The Apple Watch's limited screen real estate makes app organization more important than ever.
Fumbling around the tiny screen of an Apple Watch to hunt down a single app isn't very convenient, or practical. You don't have the help of Spotlight, a keyboard, or folders to help find and organize apps like you can on iPhone and iPad. How you arrange apps plays a huge part in how hard or easy it is to find things on your Apple Watch. Here are our top tips and tricks for organizing your Apple Watch's Home screen so you can find things in a snap!
1. Layouts: The honeycomb, helix, and stacks
Since the Apple Watch was released, I've seen people organize apps in all kinds of crazy and interesting layouts. The three layouts shown above are becoming fairly popular if Twitter has anything to say about it, and for good reason. All of them allow apps to stand out more than they do in the standard large cluster.
All of the above layouts also allow for you to make smaller clusters of apps that are similar, something you can't really do efficiently if you leave your apps in a large cluster.
Hat tip to @toolstrummer for sharing the helix layout!
2. Let the clock face app fly solo
Odds are that when you're done looking through apps or using them, you'll want to return to your clock face. Yes, zooming all the way in with your Digital Crown brings you to the clock face, but leaving it solo also serves another purpose:
If you ever install a new app on your Apple Watch and your clock face is by itself like shown above, the new app will always install to the left or the right of the clock face, making it super easy to find. If for no other reason, this tip makes locating new apps much easier.
3. Organize apps into groups, or clusters
Keeping all apps of a certain kind in one area makes it easier to pick out apps when your zoomed all the way out. For example, clustering all your travel apps together makes it easy to locate those kinds of apps quicker. If you see Uber on the far left of the screen, you know Foursquare and your airline apps must be lurking close by.
4. Remove what you don't need
This should go without saying but I'll say it anyways. Some kinds of apps just aren't meant to be attached to our wrists. If you don't need it on your Apple Watch as a necessity, remove it. The first thing I did after getting my Apple Watch was to remove apps that I don't need on my wrist, such as Instagram. Not only will you reduce app clutter, you'll also get better battery life. And that's a win, win.
5. Organize on your iPhone, not your Apple Watch
Organizing apps on the Apple Watch's tiny screen is super painful. That's undoubtedly why Apple decided to give us the option of organizing via the Apple Watch app as well. Just tap on App Layout in the Apple Watch app and organize away. Not only is this method faster, you can see all your apps on one screen, which makes creating groupings a heck of a lot easier.
Your tips?
If you've found an awesome way to organize Apple Watch apps that isn't mentioned above, be sure to let me know in the comments!
Eliza Dushku
Adriana Lima
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