When Apple unveiled its first-ever smartwatch back in 2014, it’s fair to say that the world wasn’t exactly sure what it was for… and neither was Apple. In those early days, along with the fitness elements which would remain an enduring part of the product’s appeal, the company talked enthusiastically about sharing taps, sketches, and heartbeats with friends, which would not. It took time for users and third-party developers to teach Apple what they wanted from a smartwatch, and for the company to take that on board.

Today, the Apple Watch is a mature and versatile product. It’s so versatile, indeed, that you may not be aware of some of its most useful capabilities. In this article, we’re going to catch you up.

Take better iPhone photos

This was a superb piece of lateral thinking. There have always been situations where it’s difficult or impossible to trigger a camera because it needs to be out of reach, or out of sight, of the person taking the picture: when you’re trying to photograph the ports around the back of your Mac, for example, or when setting up a formal group photo that everyone wants to be in. Timers used to be the main solution, but often resulted in a mad scramble to place the camera correctly and get back in time before the time ran out. But the Apple Watch offers something better.

Open the Camera Remote app on your watch, and it will simultaneously open the Camera app on the paired iPhone. Whatever the iPhone’s camera can see, you can now see on your watch; you can switch between the front and rear cameras (and toggle some other settings) using the options button at the bottom right. Once you’re happy, hit the three-second timer button, look up and smile, and enjoy your perfect photo.

Unlock other Apple devices

An Apple Watch, once you’ve unlocked it with a single passcode input, remains unlocked as long as it stays on your wrist. It can thus act as a handy digital key that’s on you at all times, unlocking your Mac and iPhone by proximity alone.

On iPhone, open the Settings app and go to Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode on older devices), then scroll down and tap the toggle under Unlock With Apple Watch. On Mac, open System Settings and go to Touch ID & Password and click the toggle next to your Apple Watch.

Play games

As small as the Apple Watch’s screen may be, it can still support some fun games; they just need to be designed with that limitation in mind. You need to be selective. We’d recommend Deep Golf and Lifeline, both of which make perfect sense in this format, but there are some more excellent suggestions here.

Talk to ChatGPT

You probably have your own thoughts on the ethics of AI, but it’s hard to deny that ChatGPT is fun to play with. Thanks to the Petey app, you can now have those conversations on Apple Watch. Tap the ‘Ask me Anything’ button then type in a query (or better still, use the dictation button and save your tapping finger) and you’ll soon hear what our future AI overlord thinks of the matter. There’s even a complication, which means Petey is never more than a tap away.

Control navigation with air gestures

The standard control method for Apple Watch involves having the device on one wrist, and then tapping the screen and pressing and rotating the buttons and dials with the other hand. But there are situations where you need to control the watch with the same hand it’s on. And this is possible, thanks to AssistiveTouch, one of Apple’s handy accessibility features.

Open the Watch app on the paired iPhone. (Alternatively, you can set the feature up in the Apple Watch’s own Settings app, but I found this fiddly.) In the My Watch tab, select Accessibility, then scroll down until you see AssistiveTouch. Tap this, then tap the toggle at the top of the next screen to turn it on.

By default, doing a pinch gesture with the watch-bearing hand will take you forwards in menus, while double-pinching (pinching twice, rather than pinching once with two fingers) will take you back; clenching your fist will act as a tap, while double-clenching will open a menu of actions, which takes a little getting used to. In fact, the whole thing has a learning curve, but practice makes perfect, and you can change the actions tied to each gesture.

Tell the time without looking

If for whatever reason you are unable to look at your Apple Watch but you’d still like to know the time, Speak Time is the lesser-known feature for you. To set it up, open the Settings app on the watch and go to Clock, scroll down until you see Speak Time, then tap to turn it on. (Again, this can also be done in the Watch app on a paired iPhone; again, go to Clock then hit Speak Time.) Now you need only hold two fingers on the watch face for a second or so and it will tell you the time out loud.

