Apple Watch Utility

[CaspersCruiser]

My wife got me an Apple Watch for Christmas. What is the utility of this thing, especially as it relates to operating my 2012 R27? My other Apple devices are an iPhone 7+ and two iPad Pros, one cell enabled. On the boat, I use the iPads for up-to-date charts, one primary, one backup. I do not carry paper.

 

[JamesTXSD]

I am on my second Apple Watch. It has changed how I think about a watch. When driving commercial whale watch boats, our office often communicated with the captains via text - having that text on my wrist meant I could leave my phone in my pocket (and use voice to text or the canned responses to respond). My wife has called me a "weather nerd" for decades - at a glance, I can see local weather and wind. Tap the watch and I get more detailed weather information... on my wrist. I use the tide chart app on my watch all the time.

Oh, and it tells time, too. 😉 Give it some time. Learn to use the various apps with it and you will find functional stuff it will do regularly.

I haven't worn a regular watch since I got that first Apple Watch when they first came out. I was a skeptic, but at my wife's urging (she bought it for me, knowing I would have good use for it), I quickly found out how functional it is.

Enjoy your new smart watch!

 

[bill46]

I have a tides app on phone and watch, very handy.

 

[Bruce Moore]

Vicki and I both use one. I agree with Jim, my favorite benefit is being able to leave my phone in my pocket to check and/or reply to incoming texts, alerts, and preselected info from apps on my phone. Voice dictation works increasingly well.

You can turn supported apps on and off easily (in the Watch app). Many can be selected as complications on a great variety of watch faces you can choose from. Basic data is displayed all the time and can be expanded with a tap. I have a number of watch faces configured with different complication sets for different activities. Very versatile.

And, you can answer and make calls, control Apple Music, access Siri... all on your wrist.

Cheers,

Bruce

 

[CaspersCruiser]

And, you can answer and make calls, control Apple Music, access Siri... all on your wrist.

Thanks to all. I’ll be a regular Dick Tracy talking to my wrist.

 

[Bruce Moore]

I sometimes refer to Vicki as "Chic Tracy". 😉

 

[CaspersCruiser]

To help non-Apple Watch folks reading this thread, the “complications” mentioned in above posts are user selectable one-touch icons around the watch face that display information or instantly call up apps.

When I first read the posts before setting up the watch, I was not aware of “complications” and thought that word in the post was an autocorrect typo.

 

[Bruce Moore]

Any functions on any watch other than the display of time (hours, minutes, seconds) have been referred to as a complications for centuries. Day, date, moon phase, alarm, battery indicator, etc. The first perpetual calendar on a watch was invented in the late 18th century. Back then they were named complications because they complicated the building of watch mechanics and faces.

The Apple Watch, and other smart watches, have vastly expanded the world of watch complications because they can display information (tides, weather, stock market, music players, pedometers, heart rate, transit info, etc.) which is provided by applications of the paired iPhone.


Cheers,

Bruce

 

[CaspersCruiser]

Any functions on any watch other than the display of time (hours, minutes, seconds) have been referred to as a complications for centuries.

Learning has been achieved!

 

[FlyMeAway]

There are some Apple Watch apps that, with finagling *might* be able to give you autopilot control. There are definitely apple watch apps that can (with a companion app on your phone) pull basic NMEA data, like speed, course, RPM, etc.

If you're really interested in getting a watch that does cool things with the boat, check out Garmin's Quatix. Basically puts your plotter and autopilot on your wrist the way the Apple Watch puts your phone on your wrist.

I'm waiting for Garmin to enable this functionality on third-party wrist devices.