The Ultimate Guide to Customising Your New Apple Watch

If you just bought your Apple Watch, you may be wondering how to pair it with your iPhone or make it truly your own.

Although, Apple Watch doesn’t have as many customisation options compared to other smartwatches such as Google Wear.

There are plenty of ways to personalise your Apple Watch to suit your style and needs.

This blog post will cover most of the ways to customise your Watch.

So let’s get started.

App view

You can view your apps as a grid or list (shown when you press the digital crown).

To change, go to settings, tap App View, and select the one you prefer.

If you choose the grid in your Apple Watch app, you can tap Arrangement and position the apps where you want them.

Dock customisation

There’s also a dock, which shows after pressing the side button on your Apple Watch.

It shows your most recent apps or up to 10 of your favourite apps.

To tell your Watch which apps to show, tap Dock in the Watch app for iOS, then choose Recents or Favourites.

If you pick Favourites, you can select the apps you want to see and the order in which they appear.

Choose your Watch Face

Apple hasn’t yet allowed third-party developers to create Watch faces.

However, there are a growing number of Apple-official faces to pick from (at least for the Apple Watch Series 4 and later.)

You can swipe left and right on the active Watch face to switch between Watch faces.

You won’t see many options if you’ve just set up your Apple Watch.

So to add more faces:

1. Tap and hold the current Watch face.
2. Swipe left, tap on New, and Apple will present a selection of faces you can use.
3. Scroll up and down and select from the Watch faces.
4. When you find something you like, tap on a Watch face to set it.

(The Watch face will also be added to the quick pick list that shows up when you swipe on the active watch face).

Add Watch faces via the Watch app

1. Open up your iPhone and open the Watch app(the one with a side view of the apple watch.)
2. Tap on Face Gallery.
3. Select the Watch face you want to add to your Watch and tap on Add.

Select your complications

Some Watch faces include complications that show little icons that lead to apps or features or panels showing real-time information, like the weather.

You can change complications from your Watch or the Watch app on your iPhone.

To do it on your Watch:

1. Tap and hold the Watch face.
2. Then choose Edit.
3. Swipe left to see the options for complications.
4. Tap on any available complications to change it to something else.
5. Scroll using the digital crown to make your selection.

Your choice will depend on what type of complication it is and what apps you’ve got installed.

Then press the digital crown twice to return to the Watch face display.

You can also set these from the Watch app on your iPhone.

1. Tap on any face in My Faces or on the Face Gallery tab to get to the complication,
2. Then scroll through and make changes.

Some Watch faces will have more complications than others.

You can’t rearrange them on the screen, but you can change certain complications off if you want.

Create a Photo Face

One way to completely personalise your Apple Watch is to set your photos as your Watch Face.

Here’s how you can do it through iPhone:

1. Open Photos on your iPhone
2. Find the photo you’d like to use for a new Watch face
3. Tap the share button in the bottom left corner
4. Tap Create Watch Face
5. Choose which type of face you’d like to create
6. Change colour and complications as you like
7. Tap Add

Your Watch face will immediately show on your Watch, which you can switch by swiping left and right.

Alternatively, you can also create a Watch face from your Apple Watch though you’ll need to ensure your photos are synced to iCloud to view photos on your Watch.

Create your background

Creating your Watch face background specifically for the Apple Watch isn’t a hassle either.

All you need to do is look up the resolution of the screen of your Apple Watch and edit your image using a photo editor to create room for the digital clock face that Apple places on top.

(You can get the analogue hands only by choosing the kaleidoscope effect)

Watch face community

You can also use designs created by other people, such as those on the Facer app.

There you can find different backgrounds and complication combinations that people want to show off.

If a Watch face you select uses a complication from an app you don’t have installed, you’ll be prompted to install it.

Other ways to personalise your Watch

There are a few other ways to customise your Apple Watch’s appearance.

For example, in the display settings, you can adjust the screen’s brightness, change the size of the text on the screen, make that text bold, wake on wrist raise or on crown rotation, and wake duration.

You can also make these changes in the Settings app on the Watch itself.

Conclusion

So there you have it, all the ways you can customise your Apple Watch and make it unique to you.

What’s your favourite Apple Watch feature? Let’s know in the comment section below.

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