Apple watch tips
Pro Tip: Keep the Battery Healthy
A little less-known fact is that lithium-ion batteries don’t like being fully charged or fully discharged – especially fully discharged. Keeping your battery charged at 100% for extended periods of time puts more strain upon it and reduces its overall life. So, maybe try keeping your battery between 20-80 or 10-90% charged. Other than that, try to stay away from hot places or leaving your watch at a hot place. Heat is the worst enemy of a lithium-ion battery.
See Charging Percentage
Tap the green charging-icon to make your watch display the charging percentage instead.
Unlock your iPhone while wearing a mask
Apple Watch can now unlock your iPhone while wearing a mask. Face ID and the password on your iPhone can be bypassed as long as your Apple Watch is unlocked on your wrist (but only when wearing a face mask). To turn on this feature:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- From the menu, choose Face ID and Passcode.
- Turn on the Unlock With Apple Watch option.
Use at night
If you’re not wearing your Apple Watch, you can use it as a nightstand clock, making it handy even whilst charging. Of course, the Apple Watch can now track sleep, but if you want to charge it instead of wearing it on your wrist at night, you may utilize Bedside Mode by simply resting it on its side.
Discreetly check the time
If you want to see the time without appearing rude, gently turn the digital crown upward, and the screen will gradually lighten up, allowing you to peek subtly.
Launch apps with the Digital Crown
Apps in the main menu can be opened by clicking the icon. However, some users have discovered that tapping isn’t perfect. You could miss and open another app by mistake. Instead of tapping it once it’s been centred, use the Digital Crown to click and open it. This is a lot easier if you use List View rather than Grid.
Cover the display to mute
If your Watch is set to notify you with chimes, but you’re in the middle of a meeting or conversation, you can enable ‘Cover to Mute’ under the Sound & Haptics settings. Cover your watch for 3 seconds to activate it and mute the unnecessary noises.
Transfer a call to your iPhone
An advantage of the Apple Watch is the ability to take a call from your wrist. Though if you want to continue the discussion on your iPhone, it’s not a problem.
- Answer the call by tapping the green phone button on your watch face.
- On your iPhone, tap the green phone button in the upper-left corner.
- The call will now automatically transfer from your Apple Watch to the iPhone.
Switch the Honeycomb App View to List
When you press the Digital Crown on your Apple Watch, it takes you to the app screen. By default, this screen is arranged in a ‘honeycomb’ pattern which looks good, but is impractical. You end up hunting for apps, and trying to zoom in and out of the screen to see which apps are where. It’s annoying. However, you can easily switch the app screen to a list view. Press firmly on the app screen and you will see the option to switch to a List. This is arranged alphabetically, which means you no longer need to wonder where you might find ‘Spotify’ on your watch. Just scroll to ‘S’.
Browse the Internet on Your Watch
With watchOS 5, Apple brought WebKit support to the Apple Watch. That means if you receive a web-link, you don’t need to grab your iPhone just to open it. You can view it on your watch itself. This is where things get interesting. Even though there is no such thing as Safari on the Apple Watch, you can send yourself an iMessage with a link to Google. Tap on this and Google will open up on your Apple Watch. Guess what? Tap on the search box and you can scribble or dictate searches and tap on the results to view them straight on your watch. There’s even a reader mode built-in! Check out one of our articles open in reader mode on the Apple Watch:
