Settings on the Watch App on the iPhone

In this lesson we look at where we find the settings for your Apple Watch in the Watch app on your iPhone. Now again, the settings that you have in the Watch app on your iPhone may be a little bit different from what I’m going to show you. The settings that you have depends on which Apple Watch you have.

Finding Settings on the Apple Watch on your iPhone
To change your Apple Watch settings for the Watch app on your iPhone, you open the Watch app and then tap on My Watch in the lower left corner. This is where you will find all the settings for your Apple Watch. These settings are similar to what you’ll find in the Settings app on the Apple Watch itself. You will find more options through the Watch app on the iPhone though.

Various Settings:

General>About – This setting gives us general information about our Apple Watch including the name, what is stored not he Apple Watch, version, and serial number.

General>Software Update – This setting checks and tells us if there is an update to the Apple Watch.

General>Automatic App Install – This is where you can set if you want apps to be automatically installed on your Apple Watch when you download an app form the App Store that has an Apple Watch app.

General>Airplane Mode – When Mirror iPhone is turned on and your Apple Watch and iPhone are within bluetooth range, when you turn on Airplane Mode from your Apple Watch, it will also turn on Airplane Mode on your iPhone. It also does the reverse, if you turn Airplane Mode on your iPhone, it will also turn it on on your Apple Watch.

General>Do Not Disturb – This is similar to Airplane Mode above. When Mirror iPhone is turned on, your Apple Watch will mirror the Do Not disturb setting on your iPhone. It also does the reverse, the iPhone will mirror the setting on your Apple Watch.

General>Emergency SOS – When I tap on this, I can set if I want my Apple Watch to automatically call emergency services when I press and hold the side button. We’ll take a closer look at this later on in the tutorial.

General>Watch Orientation – Just like on in the Watch Orientation setting on the Apple Watch, you can see the orientation of your Apple Watch based on which wrist you are putting it on.

General>Accessibility – We do have a few more Accessibility settings here in the Watch app on the iPhone compared to the Accessibility Settings on the Apple Watch itself including reducing transparency and reducing motion. We can also set if we want the health and fitness feature to use Wheelchair Activity.

General>Background App Refresh – Here you set if your want your Apple Watch apps to refresh in the background. You can set each app independently or change the setting for all of your apps. If you turn background app refresh off for a specific app, the only time it will update is when you open it.

General>Enable Handoff – When this is on, my iPhone will pick up where I left off with apps on my Apple watch. So if I’m in an app on my Apple Watch like Mail, what I’m able to do is access that same app, Mail, on my iPhone by going to the corner of my lock screen.

General>Wrist Detection – If you are using a passcode, wrist detection automatically locks your watch when you are not wearing it.

General>Wake Screen – This setting lets you set if you want your Apple Watch display to turn on when you raise your wrist. You can also set what app you want to see when you raise your wrist. By default your Apple Watch will show your watch face, but if you are working out, you can set it to open to the app you are using for a workout. Tap on While in Session to see the app instead of a watch face. When you are finished with a workout session, the Apple Watch will return to its normal behavior of showing the watch face when you raise your wrist. You can also set if you want it to show the app that is in session (a workout type app or a map app) that was used within the last 8 minutes as well as the app that was used in the last hour. And if you always want to show the last app, tap on Always. I keep mine at the Set While in Session. This way when I am using an app during a workout, it shows when I raise my wrist, but if not, it shows the watch face instead.

General>Nightstand Mode – This enables the Nightstand display when you have your Apple Watch on a charger and rotated 90 degrees. Just tap the surface your Apple Watch is on and you’ll see the time. The display will turn off automatically.

General>Enable Screenshots – This is off by default. If you want to take screenshots, turn this on and then when you press the digital crown and the button at the same time, your Apple Watch will take a screenshot. It will.automatically go to your Photos app on your iPhone.

General>Workout Power Saving Mode – When this is turned on, the heart rate sensor is disabled for walking and running workouts. So it’s just going to use the accelerometer for data. This is not going to be as accurate but it is going to save battery life.

General>Usage – Tap on usage and you can see how much storage is being used on your Apple Watch as well as the time since the last full charge and if it’s in power reserve.

General>Reset – If you want to reset your Apple watch, tap on Reset.

Brightness & Text Size – You can set the brightness of you Apple watch as well as the text size and change the text to bold.

Sounds and Haptics – With sound and haptics you your alert volume, if you want it in Silent Mode, the Haptic Strength, and if I want to use Prominent Haptic. With Prominent Haptic, the Apple watch will play more prominent haptic to announce alerts. You also have Cover to Mute and Tap to Speak Time. With Cover to Mute, you just have to cover your Apple Watch and it will mute it. With Tap to Speak Time, when I’m using the Mickey Mouse or Minnie Mouse watch face and I tap on my Apple Watch it will speak the time.

Passcode – This is where you set the passcode for your Apple watch.

Privacy Settings – If you tap on Motion & Fitness, you can set if you want it to track your heart rate and if you to use Fitness Tracking. This is also where you can go and Reset Calibration Data. When you first get your Apple Watch and you go for workout, it needs to calibrate the Apple Watch. It needs to know what your stride is. So for the first couple of walks or runs, it’s going to calibrate the Apple Watch so it knows your stride. If you need to reset this, you tap Reset Calibration Data and then the next few times that you workout it’ll reset the calibration data.

App Settings – In addition to having Apple Watch settings, you also have settings for various apps. Just tap on the app to view it’s settings. This include third party apps you have installed on your Apple Watch.

Available Apps – These are the apps that are available on your Apple Watch but are not installed. Tap on Install to install them.

Clock Settings – The Clock settings give us access to Push alerts from your iPhone as well as if I want to see the Notification indicator, this is the read dot you see when you have unread notifications. If you turn this off, you will still be able to see your notifications by swiping down, you just won’t se the indicator when you have unread notifications.

Time Travel – When you turn Time Travel on in the Clock Settings, you can use the Digital Crown to see future events while looking at a watch face. So if it is 1pm and you are using the weather complication, you can rotate the digital crown to see what the temperature will be at 4pm. If you are using the Calendar complication, you will see events at certain times as you rotate the digital crown. Not all complication supports this. But if they do support it, all you have to do is rotate the digital crown to see data associated with that complication.

See this Lesson in Action
If you want to see this lesson in action, take a look at the video above.

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