Apple watchOS platform doesn’t have as many customization options as other smartwatches, like those integrated Of google Wear OS, do it. But there are countless ways to make yours Apple Watch your own in addition to choosing the color, size and bracelet of the watch. Here are the main features you should know and how to use them.
The Watch app on your iPThe enhancement offers some customization options to get started. Touch Application preview and you can choose between a grid and a list for your applications (shown when you press the digital crown); with a grid, you can also touch Arrangement to have all your apps positioned exactly the way you want them.
Then there is the dock, which you pull by pressing the side button on your Apple Watch. This one shows your most recent apps or up to 10 of your favorite apps. To tell your see which apps to show, tap Dock in the Watch app for iOS and choose Recent or Bookmarks (if you choose the latter option, you can select the applications you want to see and the order in which they appear).
Clock faces
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Apple hasn’t yet opened the door to a community of third-party watch face developers, but there are an increasing number of Apple-approved faces to choose from (for the Apple Watch series 4 and later, at least). To switch to a new watch face for your real watch, swipe left or right on the current face to see your options.
If you just set up your Apple Watch, you won’t have many options. You can touch New, and Apple will present a selection of faces for your reading – swipe up or down on the screen to scroll through them. When you find something you like, touch the watch face to set it (it will also be added to the quick selection list that appears when you slide on the current watch face)
It may be easier to set clock faces on your phone. If you open the Watch app, you can tap Faces gallery to see all available options. Here you will see not just a choice of faces, but several variations of those faces. When selecting one, you can choose the colors you use (if available) and the complications you will see (again, if the watch face supports them).
Touch Add on a watch face and is added to the My faces box in My watch guide – touch To edit to change the faces that appear in this list. This is the same list you’ll see if you slide the watch face to see more options—It’s a good idea to have the faces you use most often stored here, for easy access. Touching any of these pre-selected faces on your phone’s app takes you to the personalization screen, where you can also choose Set as current watch face or Remove watch face.
As soon as you have some watch faces on the My faces gallery you can swipe across the clock screen to switch between them. You need to hold down if you want to share a watch face appearance that you’re particularly interested in, because that’s where you’ll find the share button in the bottom left corner.
Watch complications
Some watch faces have complications, which are small shortcuts that lead to applications or features, or panels showing information in real time. Again, you can change these complications on the watch or the phone. To do this on the wearable, touch and hold the watch face and choose To edit. You will see the color options first and you can swipe left to see the complication options.
Tap on any of the available complications to change it to something else, then scroll using the digital crown to make your selection. Your choice will depend on the type of complication and what applications you have installed – make your choice and press the digital crown twice to return to the watch face again.
As with watch faces, this is probably easier to set up on your iPhone’s Watch app. You can touch any face on My faces or in Faces gallery guide to get the complications, which are easy to go through. Some watch faces have more complications than others, and while you can’t rearrange them on the screen, you can turn off some of them if you want.
If you feel you need more complications to play with, look for iPhone apps that also have decent Apple Watch apps and complications included. You may experience musical complications with Spotify, climatic complications with Carrot climate, note the complications with Bear, and travel complications with Citymapper, for example. Some complications display information, while others allow interaction.
It is possible to create your own complications, to some extent, using the same tools that developers use. The best option we’ve found so far is Watchmaker, which allows you to create complications covering weather, time and date, astronomy and more, and you also have options to change complications depending on the weather.
Other adjustments
There are a few other ways to customize the look of what you see on your Apple Watch. If you choose Screen and brightness from within the Watch application on your iPhone, for example, you can adjust the brightness of the screen, rotate the Ever turn the feature on or off (if available), change the text size on the Apple Watch screen and make the text bold if desired. You can also make these changes in the Settings app on your watch.
One way to fully personalize your Apple Watch is to define your own photo as your watch face. If you open the Photos app on your watch, select an image and tap the small watch icon in the lower left corner, you can apply the image as your background – either as a simple image or in a kaleidoscope effect.
This is basically the idea behind Facer also, which shows custom designs created by others, not third partiesparty watch faces, but different experiences and combinations of complications that people want to exhibit. If a selected watch face uses a complication from an application that you have not installed, you will be asked to install it.
It doesn’t take much effort to create background images specifically for Apple Watch in your favorite image editor. All you have to do is search for your Apple Watch’s screen resolution and leave room for the digital clock face that Apple puts on top (if you choose a kaleidoscope effect, it will have analog hands, but there’s no way to choose specifically) .
Finally, it is also worth mentioning the Shortcuts application. If you put the application running on your smartwatch, then, you can launch compatible actions directly from your wrist and even define them as complications on the watch faces. It’s another way to create personalized complications – in this case, set to launch shortcuts that you find useful.