What are the masks on my Apple Watch screen?

When the orange mask icon appears on Apple Watch, the device is in Theater Mode.
When the orange mask icon appears on Apple Watch, the device is in Theater Mode.
Submitted by Fred Straker on
Apple Watch owners having firmware problems can now try recovering their wearable device directly from an iPhone. This wireless method, while not foolproof, can avoid a trip to Apple for service. If your Apple Watch freezes up, crashes during the update process, or stops working, it may prompt you to initiate a restore. To use this feature, the iPhone requires iOS 15.4 or later and the Apple Watch must be running watchOS 8.5 or later.
According to Apple Support:
Submitted by Fred Straker on
It's easy to forget that the iPhone actually makes phone calls. There are many ways to initiate a phone call, such as launching the Phone app or asking Siri to ring a contact. Now thanks to Shortcuts, iPhone users can even put a contact directly on the Home Screen. Once set up, a single tap on this icon starts a phone call. The shortcut can even be set up to initiate a FaceTime call.
Several frequently called contacts can be added to the Home Screen in this manner. Of course, if you no longer need a person's contact on the iPhone Home Screen, it can easily be removed.
Submitted by Jon Reed on
Occasionally a buggy app or a new iOS update will result in instability that sometimes causes your iPhone to freeze or become otherwise unresponsive. Instances of this sort require you to force a reboot (aka hard reset, hard reboot, force restart, force reboot). A force reboot will retain your data, so it's not like doing a factory reset which erases everything. Hopefully after restarting you will be able to get rid of the offending app or revert to an earlier more stable version of iOS.