Thoughts on watchOS 10 and the lost dock

[Stiksi]

I’ve been adjusting to watchOS 10 and all the lost functionality for a while now and there are some things that I’ve done to adjust that probably aren’t what Apple had in mind.

- Since there is no dock, I’ve removed all the little used apps I can like Activity (this seems to break some functionality for 3rd party apps), all the Find apps, Medications, Memoji, Mindfulness, Noise, Sleep (seems to break 3rd party sleep tracking) etc. to make the list of apps even slightly shorter. I have apps installed that I need to find quickly but not often. I wish Apple would let me delete Podcasts (Edit: you can by deleting it on the iPhone), App Store and Audio Books. I use none of them. I’ve also had to remove some apps I actually use but aren’t essential enough to make the list longer.

- The widgets are pretty useless, you can’t even add apps from Apple, like Shazam, to the slots. The only ones I find semi-useful are Reminders and Weather, but I have a watch face for each. That means I have to use complications as app launchers and can’t have them display useful information like they were meant to. This is an even bigger issue because switching between watch faces is much less convenient now. There isn’t even a feature that’s using side swipes, it’s just gone.

It seems clear to me, that the OS was not finished by the time it lauched. There are a lot of pretty obvious bugs and the new UI is so limited, it has to have been rushed. I wish Apple would get over this hyperfixation with the number 10. It does not need to be a major rethink if they’re not done thinking yet. This might have been much better next year or the year after that.

At the moment it’s not really about adjusting to the new way of doing things but about learning to make do with less and trying to work around the new limitations. It has forced me to really evaluate how the watch fits into my daily life and how much of the things I used to do with the watch I can offload to the phone.

 

[Howard2k]

Hyper-fixation with number 10? It seems to be the forum that is deep into numerology. I don’t see any evidence of Apple being hyper fixated by it.

It does appear to have been a gong show release all the same.

 

[Stiksi]

Hyper-fixation with number 10? It seems to be the forum that is deep into numerology. I don’t see any evidence of Apple being hyper fixated by it.

It does appear to have been a gong show release all the same.

There are a lot of significant tens in Apple’s past: Os X - complete redesign, they liked it so much they stayed on 10 for two decades, IPhone X - major redesign, Final Cut X, major redesign, Logic Pro X, major redesign… the X always meant they axed a lot of features. Maybe they realised the ”X” is overused and just did a normal 10 instead, but still used the axe, idk…

 

[nnc]

I liked the Dock quite a bit, and of course we must adapt. I do wish the little bar with 3 dots / slots for apps (just above All Apps) would be expanded to 6 slots. It would fit nicely. Together with the one Pinned and several Recent apps above it, it's not a terrible replacement for the old Dock.

 

[Stiksi]

I liked the Dock quite a bit, and of course we must adapt. I do wish the little bar with 3 dots / slots for apps (just above All Apps) would be expanded to 6 slots. It would fit nicely. Together with the one Pinned and several Recent apps above it, it's not a terrible replacement for the old Dock.

I could even get by with the 3 slots in the smart stack if you could add any app to the slots, but you can only add the most basic Apple made apps. Imo it is a terrible feature at the moment. It will probably get better, but it might take years.

 

[rsday75]

Rather than remove so much from the watch......
I use the grid view. It no longer moves horizontally only vertically.
I arranged my most used apps to the top of the grid. No need to scroll a list.
One tap of the crown brings up the grid and the top 17 apps. I now use this as my dock.
Sad we have to adjust like this, but so be it.
The double tap of the crown for recent apps is useless to me with my curated grid view.
swipe up and crown rotation both bring the useless widgets. What a waste.
I have 3 things pinned that are the most used there, but use nothing else in the widget view. Also, having the time & date duplicated in the first widget is useless....the watch face has this info.
Tap, hold, swipe, tap again to change watch face is just terrible.

 

[Stiksi]

Rather than remove so much from the watch......
I use the grid view. It no longer moves horizontally only vertically.
I arranged my most used apps to the top of the grid. No need to scroll a list.
One tap of the crown brings up the grid and the top 17 apps. I now use this as my dock.
Sad we have to adjust like this, but so be it.
The double tap of the crown for recent apps is useless to me with my curated grid view.
swipe up and crown rotation both bring the useless widgets. What a waste.
I have 3 things pinned that are the most used there, but use nothing else in the widget view. Also, having the time & date duplicated in the first widget is useless....the watch face has this info.
Tap, hold, swipe, tap again to change watch face is just terrible.

That’s a good workaround! Unfortunately, it’s 2°C outside and it’ll be way colder for 5 months, so I really need it to work with gloves. I wish Apple would start designing things with people outside of California in mind!

The recent apps screen is not working right. I’m having to play a guessing game of ”what app is this” with the cards because they don’t have labels. I even have a couple that are just black squares.

 

[arc of the universe]

took a few weeks to get to learn how to navigate really quickly, and create new muscle memory movements.
but i can say i really like WatchOS 10 now. a lot.

