How to set up and use your Apple Watch!

Did you get a shiny new Apple Watch today?  HERE’S HOW TO USE IT!!

First things first: Make sure you have an iPhone 5, 5s, 5c, 6, or 6 Plus running iOS 8.2.

Secondly things secondly: Your watch should come with about 50% charge, but charge your watch if it needs it.

Power on the Watch by pressing the side button, and follow the prompts to select a language etc. Launch the Apple Watch App on your iPhone (it was automatically installed when you updated to iOS 8.2) and Tap “Start Pairing” on the main screen. Hold your watch up to your iPhone’s camera so the screen is aligned with the yellow outlined box on your iPhone’s screen, and follow the instructions on your iPhone screen.

If you open the Settings App on your shiny new watch, you’ll find the options to customize your brightness, sound, text size, silencing ability, and Do Not Disturb functions.

Your new best friend is the Digital Crown. Tap it to get back to the home screen, use it to zoom in maps/photos, press it in conjunction with the side button to take a screen shot, press and hold to activate Siri, and double click it to jump to your most recently visited app.

Your second best friend forever is the SWIPE! YES! Swipe up from the watch face to see what Apple calls ‘Glances’ which contains information such as calendar events, weather, heart rate, location, and the ability to access the option to ‘Ping’ your misplaced phone.

Swipe down to see your notifications. Swipe left on a notification to quickly clear it. Check your heartbeat by swiping up to expand Glances and swiping left to the heartbeat card.

Tapping is the cool guy you thought you knew that has a surprise twin brother that seems pretty cool. The Watch is pressure sensitive, so light tapping will have a different effect than if you ‘force touch’ – a slightly longer, firm press.

There are a number of uses for the force touch that become more apparent the more you play with the device. For instance in the maps app, you force touch to get to the search feature. Force touch the watch face to change its design, or on the notifications ‘red dot’ to clear them all, or on the Messages inbox to compose a new text.

In Glances, tap to get more information on any of the applications.

Raising your hand will activate the display and show you the time, the last notification if you’ve received one, or activate Siri if you say “Hey Siri” at the same time. Lowering your wrist after receiving a notification will dismiss it. Putting your hand over the watch face will silence an incoming phone call.

You can also use it to control Apple TV, which could be useful, and also could be super annoying to anyone else in the room (which, yes, can be excellent).

To use Apple Pay, double click the side button and hold the face of the watch near the card reader. POOF, MONEY EXCHANGED!

We’ll be bringing you more Apple Watch updates and user guides as we get to know more about the device, and in the mean time, you should also check out the Apple video guides here.

Happy Weekend Kids!

People have started to receive their Apple Watches!

As of this morning, many people have started to receive their Shiny Apple Watches in the mail, delivered by either UPS or Fedex.

Have you received yours yet?

More Apple Watch guided videos

Want to learn more about the Apple Watch that you just received/will receive soon/will one day have? Or perhaps it’s Friday afternoon and you’re feeling a little procrastinatey, but you’ve already read the whole internet?

We got you, friend!

Apple has launched a further update to it’s Guided Tours section on it’s Apple Watch website. Now you can be guided through some super interesting things like Apple Pay, Activity apps

Check it out here on Apple’s website, or here on their YouTube channel. 

You can buy Apple Watch in-store today !

Today is the official Launch date of the Apple Watch, ( Yay!) however, as you may have heard, that doesn’t mean you can just walk in to any ol’ apple store and buy one.

Apple has restricted the purchase of Apple Watches to online only, meaning you can go in-store and check them out, however when you decide that you want one and which one you want, a kindly Apple employee will then be able to assist you in making your online purchase, and you’ll have to wait for your new shiny baby to be shipped.

Bummer, right? But wait – there’s more!  According to reports, there will  be retail stores where you can buy an Apple Watch on the spot. You’re looking at high end fashion boutiques for this one, including Dover Street Market in Tokyo and London, Maxfield in Los Angeles, Colette in Paris, the Corner in Berlin, and 10 Corso Como in Milan.

None of these stores will have the Apple Watch Edition available for on-the-spot purchase, and stock will be limited for the other models (likely in the 100’s).

The first people to get their hands on an Apple Watch apart from those lucky enough to scoop them up in one of the above fancy boutique’s will be those who were quick-handed enough to pre-order within the first few minutes of April 10th, however those who pre-ordered afterwards might be in luck, with Apple advising that more Apple Watches are shipping faster than expected.