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How many Apple products is the Apple watch can be very easy to use – but behind that simplicity lies a surprising level of depth and customization. If you’ve just received an Apple Watch, there is a lot to do to make sure you get the most out of your new wearable. Let us guide you through this process, from initial setup to optimizing all options.
configuration
First of all, of course, you should pair your Apple Watch with your iPhone. Even if you are a cellular-compatible Apple Watch, An iPhone is required to set up and manage the device. Fortunately, this process is extremely straightforward – after turning on your Apple Watch, just place it near an unlocked iPhone and you’ll be prompted to set the device up. During this process, your iPhone will walk you through the initial pairing, as well as signing in with your Apple ID, assigning a passcode to your watch, setting up things like Siri and Apple Pay, and deciding whether to transfer your compatible apps to The Watch. I recommend not automatically streaming all of your apps the first time, as the watch is much more useful if you just curate it with what you need.
Some features that you should definitely set up are fall detection and emergency SOS. The latter allows you to quickly place a call to local emergency services with a press and hold of the side button, while fall detection uses the watch’s accelerometers and other sensors to detect if you’ve suffered a major burial. It automatically initiates an SOS emergency call if it detects a fall and you are not moving. Before you make that call, the watch tries to get your attention with a notification, vibration, and audible alarm.
The fun part: tweaking apps and notifications
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Once you’ve got the basics in place, it’s time to make the Apple Watch your own. By default, the Apple Watch mirrors all notifications that go to your phone. But I’ve found that the watch is far more useful with a little curation. In the iPhone Watch app, you can customize or turn off notifications for all Apple first-party apps. For example, in the Activity app’s notification panel, you can choose whether or not to show hourly reminders or notifications when your friends share activity milestones with you.
Third-party apps don’t have the same granularity, but you can turn them off so they don’t ping your watch. For things that aren’t particularly time sensitive (like updates from Google Photos or if you don’t want the Apple News app to overload your wrist), feel free to turn them off. They still hit your iPhone and you can always reactivate them later.
The iPhone Watch app also lets you choose which specific apps from your iPhone to install on the Apple Watch. I think this is more useful than just letting the watch install every single compatible app because that could mean searching through a few dozen apps on your watch to see if they are useful or not. Instead, I’d rather go through the list and decide if there is any benefit to having these apps on my wrist. With apps like Google Maps or Ecobee to control my thermostat, it’s a resounding yes. But things like Etsy or Bank of America don’t make much sense on a watch. And if you change your mind, you can remove an app from the watch app or long press and delete it in grid view. Remember, this will remove the app from your watch, but not your iPhone.
Still, I was surprised at what some developers had in mind for the Apple Watch. Take the Bear note-taking app, for example. I use it a lot to make shopping lists, and checklists look great on the Apple Watch. So, if there is an app on your phone that you think is essential, give it a try on the watch.
Dials
Another, occasionally overlooked part of the Apple Watch experience is watch faces. Since this is literally what you will see every time you raise your wrist, I think it is worth finding the ones that suit your personal style. While there aren’t any third-party faces, the Apple Watch has 30+ built-in options that are endlessly customizable. We’re talking about a wide variety of colors, different fonts and dial styles, complications (small pieces of information such as weather, date or music controls) and much more. You can easily have a simple digital time display, or an info-dense face with eight different complications, or anything in between.
You can set up new faces right on the watch – but like most advanced features, it’s easier to do on the iPhone. The face gallery shows every available face along with several examples of how they can be customized. You can use this as a starting point for your own creations. Once you’ve gathered your favorites, you can simply cross them out on the watch itself if you want to mess something up. A long press on a face also allows you to edit it right on your watch, which is handy when you want to quickly change the color to better match your outfit.
If you’re using an Apple Watch Series 5, 6, or 7, you can also decide whether to turn on the always-on display. You can find this option in the Settings app under “Display & Brightness”. If you want to get the maximum battery life, turn this off, but most people will likely prefer it. New watches can still be used for a full day with the always-on feature, but once your watch starts to age a bit and the battery power is running out, you may want to learn to live without it.
Fitness tracking
One of the Apple Watch’s biggest selling points is its fitness tracking capabilities. Whether or not you exercise actively or regularly, the watch tracks your steps and activity level and uses this data to track your daily movements across three rings that you should close. The “moving” ring shows how many active calories you burn in a day, the “exercise” ring records activity during or over a brisk walk, and the “standing” ring shows whether you stand up and yourself Move for a minute or two every hour of the day.
When you set up your Apple Watch, it suggests daily goals for each of these goals, and the Activity app (or the fitness app on your iPhone) shows how close you are to achieving them. If you’ve never used an Apple Watch before, you can just use the default settings – a summary of how you did it every week and it even suggests increasing your Move number if you easily surpass it. The training and standing options are set to 30 minutes per day and 12 hours per day by default, but these can also be adjusted.
For extra motivation, you can use the fitness app to connect with other friends who use an Apple Watch and see how much progress they are making against their three rings. Of course, you can use this information to ridicule them of their couch potato habits, but you can also challenge them in informal competitions. You earn points based on the percentage you close each of your rings each day and the person with the most points wins after a week. It’s pretty casual, but it’s also fun to stay motivated.
If you want to record a specific exercise such as running, walking or strength training, do so in the “Workout” app. There you will find the many different types of workouts the watch can track. However, if you already have a preferred method of recording exercises on your phone, you can probably find it for the Apple Watch too. Nike Run Club, MapMyRun, Peloton, and others all have watch apps that allow you to track your workouts using the wearable’s sensors. In addition, many apps can now connect to the Health app on your iPhone. It is a database of all of your activity and training data from your watch, so you may be able to easily synchronize training data from there with the service of your choice. As with most things about the Apple Watch, it just takes a little playing around to see what works best for you.
music
One of my favorite things about the Apple Watch is that it can stream music and podcasts – not just from Apple’s services, but from others like Spotify and Pandora as well. You need a cellular-enabled watch to stream music without your phone, but the good news is that Apple Music, Spotify, and Pandora can also store music right on the watch. Whether or not you choose the cellular model, there is a way to listen to music and leave your phone behind.
If you are an Apple Music user, manage downloaded music through the Watch app on your iPhone. Open this and go to the Music section. You will see a big button that you can use to add songs to your watch. There’s also a setting that automatically downloads albums and playlists you’ve recently heard – turn that on and you’ll always have some music on your wrist.
You can also easily choose specific albums or playlists to save. Just press the big plus button and you’ll see your Apple Music library. From there, navigate to what you want, hit another plus button and it will download to your watch. Note that music will only be transferred when your watch is charging. So you have to take it off your wrist to sync.
If you’re using Spotify, just navigate to an album, playlist, or podcast on your phone and tap the three-dot icon – you’ll see an option to “Download to Apple Watch” there. Then there will be a clearly marked “Downloads” section on your watch that allows you to play content without a connection.
Experiment, experiment, experiment!
Cherylnn Low / Engadget
Like many Apple products, the Apple Watch has a lot of functionality and hidden complexity beneath its user-friendly interface. But I’ve found that the watch hides a lot of features, so it’s worth checking out the built-in Tips app for suggestions on what to do. Without such guidance, you’ll likely never realize that double-clicking the side button will bring up Apple Pay, or that you can see the grid of icons in a list if you prefer. Chances are you won’t be irrevocably messing something up, so tap and swipe and scroll and browse the settings.
