Notification sounds on Apple Watch

[cinergi]

Hello,

I recently got my first Apple Watch (a Series 5) and I've noticed that the notification sounds are different from their iOS counterparts. I've gotten used to all the different sounds for mail, calendar, and other app notifications (like Gmail) on my iPhone. On the watch, however, there only seem to be a small number of different notification sounds shared across all apps, they're all different from their iOS counterparts, and it doesn't seem possible to customize them. I therefore always have to look at my watch when new notifications arrive because I don't know which app they came from, and whether they can be ignored.

This seems like a glaring human interface mistake by Apple. Why aren't the notification sounds on the Watch the same as they've been on iOS for the past decade? It seems like such a basic feature. Is there a way to achieve this that I'm not seeing?

Thanks
cinergi

 

[StumpyBloke]

Nope you’re not missing anything AFAIK, it’s just a really poor omission on Apple’s part.

 

[Lyn2012]

I quite agree with what you say. I’m a new AW user and it drives me mad hearing a ping that’s the same whether it a text or email. Why haven’t they given us the option to customise as on the phone, or at the very least, mirror the phone notification sounds.

 

[cinergi]

Thanks, good to know I'm not the only one who finds this highly annoying. It really reduces the utility of the watch for me. Apple will hopefully address this in a future update, but I'm not holding my breath since WatchOS is already on version 6 so they've had plenty of opportunity if they wanted to do it...