WatchOS 9 and WatchOS 10 so incredibly different.

9: was great for notifications, and just the ability to not always have the iPhone everywhere i went in the office or at home. 9 made me love the Watch. it gave me a quick way to see some general info that it tried to present in a small space.

10: has changed the way of presenting info entirely. 10 gives much bigger screens of info that focus on a particular subset of info and has created ways to see other related screens of particular info. 10 is all about focused info. moving Utilities to the button freed up the ability to effortlessly to go from one big singular focused data pane to the next big singular focused data pane.

this gives the watch a future that was not possible with WatchOS 9.
in the future we will see more complicated apps (meaning: apps that house a lot of data. imagine iOS Health data) on the watch. entirely possible now with the way WatchOS 10 shows focused info.

once i began to appreciate how the Weather app was structured, it showed how a lot of the other apps have also changed.
i think this indicates that apple thinks the outer dimensional size of the watch is nearing its logical limits and it needed the OS itself to accommodate a way of showing and moving around in the info in a different way.

 

[Stiksi]

took a few weeks to get to learn how to navigate really quickly, and create new muscle memory movements.
but i can say i really like WatchOS 10 now. a lot.

WatchOS 9 and WatchOS 10 so incredibly different.

9: was great for notifications, and just the ability to not always have the iPhone everywhere i went in the office or at home. 9 made me love the Watch. it gave me a quick way to see some general info that it tried to present in a small space.

10: has changed the way of presenting info entirely. 10 gives much bigger screens of info that focus on a particular subset of info and has created ways to see other related screens of particular info. 10 is all about focused info. moving Utilities to the button freed up the ability to effortlessly to go from one big singular focused data pane to the next big singular focused data pane.

this gives the watch a future that was not possible with WatchOS 9.
in the future we will see more complicated apps (meaning: apps that house a lot of data. imagine iOS Health data) on the watch. entirely possible now with the way WatchOS 10 shows focused info.

once i began to appreciate how the Weather app was structured, it showed how a lot of the other apps have also changed.
i think this indicates that apple thinks the outer dimensional size of the watch is nearing its logical limits and it needed the OS itself to accommodate a way of showing and moving around in the info in a different way.

I agree, the top down navigation of screens is a good solution. Now they just need to do the rest of it. Navigating within apps is better, but getting to the apps is way slower and I’m afraid it might take years before they solve this mess again.

But I’m not really hoping for the watch to get super deep apps with a lot of information. Like I mentioned, I would love to be able to delete App Store from the watch and just use it on the phone. Navigating it on the tiny screen feels more like a tech demo than an actual feature – like playing doom on your microwave or something.

 

[tomtad]

but getting to the apps is way slower

How so? There are multiple ways of launching apps. From the top of my head these are:

• App Grid - one press of crown
• Smart Stack favorite apps widget - scroll from watchface
• Smart Stack widgets - press a widget to launch relevant app
• Complications - press a compilation to launch relevant app
• Recents - double press crown to launch a recent app
• Siri - Speak to launch app

That's a lot of ways to get to an app, and all of them are quick to access.

 

[Stiksi]

How so? There are multiple ways of launching apps. From the top of my head these are:

• App Grid - one press of crown
• Smart Stack favorite apps widget - scroll from watchface
• Smart Stack widgets - press a widget to launch relevant app
• Complications - press a compilation to launch relevant app
• Recents - double press crown to launch a recent app
• Siri - Speak to launch app

That's a lot of ways to get to an app, and all of them are quick to access.

Well, if you read back, you will see I have gone over every one of these before in the thread, except Siri. None of them are convenient in my opinion or quick for the Apps I need and none of them come close to the convenience and functionality the dock provided.

• App grid icons are tiny and impossible to use with gloves, I use the list for a reason. The App grid is the poster boy for form over function.
• Smart stack only allows a few Apple made apps to be added to the slots, no 3rd party and no useful Apple made apps. That might change in the future, but knowing Apple, we might have hover cars by then.
• I use complications to show information like they were meant to do. Using them to launch apps would remove the one good thing about the basic watchOS UI that still works great. And because they made switching watch faces a 15 second deal (the first 2 long presses usually don’t register), there’s no use to create an ”app launcher” watch face.
• Recents doesn’t show the apps I rarely use but need to get to quickly when I do. And it’s basically broken, I can’t tell which card is which app, they’re never in the same order and some of the cards are just black. It’s something I will probably never use because it’s just not well done and definitely not quick to use.
• I don’t want to talk to Siri when I quickly need to check something. I use my watch because it’s discreet. If talking to Siri is an option, I might as well dig out the phone. Plus half the time Siri just starts dialing a random person.

 

[tomtattoo]

...
10: has changed the way of presenting info entirely. 10 gives much bigger screens of info that focus on a particular subset of info and has created ways to see other related screens of particular info. 10 is all about focused info. moving Utilities to the button freed up the ability to effortlessly to go from one big singular focused data pane to the next big singular focused data pane.
...

