APPLE

How to Setup a New Apple Watch

Tips the manual doesn’t mention

An almost fully charged Apple Watch on its charger

When you first unpack a new Apple Watch, you will be pairing it to your phone, assigning a passcode and doing some minimal setup. These are easy tasks, and the iPhone Watch app will lead you through it all. There are some things the app and Apple’s help pages do not mention; I will cover those here.

Update: Although this article does cover the basics and offers some useful suggestions, there is more to talk about as of WatchOS 10. After reading this, I suggest reviewing my Migrating to a New Apple Watch post.

If you have not yet purchased an Apple Watch, you may find my Picking Out Your Apple Watch article to be useful.

What phone do you have?

First, your phone model may matter. You need an iPhone 8 or newer as of the 2022 models. Older watches will work as long as they can run the current OS (watchOS 9 as I write this). For example, I i am using a cellular Series 5 watch with my iPhone 14 Pro.

Turn the watch on by pressing and holding the long Side Button under the Digital Crown button. When you see the Apple logo appear, you can let go.