1. Double-press the Digital Crown to swap between your watch face and last app
The Digital Crown hides one of the Watch's few multitasking abilities: double-press it on the clock face, and you'll bounce to your most-recently-used app. Double-press the Digital Crown in an app, and you'll return to the clock face. It's a quick way to jump around the Watch's interface without having to return to the home screen first.
2. Cover the screen to turn it off
Perhaps my favorite secret agent move, you can turn off a lit Apple Watch screen by just cupping it with your palm. This is different from the Cover to Mute option, which (when enabled) allows you to silence the Watch by cupping your hand over the face; even when it's turned off, you can still turn off the Watch's screen with your hand. It's also a great way to save battery life on your device!
3. Organize your apps diagonally
By organizing your apps diagonally or vertically on the Watch's home screen, you can scroll through them much more easily, build an app hierarchy that makes sense to you, and avoid accidentally tapping the wrong app icon.
4. Optimize your glances
After a few days with the Watch, you'll very quickly start to discover which app glances are useful to you and which ones make no sense to have at your disposal. At this point, I recommend popping back to the iPhone and trimming your glances list, as well as rearranging them so that you can have the third-party apps you use most closest to the settings glance. (On my Watch: Settings, Heartbeat, Activity, Music, a bunch of weather glances, my pedometer apps, news.)
5. Swipe down to dismiss notifications
Notification pop up on the screen that you don't want to deal with right now? Just swipe down (or scroll down with the Digital Crown) from the top of the screen to dismiss it.
6. Preview your full messages in Notification Center
As long as you haven't yet opened the app your notifications are from, they still live in your Watch's Notification Center. When you swipe down from the clock face and tap on a notification, you can actually view the entire message without it dismissing the notification — or it being "seen" as read on the other end. Practically, this means you can read any messages that come in without letting the recipient know you've read it. For me, this lets me quickly check for work or personal emergencies without having to signal to the other person that I've read it and am aware of the problem.
Alternatively, this is a great way to quickly scan messages you've missed without having to duck into their respective apps, and see something without marking it as read (so that you can triage it later).
7. Swipe left on lists to reveal more functionality
Most list-based Apple Watch apps or views have hidden functionality behind each item — just swipe left to find it. On notifications in Notification Center, for example, you can swipe left to dismiss a notification.You can also swipe left in Messages to get more details and delete messages; in Mail, swiping left on a message gives you options to mark it as flagged or unread.
8. Save battery by disabling Activate on Wrist Raise
There are times when enabling Wrist Raise — which wakes your Watch when you turn it toward you — isn't such a great idea. Also not great: having the Watch turn on during a movie.
This is a great way to kill your battery faster than you intend, so if you'd rather just activate your device on a button press during certain activities, here's the quick way to tackle it. On your Watch, go to Settings > General > Activate on Wrist Raise and toggle the switch off.
9. Make multiple copies of the same clock face
Not only can you customize a single clock face to your choosing — you can make multiple different versions of the same clock face, each with different complications. This is especially useful if you want a different face for exercising than everyday use.
To set this up, press firmly on your Watch's clock face until you see the "Customize" option, then swipe all the way to the left until you see the plus button. Tap the button to create a new clock face of your choosing. (You can also delete clock faces you don't want to use anymore from this screen by swiping up on the face in question.)
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