My wife has given me an Apple Watch Series 5 (44mm) as a gift to replace my
Series 3. I thought I'd offer some thoughts on the setup for others who have
found it's time for an upgrade.
Right off the bat, you're asked if you want to set up the Series 5 as a new
watch, or to restore from backup. I opted to set it up as a new watch, but my
wife advised (a little late) that I should have opted for the restore from
backup option. (Happily, I later learned the Apple Watch app on my phone can
differentiate between the two watches and control them both. That's pretty slick.)
The first thing I noticed when I pulled it from the box is how much larger the
display seems to be. My Series 3 is a 42mm; it shouldn't seem that much different.
But when I was asked to add a password once it was on, I was pretty surprised by
how much larger the display seems; the digits seem much bigger than they do on the
Series 3. I believe the difference is that the display is longer than previous
versions were, and this length offers some nice changes to support rectangular
faces.
Okay. Let's make with the unsolicited advice. Here are my do's and don'ts:
Don't Push All Your Apps
The watch offers one the option of pushing all of one's phone apps over automagically,
or the option of doing it manually. Personally, I don't want everything that has
a companion Apple Watch app pushed onto the unit. I use very few of them; there's
no need for them all to take up space... or RAM.
Don't Let Content Fill Available Space
I hvae a pretty big music collection. But I listen to it on my phone, not
my watch. So while I'm thinking about it, in the Apple Watch app with my new watch
selected, I scroll down the list of apps — not available apps, just the apps
onboard by default — until I find music. When I tap into the menu item, I
find that Apple has by default set my watch to download music I play in heavy
rotation, plus three different curated mixes updated weekly... it turned all
of those switches off.
I then do the same with the Audiobooks menu: I turn off the switches for
"Reading Now" and "Want to Read."
Both Music and Audiobooks will automatically fill available space on your
watch with content. The problem I have with this is updates to Watch OS won't
install if you've no available memory. That's why I ensure these are all shut
off.
Don't Let Your Watch Pester You with Everything on Your Phone
If you want to experience how annoying the Apple Watch can be, all you
need is one group messaging thread.
As every message comes in, the watch will give your wrist a sharp tap.
One very active group thread was enough for me to learn that the watch
does not have to tell me about everything happening on my phone.
In the app, navigate to Notifications, then scroll way down to the section
that reads "MIRROR IPHONE ALERTS FROM:"; now turn off the notifications from
any app you don't feel is important enough to nag you about. Do I want
notifications about my flight? Yes. Maps? Yes. Facebook? Nope. Outlook?
Absolutely not. Flavor to your taste.
General Settings
The first thing I do here is scroll down to the Wake Screen item and
zealously disable Auto-launch Audio Apps.
Monogramming
One of the settings under Clock is for a monogram. I've published instructions
in the past on how to set this to the Apple logo, if that's of interest
to you.
Now for the Best Part: The Faces
Sex sells. And you can bet these sexy watch faces are a big part of
why these units must be flying off the shelves. I have a couple early
favorites:
- Solar Dial. The new and improved solar watch face is
completely gorgeous, with the time placed prominently across from the
relative position of the sun in the sky and four complications, all
displayed in hues of blue.
- Meridian is the default face displayed when the watch
setup completes. One of the really nice things about it is its white face
presents when your wrist is lifted, but the face fades to black when your
arm is returned to your side. That is, you can still see the hands and its
four complications all grouped toward the face's center which are set to
multi-color by default, really showing off the beauty of the new face.
- Infograph is similar to Meridian, except the
Infograph face is circular, as opposed to Meridian's more rounded
rectangular face. Infograph features a series of up to eight complications --
four circular ones clustered near the center (like Meridian), plus four
that appear at the corners. Information overload all right at your wrist.
Functionality
The new Watch OS does behave differently based on which version of the
Apple Watch you have. One nice improvement I noticed on the Series 5 is
that it will show you the time even if the last thing you were displaying
was something other than a watch face.
Say you're doing what you do when a summary of a news story pops up on
your Apple Watch. So you read it and drop your wrist back to a natural
position. When you next look at your watch, a clock appears over the
blurred image of that news story you didn't dismiss. I think it's a nice
touch... I feel it was somebody's pet peeve — it seems rather a specific
use case, no?
What Next?
So now I have my super shiny Series 5. What do I shop for next? More
watch bands? Well, maybe. Happily, I'm told the bands I already own from
my Series 1 and 3 will fit it. But I'm actually thinking about screen
protectors instead.
The screen on my Series 1 smashed when the watch fell from my wrist. My
Series 3 has a few scratches from bumping the face against various things.
I don't want this Series 5 getting the same kinds of scratches, and a screen
protector might prevent the screen from smashing from a fall. I'll be
placing an order through Amazon here shortly.
Summary
The Apple Watch Series 5 is a beautiful, beautiful machine. I've found
these watches to be very reliable, and indispensable. If you're careful
about balancing the software and content you'll actually use against the
software and content you have available, you should be able to perform
upgrade after upgrade without complication (pun totally intended), and
enjoy it for years.