The Apple Watch Series 2 officially rolled out with the Apple iPhone 7 and the Apple iPhone 7 Plus on September 7 and one of the major innovations that the latest smart wearable from the American tech giant is drawing attention is the device’s Digital Crown feature.
The special feature enables users of the Apple Watch Series 2 to check the time in a more subtle way or without distracting the people nearby.
Officially called as ‘Wake Screen on Crown Up,’ the new features allows the users to slowly turn the Digital Crown on the smart wearable upward without raising their wrists. The move will also slowly turn on the Apple Watch Series 2 display at varying levels of brightness.
A small turn upward on the Digital Crown shall also enable users to view the watch face on their wrist at a much dimmer setting. When the Apple Watch Series 2 is active, the user can raise his wrist to get a closer look at the watch face while retaining the dim brightness, reports the Apple Insider.
The ‘Wake Screen on Crown Up’ feature will make it easier for wearers of the Apple Watch Series 2 to check the time without bothering others especially in movie theaters where the bright light of an illuminated screen is quite a distraction.
The key to using the feature
There is no secret to using the ‘Wake Screen on Crown Up’ feature of the Digital Crown but it is important for the user to learn how to turn the Digital Crown without raising his wrist as the brightness decreases in the same manner until the screen goes black.
In automatically turning the Apple Watch Series 2 display off, the user just needs to turn his wrist back down.
Raising the wrist again without touching the Digital Crown will just return to display the screen at its normal brightness level.
It should also be noted that the feature can be enabled or disabled by just opening the Apple Watch app on a connected iPhone, choosing ‘General’ and then clicking on ‘Wake Screen.’ Users should note that by default, the Apple Watch Series 2 ships with ‘Wake Screen on Crown Up’ turned on.
A smarter smart wearable
The Apple Watch Series 2 came out 18 months after its predecessor, the Apple Watch. Critics are saying that the next generation smart wearable is smarter than the first, which should be the case, as expected.
The new smart wearable from the American tech giant features a second-generation OLED Retina display with Force Touch.
Just like its predecessor, the Apple Watch Series 2 comes in two sizes and both have custom-designed Apple S2 SiP (System in Package), details IFixit.
The device has built-in GPS, NFC, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. It also features an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a heart rate sensor, a microphone, a speaker, and an ambient light sensor.
It already comes with the WatchOS 3 for its operating system and it also has an impressive water resistance rating which could allow the watch to be submerged in water up to a depth of 50 meters.
While it looks quite similar to its predecessor, the biggest changes that the Apple Watch Series 2 brought is its new water-resistant shell, making the latest iteration of the Apple Watch swim-proof. The device also comes with a GPS chip, which helps in tracking purposes, especially when it is lost, stolen, or the user cannot be located.
The built-in GPS of the Apple Watch Series 2 allows the device to perform mapping on its own without the use of an iPhone or any smartphone for that matter.