October 2026
312 pages
7h 17m
English
Overview
Explore everything your Apple Watch can do in watchOS 11!
Version 7.0, updated October 15, 2026
Get to know your Apple Watch and customize it to help you focus on what you care about most. Tech expert Jeff Carlson helps you understand the watch mindset, set up and share your watch's faces and their complications, get the notifications you want, take advantage of the health and fitness features, handle communications, and learn how the controls and core apps work.
Apple Watch has become the world's best-selling watch, as well as the most popular wearable digital device. Since the device's introduction in 2015, Apple has developed numerous new watch product lines, vastly expanded the device's capabilities, and enabled developers to create entirely new apps and tools. Your Apple Watch hides an enormous amount of technical complexity behind that unassuming touch screen, and with help from author Jeff Carlson, you'll unlock every last bit of its power.
Take Control of Apple Watch covers all Apple Watch models through Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3, as well as all the new features introduced in watchOS 26. Jeff walks you through getting to know your Apple Watch (including how to pick one out if you haven’t already), along with topics that teach you how to navigate among the watch’s screens with the physical controls, taps on the screen, and Siri. You’ll also find advice on customizing watch faces and sharing them with others; taking advantage of the electrocardiogram (ECG) capability blood oxygen sensor, and temperature sensor (on supported models); getting the notifications you want; handling text and voice communications; using Apple’s core apps; and monitoring your heart rate, hearing, and monthly cycle to improve your overall health. A final chapter discusses taking care of your Apple Watch, including recharging, restarting, resetting, and restoring.
This edition of the book covers all Apple Watch models that can run watchOS 27 (namely, the Series 9, Ultra 2, and SE 3 or later, including the Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4). Owners of this edition can also download the previous edition, which covered watchOS 26 and a wider range of models, for free.
Among the many topics covered in the book are:
Apple Watch Fundamentals:
- Setting up your Apple Watch
- How to adapt to the numerous changes in watchOS 27, including the new app view and Single Tap gesture
- Making watch face complications work for you
- Using Control Center and the greatly improved Smart Stack
- Using Siri AI (and other Apple Intelligence features) on your watch for a wide variety of tasks
- How the upcoming Audio Intelligence and Call Context features will work
- Adding apps to the watch via your iPhone or the watch's built-in App Store
- Resetting a messed-up Apple Watch and force-quitting an app
Health, Fitness, and Safety Features:
- Tracking your exercise and analyzing your training load
- Doing workouts with Apple Fitness+
- Pausing your activity rings and setting different goas for each day of the week
- Using your watch to monitor sleep data (including checking for sleep apnea with recent models) and check for signs of hypertension
- Using health-related features such as the blood oxygen sensor and medication reminders, plus the ECG, Cycle Tracking, and Noise apps
- Detecting falls and car crashes, and automatically calling for help
- Using the new Readiness score to plan your day's activity
Communication:
- Placing and receiving phone calls on your watch
- Communicating in other languages using the Translate app
- Sending default (and customized) text messages, tapbacks, threaded replies, and even money via Messages
- Seeing email from only certain people
Interacting with Other Devices:
- Finding people, devices, and items
- Controlling your home with HomeKit-compatible devices
- Understanding how the watch interacts with your iPhone (including how to control your watch with your iPhone)
- Triggering your iPhone’s camera remotely using the watch
- Controlling an Apple TV, or Music on a Mac, with the Remote app
- Unlocking a Mac (and authenticating certain actions) with your watch
Getting Stuff Done:
- Getting navigation directions and using the Compass app
- Adding calendar events and reminders
- Loading your watch with photos and using them to create new watch faces
- Paying at contactless terminals using Apple Pay
- Putting tickets and other Wallet items on your watch
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.