Thanks to a new gesture introduced in watchOS 5, you can now pull down Notification Center or bring up Control Center while using any app on your Apple Watch.
TAKEAWAYS:
- watchOS 5 brings a new gesture for this.
- Tapping and holding the screen top/bottom reveals a handle.
- This lets you invoke Control or Notification Center while using an app.
- Swiping from the watch face still works like before.
- The new gestures don’t work on the Home screen and in the Dock.
The watchOS 5 update released in September 2018.
How things were before
Before watchOS 5, you could access your Control or Notification Center only from the watch face. Swiping up/down while using an app did nothing because the gesture clashed with scrolling due to the small display size.
Say I’d like to quickly check my notifications while chatting in the Messages app.
Opening Notification Center while using iDownloadBlog’s app for Apple Watch
The old, time-consuming process required double-pressing the Digital Crown to go back to the watch face, then swipe from the top to show the alerts. When finished reading notifications, you had to find your way back into the the app you were using earlier.
With watchOS 5+, you can still swipe up or down from your watch face but now you can also invoke Notification or Control Center while using an app by revealing an invisible handle.
How to open Notification Center from apps
To access your Notification Center while using an app, do the following:
1) Wake your Apple Watch display.
2) Tap and hold the top edge of the display.
3) As the handle appears under your finger near the top edge of the display, just swipe down to show the Notification Center panel and see your recent alerts.
This gesture doesn’t work on the Home screen and in the Dock.
How to access Control Center from apps
To open Control Center while using an app, do the following:
1) Wake your Apple Watch display.
2) Tap and hold the bottom edge of the display.
3) When the handle appears under your finger near the bottom edge of the display, simply pull up to drag the Control Center overlay into full view.
Again, the gesture doesn’t work on your Home screen or while using the Dock.
What are your thoughts on this handy new gesture afforded by the watchOS 5 software? Are you liking no longer having to get to the watch face just to see your notifications?
As always, feel free to chime in with your thoughts in the comment section down below.
Need help? Ask iDB!
If you like this how-to, pass it along to your support folks and leave a comment below.
Got stuck? Not sure how to do certain things on your Apple device? Let us know via help@iDownloadBlog.com and a future tutorial might provide a solution.
Submit your own how-to suggestions via tips@iDownloadBlog.com.