Conversely, if you’d like to know the time silently without looking at the screen, consider Taptic Time. (You can turn this on in the Watch app by going to Clock > Taptic Time, or following a similar route in the Apple Watch’s Settings app.) There are various options but I find the Digits format easiest: this would for example give one long tap, followed by four short taps, followed by three long taps, followed by six short taps, to give you the time 14:36.

Quickly reply to messages

The Apple Watch probably doesn’t seem like the optimal device for writing out messages, but watchOS has been cleverly designed to help. Tap a notification of an incoming message (or open the Messages app on your Apple Watch and tap a message there) and you’ll see the option to reply. This is easier than it sounds.

The easiest method is to select one of the pre-written replies, such as yes, no, and “Can I call you later?” One tap and the canned reply is winging its way to the recipient: easy. And if these replies seem too limited, write some of your own by opening the Watch app on your paired iPhone and going to Messages > Default Replies.

If you’d rather be spontaneous, you can type out a reply on your wrist in the onscreen keyboard, but we’d recommend that you instead swipe up and select the Scribble keyboard instead: this has you scrawl a letter at a time using the entire screen, which is much easier than hitting tiny keys. Or best of all, tap the dictation button and speak your thoughts out loud.

Make your battery last much longer

Hardly anyone seems to know that the Apple Watch now has a Low Power mode–perhaps because it already had a Power Reserve mode, which was far more drastic and made the watch basically unusable. But Low Power, finally added in watchOS 9 in 2022, is much closer to the equivalent iPhone feature, simply cutting back on features and settings to eke out a little more battery life.

To turn on Low Power mode, open Control Center by swiping up from the clock face, then tap the battery percentage. Just below the Battery Remaining figure, you’ll see a toggle labeled Low Power Mode. (Note that in watchOS 10, Control Center is instead accessed by pressing the side button.)

Preserve your privacy

The always-on screen offered on the Series 5 onwards has many good qualities, but you might be worried that it means personal data may be visible to other people. Fortunately, you can adjust the settings so that sensitive complications and notifications only appear when your wrist is raised.

Let’s start with complications, which could display personal data such as calendar appointments or health information. Open the Watch app on your paired iPhone. From the My Watch tab, go to Display & Brightness > Always On > Show Complications Data. From here you can pick and choose which complications are allowed to display their data when the always-on screen is in dimmed mode.

Similarly, if you go to Display & Brightness > Always On > Show Notifications you can fine-tune the notifications which appear in dimmed mode, and which are only allowed to reveal their information when you’ve raised your wrist.

Get discreet directions

When you’re lost in a new city, the last thing you want to do is advertise the fact that you’re a tourist (or indeed the fact that you’ve got an expensive smartwatch on your wrist and an expensive smartphone in your pocket). For this reason, it’s desirable to have Maps advise you of turnings in a way that’s discreet and doesn’t require that you look at the screen of your Apple Watch or iPhone.

While you’re still somewhere safe, open Maps on your iPhone and select a destination and the type of directions you want. Start the journey, and make sure you turn off the sound alerts by tapping the mute/unmute button on the right-hand side. Tuck the iPhone away in a pocket.

Now, as you walk along, the Apple Watch will alert you to left turns by giving you three sets of two short buzzes and signal right turns with a rapid and even series of 10 to 12 haptic taps. (You don’t need to count them, it’s the rhythm that gives it away.) When you reach your destination you get a long vibration.

Apple Watch

For a product that isn’t debuting until 2024, Apple has said a lot about the Vision Pro, its mixed reality headset. Apple spent nearly an hour in the WWDC keynote discussing it. It has rolled out developer tools for visionOS, which has given us even more clarity about what visionOS can and can’t do.

And yet I remain firmly convinced that Apple hasn’t told us the whole story. The WWDC keynote was the time to make a first impression–but there’s half a year to go before the final story is told. As a result, Apple emphasized the features of the device that it felt would best represent the device. It emphasized the fact that it’s an augmented-reality product that keeps you connected with people around you as a way to blunt criticism that Apple’s trying to use its technology to wall people off from each other.

With the Vision Pro, there’s more to come. Here’s where I think Apple will have a much larger story to tell.

