The Timer in WatchOS 10 | Hacker News Reader

The Timer in WatchOS 10

furbo.org

81 pointszdw76 comments

I absolutely hate the list-of-custom-timer UIs on both iOS and Android. I can only assume that both companies have separately gone through the cycle of "people want favourite/recurring alarms" -> "timers are just alarms for relative time" -> "people want favourite/recurring timers".

The thing is, there just aren't that many times I want a timer for. Nobody's out here with a carefully curated gallery of artisanal durations. It takes me more time and effort to scroll to my 15-minute timer than it would to hit 1-5-enter on a numeric keypad.

Hell, even just a +1,+5,+10,+15 grid that starts immediately or adds to the current timer would cover everything I've ever needed within four taps. But, nope, gotta gallivant through my menagerie of exotic timers to pick out the perfect one. Infuriating.

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but timers ("hey siri, set a timer for 10 minutes") is the most common thing I use a voice assistant for. Works great, though.

Same. I use adhoc timers constantly!

You can save, err, time here

“Hey, Siri, 10 minutes” works fine

I’m theoretically a good candidate for the favorite timers, because I almost always choose one of 15 seconds, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 25 minutes, 40 minutes, or 1 hour.

Of course, the issue is that those are six different times, the LRU cache only has four slots, and the MRU timer is put on a separate screen but is only rarely the one I want.

My ideal would be either just punching in the numbers (it’s not that hard) or a fixed dashboard of N timers that I can manage myself, where the positions of the times never change.

My most used timer is pressing start on a 1 minute timer and then hitting +1 minute as many times as needed. It takes literally seconds to punch in just about anything less than 30 minutes.

The next artisanal timers I have are 30 minutes and one hour.

Those three timers cover 95% of my needs.

Good idea! Tactic adopted.

Some of the aesthetic changes in watchOS 10 are significant regressions. For me, they changed how many of the complications appear, and they're harder to read at a glance.

I really wish Apple made the watch faces more customizable.

I feel like I could have written this article. I'm still using the timer each time I cook but it just feels like more of a hassle than the previous version, where the switch from watch OS 8 to 9 felt like it made things better immediately.

The removal of swapping watch faces with a swipe is so aggravating in 10. I use cooking timers and I had a specific face for that task and now it’s cumbersome to do with my hands full as you have to press and wait for it to pop into the faces and then swipe and long press again.

They didn’t even add something in its place. It was just removed for seemingly no reason.

This was the first thing I noticed after I upgraded. I constantly switched between faces & now I have this extra step. Super annoying.

Although using raise-to-speak is the obvious solution here (and arguably faster than nose-navigating). AssistiveTouch is also a very reliable alternativr, so much so that we see that Apple have brought out the main tapping gesture to the forefront. Plus you can get pretty fast at doing the fist and finger tap gestures to move around the OS.

Never mentions Siri at all. Weird. Newest watches it’s all on device. Maybe he doesn’t know that?

There was one brief mention about it being difficult to use in a loud kitchen. From the way they framed it, I think they might be coming from some sort of commercial kitchen background?

> A kitchen also tends to be a noisy place, with multiple conversations and background music. If Siri doesn’t understand what you’ve said, you’re going to end up with burnt onions.

Doesn't apply to my own home cooking situation, but if you're a professional of some sort...

> Doesn't apply to my own home cooking situation

Tell me you don't have annoying little kids, without telling me.

I can personally attest that in any room, Siri's accuracy, and even willingness to activate reliably at all, is utterly abysmal, especially on the Watch. Raise to speak? Just tried it 4 times. It activated and answered once. The other three, it just ignored me.

I'm grateful that I never have to use anything Siri-based for cooking, since I use the Google Nest Hub thing (the one with a screen), which though also imperfect in its speech parsing, at least most of the time is capable to execute "Set a 5 minute onion timer" accurately. Though he makes a good point that if you wander around a big house you might miss your timer alert. Thankfully my house isn't big enough for that.

My child experience always featured them respecting boundaries I set around places they could yell, but I'll admit that's probably very situational.

I was complaining about it elsewhere on this page, but WatchOS 10 seems to have done something awful to raise-to-speak's accuracy -- hopefully it's a bug that they'll promptly fix.

Most of my timer usage for cooking is actually with a HomePod mini that I have in my kitchen, which I've found to be very reliable for it. That said, in part it's because until this most recent round of OS updates it was the only Apple device that let you run multiple simultaneous timers, so I haven't had any chance to rebuild habits away from it yet. :D

Perhaps you didn't mean to be snide, but if your children are capable of just learning appropriate behavior, please recognize what a blessing this is. Different neurotypes exist, and are not so simple to teach or control.

That's why I said it's very situational.

It's not "all on device". Any Siri request that hits the network (which is many of them) send your entire address book to Apple.

