Compare iOS/iPhone OS 1.0 with iOS 9.0, and you’ll see that the similarities are incredible — Apple had the right formula on day one, and just kept tweaking it over time. But try the same exercise with the Apple TV and you’ll see plenty of major changes, since a series of annual UI refreshes took years to settle on the interface we know today. Ditto with the iPod nano, which went through several major UI iterations as it shifted from Click Wheel to touchscreen interfaces. The lesson: Apple normally gets a lot more right than not, but isn’t afraid to make major UI changes if they improve the user experience.
Although some of the Apple Watch UI elements appear to be locked in place — such as the Home Screen with a grid of unlabeled circular icons — other parts of watchOS are clearly being changed for the better. For instance, watchOS 2 introduces Nightstand mode, which lets the Apple Watch continue to serve as a timepiece when it’s charging next to your bed. Nightstand mode is a nice feature, and might replace your bedside alarm clock, assuming that you’re willing to turn your Apple Watch into landscape mode to use it. But there are several ways that it could be better, and I’d like to know whether some of the possibilities appeal to you as much as they do to me…
How Does Nightstand Mode Work?
Currently, Nightstand mode has zero configurability: it’s either on or off, a single switch adjustable in iOS 9’s Apple Watch settings or on a watchOS 2-equipped Apple Watch itself. When it’s on, you’ll typically see a battery indicator in the upper right corner, a large digital clock with a pulsing colon, and the day of week and day of month.
If you set an alarm, you’ll also see an alarm icon in the upper left corner, plus an additional line of text at the bottom of the screen noting that an alarm has been set for a specific time. (Note that the iconography differs a little from the way the screen looks on Apple’s watchOS 2 preview page.) When the alarm goes off, the screen changes, and a chime can be heard through the Watch’s integrated speaker.
If you press a “Snooze” button, you return to the Nightstand clock face, where the alarm line of text becomes orange and reads “Snoozing” with a 9-minute countdown timer.
Force Touching the screen in Nightstand mode currently doesn’t let you change a thing about its appearance or functionality; it just bounces back to acknowledge the Force Touch without doing anything. Since watchOS 2 is still unfinished, presumably with 6 or 7 subsequent betas yet to go before it becomes final in the fall, there’s plenty of time left to improve Nightstand mode before it’s released.
Change 1: Support Portrait Mode
Apple’s premise for Nightstand mode is simple: “Now you can use your watch even when you’re done wearing it for the day. Just place it on its side and connect the charger.” The photo on Apple’s web site shows a steel Apple Watch resting gently on its edge atop a wooden nightstand. Perhaps not surprisingly, the gold Apple Watch Edition’s special charging case is nowhere in sight, nor are any of the affordable Apple Watch docks and stands people are already buying and loving.
Stands are becoming popular because many people don’t want to leave their new Apple Watches resting on a flat surface, particularly the more scratchable stainless steel models. Mophie’s Watch Dock (reviewed here) is one of several options that can support the Apple Watch in either portrait or landscape mode. Griffin’s WatchStand (reviewed here) only accommodates Apple Watches with closed-loop bands if they’re in landscape mode. But some other stands, notably including the otherwise awesome Nomad Stand (reviewed here), won’t work with landscape orientation Apple Watches using closed-loop bands.
Apple could ignore users who prefer to keep their watches in portrait orientation. But a better alternative would be to add portrait support to Nightstand mode. Hardware button access to disabling the alarm or initiating snooze mode could remain the same as in landscape mode. But tapping on the screen for these features is already supported by watchOS for regular alarms, and would be a fine UI alternative here.
There’s also already precedent in watchOS for an “X-Large” digital watch display, demonstrating that with a little font size tweaking to make room for other basic elements — the battery indicator and alarm text — the Nightstand feature could be altered to support the second orientation.
Change 2: Offer Brightness, Color + Complication Adjustability
Another fairly easy tweak for watchOS 2 would be brightness, color and complication adjustability for the UI elements. You might prefer to wake up to a dimmer clock face, or one in a color other than the bright green and white tones that Apple has picked. It would also be nice to be able to swap the days of week and month for a notification panel. Different people will have different opinions on how important each of these small changes would be to the Nightstand experience; many people view granular dimmer settings as critical for a bedside clock, and would prefer to have more control over the clock’s appearance than the current on/off setting.
Change 3: Get OS-Level Hooks In Place For Apple Watch Speaker Docks
iHome’s classic iH5 effectively defined clock radios for the iPod generation, but despite the growing screens and capabilities of iPods, iPhones, and iPads, Apple never developed a special Nightstand mode-like feature to embrace their value as bedside clocks. As a result, iPhone and especially iPad alarm clock docks kept trying to figure out the right way to dock and integrate with Apple device shapes that weren’t necessarily easy to complement.
Since the Apple Watch is billed as “an incredibly precise timepiece,” it would just make sense to pair with a Bluetooth speaker dock to become a full-fledged alarm clock. Apple could aid this process by expanding Nightstand mode to include OS-level support for sounding alarms through external speakers, automatically streaming stored music to the docking device, and other “seamless integration” software hooks. It would be cool to see what developers could do with an Apple Watch-based speaker dock… and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Apple and the Beats team are already working on one.
What would you like to see Apple do with Nightstand mode? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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Can you set different alarm times for different days of the week? It strikes me that the possibility of integration with my calendar is huge. For example, I’d like to be woken at 8am every week day, except public holidays, and except when I have an all day event called ‘leave’. But, also to be woken in time for the first event in my primary calendar, regardless of the day.