Yes, it’s really a VR headset

By defaulting to a view of the world around you and requiring that the user dial reality out via the Digital Crown, Apple sends the signal that the Vision Pro is an augmented-reality headset. But the truth is, it’s a VR headset that emulates AR, and that emulation can be dropped easily. If you don’t want to work in the very spacious rooms on display in Apple’s demo video, you can just as easily work in a virtual-reality environment.

But even more than that, app developers can create entire VR experiences within their apps. While Apple will strongly encourage apps to work in augmented reality–and if you want to walk around objects, it’s required–that won’t stop the ability for apps that do what we think of as “traditional” VR experiences.

In other words, Apple didn’t talk about VR games, the most popular category of software in existing VR hardware, but VR games will absolutely be a part of the Vision Pro experience. No, we don’t know how good Apple’s hand- and eye-tracking technology will be when it comes to the needs of various VR games. But we will certainly find out.

Yes, there will be fitness apps

Apple didn’t announce any Vision Pro integration with its Fitness+ service, which I admit was a bit of a surprise. On Meta’s headsets, apps like Supernatural and Beat Saber have gained huge followings as ways to spice up the drudgery of regular workouts.

I can’t say whether Fitness+ will appear on Vision Pro at launch–Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests it won’t–but if Apple doesn’t fill the gap, someone else will. Savvy app developers will try to be the next Beat Saber. And no matter how heavy or awkward the Vision Pro might be, no matter how much sweat the Vision Pro’s 3-D-knit headband might soak in, people will try to use VR for workouts. It’s going to happen.

Yes, there will be Memoji

Apple wanted to impress everyone with the Digital Persona, a replica of your face created via an in-depth initial scan that’s animated by Vision Pro sensors looking at your eye, face, and body gestures. I found them creepy, and I definitely wasn’t the only person who used the Vision Pro at WWDC who thought so.

I’m pretty sure Apple has never intended the Digital Persona to be the only option for users who need a proxy for interaction with other people when wearing the Vision Pro. It’s technology Apple was proud of, so it showed it off as a way to boast–as well as a way of explaining how the EyeSight feature was created.

But it can’t be the only option. Let’s start with the fact that not everyone will feel comfortable using a representation of themselves as they are if they can help it. There’s a good reason why Apple’s Memoji creation interface lets you choose a wide range of characteristics, including many that don’t even exist in human beings! Or you can choose to be an animated emoji character.

And really, if we’re being honest, it’s highly likely that the entire Memoji project was an early move in the direction of avatars for the Vision Pro. Do we really think Apple’s going to insist on Digital Personas for everyone, even if they’d rather just be an elephant? Not gonna happen.

Yes, Siri will be involved

Apple’s film about the Vision Pro shows a user reading out a website address via voice at one point. It’s pretty much the only example of Apple’s voice assistant being shown with the headset. But it’s almost inconceivable that voice control won’t be a major portion of the device’s interface.

When I used the Vision Pro, there were numerous moments when I realized that rather than manipulating a virtual interface via hand gesture, I’d probably be better off just issuing a voice command. But Siri wasn’t active on our demo headsets, probably because it’s just not good enough–and because if Apple leaned into it too much, it would make the rest of the Vision Pro interface work the company has done look a little less special.

A reliance on voice control by all of those people in solitary environments, sprawled on couches or sitting in chairs, might also reinforce the antisocial nature of these devices–if you’re comfortable constantly interjecting to Siri, that implies that nobody else is within earshot–and that’s very much not the impression Apple wants to give right now.

But there’s just no way that visionOS is a platform that isn’t strongly linked to voice commands. It just makes too much sense.

Yes your other Apple devices will play a role

The Vision Pro appears to be a peer to the iPad and iPhone, capable of running iOS apps itself without any connection to those devices. Still, we didn’t see much direct integration between Apple’s most popular product and the Vision Pro.

Perhaps it won’t be there on day one, but I have a hard time believing that the iPhone won’t work tightly with Vision Pro. In macOS Sonoma, Apple’s introducing the concept of iPhone widgets that are projected right onto your Mac desktop. Why not extend that to Vision Pro? What about launching apps on your iPhone and viewing them right within Vision Pro? Maybe even more than one at a time?