Siri is a privacy nightmare and everyone sane turns it off immediately.

I almost never set a timer on my watch by hand. The main reason is that I like to give my timers names. And the only way to do that on the watch is via Siri. So I’ll raise the watch and say “Hey Siri, 5 minutes” if I want an unnamed timer, or—more frequently— “Hey Siri set a 5 minute tea timer”, or “Hey Siri, set a 15 minute pizza timer.”

The Timer is also my favorite and most used App on the Watch. I was hoping that a new OS update would give us the option to turn the “Recents” ON/OFF or an option for me to pin the timer option I want. I’m still OK with the App, but I was hoping my choices are similar to others.

I even wrote an article to remind myself that the Timer is indeed a good tool - https://brajeshwar.com/2023/timer/

While I do use timers occasionally (mainly when baking or pressure cooking), I’m surprised to learn that people will set multiple timers just to caramelise onions.

I find that for most cooking tasks, sight and sound are more reliable indicators, and in many cases, the food will need to be stir or flipped so as not to burn.

Caramelizing—truly caramelizing[0]—onions is a slow process that takes close to an hour. For this kind of task, I think it’s helpful to be able to set timers and be in and out of the kitchen, rather than be stationed at the stovetop continuously.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36038796

Kenji came up with a method[0] which actually only takes ~15 minutes -- but it does produce very mushy onions, so it won't work for all applications.

0. https://www.seriouseats.com/quick-caramelized-onions-recipe

This is great; thanks!

This is semantics but I thought I'd chime in anyway. I don't think they were setting multiple timers, they were setting one timer multiple times, i.e. adjusting a single timer after doing said checks.

The gist I got from this poster is there is a lot going on in their kitchen at one time. They may have simplified the post to make a point? But they implied they are not just focusing on the onion during that time, but doing a whole lot of other prep and cooling work all at the same time.

Somewhat off-topic, but I'm still waiting for Apple to un-tether their watch from the iPhone. Yeah, I know that I could get an Apple Watch and have some limited capability, or I could use an iPhone from a family member. No.

My iPad pro is technically capable of running the health app, but Apple insists that I own and use an iPhone instead. I like my Android phone and I'm not going to give it up so I can have an Apple Watch.

I wonder how much revenue Apple is missing out on over this...

Given what you outlaid, it doesn't sound like cost is a major factor. Why not buy an old iPhone or a new SE and leave it plugged in at home as a 'hub' for your cellular watch?

Given that there's no technical difference with regard to running an app on an iPad Pro with a SIM card vs. an iPhone, why should I need to do this?

Haven’t looked at the Watch ecosystem in a while, but this sounds like it could be an opportunity to create a “cooks timer” app for WatchOS?

Unrelated but I think WatchOS10 has something wrong going with how often the watch faces update the complications like heart rate, weather, etc. I have found it showing heart rates recorded as long back as an hour before I manually click on it and have it launch the heart rate app which was never the case with any of the previous versions.

Same. The weather widget is sometimes hours out of date

“Alexa, set timer to x mins…” while holding a dead chicken in both hands.

Works every time. And has no purchases or online services configures but Spotify and TuneIn radio.

I ditched my Apple Watch for a 100$ Casio g-shock that self charges and self sets time. Cheap exercise band when training. More disconnect from always-on and big tech toxicity.

Don’t see me coming back

I do that same timer with the Apple Watch even while choking chickens. I can understand not wanting to alway be online. I have most notifications disabled on Watch and phone and computer. I prefer a controlled and balanced approach to managing notifications and connections.

Kudos to the author. Went through a ton of effort to put together what amounts to a bug report on a silver platter. I hope it reaches the right audience within Apple.

I have an Amazon Echo Wall Clock, and I got it for its integration with timers set by Alexa. It works great and lets me see the status of multiple timers. But I believe they discontinued it. I know this will never happen, but I would love an Apple-made clock that made timer display a primary feature. Setting timers using my voice and giving them names solves the interface issue, but being able to glance at the status of everything still needs a wonderful solution.

Am I the only one who liked the timer changes in WatchOS 10?

ha! so i'm not the only nose-navigator out there!

I'll admit that I never thought of it, but will now be doing so often

> The new [Timers] UI is impossible to use hands-free.

"Siri, start a 5 minute timer."

What makes this extra nice on Series 9 is that simple Siri requests are handled completely on-device. https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-series-9-can-handle-sir...

I don't have as many issues with the Timers UI as the author does, but I will say for me that using Siri while cooking is mostly a no-go, because I have my Watch, my AirPods on, and a HomePod somewhere within earshot, and I only want the Timer to start on my Watch, which is not usually what's going to happen.

Raise-to-speak is the answer here. It's guaranteed to go to your watch, without all the device-negotiation that saying "Siri" causes: so long as you don't say "Siri", it'll be unambiguously on the watch.

