The IT Nerd

Frequent readers of this blog will know that I am a huge Apple Watch Fan. I’ve had the Series 2, the Series 3 with GPS, and the Series 3 with GPS + Cellular and most recently I have had the Series 4 with GPS+ Cellular. Just recently I did a story on my Apple Watch band choices. And that’ has led to requests to do a story on which watch faces I use. Generally I flip between two watch faces that are useful for anyone who has a Series 4 because of the bigger screen. However, for the benefit of earlier Apple Watch users, I will recommend a watch face for you as well. My logic when it comes to watch face choices is that I want to either see as much information as possible at a glance, or have easy access to the info that I want to see so that I don’t have to reach for my iPhone. The first watch face that I use fully accomplishes both of those goals:

This is the Infograph watch face. I normally don’t go for analog watch faces, but I have really grown to like this watch face because of the number of complications (Apple’s weird name for shortcuts) on this watch face. Which is eight of them. As a result, this is my default watch face at present. As for the complications that are present, starting from the top left:

• Temperature with the daily high and low pulled from the built in Weather app.
• The top right has the amount of battery life remaining.
• The inside center has the date as well as the next appointment in my appointment book.
• The inside left has a complication to get to the mail app. Now to be clear, I never respond to mail using the mail app on the Apple Watch, but it is handy to see what mail that is sitting in my inbox without pulling out my iPhone.
• The inside right has a complication to get to messages. It is not unusual for me to look at and respond to messages using the dictation feature or the pre-defined responses that are present.
• The inside bottom has the weather conditions from the Weather app.
• The bottom left is a complication to get to the heart app which allows me to check what my heart rate is whenever I feel the need to.
• The bottom right has the status of my activity rings which is pulled from the Activity App.

Now I really like how the outer complications wrap around the corners to really use the space that’s available in the Apple Watch Series 4 screen. But there are times that I want slightly less info. For that reason, I have this watch face:

This is the Infograph Modular watch face. It’s a digital watch face that is a bit cleaner which will appeal to some who want something that is clean but information dense. But to get this look you only get six complications. And they are:

• The top left has the amount of battery remaining.
• The top right has the date.
• The middle is my calendar which is pulled from the Calendar app.
• The bottom left has the status of my activity rings which is pulled from the Activity App.
• Temperature with the daily high and low pulled from the built in Weather app is on the bottom center.
• The bottom right has the weather conditions from the Weather app.

Both of those are great options for Apple Watch Series 4 users. But what happens if you have an earlier Apple Watch with a smaller screen? This is what I would recommend:

This is the Utility watch face which works with any Apple Watch. It gives you four complications. In my case they are:

• The top left has the status of my activity rings which is pulled from the Activity App.
• The top right has the temperature pulled from the built in Weather app.
• The center right has the date.
• The bottom is my calendar which is pulled from the Calendar app.

It’s very clean but still useful for displaying info at a glance.

I’d love to know what Apple Watch faces that you’re using and what complications that you have configured. Please leave a comment and share what you’re rocking on your Apple Watch.

This entry was posted on February 11, 2019 at 9:00 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.