Apple Watch faces

Vibrant new Apple Watch band and face celebrate Black unity

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Apple Watch 9 with new Black Unity Sport Band and face
This Apple Watch 9 features the new Black Unity Sport Band and one of the new faces.
Photo: Apple

Apple unveiled its new 2024 Black Unity Collection featuring a new Apple Watch band and face Wednesday, as well as related iPad and iPhone wallpapers. Proceeds from watch band sales help support grantees in the company’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI).

The company also profiled one of the grantees — Shout Mouse Press — saying it inspires resilience and creativity in the Black community by lifting underrepresented voices in children’s literature.

Making the endlessly inventive Snoopy watch face for Apple Watch

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Lift your arm to look at your Apple Watch, and you'll see a face like this turn into an animation. And there are tons of them.
Lift your arm to look at your Apple Watch, and you'll see a face like this turn into an animation. And there are tons of them.
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac

If you love Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy, as generations of Peanuts fans and product marketers do, you better get the new Snoopy Apple Watch face now available in watchOS 10.

After all, a ton of work went into making its endlessly inventive animations, according to a new report.

Celebrate LGBTQ+ with new Apple Watch Pride face, band and iOS wallpaper

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Apple said the LGBTQ+ community's strength and beauty inspired this year's Apple Watch Pride Edition.
Apple said the LGBTQ+ community's strength and beauty inspired this year's Apple Watch Pride Edition.
Photo: Apple

Cupertino paid homage to the LGBTQ+ community Tuesday. It rolled out its new Apple Watch Pride Edition watch face, band and iOS wallpaper.

“Celebrating the ongoing movement to protect and advance equality for LGBTQ+ communities around the world, Apple is introducing a new Pride Edition Sport Band accompanied by a matching watch face and iOS wallpaper,” the company said.

Cupertino offers new Apple Watch Pride Edition bands and faces

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Apple's ew Pride Edition Sport Loop
Experimental street dancer Jin Lee Baobei wears the new Pride Edition Sport Loop band for Apple Watch, shot on iPhone 13 Pro by Collier Schorr.
Photo: Apple

Cupertino rolled out its new Apple Watch Pride Edition bands and faces Tuesday in support of the global LGBTQ+ community. Long a supporter of LGBTQ+ advocacy through numerous programs, Apple launched two new bands and two new watch faces.

The launches come ahead of Pride Month in June, when the company said it will also run a Shot on iPhone Pride Campaign.

watchOS 9 may expand low-power mode, add new faces and more

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Look for watchOS 9 to do more in Power Reserve mode.
Look for watchOS 9 to do more in Power Reserve mode.
Photo: Apple

Right now, when your Apple Watch enters Power Reserve mode because its battery is almost out of juice, the time appears on the face as a simple digital clock — and that’s it. The wearable’s other features are temporarily disabled. But Cupertino may expand Apple Watch functionality in low-power mode in the upcoming watchOS 9, according to a new report.

In addition, updates could include new workout types, additional workout metrics, expanded sleep tracking and new watch faces.

Apple Watch gets special band, new ‘Unity Lights’ face for Black History Month

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Apple Watch gets new band and face for Black History Month
Get the new face now through the Watch app.
Photo: Apple

Apple celebrates this year’s Black History Month by promoting Black business and innovation, amplifying Black voices, and showcasing Black creatives, the company announced on Wednesday.

It is also introduced a new, limited-edition Black Unity Braided Solo Loop and Unity Lights face for Apple Watch, which you can get yours hands on today.

Use the ‘Two-Face Mullet Strategy’ with your Apple Watch

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Two-Face Mullet Strategy
This overloaded face is balanced by a the minimal simplicity of its partner.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You can add almost endless faces to your Apple Watch, and switch between them with a simple swipe on the screen. Maybe you have a carefully-crafted fitness face, an elegant, complication-free evening face, plus faces for shopping, hiking, commuting, and so on. But is this really an optimum strategy?

After a months or so using the Apple Watch Series 5, I’ve settled on something way simpler, and probably good enough for 90% of Apple Watch use cases. I call it the “Two-Face Mullet Strategy,” and you’re going to love it.

Apple Watch might get its own App Store

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It’s time to cut the cable and set Apple Watch free
Apple Watches running watchOS 6 could be significantly more independent from iPhone than their predecessors.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Apple Watch is reportedly going to become less tied to iPhone this fall. An unconfirmed report indicates that watchOS 6 will have its own App Store, allowing wearers to download software directly.

And this is just one of the changes supposedly in store for Apple’s popular wearable.

Apple Watch Series 4 review: So good it’ll make your heart race

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Apple Watch Series 4 Infogram Watch Face
The Series 4 comes with some great new watch faces, like this information-packed Infograph face.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

I have a new best friend. It’s the Apple Watch Series 4. Boy, do I love this miraculous little machine.