That said, very annoyingly, WatchOS 10 seems to have regressed the raise-to-speak behavior, and it's being super-finicky for me. I've had to retry a lot of times, and had to fall back on long-pressing the crown sometimes, which reacts really slowly now when this is happening. (I think this might be it trying to negotiate microphone usage with my AirPods when I'm wearing them or suchlike, in which case Apple needs to stop doing that.)

Long press the crown and say timer 5 minutes

You can't use your hands.

If it’s because you’re cooking and your hands are dirty you can press it with your wrist or forearm

Now that's a far, far more annoying problem than Timers UI changes.

Yeah, I don't necessarily expect it to know that I always want my Watch, but I wish I could say "start a 10 minute timer on my watch" and have it do that.

Yes! Or sync timers and do the expected thing regardless of what device "catches" subsequent requests.

You have to raise your wrist to your mouth first to prime Siri, which may not be easy to do while cooking.

I mean, the author does talk about using the watch with their nose. Same motion.

Fair, I admit I am not an expert in nose dexterity.

Gotta get dex to 75 before unlocking that perk.

Not to mention when she gets things wrong.

which works EASILY 90% of the time

there is a direct response to that in the article:

> Setting a timer manually is much quicker and safer than relying on Siri. A kitchen also tends to be a noisy place, with multiple conversations and background music. If Siri doesn’t understand what you’ve said, you’re going to end up with burnt onions.

Unreliable interfaces suck.

Unless it mishears you and turns it into a network request, which uploads your entire address book to Apple.

watchOS 10 is a regression in many ways:

- The swipe up gesture now brings up widgets instead of control center. This can't be disabled

- every workout ends with "Are you sure?" Instead of just ending.

- the most recent watch app is no longer at the top of the app switcher. It's buried somewhere in the stack now.

- the app drawer now requires a double press of the crown to activate instead of double pressing the side button. Not a huge deal, but this breaks an action I've been doing for the last ten years for basically no reason?

- weather and maps now look like their iOS equivalents instead of mini-apps that compliment your phone (ie busier than you'd expect for a watch)

Counterpoint:

- I like the switch of the control center to the side-button; I use control center regularly, and almost never used the dock. I also like the general concept of scrolling in widgets, lowering the number of must-have complications on a face, but haven't gotten used to using it yet.

- Confirming workout-ending is great, because I occasionally mistapped starting a new segment and wound up instantly canceling my workout and needing to restart it, which was super-annoying.

- They just reversed the direction of the app switcher. The bottom is now the "front", and you scroll back in time towards the top ("into the distance"?), with the previous app occupying most of the center space of the display. I'm neutral on this compared to previous behavior; it's just a change, and needs to be adjusted to, and I can see an argument for it being more physically intuitive.

- Was the app switcher ever behind a double-tap of the side button? I thought that has always been the trigger for Apple Pay. The change this year was moving it from a single-tap of the side button to a double-tap of the crown. (Where formerly double-tapping the crown was an instant switch to the previous app.)

- Can't speak for Maps, since I've not used it for anything yet, but I like the Weather change. The initial screen is simpler than it used to be, and I find it easier to absorb information from it.

So, some matters of taste, I guess. :D

What's actually annoying me about WatchOS 10 is that they seem to have done something to mess up the raise-to-speak behavior. It's super-finicky now, and I'm hoping that's just a bug they'll be fixing, because it's really annoying having to try multiple times before it works.

Disagreed on all of these being regressions. It sounds like it's your personal preference that you'd like these changed, but they're not objectively worse.

- I prefer the swipe up gesture bringing up widgets. An option would be nice for folks who preferred the old way, but I much prefer control center pinned to the button that I basically never used before.

- Agreed that "Are you sure?" for workout ending is annoying, but I guess it didn't feel like a major regression to me. It felt similar to what I do much more often: completely forget to stop the workout, and then the watch asks me if I want to end the workout after I've stopped moving a lot. But agreed, hopefully they bring back just ending it.

- the most recent watch app is onscreen at the most "front" slot. It's a little strange different than before, but seems fairly reasonable to me.

- I have basically never used the app drawer for the last ten years - it's just not useful to me, and I'm guessing Apple's user studies showed the same, which is why they hid it.

- I hadn't checked out the weather and maps apps, but at a quick glance I like these improvements.

Just thought I'd share some thoughts as to why they maybe changed these, since I imagine there's both many people like you, and many people like me, out there :)

I disagree, most of that is upgrades except the “are you sure” when ending workouts. On the other hand, it seems to be much better about automatically starting and stopping workouts, mainly for walks, which has drastically improved my day to day experience.

The apps feel like real apps, which I like.

Button is easier than swipe gesture for control center.