If this is the future of WatchOS, it will be a future of hundreds and hundreds extra swipes, taps and scrolls for the same workflow as before.

Today I realized that I didn´t use the weather app anymore on the watch. Yes, I still have the temperature complication on my watch face, but do not tap it anymore. Too many swipes and the unreadable "white on yellow" text is unbearable.
Same with activity complication.

WatchOS 10 has nothing but worse influence on all my daily routines using my watch.

In the past there was this "at a glance". Completely gone.

 

[jdb8167]

• Smart stack only allows a few Apple made apps to be added to the slots, no 3rd party and no useful Apple made apps. That might change in the future, but knowing Apple, we might have hover cars by then.

Third party apps do work in both the Smart Stack and in the widget. There just aren't very many that work yet. I use the third-party Carrot weather app and it appears in both places.

 

[MitzEclipse]

Upgraded to WatchOS10 and missing the favorites dock from OS9 (when you click the side button - I had 3 apps there: World Clock, Stocard, and Workoutdoors).

Now, I have to swipe up to get to the dock but unfortunately, Stocard and Workoutdoors does not appear in the dock.

I preferred a tactile click but I can deal with the swipe up...but do not prefer the additional tap to "all apps" and then having to hunt for the app!

 

[sviato]

I’ve decided not to update as the dock is a deal breaker and there isn’t anything worth updating for in OS10. I’d rather keep a feature I use than get some new minute updates

 

[MitzEclipse]

I thought about that but it’s an inevitable change - what will you do, just keep ignoring OS updates?

One be benefit to watchOS 10 is I like the watch face “simple”. More simple than the Metropolitan face I’ve been using.

There just needs to be a better way to launch shortcuts for 3rd party apps not yet on the dock.

 

[MitzEclipse]

I’ve come to accept the swipe up for Dock gesture - as long as 3rd party apps can get into the Dock it’s not a deal breaker.

Anyone know if it’s possible to customise the dock in watchOS 10? I would like to get rid of the analog clock and change it to the fitness rings. Seems so redundant a clock is there when there is a clock on the Home Screen!

I’m talking about this- see attached

 

[Stiksi]

I thought about that but it’s an inevitable change - what will you do, just keep ignoring OS updates?

This is actually what many are doing with macOS. I have one machine on Catalina because updating it further would break eGPU compatibility in bootcamp.

Anyone know if it’s possible to customise the dock in watchOS 10? I would like to get rid of the analog clock and change it to the fitness rings. Seems so redundant a clock is there when there is a clock on the Home Screen!

Not at the moment as far as I’ve seen. That and better support for apps might come down the line. Or not.

 

[Ifti]

I hate the new watch OS. Having to press the button for control center when it was a swipe before. Plus the omission of the dock. Its just confusing. Guess it will take some getting used to but I much preferred it before.

 

[madeirabhoy]

View attachment 2295873I’ve come to accept the swipe up for Dock gesture - as long as 3rd party apps can get into the Dock it’s not a deal breaker.

Anyone know if it’s possible to customise the dock in watchOS 10? I would like to get rid of the analog clock and change it to the fitness rings. Seems so redundant a clock is there when there is a clock on the Home Screen!

I’m talking about this- see attached

thank you, you are inadvertantly a life saver. One of the things that really annoys me about wOS 10 is trying to quickly check the exact time. I like the clean look of California and only have the date complication on it. However sometimes i want to see the exact time on a digital clock. For example when running for a bus, or at football when they announce the injury time. Previously i'd swipe right to a different face and swipe back, but in wOS 10 thats a pain.

your post about getting rid of the clock reminded me that i can put the digital clock back into the favourites widget and so a swipe up gets me the digital time.

But i agree the first widget should be customizable as most people would remove the clock. in saying that if it was customisable id put the digital clock there and maybe even remove the date from the main face so one swipe and i see time and date.

 

[Stiksi]

thank you, you are inadvertantly a life saver. One of the things that really annoys me about wOS 10 is trying to quickly check the exact time. I like the clean look of California and only have the date complication on it. However sometimes i want to see the exact time on a digital clock. For example when running for a bus, or at football when they announce the injury time. Previously i'd swipe right to a different face and swipe back, but in wOS 10 thats a pain.

your post about getting rid of the clock reminded me that i can put the digital clock back into the favourites widget and so a swipe up gets me the digital time.

But i agree the first widget should be customizable as most people would remove the clock. in saying that if it was customisable id put the digital clock there and maybe even remove the date from the main face so one swipe and i see time and date.

I kind of think it’s funny to imagine Apple designers grudgingly allowing us some digital faces when all they really want us to use is the traditional Swiss railway clock. They keep adding it to places where you can’t get rid of it 😂

 

[MitzEclipse]

well they did pay a lot for using the swiss clock face, maybe they're trying to get their money's worth lol