Over the past few months since its launch Apple Watch has become a main device in my daily routine.

Notification Relief 

When Apple updated the Mail application on iOS in 2013 it became my main email client because of one single feature. VIPs. The VIP feature allows you to set important people and treat those email notifications differently than others. This was an unbelievable after-hours stress reliever for me. A typical work day for me will bring in around 200 relevant emails to read through. With VIPs I was able to turn off notifications to all emails except those that I knew would be vitally important to read ASAP. During work hours this made very little difference but when I came home, having my phone only alert me when an email was important was like receiving a job promotion.

I feel a similar joy with notifications on Apple Watch. You can give and restrict notification access to Apple Watch on an app by app basis. Setting up the right notifications properly is an art and absolutely essential to making Apple Watch work for you. For example; I receive notifications from the Slack app on my Apple Watch. This works well for me because I and those whom I collaborate use Slack sparingly. I receive a Slack notification only once or twice a day. However, I know of several companies that use Slack like teenagers on Snapchat. The last thing you need is your Apple Watch tapping you twice a minute to notify you of a new Slack message.

Similarly, for me all Facebook notifications are turned off. I do care that my grandmother liked a photo that my wife posted of our kids but I don’t need to know about it immediately. That notification belongs on my iPhone and I’ll get it the next time I pick it up. Perhaps, if I used Facebook for business regularly I would want those notifications in real time. But that is not the way I use Facebook.

Setting up Apple Watch notifications appropriately for your lifestyle and needs is a great way to prioritize your digital life. With iPhone becoming my notification hub, Apple Watch is my security gate, only notifying me about things that are vitally important or near and dear to my heart like when a Broncos or Mets game is about to start.

Complications

Complications is the fancy, old time, watch word that Apple uses to define the extra functions on the watch face besides the time. There are multiple options (and more coming) for customization. There are a few that have substantially changed the way I operate. The first was the most unexpected.

When I first put the sunrise/sunset complication on my watch face I thought it was fun and cool but mostly irrelevant. As I kept seeing it there day after day it began to make me think about what that meant for my life. I found myself coming home from work, looking at my watch and telling my wife, “We have another hour of sunlight, let’s take the kids out for a quick walk.” During the past summer months knowing the sunrise and sunset has really made a difference in the amount of time I spend outdoors.

I don’t know that I will always keep the sunrise/sunset as one of my main complications but this example does demonstrate pretty well how powerful it can be to have even simple, seemingly silly information so quickly accessible without having to think about it.

The weather complication was a similar surprise as to how useful it could be. iPhone had accustomed me to generally having a good idea of what the weather was going to be like during the day. The weather complication has taken that awareness to the next level. Here in Utah even during the summer month’s weather conditions can vary quite a bit throughout the day. Much like the sunset, I have found myself taking more and more advantage of different situations.

It has been pretty warm throughout June and July but there can be some cooler spells. I have two little kids at home (ages 1 and 2) and both have really enjoyed playing outside in the water. There have been a couple of times this summer that there have been a few days in a row where it has just been too cold for the kids to play in the water. This results in my 2-year-old tapping either her mom or I every 5 minutes saying, “swimmin? swimmin?” There have been more than a few times that either my wife or I have glanced at our Watch just to check the time and seen, hey it’s 90 degrees outside, let’s let the kids go play in the water.

Choosing the appropriate complications for your needs can be very powerful. Whether that is taking advantage of the day and weather while you can, like me, or having you next appointment on your calendar there helping you show up on time. They are small things that can make a big difference.

Activity Monitoring

Probably the best feature start to finish on Apple Watch is the activity monitoring. It is very apparent after using Apple Watch for just a few days that a lot of thought went in to health and making it a central part of Apple Watch. Apple Watch knows more about how active you are than any other device. It starts simply by just knowing how much you sit and gets more in depth too with knowing just how hard your heart has been working during your workouts.

Many of these things can be done without Apple Watch but with the Watch it doesn’t require such a focused effort. Apple Watch makes it easy, and dare I say, fun to monitor activity and general health. This is not something that I say lightly. In a past life I played college football. I am probably more aware of my fitness and what it takes to be fit than the average person. That being said, being outside of college football for the last five years, I have not been actively aware of my activity on a daily (or even weekly) basis for quite some time. Apple Watch has changed that.

I opted in for Apple Watch to give me alerts to stand if I haven’t at least for 1 minute each hour. It turns out, working on the computer most of the day makes Apple Watch notify me quite a bit while at work. Somewhat surprisingly, it isn’t annoying either. Perhaps more importantly, I also elected for Apple Watch to notify me of my workout progress daily. There have been quite a few days that my Watch has tapped me in the afternoon and told me my progress for the day pretty much peaked at standing to get out of bed.

I consider myself a more-than-average active person but Apple Watch lets me know when I’m actually not. After all, that extra weight didn’t come along after being extra active. I haven’t had any extreme Jim Dalrymple results but I am more active and happily more aware of my general health.

