The Unofficial Guide to Using Apple Watch (6 page)

While you may not go out and buy and Apple Watch to get your Dick Tracy on and make phone calls from your wrist, it’s certainly a nice touch…and it’s pretty simple to do.

Once your watch is in sync with your iPhone, you are ready to start making and receiving calls.

If a call comes in, you can mute it by placing your hand over the watch. If you want to send it to your phone or reply with a text, then move your finger over the digital crown and scroll to the bottom.

To answer the call, use the green button; to decline the call, press the red one. It’s just like getting a call on your iPhone. Your watch will use a built in microphone when you speak into it. It’s not the best quality, but it gets the job done.

To make a call, you have three options:

1. Go to your home screen and tap the phone icon.
   
2. Press the side button, which brings up the people you contact the most. When you move your finger across the digital crown knob, it changes the contact. Once the friend comes up, tap the phone icon. It’s pretty simple.
   
3. The last option is the easiest; that option is to use Siri. Just lift your wrist and say, “Hey, Siri—call PERSON’S NAME.” If the wrong person is dialed, just hit the Hang Up button and if you do it quickly enough, the call won’t go through.
   

The Calendar app calendar icon on Apple Watch shows events you’ve scheduled or been invited to today and for the next week. Apple Watch shows events for all calendars you use on your iPhone.

To view your calendar, open the Calendar app on your home screen; you can, also swipe up from your watch face to bring up Glances, and swipe until you get to the Calendar glance. You can also tap on the day’s date on the watch face if you’ve added that option.

You can also see what’s going on in your day by lifting your wrist and saying, “Siri tell me what’s going on today.

To switch between the daily events and single list of events, press firmly on the display while you are in the Calendar app, then tap List or Day.

To view a different day, just go to Day view while in the Calendar app, and then swipe left to see the next day’s events.

If you want to see the full month, then tap on the < in the upper left corner of the Calendar app, and then tap the monthly calendar; repeat the step to go back to Day view. When you are in Month view, any days that you have an activity will be highlighted in red.

To add an event, you will need to open the Calendar app on your iPhone. If you are in the Calendar app on your watch, then a Calendar icon will appear on your iPhone’s lock screen—just swipe up and it will go immediately to your Calendar.

You can have Siri add an event for you.

When you get an invite to an event, it will appear as a notification; just swipe it or turn the Digital Crown knob when you see it, and then tap Accept, Maybe, or Decline.

The invite will also have the event organizer; to email the event organize, press firmly on the display while you are looking at the event details; you will be able to either send them a voice message or call them.

To adjust any of your Calendar’s settings, go to the Apple Watch app on the iPhone, then tap My Watch, and finally tap Calendar
.

If you use reminders on the iPhone, then you might be disappointed to see there is no Reminders app on the Apple Watch.

Reminders, however, is sort of there; while no app exists, if you create a reminder on your iPhone through the Reminders App, it will also remind you on your watch.

You can also create a reminder on your watch by using Siri; just lift your wrist and say “Hey Siri, set a reminder.”

There are a couple of ways to use the map on your Apple Watch; the first and quickest is to swipe up from your watch face to bring up Glances and then swipe to the Map Glance. From here you’ll see your current location and what’s around you; you can use the Digital Touch knob to zoom in or out. To scroll/pan through the map, use your finger. If you tap the arrow in the bottom left corner, the current location will be updated.

To search the map, tap and hold your finger over the map; this will let you speak what you want to find or see your most recent locations.

You can tap any location that appears on your map to get directions to it or more information about it. You can also stick a pin in an area that you want to go. To add a pin, just touch and hold Map (not firmly) and wait for the pin to drop. If you tap the pin after it’s been dropped, it will give you the address. To move the pin, just hover over a new location and drop a new pin. If you aren’t sure what someone’s address is, if you drop a pin near their address, you can get an approximate address.

Turn by turn directions on the Apple Watch is one of the bigger features, and it’s really simple to use.

