The improvements in watchOS 3 over watchOS 2 are still, to me, the most exciting thing happening with Apple this summer. I would have skipped the iOS 10 beta altogether if not for the fact that I simply couldn’t wait to get watchOS 3 on my Apple Watch. The difference in day-to-day practice is staggering.
That doesn’t mean that watchOS 3 is perfect, of course. There are still two little things bugging me that I wish Apple would address.
First, the Activity rings. It’s great that there are a few Activity-centered faces on the watch now. I use both the analog and digital versions quite a bit. But neither face, and none of the complications for Activity give me the one piece of information I want most often: whether or not I’ve reached my stand goal for the current hour.
I can read how many hours I’ve stood quite easily, even in the complications. Divide a circle in 12 pieces, and it becomes a breeze to see which number of hours you have currently fulfilled. But there’s no way to know whether one of those hours is the current hour. Once I get to the 50-minute mark, of course, I will get a notification if I have not yet stood. But what about at 38 minutes? The only way to find out is to launch Activity, then scroll down all the way to the chart that shows the hours of the day listed out one by one. I do this several times a day, and it’s annoying. Seems to me that this information could easily be provided in the complication, on the Activity watch face, or at the very least on the initial view of the Activity app.
Second, the charging screen. When my Apple Watch is in its charging stand, and I tap it to light up the screen, there are only three possibilities for what I currently want to know:
- Is it actually charging?
- What time is it?
- What’s the current charging percentage?
The first two are covered well. The lightning bolt icon at the top lets you know it’s charging, and the watch face gives you the time.
For the current charging percentage, however, it’s a different story. When you first connect it to the charger, you get that nice big circle showing the current percentage (which is also a more obvious indicator that charging is actually happening at the most important moment—when you first plug it in). But any time you tap the screen after that, there’s no way to see the current percentage on the screen. You need to type in your passcode, then swipe up to get your command center, where you can finally see the percentage.
Every iOS device gives you a nice big battery icon with the current charging percentage listed under it when it’s charging. Why not at least put the percentage next to the lightning bolt icon?
Even Nightstand mode, which I never use, doesn’t give you the percentage. Seems like a silly omission.