The new Apple Watch really is wonderful. As with everything else, speed makes it so much more fluid and seamless. The display is gigantic and awesome! There’s so much technology packed inside, it’s a sci-fi marvel.

I took it for a long bike ride to test it out. Here’s what I found.

Hands on with the hot new Apple Watch faces in watchOS 5

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watchOS 5 Face
watchOS 5's animated faces bring new life to the Apple Watch
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

If you watched last week’s Apple Watch Series 4 unveiling and are dying for those new animated watch faces — but don’t want to buy a new watch — you’ll be happy to know that watchOS 5 brings the best of them to Apple Watch Series 1 and up.

They’re not quite as nice as what you’ll get with the new larger Series 4 watches coming Friday, but they’re still pretty great. Here’s a hands-on look at the new Apple Watch faces.

Apple Watch Series 4 face is ridiculously complicated

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Apple Watch Series 4
The more you look at this Apple Watch face, the more notifications you see.
Photo: 9to5Mac

An image of Apple’s next wearable leaked today, revealing an impractical new Apple Watch face that crams in every possible type of notification all at once.

It has no less than nine different complications. And, oh yes, the time. 

Wear Pride on your wrist with new Apple Watch face

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Pride face
Apple has a new Pride face for the Apple Watch.
Photo: iDownload Blog

Rainbow-colored strings that do a wavy dance with every touch make up a new animated Pride face on the Apple Watch.

The new Pride face was discovered in updates to watchOS 4.3.1 and iOS 11.4 in advance of a rollout scheduled for June 4.

Awesome Apple Watch tricks to get the most out of your wearable

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Apple Watch Series 3
Make the most of your Apple Watch with these handy tips.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The Apple Watch truly became a useful device with the release of the Series 3. LTE connectivity, more accurate heart rate monitoring, and faster hardware make the Apple Watch a joy to use.

With all the features and functions Apple advertises, there are still plenty of hidden tips and tricks for users to discover. Check out seven of my favorites in our latest video:

watchOS 4 Wish List: 7 features we’d love to see

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Apple WatchOS 3 wish Mickey Mouse Face
Here's what we expect from Apple's next big update for watchOS.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Apple’s WWDC event is less than a week a way, where it is expected to release big upgrades to its family of operating systems. The youngest Apple platform, watchOS, got some serious improvements in watchOS 3. With the fourth interaction, Apple is expected to squash some of the biggest problems while breathing life with new features too.

Full details on watchOS 4 still haven’t been revealed, but we’ve got some ideas of our own that we’re really hoping made the cut this year.

This is what we want in watchOS 4:

 

WATCHe app makes Apple Watch look oldfangled

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WATCHe app
WATCHe lets you turn your Apple Watch into a mechanical timepiece. Kind of.
Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

A new app for your fancy Apple Watch delivers a super-cool and stylish education on the inner workings of actual watches.

The free app, called WATCHe, shows you the time. Obviously, your Apple Watch can already do that on its own, but the app ups the class by simulating the gears, cogs, springs and movements of an analog watch. And it might actually teach you something.

How nerds make Apple Watch look even cooler

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Apple Watch
Will Apple finally deliver one of our most-requested features for watchOS?
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple Watch owners have had some time to play around with the wearable’s custom faces since the feature launched with watchOS 2, and some creative tech and sci-fi fans have come up with delightfully nerdy ways to spruce up their devices.

A few users have taken to making specially formatted faces that showcase their love of games, movies, and TV shows, but the really enterprising ones have found ways to include coordinated Apple Watch bands into their designs.

Here are some of the coolest ones we’ve tracked down.

These ideas for Apple Watch faces are totally ‘mathematical’

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Oh zang! That's a great idea for an Apple Watch face.
Oh zang! That's a great idea for an Apple Watch face.
Photo: Adventure Time

Apple Watch comes with a limited number of functional, classy watch faces for you use, but it totally lacks wacky, personalized watch faces for you to gloat over.

Now a new collection of images shows how cool it would be if we had the ability to customize our Apple Watch faces the way we want. Note, though, that many of these would be impractical for telling time. As my co-worker Evan Killham said when he saw these ideas, “Where does the clock part go?”

Set up your Apple Watch face the right way

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There's a lot of utility in this watch face. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
There's a lot of utility in this watch face. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

There are 10 Apple Watch faces to choose from, and each one comes with a crazy amount of options. The moon phases widget is pretty neat, but do I really want to clutter up my watch’s minimalist look?

The cool thing is that you can almost have it all. Apple makes it pretty easy to pick your preferred Apple Watch face and then tweak the specific options you want to add to (or delete from) your wrist.

Here’s how.