watchOS 7 Wish Lists

Software
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_David Smith has posted his wish list for WatchOS 7 and I find myself only able to nod in agreement:

https://david-smith.org/blog/2020/05/15/opportunities-for-watchos-7/

I bought and returned both the second Apple Watch and the third Apple Watch. It wasn’t until 4 that I liked it enough to stick with it, and I finally convinced my wife to get onboard with 5. We really like it, but it still feels like unfulfilled potential. I think the recommendations Smith provides would create the conditions for a flourishing Apple Watch experience.

Matt Birchler posted some similar calls back in February:

One of the things I celebrate most about these two wish lists is the call for customizability in Activity, as discussed previously on the MPU forum.

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Read with interest, even as I have recently stopped using my Series 3, put in the drawer and failed to miss it really at all. My iPhone does enough tracking for me regarding fitness and enough with podcast listening, so the value proposition just isn’t there. Sleep tracking Oura ring-style could change that, though.

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Fun thread. I’m a big fan of the watch (owned 3, 4 and 5) and its potential. Some of these ideas are compelling, especially David Smith’s suggestions to aid developers.

Some software-only changes I want, mostly small:

  • control over the always-on watch face when an app is active
  • double-press shows Apple Pay when a notification is active (right now, the first press clears it.)
  • faster rendering of recent apps on button press (as fast as swiping up/down from the screen edges)
  • on modular watch faces, the time is tappable and opens a Clock app (so I guess I want a Clock app…)
  • swipe from the edge to go back in more apps—I don’t like having to always use the upper left breadcrumb
  • a way to repeatedly ping your phone
  • a way to ping the Airpods used with the watch
  • flashlight can be set to default to red
  • text search the library or Apple Music in the watch Music app
  • add albums to the Watch offline library from the watch

I also want it to be able to use bluetooth keyboards, but that’s never going to happen. :slight_smile:

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  • I want to be able to freeze my Watch display until I say unfreeze so that I can queue up to board a flight (If I ever fly anywhere again) and present my watch without having to scroll around at the last minute trying to find the boarding pass that just timed out or scrolled off the display.

  • A hardware flashlight

  • Optional moon phase and naked-eye visible planets on the Solar Dial watch face. Also, add weather indication (cloudy, sunny, rain) to the background.

  • Apps updating properly. For example, I’d like the garage door opener app to just work, rather than spinning saying “authenticating” until I get to the garage and open it myself; another example, I’d like my astronomy polar alignment app to show the current situation when I open it; failing that to show that it contains stale data and provide a way to force an update; either of these would be preferable to showing stale data as if it was current.

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I really want complications to upgrade properly across all apps. Also, I really want Siri to get its act together (but that applies to every device). The inconsistent results across devices made give up on it entirely.

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