Siri

For the first time Siri serves a purpose. I’ve never really ever been able to get in to Siri on iPhone or iPad. The bottom line is that on those devices sometimes it is just best to go to Google or the specific app. Sometimes Siri can help but sometimes she can’t. It is too frustrating to go to the effort to use Siri just to find out she’s useless. It is simpler to avoid trying in the first place. My experience with Siri on Apple Watch has been quite different.

Over the years Siri has certainly improved. Indeed since using Siri fairly frequently on Apple Watch I have given it a second chance on iPhone and iPad. It is definitely better. But it just feels better suited for Apple Watch. Apple’s improvements to Siri are probably helping its usefulness on Apple Watch but the context of Apple Watch is the most important factor in making Siri feel at home. The demands you ask of Siri on Apple Watch are much different because of the response you are expecting. You don’t ask Siri to do hefty things because you don’t want to do hefty things on your Watch. Siri is perfectly quick to answer a simple question or complete small tasks.

Little things like getting the score to a game or drafting a quick text are beautifully easy. Too many times I have pulled out my iPhone just to check what my calendar looks like for the rest of the day and found myself still on my iPhone (doing nothing important) 20 minutes later.

If you’re like me and have never found a use for Siri before, it might be hard to give her another chance. Try her again on Apple Watch. You’ll be glad you did.

Third Party Apps

It is telling that everything up to this point has all been about what Apple has built in to Apple Watch. Many if not most third party apps on Apple Watch are downright terrible. For some apps this isn’t entirely their fault but some developers are failing to catch on to quick and simple. I’m going to list a few of my favorites here below but for the most part, I’m really looking forward to watchOS 2 and native apps being able to run on Apple Watch.

If you haven’t heard about the current apps and how they work, in a nut-shell, basically they are running on your iPhone and only a few small portions of the apps are saved on the Watch itself. This makes for a pretty slow experience since the Watch has to communicate back to iPhone for almost every single bit of information. watchOS 2 (to be released sometime in the next few weeks) gives developers access to actually save their application directly to Apple Watch. Of course it will still have to communicate with iPhone for some tasks but not nearly as much. I am really looking forward to these new applications. We should be seeing some really great stuff now that developers have seen what works and what doesn’t.

For now though, there are a few that are really pretty great already:

1. Remote: I know, this is still an Apple app but is one of the best ones out there. I swear it is every child’s goal in life to find and hide remotes in the most unimaginable places possible. Having the Remote app on your phone is great. Having it strapped to your wrist at all times, magical.
2. MLB: This app is the definition of get in and get out. It gives you scores and updates. You can see who is on base and of course the pitching info while games are live. It is simple and easy. We haven’t talked about Glances yet but MLB’s Glance screen is perfect. It shows you a few details about your favorite team’s next (or current) game.
3. Slack: It lets you respond to messages and view your mentions. To me a Slack message is just like a text. Slack on Apple Watch provides you with exactly what you want it to; a way to see and respond to messages.
4. Overcast: This is a Podcast app. The Apple Watch connects to the iPhone app and gives you a few more options to control playback other than the pause and play that the included “Now Playing” Glance gives you. It’s dead simple and they nailed it.
5. Wunderlist: My favorite list making app. On Apple Watch you can see and check off items from your list. It works really well when you’re at the grocery store. It needs an update to support folders like their other applications but it is on the right track.

Honorable Mention: Glances

Glances are just a swipe up from the home screen. You can put a few different app glances in there and get quick information without having to actually launch the app. It is a really great way for super fast updates. Apple has done a great job with their apps but this is one area that I am really looking forward to on watchOS 2. Glances show great potential but the idea behind them is to get you information fast. Even a two second pause for me is too much. Right now, I can see the promise of the future but often times when I use any third party Glance my wrist falls in annoyance.

I’ve restricted my sole third party glance to MLB which is generally pretty quick. I also use Activity, Heart Rate, Music, and of course Settings. Heart Rate I use sparingly, mostly for fun since I usually only care about that during workouts. Activity gives you a nice quick view of your daily progress and is also one of the quicker ways to launch in to the full app for more details (if you don’t use the Activity complication). Music is really great. You can change songs and even the volume straight from the Glance.

I use Glances like a second tier. Complications come first, they are super simple and quickly informative. Glances require a bit more effort but give you a lot more information. If I want more details after reading the Glance I can launch the app. MLB, for example, is the perfect case for me where it works best as a Glance. The score to a game feels a little too crowded as a complication but works great as a Glance.

*note: third party Complications are not yet possible anyway. watchOS 2 will support them.

Bonus: Find my iPhone

The settings Glance includes a Find my iPhone button that has been one of the best reasons for my wife to have Apple Watch. This feature will ping your iPhone and make it beep when you can’t find it. My wife routinely cannot find her iPhone. We know it is somewhere in the house but often one of the children has stashed it somewhere. We used to have to go to the computer, log in to iCloud and play a sound on the iPhone.

It is so simple now. Swipe up on Apple Watch, ping iPhone. Unfortunately, this might be my wife’s most used Glance. I don’t understand it but I suspect there are a lot of other moms out there that do.

Related Tags: Apple