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Grading Apple on My watchOS 5 Suggestions

Posted by Matt Birchler
— 1 min read

Apple doesn’t answer to me, so this is of no concern to them, but I wanted to take a look back at my watchOS requests to see how close Apple came to meeting them.

Siri Watch Face

I asked for: Let third party devs integrate to it.

Apple delivered: ✅ They did exactly this!

Watch Faces in General

I asked for: Always on faces and third party dev support.

Apple delivered: ❌ They did nothing at all here.

Activity

I asked for: Automatic workout detection, more winter activities, more badges, rest days, and sleep tracking.

Apple delivered: 🤷🏻‍♂️ They added automatic workout detection and some activities that weren’t shoveling, but time will tell if they do more badges. They definitely didn’t do any rest days for streaks or sleep tracking though.

Podcasts

I asked for: A Podcast app.

Apple delivered: ✅ A Podcast app. I need to test this to see how good it is, but they finally did it!

“Hey Siri”

I asked for: Don’t make me raise my wrist.

Apple delivered: 🤷🏻‍♂️ Don’t make me say “Hey Siri.”

Improve Dev Tools

I asked for: Let developers use better tools to make apps.

Apple delivered: 🤷🏻‍♂️ Hard to tell from the keynote, so the sessions should have better info in this regard.

Breathe app

I asked for: Make any change to this app.

Apple delivered: ❌ No update.

iPhone Battery

I asked for: Show me my phone’s battery.

Apple delivered: ❌ They will not show this.

Apple News

I asked for: Let me read full articles.

Apple delivered: ❌ No.

Theater Mode

I asked for: Also set me to DND.

Apple delivered: ❌ Nope.

The Dock

I asked for: Make this show more info at once.

Apple delivered: ❌ No.

Notifications

I asked for: Third parties can set their own notification sounds.

Apple delivered: ❌ No.


Apple did not do well here, even though I think the watchOS 5 update is pretty decent. Podcasts and third parties on the Siri watch face are great additions, and the workout enhancements somewhat line up with my wants, but everything else was just “too bad, so sad.”