You can. Each alarm starts with your preferred time, and can be set to as many days of the week as you want, as well as for repeating/non-repeating status. You can also name the alarms (using Siri/dictation for voice input).
In nightstand mode the watch display turns off completely after about 30 seconds. Kinda pointless really since it doesn’t stay on.
Does the display stay on if the device is plugged in to charge? I’d imagine Apple expects people will be charging the Watch while on Nightstand mode. If the device is not charging, it makes no sense to leave the display on all night, as the battery will die.
No, the screen does not stay on if it is on charge. It turns off after about 30 seconds regardless of whether it is on the charger or not. If it stayed on then yeah it’d be useful, but it doesn’t.
It has to be charging and put on its side, but as Marek says, it turns off. Not only this, but when you touch the display, its back in the original orientation and asking for a PIN code which is pretty useless. I have my PIN protected in case i loose it etc, so this would mean going into settings nightly and taking this off.
Good idea, but not sure of the actual usability.
100% agreed, always one mode is required here (and every time too by the way… I don’t care to have 40% remaining at night … give me a glance…)
As soon as I saw this feature introduced at WWDC I immediately thought about all the creators of the watch stands, I’m betting certain companies will begin designing their new and future stands to allow the watch to lay down in order to utilize this new feature which may eventually grow into something bigger and better.
Opinion, I didn’t buy the watch with nightstand mode being considered in any way. Just don’t care much. I’d more likely like to have a nightstand mode for my phone.
Maybe it’s because I’m a lazy wanker, but I’ve been leaving my phone charging on my desk at night lately, and using my watch exclusively as my alarm clock. My watch will still ring/beep when important things come thru, and both in the evening and the morning, I find myself not spending time on my phone right before I go to bed, and again spending too long on it in the morning. It’s been a great motivator to have my only real options for bedtime interactions be a) Read a book, b) Interact with the missus, or c) Sleep. It’s made me more productive and less likely to stay in bed later than I should be.
All that is to say: I didn’t buy the watch with Nightstand mode in mind either, but it’s a HUGE benefit for me, whereas a nightstand mode for the phone would be useless in my case.
A little OT here, but I couldn’t care less about nightstand mode, since I’m wearing mine at night. It’s such a great way to wake up in the morning to some gentle “taps” on your wrist.
I’m eagerly waiting for watchOS2 to enable sleep monitoring and sleep cycle alarm by Apple (health) or some third party app. Battery of the watch is really no problem for me. I charge it about an hour before I go to bed and another hour in the morning after I got up. Mostly less than an hour. It charges super fast and lasts very long.
Just curious on when you charge your Apple Watch? I charge it at night and it still has about 50% charge by bed time. How long does it take to charge the Apple Watch? I could charge it at work when I am tethered to my desk. You are giving me ideas here. Thanks!
I charge it before I go to bed for about half an hour. It’s at 100% then. After sleeping with it it is down to 94 % usually in the morning. I put it down for another 30 minutes before I leave for work and it’s at 100 % then. Really just 2 charging periods of 30 – 60 minutes each day and I’m basically 24hours with my watch.
Nice to see the new changes to the Apple Watch.
Still holding off as it doesn’t seem to offer enough usability (for me) to merit the cost (especially in Canada).
It’s a fun product to watch (no pun intended) as it changes and grows into something more adaptive and useful.
Sort of off topic but, I went and tried on different bands for my Sport version watch and they told me the Milanese loop wouldn’t fit the Sport clasps. Are these pics accurate or photoshop magicked?
I saw an Apple employee with just that combination and it looked fine.
From day one, despite some inaccurate information from some Apple employees, I paired the milanese look with the space grey sports watch and it looks fantastic as I knew it would.
Why is “nightstand mode” assumed to be a better orientation for someone lying down? In practice, I find it much more natural to read time with the watch on its side and its display in normal/traditional orientation as the information would be parallel to my line of vision, not perpendicular.
This is one of the most inane things I have ever read – “nightstand” mode is brilliant, MOSTLY because it turns the buttons to the top. Changing that little bit of brilliance – and adding code and overhead and seriously ugly display modes to kowtow to third party makers of a mostly unnecessary product? Lame. And the idea of some sort of clock radio dock isnt even worth mentioning … what’s next, asking for a connection to an external monitor?
Get a grip, people.
Apple should just allow developers to create and release watch faces and let customers buy them.
Not allowing developers to release watch faces is beyond lame. With all the strict rules for developers to follow it just doesn’t make any sense that Apple would be afraid of developers releasing “pirated” watch faces resembling those of well known and expensive brands. Doesn’t Apple just check every single app before approval ? Then there is no reason to negate 3rd party watch faces to customers.
Kinda upset that It does not work without the watch being on the charger. ugh
Nightstand mode is not nearly as good as it can be. The display shuts off within a minute. I have to go feeling for the screen in the dark to turn it on when I want to know the time. There should be a way to keep the screen illuminated do it can truly replace the alarm clock on my bedside table.
I’d like the display to reamin illuminated throughout the night. I like to squint at the time occassionaly, to reassure myself that I’m not oversleeping!
I’d like the display to remain illuminated throughout the night. I like to squint at the time occassionaly, to reassure myself that I’m not oversleeping!
I really find the fixed brightness of nightstand mode glaring if i wake in the middle of the night and check the time. Really needs a selectable dimmer.