3 Apple Watch features that make me happy

I've been testing out an Apple Watch since Friday. I had to fight off my wife and daughter to use it over the weekend. All of us enjoyed it. I wore it at work today; it helped me focus as it did a nice job buzzing my wrist if something was worth taking my attention away from what I was working on. 

I boiled down all the things about Apple Watch that make me happy to the top three. Here they are:

1. Siri

I haven't used Siri much on my iPhone so I assumed I wouldn't use it on the Apple Watch. I got inspired by this post Saturday morning and learned how to use it better. I've found it to be very useful on Apple Watch. 

For example, if I invoke Siri (push/hold in the digital crown until you get a tap) and say, "Text my boss good luck at the board meeting", I get this. Amazing, all I have to do is tap "Send"! You can do the same thing with phone calls, email, opening apps etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Interactive Push

Interactive Push is great on Apple Watch. You can even send emojis! Here is an example I sent to our beloved test app, "Goat".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've been a big fan of Interactive Push since we introduced support for it last Fall. I suspect it's going to become even more popular since it's so effective on the watch. You can do really simple things like set tags based on interactions (e.g., set a smile or frown tag on a user profile) or you can do fancy things like send a social sharing message and complete it via Handoff with an iPhone. Handoff is used heavily by Apple Watch to pass back control to the iPhone to do more advanced things. Here's how social sharing works on Apple Watch Handoff:

Send Social Sharing Push via Urban Airship Push Composer

Receive Social Share Interactive Push on Apple Watch

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tap Share

Goat gives you a friendly suggestion to see your phone for Handoff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swipe Up on the Goat Icon (Handoff) on iPhone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iOS Goat app Share Pane is triggered via Handoff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pick Twitter and tweet the sharing text you provided in Push Composer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Passbook

Passbook has been getting more popular since Apple Pay came out. I think that this will only accelerate with Apple Watch as Apple Pay is integrated & using Passbook from your wrist seems natural .

You can store loyalty cards, board a flight, buy a coffee and million other great Passbook uses cases directly from your wrist now!