I Can’t Sail or Surf, Yet I’m Obsessed With the Apple Watch’s New Tides App

Out of precocious school, I became enamored by Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey and Maturin bid of Napoleonic-era sailing novels. He captured a beauteous consciousness of clip and spot amended than immoderate different humanities novel. O’Brien made maine autumn successful emotion with the thought of ship-based life, that consciousness of escapade and quality of beingness bounding on the waves. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 and watchOS 11’s Tides app brought that wistfulness for the waves backmost successful a amazingly integrated way. 

Remember the fantabulous 2003 humanities play Master and Commander? The movie is based connected these novels. In O’Brien’s series, Captain Jack Aubrey is simply a portly yet gregarious lifelong sailor whose being is wholly beholden to the Royal Navy. He is perpetually obsessed with timeliness, often exclaiming, “Not a infinitesimal to beryllium lost” to anyone successful earshot. He obsesses astir the authorities of the tides, thing which his friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, cannot perchance understand. Maturin lives beingness arsenic languidly arsenic the unhurried earthy satellite helium truthful loves to catalog. He is often precocious to rendezvous contempt Aubrey’s changeless interest he’ll miss the tide that volition instrumentality him retired to sea.

So you understand, I look astatine the caller Tides app connected my Apple Watch Ultra 2 with a consciousness of longing. I cannot basal to beryllium aboard a ship. I get seasick arsenic soon arsenic a vas of immoderate size starts to rotation with the calmest surf. I tin lone basal connected the ocean’s edge, whether astatine the Rockaways oregon Jones Beach, the rip tide burying my feet up to my ankles successful bedewed sand, imagining what it’s similar to basal connected a platform with gleaming sails fluttering supra my head.

The Tides app connected Apple Watch is precise simple. You tin spot the expected tides astatine antithetic times of the time and the existent h2o level. You tin cheque the tides forecast passim the week by scrolling the integer crown. If you privation much data, you tin deed the accusation sheet to find the expected swell, wind, and upwind astatine that day and time. The ticker volition automatically beryllium acceptable to the nearest formation via GPS—in my case, Pebble Beach connected the northbound extremity of Brooklyn. You tin deed the settings fastener connected the apical near country to take a antithetic formation determination successful Apple Maps.

I’ve tried different fashionable tide-tracking apps but had acold little success. They are either excessively filled up with information that would beryllium adjuvant for a sailor but pointless for my needs, oregon they’re unusable connected either telephone oregon watch. Some of these apps usage National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration information from section stations, but they perpetually neglect to link to that section information, alternatively showing maine tide information for Santa Cruz successful California, implicit 2,500 miles distant from New York City.

Of each the comparatively small improvements to Apple’s ticker ecosystem alongside the slimmer Apple Watch Series 10, the Tides app is easy my favorite. A caller Vitals app records your wellness information overnight and tells you if there’s thing amiss with your existent wellness parameters. It’s lone been a fewer days since Apple dropped the ticker update, truthful it volition instrumentality clip to find if these features are useful. The touted slumber apnea tracking is besides present disposable present that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the diagnostic connected Monday. It could beryllium useful, though the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra has a akin feature, and it already gave maine the each the wide connected immoderate issues during my rest.

Among immoderate different UI changes to Activity Rings and interactable widgets connected the astute stack, Apple besides snuck successful an other diagnostic for the Watch Ultra. It’s present acold easier to customize the programmable enactment button. You conscionable request to clasp it down to acceptable if you privation it to way workouts oregon unfastened up immoderate different functionality. It’s overmuch faster than changing it connected the app oregon successful the ticker settings. 

It’s hard for maine to get excited astir a smartwatch update similar the Apple Watch Series 10, fto unsocial a single, simplified smartwatch-specific app. But that’s the quality of these things. As idiosyncratic who is bombarded regular with caller products and apps to cheque out, it’s often the ones that you don’t expect volition deed you personally.

I’m a precise circumstantial benignant of person. Few volition attraction astir arsenic overmuch arsenic I bash astir the authorities of the tides, fto unsocial for a non-professional purpose. I volition apt ne'er prosecute with the water arsenic I privation I could, but I astatine slightest tin punctual myself of the radical who enactment it champion connected a page. As is often said successful O’Brien’s stories, clip and tide genuinely hold for nary man.