Phone calls and messages
Communicate in new ways with your Apple Watch
One thing that immediately struck us about Apple Watch is its effectiveness as a communication tool, whether you’re making phone calls like Dick Tracy, or sending animated emojis.
51 Start a call
Set up your Friends list in the Watch’s companion app on your iPhone, then press the Watch’s side button, select and tap a friend, then tap the phone icon. To answer a call, just press the green answer icon when the incoming call arrives.
52 Respond with a message
If you don’t want to take a call you can respond with one of the stock messages. When a call is incoming, use the Digital Crown to scroll down. Tap Send a Message and pick a stock answer to send instead, or dictate your own.
53 Switch to iPhone
If you’d rather answer the call on your iPhone, don’t just leave the phone ringing as you fumble around for it. Instead rotate the Digital Crown and tap Answer on iPhone.
54 Turn up the volume
Use the Digital Crown during a phone call to adjust the volume.
55 Get yourself heard
Look on the opposite side of the Watch to the Digital Crown and you’ll find two holes. The larger one at the top is the speaker, and the small pinhole near the bottom is the microphone. Don’t shout if you want to be heard more clearly: instead move your mouth closer to the mic.
56 Dictate text or send audio
When dictating a message, you can choose to send the audio of you speaking or a transcript of it. Make either a permanent decision from your iPhone, under My Watch > Messages > Audio Messages.
57 Animated emoji
In Messages, variations of animated emojis are selected using the Digital Crown. 58. Clever Dictation Siri is a lot more powerful for dictation than many people realise. You can say “cap” before a word to capitalise its first letter, “caps on” to use sentence case, or “all caps” to look like you’re shouting. Check out siriuserguide.com/siri-dictation-guide for more.
59 Change emoji colour
Performing a deep press on either the smiley or heart emoji changes its colour.
60 Regular emojis
The first three emojis are animated – and they remain so when viewed on iOS 8 and OS XYosemite. If you swipe one more page to the right you’ll find regular, static ones.
61 Send your location
Perform a deep press when viewing a conversation in the Messages app to reveal a button that sends your location.
62 Call details
Use a deep press within a Messages conversation and then tap Details to view information about the other person: scroll down to find address information, or tap the phone icon to quickly switch to a phone call.
63 Digital Touch
If you know another person with an Apple Watch you can use Digital Touch to communicate, if they are in your Friends list. Press the side button, select the person and a Digital Touch icon appears in the middle at the bottom of the screen. Draw with one finger on your screen and it’ll instantly appear on their Watch.
64 Change colour
Tap the icon at the top-right of the Digital Touch screen to reveal a colour selection wheel, and then tap the one you want to use.
65 Share your heartbeat
Hold two fingers on the Digital Touch screen to share your heartbeat with the other person. They will see a pulsating heart graphic and feel a haptic beat in time with your heart. 66 Change the stock text replies The Messages app provides a list of canned replies such as “What’s up?” and “Sorry, I can’t talk right now”. You can change these for up to six of your own in the Watch’s iPhone app, under My Watch > Messages > Default Replies.