When you get a text with an address, the address is automatically converted to a hyperlink; click on it, and a map will immediately open. You can zoom in and out of the map by turning the Digital Crown knob.

If you don’t have a message with the address, then go to your watch’s Home screen, tap the Maps icon; the map will appear showing your current location. To find an address, tap your finger firmly on the screen. You’ll get an option to either search for the address or use one of your contacts’ addresses. When you search for an address, it will give you the option to use a recently used address, or speak the address through dictation.

When the address comes up, there will be two options: driving directions and walking directions. Walking will not only change the time it will take, but also take you down paths a car cannot go. Once you make your selection by tapping, just hit the Start button.

One of the cool features about the map is the turn-by-turn direction. When it’s time to make a turn, your watch will tap you to get your attention. Even more cool is if you start directions on your phone, it will also appear on your watch.

To view photos on the Apple Watch, go to the Photos app on your watch home screen; because the watch cannot actually take photos, the photos you see will be the ones from your iPhone album. By default, the watch is set to display only your Favorites album, but you can change this.

Once the app is open, just tap the photo you want to view and use the Digital Crown knob to zoom in or out, and use your finger to pan it. Zoom all the way out to see all of your photos.

If you’d like to choose another album to show on your watch then open the Apple Watch app on the iPhone and tap My Watch, then go to Photos and Synced Album; pick the album you want to sync; you can also create a new album using photos from your phone.

The watch does not have as much space as your phone so it’s important to limit how much you store on it; to limit photo storage, open the Apple Watch app on the iPhone, tap My Watch, then go to Photos and Photo Limits.

You can see how many photos are currently on your Apple Watch by opening the Settings app from the watch’s main screen, tapping General, and then About. You can also see this on your phone by opening the Apple Watch app, then tapping My Watch, General, and About.

While the watch doesn’t have a camera built in, it does have a pretty awesome feature that lets you use the watch as an external camera viewfinder and shutter to your iPhone camera.

For this to work, you need to make sure the watch is no more than 30 ft. from your iPhone.

To take a photo, open the Camera app on your watches home screen, then position the iPhone to frame the shot using the Apple Watch as your viewfinder. If you want to change the exposure, just tap the area you want to focus on from your Apple Watch preview; tap the shutter button on your watch. You can preview the photo on your watch, but the photo will actually be saved on the iPhone.

Next to the shutter button is a timer button; if you want to do a timed shot, tap that; the timer takes burst shots, which is great for action / sports photos.

The music app is, of course, on your home screen, but you can reach it more quickly by swiping up on your screen.

Like almost anything on the Watch, you can also play music with Siri. Just lift your wrist and say, “Hey, Siri, play Bob Dylan.”

When music is playing, tap the top corner and you’ll have the option to scroll through Artist, Albums, Playlist and Songs (scroll using the Digital Crown knob).

The watch automatically syncs to your phone and will play music that’s on your iPhone. That’s great when your phone is nearby, but sometimes you don’t have your phone nearby and want to listen to music directly on your watch. You can load music to your Watch pretty easily.

If you’d like to monitor one or more stocks from your watch, open the Stock app; you can see details about a stock by tapping it in a list and then turning the Digital Crown to scroll.

You can also use Siri to find a stock price by saying “Hey Siri, what was the closing price for XYZ stock?”

You can also see stock as a glance by swiping up from your watch face, and swiping to the Stock glance. From here you can also add stock.

There are a couple of ways to check weather on your watch; one of the easiest is to swipe up from your watch face to bring up Glances, and then find the Weather Glance.

If you want more detailed weather information, then go to the Weather app by opening it on the watch home screen. The Weather app will have 10-day forecast, current temperature and conditions, and chance of rain.

The Weather app is synced to your iPhone, so if you want to add or remove a city, then do it from your phone.

You can change the default city being shown on your watch by opening the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, tapping on My Watch, and then going to Weather and Default City.