Not sure what you’re talking about with the app drawer, I always see most recent on top. Maybe you’re confused by the orientation?

I’ve been pretty critical of recent iOS and watchOS releases, but I really feel like they knocked it out of the park this year. Like early Christmas.

This is yet another thing on my "if I ever become a billionaire" bucket list.

If I ever become a billionaire... I'll have a new OS designed, from scratch, with all the latest innovations and cool stuff, but we'll promise to never change that design, for any reason, ever. That will be our headline feature. One design for the next 20-30 years. Build with us, never redesign your app again. Learn our user interface, never need to learn anything else ever again. We’ll call it an SLA for design stability.

And if it is ever painfully necessary somehow, we'll call the new thing something else, and we'll keep making both products. We'll basically pitch it as an eternally maintained Windows 7.

> One design for the next 20-30 years.

This sounds great, but when it feels massively outdated in 5 years and the market has galloped off to an entirely different paradigm, sales will suffer or the business might even collapse.

My biggest complaint is the removal of the lock button on the active workout screen. There's just a blank space where it used to be. Is that bug? Seriously what the hell?

That was so handy to lock the watch during a vigorous workout, especially when your hands are all sweaty. Now it's like, push a button to get the control center and swipe down for ages to find it. Impossible with wet hands.

Personally, I find all of these changes a big upgrade. I never used the old quick switcher menu, I use control center constantly, etc etc.

Making things configurable could make sense but it will make writing any kind of manual, guides or support a nightmare as most users are very confused about the settings they change.

No no more turn-by-turn directions when navigating, instead it just shows you a map. Dangerous when on a bike.

Scroll up. Still there. We all need to get used to many more scroll pages.

Oh no, I haven't upgraded yet, but--did they remove double tapping the crown to get to your second most recent app? i use that all the time!

Yes, that's harder to do now -- it's now double-tap the crown and then tap the app. (Which will either be the frontmost app if you're on a watch face, or the second frontmost app if you're actually in another app.)

The whole timer/alarm app experience in iOS is also the worst of all mobile OS's I've ever used. The best one was in Jolla SailfishOS. In 2014. It was so easy to add/remove/enable/disable multiple timers and alarms. And when they triggered, you could snooze or dismiss it with a simple gesture.

In iOS, you can't even have more than one active timer at a time. Like wtf??? Also, when the timer or alarm clock triggers, you are presented with view containing two buttons (yellow and purple). One of them snoozes, one of them dismisses. Which one is which, you ask? You see, to keep things simple and consistent, the button actions (and labels) switch places depending on whether the view was triggered by an alarm or a timer. Oh! and the label text color is white, which makes it reeeeeeally difficult to tell which of the fucking buttons is which, especially in a rush or in the morning when your eyes are foggy.

I would have replaced this shitty ass app in a heartbeat, except Apples strict controls kneecap all third party apps by preventing them from running in the background...

10 years (?) later, when an alarm goes off in iOS, and I tap/swipe/shove it away, i still never have any fucking idea if it got snoozed or cancelled/stopped, or what I was supposed to do, or what I'll do next time. I mean, yeah, clearly I could spend 2 minutes to research it and try to remember to do the 'right' one next time, but it just never made it into my muscle memory, so I'll keep fumbling with it.

The problem is probably that you don't get immediate feedback of having done the 'right' thing. 9 minutes later, when your alarm goes off again, and you realize "oops, I snoozed it rather than dismissing it", you sure as hell won't remember which action was the 'wrong' one. Especially because you were half awake at the time.

The clock app in iOS 17 has added multiple active timers.

iOS 17 has multiple and named timers, why make a rant when a major part of it is already a non-issue?

To fix your confusion: Timers - generally considered one time. If you swipe away the notification the timer is finished. If you press the circular arrow button it will restart the timer. Pretty obvious. On the Lock Screen they are clearly labeled as "Done" and "Repeat"

Alarms - by default alarms are set with snooze on. Swiping away will snooze. There is a "ZzZ" and "X" button on the notification. On the Lock Screen they are clearly labeled as "Snooze" and "Stop". If the snooze function is disabled on an alarm the only option is to stop the alarm.

How is any of this unclear?

When I posted the comment, iOS 17 had been out... ~1 week? You really think everyone upgrades in lockstep on day 1? I've been annoyed by this for all the 4 years I've used an iphone.

I haven't upgraded yet, so I'm not sure what to make of your comment. But for pre-iOS17 the lock screen notification/dismissal view is anything but "clear" or "obvious"...

I have no idea what this guy is talking about:

> The new UI is impossible to use hands-free. Cooks who want to set or change a timer while deboning a chicken are out of luck.

I opened the timer from my watch face, scrolled down to a 30 minute timer, and started it. All with my nose. It was nearly exactly as easy as it was in the previous version.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who tried it! Didn’t seem that difficult to me?

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