How to ping iPhone from Apple Watch

johnscf wrote:

When I open the control screen I see a phone icon but when I press it it doesn’t ping my phone. Instead it brings up:

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Please explain what steps you are using to open the Control Center. None of those things are options in the Control center.

Are you pressing the side button? And by "side button", I do not mean the Digital Crown, the knob that rotates. The side button is next to it. It is flat and oval.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

Are you saying that in your sleep by now? ;-)

I have been known to wake up at 3am and not be able to fall back asleep, so I'll answer some forum questions, or get on the company Slack service, or play a mind numbing game, or read an ebook (this is the worse, as it seems there is always an exciting conclusion that keeps me up until dawn 😁 ).

I have the Apple Watch oval button picture (I stole from Dev•veed) in my iPhone Photos, so I can quickly add it. I have the frequently used URL's in iPhone -> Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Text Replacement. Generally with a trigger, such as ,wfb for Apple Watch Feedback, and ,control for the Control Center URL, and ,carrier for the list of Apple Watch carriers, etc... Text Replacement has streamlined my forum participation. I find that a leading comma on the trigger phrase avoids accidental triggers.

If I share stuff through my Apple ID, then the Text Replacements migrate to all my devices, so I have the same text replacements available on all my Macs, and my iPhone. I have some very long (up to 2,000 character) text replacements that I compose in TextEdit, then copy and paste into the Text Replacement field. They are then available to me on my iPhone.

And if I typing on the Mac, I use Control-Command-Space to bring up the Emoji list.

BobHarris wrote:

If I share stuff through my Apple ID, then the Text Replacements migrate to all my devices, so I have the same text replacements available on all my Macs, and my iPhone. I have some very long (up to 2,000 character) text replacements that I compose in TextEdit, then copy and paste into the Text Replacement field. They are then available to me on my iPhone.

I've had mixed success with text replacements, especially ones with URLs.

Bonesaustin wrote:

i can't find the ping option on my Apple Watch my phone after updating?

Why not? If it's because you no longer know how to access the Control Center, that's easy to remedy. Tap the side button, the flat, oval button next to the Digital Crown. It will bring up the same Control Center you're used to.

If there's some other reason you can't, please explain what it is.

Thank you so much for helping me find the revised way to ping my iPhone from my Apple Watch! I never noticed the additional long button below the crown on the side of my watch. Push it & there that wonderful icon was that I had been missing so much♥️

MyKona1 wrote:

Thank you so much for helping me find the revised way to ping my iPhone from my Apple Watch! I never noticed the additional long button below the crown on the side of my watch. Push it & there that wonderful icon was that I had been missing so much♥️

Glad it helped! Yes, that button is quite stealthy.

Thanks Lawrence, for your oh-so-patient reply to explain the 9 pages I chose not to read 😒. Why would I read them when I was simply looking for the fix? I found the fix, then had a vent over the frustration of the change. I apologise that my vent left you feeling like you were required to save Apple’s name. (i.e. I would have been fine if you chose not to respond).

I have found through my vocation experience that explaining a reason before an instruction or change yields a higher response rate with less emotion attached from those involved. So while I appreciate your explanation (albeit laced with a put-down). The explanation should have come from Apple prior to the change for their users to respond well.

The fate of Apple doesn’t rest on your so patient shoulders. [To state the obvious incase it’s not-so-obvious:] The fate of Apple, rests with Apple! 🤦‍♀️ If I feel the need, I will send feedback directly to Apple as I am also aware they don’t read the forums. The latest changes and iOS updates have screwed up my devices (and my work) because of them. As an Apple customer of over 15 years, I’ve never seen them release such messes of software, rushed and without thorough testing or communications. This is a red flag for me. The “watch-phone ping” issue was just one extra added mess on top of a crappy 6 months I’ve had with updates that I can not down-date to fix my issues - thanks again Apple 🤨

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Links frequently go to the wrong place in a thread if there are images in any of the replies on that page. The current algorithm does not take the size of the image into consideration.

But I thought the forum software was perfect?!? ;-)

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Links frequently go to the wrong place in a thread if there are images in any of the replies on that page. The current algorithm does not take the size of the image into consideration.

maybe this something to be raised in the Operations forum ❓

Everything about this update made the watch worse. I have to jump through hoops just to find out where the watch battery life is at. I don’t understand why Apple decided to update and make it worse but I think anyone with a watch agrees that they should change it back. I also can’t ping my phone and the instructions on how to do it with the new update do not work at all. This update was a major downgrade. I was going to buy a new Apple Watch soon but might just switch back to Fitbit now

Wow!! Thanks so much!!!

Thanks so much! I've been trying to figure this out for days!

How do I change it back to swipe up to get to the control center.

I finally read some of the suggestions and then asked Siri to open the Control Center. What a pain!

this is much needed for me to learn how to fix this asap, as i use it several times a day!

why did it even change?