Swimming with Apple Watch. I just want to swim without taking off my Apple Watch. Is that OK?

Thank you ConnerFromGrinnell for your quick reply. As you correctly observed, I did indeed conflate the legalese terms Water Resistance with Water Proof. However contrary to your assertion about the importance for Water Resistance purposes of invoking the Water Drop icon before going swimming with a Series 4 Apple Watch, my research suggests that the water drop icon's only function is to disable the watch face's touch response and has no bearing or effect on the Watch's mechanical water resistance itself. What's is especially troubling to me is that based on an informal survey in our Apple Store earlier this week, a small but vocal minority of our Apple Store's Reps adamantly asserted the same imperative that you have, namely that the Watch's water resistance is entirely dependent on touching the Water Drop icon before going in the water. Ask iFixit who has taken one apart, the water drop icon only turns off the screen touch, it does nothing mechanically to the Watch's water resistance such as closing ports or pressurizing the watch or other magic. Thanks again.

Thanks JWyatt22 very much for your very helpful personal experience. I've been amazed at the misinformation floating around on this topic... even from some Apple Store reps. I have been especially struck by the myths and rules that have evolved on the topic, my personal favorite concerning the Water Drop icon being that it initiates an internal "lock down" procedure which mechanically "closes all the openings and pressurizes the watch"... this from a uniformed rep at our local Germantown Apple Store last week. That said, per ConnorFromGrinnell's assertion, I am leaning towards using the Water Drop icon (If and when I can remember) to enable the "spit out" function, though contrary to him, from the evidence I've seen, it doesn't matter to the watch whether you touch the Water Drop icon before going in the water or after you've come out since the effect on the watch is the exactly same, aside locking the watch face. Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience.

1. Thank you Julieda for your quick if misguided reply. While I'll grant that I ineptly intermixed the legalese terms water proof with water resistance, Apple's current webpage specs on the Series 4 Apple Watch say "Apple Watch Series 3 and Series 4 have a water resistance rating of 50 meters under ISO standard 22810:2010. This means that they may be used for shallow-water activities like swimming in a pool or ocean. However, they should not be used for scuba diving, waterskiing, or other activities involving high-velocity water or submersion below shallow depth." Not only that, Apple provides several work out apps that come standard on the Apple Watch for swimming in open water and in swimming pools so to suggest both that A. I am ill-advised to go swimming with my Apple Watch and B. fortunate that Apple replaced my drowned one seems contrary to Apple's widely published statements. Indeed based on my recent experience, my advice to all Series 4 Watch owners is to make sure they swim with their Watch or at least leave it in a container of water for 15 - 30 minutes at least once BEFORE their warranty runs out in case their Watch has a manufacturing defect like mine so they can get it fixed or replaced under warranty. I completely understand if you've decided to not drive your car on rainy days (I have a neighbor whose Corvette has never been out of the garage in the rain!) or wear your Apple Watch while swimming, but I bought my Apple Watch to be used as advertised and instructed by Apple. Thanks again.

Thanks SBloom9387 for sharing your similar tale of drowned Apple Watch woe. I have two thoughts, the first being that your experience supports my theory that a certain percentage of new Water Resistant to 50m Apple Watches are arriving for sale with a manufacturing defect resulting in the internal seals being incorrectly and/or incompletely installed. This is why I'm emphasizing the importance to all Apple Watch owners for whom water resistance is or could be important to test their watches for water tightness BEFORE their warranty runs out... and most importantly before there are ANY accumulated signs of external wear and tear or abuse. Second, presuming your watch bears no such signs of external damage or disassembly, it would be absurd for Apple to charge you to replace your watch. Yes it has to be replaced, and yes it has to be shipped back in order that it can be inspected to confirm that the watch has not been tampered with, but once those hurdles are passed, they owe you a new watch, period... without charge. Please let us all know how it turns out.