Sure, you can look down and use your iPhone while using Vision Pro, but that’s always going to be a pretty limited experience. I have to think that Apple is working hard to figure out the best ways to use Continuity features to attach all of its devices to the Vision Pro–but most especially the iPhone.

The Vision Pro won’t be here for some time yet. We’ve heard Apple’s opening sales pitch, but it isn’t nearly time for the company to close the deal. There’s more to this story than we’ve heard so far. Stay tuned.

Virtual Reality

The long-running legal dispute between Apple and Epic Games finally reached a verdict two years ago. But the battle, which began when Epic bypassed Apple’s 30 percent cut for in-app purchases and Apple responded by booting Fortnite out of the App Store, is far from over. And now it’s headed to the highest court in the land.

Given that Apple hailed Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ 2021 ruling as “a huge win,” it was no surprise when Epic filed an appeal. Less predictably, Apple appealed too. In a filing this week, Apple attorneys argued that the court overreached in issuing a broad nationwide injunction applying to all developers, rather than just Epic. Maybe it wasn’t such a huge win after all.

While the judge ruled in Apple’s favor on nine counts, the Cupertino company was unhappy about the 10th: this one went in Epic’s favor, with the result that Apple was “permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms.” This means iOS app developers can link to their own payment systems, and Apple has to put up with it. In other words, Epic gets its own way on the issue at the very heart of the original dispute.

Both Apple and Epic appealed (different parts of) the ruling to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but were unsuccessful. The companies then appealed against the appeal court’s upholding of the ruling and were unsuccessful again. So now Apple is taking its case all the way to the Supreme Court.

“The district court issued a sweeping injunction prohibiting Apple from enforcing its anti-steering rules against all developers of iOS apps offered for distribution in the United States, even though the sole named plaintiff (Epic Games, Inc.) did not seek or obtain class certification, and did not prove that an injunction running in favor of non-parties was necessary to make it whole,” the filing reads.

“The panel’s decision affirming the injunction departs from Supreme Court and Circuit precedent holding that an injunction cannot be any broader than necessary to make the plaintiff whole, and that relief cannot otherwise extend beyond the named plaintiff without class certification.”

Slightly less convincingly, the filing argues that “there would be no prejudice to Epic from a stay: Epic is not an iOS app developer and does not stand to benefit from the injunction.” Epic is not an iOS app developer because Apple terminated its account.

Apple has been rumored to be opening iOS 17 to third-party app stores and sideloading in the European Union following the Digital Markets Act’s strict terms regarding third-party app stores and payments. However, Apple has not yet announced any such changes in the operating system, which launches this fall.

Apple Inc, iOS

For a product that isn’t debuting until 2024, Apple has said a lot about the Vision Pro, its mixed reality headset. Apple spent nearly an hour in the WWDC keynote discussing it. It has rolled out developer tools for visionOS, which has given us even more clarity about what visionOS can and can’t do.

And yet I remain firmly convinced that Apple hasn’t told us the whole story. The WWDC keynote was the time to make a first impression–but there’s half a year to go before the final story is told. As a result, Apple emphasized the features of the device that it felt would best represent the device. It emphasized the fact that it’s an augmented-reality product that keeps you connected with people around you as a way to blunt criticism that Apple’s trying to use its technology to wall people off from each other.

With the Vision Pro, there’s more to come. Here’s where I think Apple will have a much larger story to tell.

Yes, it’s really a VR headset

By defaulting to a view of the world around you and requiring that the user dial reality out via the Digital Crown, Apple sends the signal that the Vision Pro is an augmented-reality headset. But the truth is, it’s a VR headset that emulates AR, and that emulation can be dropped easily. If you don’t want to work in the very spacious rooms on display in Apple’s demo video, you can just as easily work in a virtual-reality environment.

But even more than that, app developers can create entire VR experiences within their apps. While Apple will strongly encourage apps to work in augmented reality–and if you want to walk around objects, it’s required–that won’t stop the ability for apps that do what we think of as “traditional” VR experiences.

