Nine Apple Watch tricks you’ve been ignoring for years
We wear ours in the shower, on runs, through entire films, and we still meet people with the same watch who use it as a clock that buzzes. Nothing wrong with a clock that buzzes. But you paid for a great deal more than that, and most of it is sitting one menu away, switched off.
Apple shuffles these menus around between watchOS versions, so if a setting isn’t exactly where I say, look one screen over.
Lock the screen before water touches it
Swipe up for Control Centre and tap the water drop. Now your screen ignores wet fingers and stray taps. When you’re done, turn the Digital Crown and the watch makes a little chirp as it pushes water back out of the speaker grille. It does this for you automatically the instant a swim workout starts. Do it yourself in the shower and stop ringing the doorbell with your elbow.
Theatre Mode, the politest setting on the watch
Control Centre, the two-masks icon. The screen goes dark and stays dark. No raise-to-wake, no surprise glow lighting up three rows behind you at the cinema. It still buzzes for a call or an alarm; you just tap to see what it was. Good for dark restaurants, ceremonies, and the back of any theatre where a bright wrist makes you the rude one.
Answer a call with your fist
Settings, Accessibility, AssistiveTouch. This is the real hands-free trick, and it has nothing to do with tapping the back of your phone. Clench your fist to answer or end a call. Pinch to move through things, double-pinch to go back.
Double Tap, if your watch is new enough
Index finger and thumb, together, twice. It answers calls, stops timers, plays and pauses, and from the watch face it opens the Smart Stack; tap again to scroll, double-tap again to act on whatever’s highlighted. The catch is hardware. It only works on Series 9, Series 10, Ultra 2 and anything newer. Check under Settings, Gestures. If it isn’t there, your watch is too old for it, and the fist trick above is your workaround.
Mute a buzz by putting your hand over it
Settings, Sounds & Haptics, Cover to Mute. Rest your palm over the screen for a second and the watch goes silent. No fumbling, no tapping at it under the table. It’s the fastest way to kill a buzz in a meeting.
Make your lost iPhone shout
The phone-with-soundwaves icon in Control Centre. One tap and your iPhone chimes from wherever it’s hiding, even when it’s set to silent. Press and hold instead and the flash starts blinking too, which is the version you want when the room is dark and it’s slid under the sofa.
A strobe for night runs, a red light for your eyes
Swipe up, tap the flashlight, then swipe sideways to cycle the modes. Steady white, a blinking strobe so drivers actually see you on an unlit road, and a red light. The red one is the one to know: it keeps your night vision intact, so you can check a map or a star chart in the dark without blinding yourself first. Most people find the white torch and stop swiping.
The widgets stacked just below your watch face
From the watch face, turn the Digital Crown up. The Smart Stack scrolls into view with your next event, a timer that’s still running, whatever’s playing. It reshuffles itself by time and context, so the thing you need tends to ride at the top. It’s been one crown-turn away the whole time and almost nobody scrolls into it.
Shazam, already inside
Raise your wrist and ask Siri what’s playing. No app, no phone out of your pocket. The watch listens, names the track, and quietly logs it to your Shazam history so you can find it again and buy it when you’re not on a dance floor pretending to check the time.
Flip these on and the watch you’ve had for two years starts behaving like a newer one for the price of a minute. Same trick as changing the band, really: a small swap, a different object on your arm. We happen to make a few bands for the second half of that.