Apple Watch. The outer portion of your design is supposed to be black so it's difficult to tell where the display ends and the bezel begins.

I'd imagine it got nixed for that reason.

----------
MacRumors said:
Setting Your Watch Ahead

If you are the type of person that sets their watch five minutes ahead in order to make it on time, you won't be restricted to real-time with Apple Watch. You can set it ahead, just like a traditional watch.

Open the Settings app on the Apple Watch.
Tap "Time," and then tap +0 min.
Turn the Digital Crown to set the watch ahead as much as 59 minutes. This only changes the time on the watch face. It does not affect notifications and alarms.
Click to expand...

Very neat - I used to do this when I was in school. It helped me arrive to class on time when my watch told me I was running late. I was never consistent with how far ahead I set it (ranged from 10 minutes ahead to 3 minutes ahead), and I could never remember how off it was, so I ended up treating it like it was right. I tended to walk into class slightly late according to my watch, or exactly on time (or even a bit early) according to the actual time.
 
Unfortunately the all white chronograph doesn't go all white. It is a circular white dial with a black box around it highlighting the fact that the watch is square. Would like to have seen it all white as well as some blue and grey chrono faces. I think the only one is black and white.

Also with the store units I played with I turned off all the corners so the watch was just a watch face. Notifications can still come in and glances would be available but I would want to see the watch only without all the activity/weather/etc mucking it up. Chrono does that but leaves a chrono button in the top right which again made it less clean.

Haven't yet seen if Apple or Devs will be adding more faces. Having owned a Pebble I really liked the shifting words:

two
twenty-five

Where the words slide to the left off screen and new words slide in from the right when the time changes. Don't care for the big number of XL.
 
Remember the old Scott Forstall days, when he oversaw that neat trick on the iPhone where the slider button actually looked like reflective metal? When you tilted the phone, the shading on the slider button changed slightly.

That would be a neat effect on the Watch. If there was a face that looked like gold or silver raised Roman numerals, the movement of your wrist could make the numerals appear to reflect the ambient light. Now THAT would be classy!
 
Please Apple I adore the Solar watch face, but please add the option to add simple complications like fitness rings and battery percentage to it. It's the only reason why that's not my current watch face.
 
Wow Lory Gil, thank you again SO MUCH for posting this info which is readily available on Apple's website and about a hundred other blogs! This is SO HELPFUL!!!!
 
DavidTheExpert said:
Wow Lory Gil, thank you again SO MUCH for posting this info which is readily available on Apple's website and about a hundred other blogs! This is SO HELPFUL!!!!
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for the step by step guide on other basic functions of the watch. Like, how to tell the time from a clock face. What's the long line? What's the short line? Answers within.
 
I find it exceptionally annoying that you can't add any complications to any face.
I love the solar system face and jellyfish one but I also want to see the activity, battery and calander complications.

Why does apple force you to choose a dull boring face to have complications. So ridiculous. There is just no reason. Hopefully this will be fixed ASAP, but somehow I doubt it.
 
Does anyone know how to switch the order of the faces? I've had my watch for a week now and can't figure out how or if it's even possible.

I also think the current selection is a bit limiting: utility, simple and Color all look very similar, and there are no options to add a seconds counter to the digital faces. The motion face is cool, but flowers are all rose and yellow coloured - why not red/blue/purple? (Maybe that's to match the Edition versions). There are also no square faces (odd, considering the watch is square shaped) and no Roman Numerals options. I know Jony Ive is all for the modern, but, given the lengths they've gone to reference traditional timekeeping, it again seems an odd omission.

I did send Tim Cook an email yesterday - very positive but allaying my current concerns over the limited range of faces, so hopefully someone will look at it (Tim apparently reads all his emails), and I'm pretty sure it'll get addressed. It just seems odd considering they could churn out a lot more watch faces in a week of development, yet there have been no new faces since the original announcement in September (apart from the removal of the two edge-based ones). Let's face it, 10 is pretty limiting, especially when half of them are nearly the same.

Anyhoo, hopefully they will address these things soon, and also add a third party option in future (even if carefully vetted).
 
DavidTheExpert said:
Wow Lory Gil, thank you again SO MUCH for posting this info which is readily available on Apple's website and about a hundred other blogs! This is SO HELPFUL!!!!
Click to expand...

You assume people read other sites. I get all my Mac news here, so it's nice to see a video outlining features you may have read elsewhere.

----------
roland.g said:
Haven't yet seen if Apple or Devs will be adding more faces. Having owned a Pebble I really liked the shifting words:

two
twenty-five
Click to expand...

My favourite smartwatch face that! Really hope someone ports it to the Apple Watch. There's a "loose time" one too, looks similar but rounds up time in multiples of 5 and converts to text, "Quarter past five" etc.
 
Notifications

I have everything mentioned in these posts pretty much down pat. One unusual thing is that after starting off with the Mickey Mouse Face, I switched to the basic hands on a screen with no numbers face. At that point I lost all notifications, no text messages, no emails etc. As soon as I switched back to Mickey, it all came back. Obviously I did something wrong. Any thoughts?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back