The Apple Watch is the most exciting device made by Apple over the last 3 years. The performance jumps are huge, and it’s constantly gaining new abilities. But everything can be improved, and I appreciated Matt Birchler’s great write-up on suggestions for watchOS 5 at his BirchTree blog. I’m linking to it here and expounding on the suggestions that I liked the best. His suggestions are below in bold.
Siri should always be listening for “Hey Siri,” thereby removing the need for me to raise my wrist to ask a question or make a request. Since Siri can now talk to you (at least on the Series 3) then it should be able to answer me without the need to ever look at the watch face.
This may be the most important suggestion of all. One of the biggest drivers behind Amazon’s Echo sales success is that Alexa is always standing by waiting for your orders. Siri isn’t quite there yet on the watch. You don’t have to touch your watch to call Siri, but you do have to turn your wrist so as to trigger your watch screen. Having an LTE-capable Apple Watch strapped to your wrist with an always-listening Siri would finally turn Siri into the omnipresent assistant we’ve always wanted.
The Apple News app is nice, and I love its integration into the Siri watch face, but it does not let me read entire articles on the watch itself. I know it’s a bit odd, but it would be nice to be able to read more than just the first line of some articles without having to get my phone.
In contrast, the news app Flipboard will put articles in their Apple Watch app, at least the first 4 paragraphs, and I actually like using it. It used to be that using the app was far too slow on my Series 0 or 2, but on the Series 3 it’s fairly quick. I’ll read articles on my watch any time I don’t have my iPhone or iPad with me and I feel like scanning the latest headlines. This is where the genius of the Apple Watch crown really shines. You can scroll through the text without blocking the screen. I don’t see why Apple News feels that they can’t add text to their articles. Flipboard already does, and it works just fine.
My final want is a crazy one, but I’d like the ability to watch YouTube videos on my watch. yes, this is stupid, and yes this is definitely not happening, but every once in a while I would actually like a video to play on my wrist and I can’t do it today. This would require Apple to make it possible and for Google to make it actually happen, and neither of those are likely, but hey, what are wishlists for?
This actually makes a lot of sense. I often like to listen to YouTube videos when I’m doing chores. I’m listening much more than I’m watching. Especially if it’s a daily vlog from someone who’s basically just talking into the camera. I don’t really need to see every second of the video. I’d like to play the video on my watch and listen to it on my AirPods. I’d love to have my YouTube Watch Later playlist on my watch ready to go at any time.
Now available in iBooks —> The Tesla Bubbl
This may be the most important suggestion of all. One of the biggest drivers behind Amazon’s Echo sales success is that Alexa is always standing by waiting for your orders. Siri isn’t quite there yet on the watch. You don’t have to touch your watch to call Siri, but you do have to turn your wrist so as to trigger your watch screen. Having an LTE-capable Apple Watch strapped to your wrist with an always-listening Siri would finally turn Siri into the omnipresent assistant we’ve always wanted.
The Apple News app is nice, and I love its integration into the Siri watch face, but it does not let me read entire articles on the watch itself. I know it’s a bit odd, but it would be nice to be able to read more than just the first line of some articles without having to get my phone.
In contrast, the news app Flipboard will put articles in their Apple Watch app, at least the first 4 paragraphs, and I actually like using it. It used to be that using the app was far too slow on my Series 0 or 2, but on the Series 3 it’s fairly quick. I’ll read articles on my watch any time I don’t have my iPhone or iPad with me and I feel like scanning the latest headlines. This is where the genius of the Apple Watch crown really shines. You can scroll through the text without blocking the screen. I don’t see why Apple News feels that they can’t add text to their articles. Flipboard already does, and it works just fine.
My final want is a crazy one, but I’d like the ability to watch YouTube videos on my watch. yes, this is stupid, and yes this is definitely not happening, but every once in a while I would actually like a video to play on my wrist and I can’t do it today. This would require Apple to make it possible and for Google to make it actually happen, and neither of those are likely, but hey, what are wishlists for?
This actually makes a lot of sense. I often like to listen to YouTube videos when I’m doing chores. I’m listening much more than I’m watching. Especially if it’s a daily vlog from someone who’s basically just talking into the camera. I don’t really need to see every second of the video. I’d like to play the video on my watch and listen to it on my AirPods. I’d love to have my YouTube Watch Later playlist on my watch ready to go at any time.
Now available in iBooks —> The Tesla Bubbl
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