Apple Watch Series 4 took the Apple Watch to a whole new level. With a design and a much bigger screen. But Apple hasn’t done much to make use of the bigger screen. The new watchOS update is the perfect chance for Apple to bring some of the app and features which might not have made sense with the old screen size. Here is our watchOS 6 wishlist.

watchOS 6 Wishlist

A Slew of New Watch Faces for Series 4 Apple Watch

Series 4 put a divide in the watch faces catalog. Old watch faces from Series 3 were updated but they never actually looked good on Series 4. The only great watch face for Series 4 is the Infograph watch face. We need a lot more new watch faces like that. It would be great to see 5-6 new watch faces that are designed for the new 44mm size from scratch.

Shortcuts App for Apple Watch

Before Shortcuts was purchased by Apple, it used to be called Workflow. And it used to have an Apple Watch app. It wasn’t great but it was a great way to trigger actions from the Apple Watch. You could even do things like logging weight from the Apple Watch.

Now that it’s going to be a year since we first saw Siri Shortcuts, it’s time for it to make it to the Apple Watch. And now that Apple owns the app, it can feature multiple widgets for quickly starting actions. It can be a great way to start playing music or podcasts.

A Much Better Siri Watch Face

Siri watch face right now is very limited. It should be more customizable and proactive. It would be great if Apple actually let us put a bigger widget at the top.

Control Center Redesign

The Control Center needs a new layout for the bigger screen. You can now fit three toggles in a row.

Now Playing Widget in Control Center

The Now Playing app in watchOS is very confusing. It only shows up when something is playing. Just like the iPhone, the Apple Watch should have a section from Now Playing widget. And because it now supports AirPlay 2, it can have multiple Now Playing widgets for playback on Apple Watch, iPhone and Apple TV. And it can go right in the Control Center.

Customizable Activity Goals

Apple should recognize the need to customize goals for Activity on the fly. You should be able to reduce Stand goal or increase Excercise goal to suit your needs. Apple can also add a whole new ring for steps as 10,000 step goals are quite popular.

Books App on Apple Watch

You can listen to music and podcasts on Apple Watch but not Audiobooks. A dedicated Books app would take care of this oversight.

A Real Calculator App

While you can ask Siri to do some math for you, a real calculator app would go a long way. And there are apps like PCalc that already provide this feature so it should not be too difficult for Apple to integrate it into the OS itself.

Calendar App Needs an Overhaul

The Calendar app hasn’t changed in the past couple of years. You can only view the current month and that’s it. Series 4 Apple Watch is powerful enough that you can use it to create events and browse through different months.

Folders in Apple Watch

Apple Watch apps are finally starting to be good enough. You might be using a couple of apps for music, workouts or health tracking. It would be good if you could organize your favorite apps in folders, even if it is to visually distinguish them from everything else.

Safari for Apple Watch

watchOS 5 brought the ability to open websites on Apple Watch. Apple should just go one step further and include the Safari app on the Apple Watch. They can keep it simple and only let users open one page at a time, something from the Favorites list on iPhone.

Automatically Change Watch Faces

If you have multiple watch faces for different times of the day or location (one for home, one for work), it would be great if Apple Watch automatically switched them based on the time of the day or the location.

Voice Memos app

Voice Memos app is now available on the iPad and Mac. Apple should complete the family and add it to the Apple Watch as well. It can be incredibly useful to quickly record notes.

Customizable Workouts App with New Metrics

Workouts app times are a bit too big. It can use smaller tiles in the list display more types of workouts on one screen. The workout tracking screen itself is too simplistic. Workouts++ app, for example, shows a graph of heart rate and instead of just a list, has a grid view for stats.

Sleep Tracking

This has been a long time coming. And some apps already do this quite well. Apple can use the same features for tracking the sleep and present the data in a much more understandable manner.

Notes app on Apple Watch

Google Keep made it to the Apple Watch before the Notes app. While it doesn’t make sense to use the Notes app to take written notes on the Apple Watch it can be a great way to view checklists, read notes and to record audio notes.

A Real Home App

Home app on the Apple Watch only lets users access the Favorites. Instead, it should show all scenes and accessories on the Apple Watch. With grid view icons, this can be done in a visual sensible way as well.

Grid Layout for the Dock

The Dock in watchOS 5 is way too simple. It takes a long time to actually scroll through and go to the app you were using 20 minutes ago. Instead, if there as a grid view, you could see four apps at the same time.

Find my iPhone

Cellular Apple Watch users can benefit greatly from a Find my iPhone app. Apple Watch actually makes it quite easy to forget your iPhone places. When this does happen, you can just use the Find my iPhone app to quickly locate your iPhone on a map. And you can also ping your iPhone to keep playing a sound no matter where it is. Right now, you can ping your iPhone as long as it’s connected to the Apple Watch.

Third Party Watch Faces

This is something we wish for every year so it seems like a perfect way to end the list. While it’s entirely possible that Apple will never allow third parties to design an entire watch face. But I think watchOS is finally mature enough that Apple can at least start the process of custom watch faces.

And Apple can do it in their own way. With a dedicated Face Store, where Apple can dictate some strict design guidelines. Similar to how Apple has rules for designing iPhone apps. This can be a good middle ground. Apple can make sure that Apple Watch users keep engaging and using the product and Apple Watch users finally get some customization that they so desperately want.

[Concepts Via: BirchTree, Jake Sworski]

Share Your watchOS 6 Wishlist

What are some of the features that you want to see on your Apple Watch? What is a feature you really want on your Apple Watch Series 4? Share with us in the comments below.