In other words, Apple didn’t talk about VR games, the most popular category of software in existing VR hardware, but VR games will absolutely be a part of the Vision Pro experience. No, we don’t know how good Apple’s hand- and eye-tracking technology will be when it comes to the needs of various VR games. But we will certainly find out.

Yes, there will be fitness apps

Apple didn’t announce any Vision Pro integration with its Fitness+ service, which I admit was a bit of a surprise. On Meta’s headsets, apps like Supernatural and Beat Saber have gained huge followings as ways to spice up the drudgery of regular workouts.

I can’t say whether Fitness+ will appear on Vision Pro at launch–Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests it won’t–but if Apple doesn’t fill the gap, someone else will. Savvy app developers will try to be the next Beat Saber. And no matter how heavy or awkward the Vision Pro might be, no matter how much sweat the Vision Pro’s 3-D-knit headband might soak in, people will try to use VR for workouts. It’s going to happen.

Yes, there will be Memoji

Apple wanted to impress everyone with the Digital Persona, a replica of your face created via an in-depth initial scan that’s animated by Vision Pro sensors looking at your eye, face, and body gestures. I found them creepy, and I definitely wasn’t the only person who used the Vision Pro at WWDC who thought so.

I’m pretty sure Apple has never intended the Digital Persona to be the only option for users who need a proxy for interaction with other people when wearing the Vision Pro. It’s technology Apple was proud of, so it showed it off as a way to boast–as well as a way of explaining how the EyeSight feature was created.

But it can’t be the only option. Let’s start with the fact that not everyone will feel comfortable using a representation of themselves as they are if they can help it. There’s a good reason why Apple’s Memoji creation interface lets you choose a wide range of characteristics, including many that don’t even exist in human beings! Or you can choose to be an animated emoji character.

And really, if we’re being honest, it’s highly likely that the entire Memoji project was an early move in the direction of avatars for the Vision Pro. Do we really think Apple’s going to insist on Digital Personas for everyone, even if they’d rather just be an elephant? Not gonna happen.

Yes, Siri will be involved

Apple’s film about the Vision Pro shows a user reading out a website address via voice at one point. It’s pretty much the only example of Apple’s voice assistant being shown with the headset. But it’s almost inconceivable that voice control won’t be a major portion of the device’s interface.

When I used the Vision Pro, there were numerous moments when I realized that rather than manipulating a virtual interface via hand gesture, I’d probably be better off just issuing a voice command. But Siri wasn’t active on our demo headsets, probably because it’s just not good enough–and because if Apple leaned into it too much, it would make the rest of the Vision Pro interface work the company has done look a little less special.

A reliance on voice control by all of those people in solitary environments, sprawled on couches or sitting in chairs, might also reinforce the antisocial nature of these devices–if you’re comfortable constantly interjecting to Siri, that implies that nobody else is within earshot–and that’s very much not the impression Apple wants to give right now.

But there’s just no way that visionOS is a platform that isn’t strongly linked to voice commands. It just makes too much sense.

Your other Apple devices will probably be more involved

The Vision Pro appears to be a peer to the iPad and iPhone, capable of running iOS apps itself without any connection to those devices. Still, we didn’t see much direct integration between Apple’s most popular product and the Vision Pro.

Perhaps it won’t be there on day one, but I have a hard time believing that the iPhone won’t work tightly with Vision Pro. In macOS Sonoma, Apple’s introducing the concept of iPhone widgets that are projected right onto your Mac desktop. Why not extend that to Vision Pro? What about launching apps on your iPhone and viewing them right within Vision Pro? Maybe even more than one at a time?

Sure, you can look down and use your iPhone while using Vision Pro, but that’s always going to be a pretty limited experience. I have to think that Apple is working hard to figure out the best ways to use Continuity features to attach all of its devices to the Vision Pro–but most especially the iPhone.

The Vision Pro won’t be here for some time yet. We’ve heard Apple’s opening sales pitch, but it isn’t nearly time for the company to close the deal. There’s more to this story than we’ve heard so far. Stay tuned.

Virtual Reality