Apple Watch: tips and tricks to using Apple’s next big thing
FORGET about pinch and zoom. Wearing the Apple Watch means learning a new way to navigate your digital device. Here is our how-to guide.
GETTING around the Apple Watch isn’t harder than using an iPhone or iPad but it is different.
With a screen this small, pinch and zoom just doesn’t work. Apple has ditched that and instead the key to the watch is what they call Digital Crown, or what you might call the circular dial on the side.
Tap it and you toggle between its app screen and watch face. Twirl the crown to zoom in or zoom out, such as when you’re looking at your photos on the Watch, or scrolling down list such as an email.
There is another button below the Digital Crown. Apple officially calls it the side button, although some people have labelled it the “friends button”.
Unlike the Digital Crown that is the one tool to rule them all, this button has one purpose. Hit it and you go to the wheel of your friends. You specify your friends through the Apple Watch app now on everybody’s iPhone thanks to the most recent iOS update.
Scroll around the wheel to select a friend and you will see phone and text icons at the bottom of the screen. If that friend has an Apple Watch, you will also see a hand icon.
The Watch has a speaker and microphone on one side, and you can make a phone call if the Watch is paired to your iPhone.
Will you want talk to your wrist while people nearby can hear your conversation through the Watch’s tiny speaker? Not always but sometimes.
I’ve taken calls on the Watch in the car, walking the dog, and around the house when I’m too lazy to pick up the iPhone.
Surprisingly you can’t receive FaceTime audio calls on your Watch. You can only put an incoming FaceTime call on hold while you grab your iPhone, iPad or Mac to answer it.
MESSAGES
With text messages, you can use Siri to dictate a message. Like many people, I have had mixed experience with Siri. She’s better at understanding me on my iPhone than when I speak to her through CarPlay. And her listening skills seem better on the Watch than on the iPhone.
If you don’t want to dictate a message, you can tap on one of the pre-prepared responses. Or you can send an animated smiley face, heart, or hand gesture, using the Digital Crown to scroll through options.
Or you could be like me and, accidentally, fire off the classic smiley poo emoji as your first communication with the new Apple smartwatch. On reflection, you probably don’t want to do that.
The hand icon indicating you can message another Watch user is something most Apple Watch users will want to use first for novelty, although that novelty might soon wear off.
Using the hand icon, you can send a Watch user a message in three ways: draw a simple illustration on your screen to appear on their device, send them a sequence of taps that they can feel, or send a vibration timed to the beat of your heart.
After initially promoting the Watch as a fashion device, Apple is explaining Watch features in a series of videos. The catch is the full experience of the Watch is not something you can show in a visual form.
The key to the Watch is that it just doesn’t alert you with a visual cue, alarm, or generic buzz. Its Taptic engine takes physical vibrations go to the next level.
APPS
The Maps app is a great example of Taptic notifications. Hit Maps and you can find a destination by dictation, selecting a contact, or clicking on something you recently searched for on your phone.
The Watch then guides you with turn-by-turn navigations. It gives you a physical sensation when it’s time to make a turn, and that sensation is different when you have to turn left or right.
The Watch doesn’t have a GPS chip so you need to have your iPhone with you for Maps to work on your wrist.
There is some storage on the Watch for photos and music. You can keep up to 2GB of music on your Watch and play it through Bluetooth headphones, and you can store up to 500 photos (75MB) on your Watch.
Both music and photo syncing are controlled through the Watch’s iPhone app.
If you receive a text or email while using your iPhone, your Watch will not notify you because it figures you already know.
You can choose to get alerts from messages from everyone or from just selected people.
When a mail message comes in, you get a physical and audio notification. To read the mail, you raise your wrist. To scroll down the message, you use the Digital Crown. At the bottom of the mail, you can flag it, mark it as unread, trash it, or just dismiss the notification.
If you browse your mailbox through the Watch app, a swipe to the left lets you delete a mail message.
The Watch does not have a camera built in but you can use it for photography.
Hit Camera app on the Watch to open the camera app on your phone. You then use your Watch as a remote control to take a picture with your phone.
If you’re into selfies, you can prop your phone up somewhere handy and, using the Watch as a viewfinder, frame a photo and select a focal point.
One advantage of this feature is that it uses the iPhone’s rear camera, rather than the lower resolution front camera.
You have the option of taking a photograph instantly or a burst of 10 images with a three-second countdown.
The Apple Watch also acts as a remote control for an Apple TV and for playing music on an iPhone or iPad.
WATCH FACES
To personalise your watch face, you press down hard on a watch face to scroll through options. You can customise each face with your choice of “complications” in various parts of the display.
Some watch faces are basic, such as X-Large that just shows the time in large numbers.
Others let you add information such as your calendar, battery level, temperature, moon phase, and activity tracker.
Apple’s take on the activity tracker is different to others.
Rather than just focus on step count and calorie burn, the Watch breaks down your day into three circles: move, exercise, and stand.
When you start with your watch, you will be offered an average calorie burn for movement which you can accept or alter. If you move around enough, you can complete the move circle.
Each Monday, you can receive a prompt analysing your week so you can consider updating your move calorie target.
In order to complete the exercise circle, you need to do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day at more than a brisk walk.
For those who rely on the “incidental exercise” of walking around the office, the exercise circle might come as a shock.
The stand circle is simple. If you want to complete that circle, you have to spend at least one minute standing for 12 hours of every day.
You can assess your activity progress by glancing at the three circle display but swiping through into the Watch app gives, or the matching iPhone app, gives you a more detailed updated including step count, active calorie burn and total distance.
When you want to exercise with the Apple Watch, you hit the Workout app.
You can choose from options such as an indoor or outdoor run, cycle, or walk, rowing or stair stepper, or select an “other mode” in which you earn the calorie equivalent of a brisk walk.
To charge the Watch, which you will need to do each night, you attach a magnetic charger to the back. The good news is that there is no fiddly clip to line up. The bad news is this is one more cable you’ll need to take with you when you travel.
The Apple Watch will be on display in Apple Stores from Friday 10 April, with preorders started at 5.01pm Friday. The Watch goes on sale on April 24.
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