Infographic face missing Mail and Messages complcation

Thank you, but my response to the OP was that they had not provided any pertinent information, since their profile is terribly out of date and there was no mention of a watch, although they had posted in one of the watch forums. To make it easier when others start searching the forum, we try to get as much information in the original questions to make things easier. While I have an Apple Watch, I only use Notifications for Messages and Mail, and do not use any complications for those apps, but I appreciate your details.

So nice to see someone talking about this. Have not seen it anywhere else. And I agree-what a joke. The infographic watch faces are great-but rendered basically useless by these glaring flaws. And I also am using one of the older faces so that I can access mail, messaging and a couple of the older complications I used on the series 3. Hurry up Apple

This is disheartening, but the document does say that we should look for software updates. I have to believe that some of the core complications like messages will be updated to work with the two new faces. It would not be technically difficult and there is clearly demand for it, so I have to hope it gets sorted. I know 3rd party developers are hustling to update their complications - Marco Arment, maker of the Overcast podcast app, was tweeting yesterday that he’ll have his new overcast complication in WatchOS 5.0.2, and that he expects that to be out this week. If I can get Overcast, that is 50% of my problem licked, and for the missing messages, I can get a little bit of the missing functionality by putting the portrait of a favorite contact on the face. It does not give me the counter of new messages (!?!), but it does at least give quick access to the messages app. Agree that this is frustrating send disappointing - never crossed my mind that this would be an issue when I plunked down $500 to upgrade a perfectly good series 3 cellular - caveat emptor I guess.

Agree. It's disheartening, perhaps mildly irritating even. This is a (probably temporary) issue with being able to access some data in a specific way on a device that, until a few years ago would have seemed pure science fiction.

So perhaps a little perspective required? It isn't really 'insane' is it? I suspect that no-one else is talking about it because they may consider there are more important things to talk about. And I don't think it's 'the dumbest oversight by Apple'. I'd venture they've made some bigger mistakes in their time. As to it being 'a joke'...not really, at least not compared to what the UN were laughing at yesterday.

Point taken...but, at the risk of being no fun, you CAN use the watch faces you see in the ad. You just need to additionally press a button to access your mail/messages/whatever...for now. Not really a massive issue, I should have thought. However, there is an opportunity for an automated Hyperbole Reduction app, I think, along with a fully configurable Watch 4 complication...

As someone said above, if enough people complain then all the complications that were missed can be added with a software update - we just need to convince Apple these complications are necessary and relevant for the Series 4 watches - I’m of the opinion that the reason why they omitted mail and messages is because on the infograph faces they would make the faces look too ’busy’ and cluttered you can still add mail and messages apps in the watches dock and access them that way

"One extra button press" plays it down in my opinion.

I used to use the mail complication as a shortcut to easily and discreetly check my mail while in a seminar or meeting. Pressing one of the side buttons then opening the app is not discreet so I can no longer do it.

I am certain though the missing functionality is just because it is not yet ready.

Of course there are more important things in life than technical support requests, but then we are in a technical support forum. I don't think it's fair to pick people up on using hyperbole. Anybody who has an account here is an Apple enthusiast. Let us enthuse! :-)

I think I may have attended those same seminars and meetings... Trouble is that looking at a watch looks like looking at a watch - however discrete you are - implying that you're trying to figure out how much longer this nonsense is going on, even if you're in fact checking messages.

Agree that technical support requests can be important, particularly on a technical support forum...but hyperbole doesn't magnify importance, it diminishes credibility. Again, as the UN will testify.

The point is user experience consistency. There is no reason for any restrictions for which Complications can be used on which watch faces, from the user's point of view. Watch Faces and Complications are a big selling point for Apple Watch, especially series 4. So not being able to create the watch face configuration you want in conjunction with the Complications you want due to some arbitrary behind-the-scenes rules that we aren't privy to is very unhelpful to the user experience. And I'm fairly sure Apple places a lot of importance on user experience.

Dismissing this topic because you can't see the point or that there are greater issues in the world doesn't help anyone, and I would suggest for those people it would be better to avoid reading the topic altogether. We could all spend our time answering every posted question on the forums stating our indifference to topics we don't agree with, but that really would be pointless.

Personally, I think every complication should support all possible presentation formats to present their data, so every complication can be used in any slot. Even if it's simply to put the app icon in a circle, or the name of the app in a large rectangle. Seems straight forward to me.

I agree, user experience consistently is normally one of Apple's strengths and this aspect of these new faces does seem to fall short of what we've come to expect. Until they fix it.

But I didn't see anyone here 'dismiss the topic', so not sure what you mean. I'm not at all indifferent to it personally, being the second person to respond to the OP.

I had a Series 2 before upgrading to a Series 4. On the Series 2 I used the Modular watchface almost exclusively for the entire time I had the Series 2 simply because it was the watchface that had the most complications and was easy to read at a glance. I used the following complications on this watchface:

Time

Day/Date

Activity

Calendar

Battery

Weather Temp

So I never set any of the complications to mail or messages - these would come up through their own default app - I never felt the need to use up a complication for mail or messages so for me I'm not going to miss them. I know that's me and of course a lot of people DID use them as complications and are used to that and want to be able to use them on the Infographic watchfacess - all I can suggest is keep on voicing your opinions until Apple takes note and adds the ability to add mail and messages to the complications through an iOS update - then everyone is happy

Absolutely agree. When you pay so much money for a watch you expect it be able to do the things it did in previous models. I was trying to set up a new face and couldn't add messages to any of the infographic faces. SO FRUSTRATING.

Your previous watch could display Infograph with all the complications? Where did you get that? My Series 3 can’t even display Infograph after updating to WatchOS 5.

The capability of the new Infograph faces is clearly documented, and functionality of the older faces remains u changed. If they were good enough for you in previous versions you have a choice, use a different face with better complications, or use Infograph and manage without some of the complications until Apple rolls out the software patch.

TBH I think Apple has intentionally omitted the ability to add mail and message complications to the infograph watchfaces because there's simply not enough room on the watchfaces to display this information - all I envisage them doing is giving the ability to add the message and mail logos to a blank complication slot and when you touch it it opens in the relevant app. That would make more sense

Your Series 3 watch and any watch prior to Series 4 would not have the Infograph watchfaces - they are an exclusive Series 4 feature. Furthermore, watchOS 5 does not give a watch Series prior to Series 4 the Infograph watchfaces - it does give Series 1 - 4 the new fire, water, vapour and breath watchfaces but the graphics are contained in a circle for Series 1-3 and graphics go right to edge of display on Series 4