The Apple Watch won’t function Safari in its listing of apps, however the browser is certainly there, simply ready to render internet pages. Whereas shopping your favourite web sites out of your wrist could seem handy, some hurdles nonetheless exist.

Three Methods to Entry the Apple Watch Browser

To entry the Apple Watch browser, you’ll have to faucet a hyperlink. There are three surefire methods of getting a hyperlink utilizing inventory apps inside watchOS. There could also be extra should you use third-party apps, which you’ll set up utilizing the Watch app in your iPhone or on the Watch immediately.

RELATED: How you can Set up Apps Immediately on Your Apple Watch

1. Use Siri

The best manner of launching the browser is to ask Siri to do it. To do that, press and maintain the Digital Crown button to set off Siri, then say “seek for howtogeek.com” or whichever web site you’d wish to launch.

You might also have the ability to use “Hey, Siri” or just increase your wrist to talk in case you have these choices enabled in your Apple Watch settings.

From right here, Siri will carry out an internet search and give you an inventory of internet sites. Faucet “Open Web page” to open an internet site in a browser overlay.

Engines like google like Google, DuckDuckGo, and Bing can help you undertake extra in-depth shopping periods, however typically, trying to find what you want immediately is the best method to get the place you need to go.

2. Use Messages

Whereas Siri is probably the most handy technique of launching the watchOS browser, you too can use Messages. All you want is a hyperlink to faucet in a Messages dialog. If somebody sends you a hyperlink, you’ll be able to faucet on it to launch the browser and have a look.

To entry an internet web page of your alternative utilizing this technique, you’ll have to ship your self the hyperlink. This isn’t so dangerous in case you have an Apple Watch Collection 7 or later with a full wrist keyboard. Third-party messaging apps can also assist this function.

3. Use Mail

Lastly, you too can faucet on hyperlinks inside e-mail messages. Identical to the Messages technique, this requires the presence of a hyperlink in an incoming e-mail.

You may sort (or dictate) and ship a hyperlink through e-mail. As soon as obtained, you’ll be able to then faucet the hyperlink to open the net web page.

Why You Ought to Keep away from Shopping From Your Wrist

We discovered launching the browser through the Apple Watch imprecise and a bit inconvenient. And there are just a few explanation why.

The Browser Is Impractical

To begin, we skilled points with rendering on our Collection 4 Apple Watch. As you’ll be able to see within the screenshot under of the How-To Geek homepage, the pictures haven’t appeared, and the alignment of some parts is off.

Whereas performing internet searches utilizing Siri is one of the best technique to make use of, it nonetheless requires endurance and a few considerate search cues. For instance, telling Siri to “seek for wikipedia.com” opens an App Retailer hyperlink moderately than Wikipedia.

Since Siri contains info from Wikipedia, saying “seek for iPhone Wikipedia” doesn’t offer you a hyperlink however a abstract of the subject.

You will need to keep in mind to say “search the net” for these queries, and even then you want to hope that Bing (which Siri makes use of) will get the precise outcomes.

The opposite strategies have even much less utility since you could use exact internet addresses. When you’re utilizing an Apple Watch and not using a keyboard, you’ll have to make use of Apple’s “scribble” textual content enter technique, which incessantly confuses the letter “o” with the numeral “0.” This could trigger many “.com” hyperlinks to fail.

The Mail and Messages strategies will be made slightly extra sensible by sending messages to your self, however it’s nonetheless not probably the most nice manner of shopping the net. Dictating an internet handle is okay, however should you’re utilizing your voice, you’re higher off utilizing Siri.

Performing extra exact queries requires utilizing a search engine as a jumping-off level, resembling Google, DuckDuckGo, or Bing.

Typically pages will open in Reader view by default, which makes for a extra helpful studying expertise at the price of internet web page performance. If this occurs, faucet the handle bar to vary to “Internet View” as an alternative.

Utilizing a Browser on Your Wrist Is Uncomfortable

Utilizing a browser in your wrist isn’t probably the most comfy choice. No watch was designed for use for an prolonged size of time. It’s possible you’ll expertise bodily discomfort from holding your wrist in an prolonged place. Whereas quick shopping periods are doable, longer periods is probably not potential.

Third-Get together watchOS Browser Apps Do Exist

When you’re severe about shopping the net in your Apple Watch, a third-party browser is perhaps price it to beat a few of the hurdles we mentioned above.

Of the free Apple Watch browsers we tried, Parrity is the one choice we might advocate. The browser renders a web page individually, then sends a snapshot to your Apple Watch, so that you don’t have as many points with rendering as you do utilizing the above strategies.

The app features as you’d count on, permitting you to carry out searches and enter internet addresses identical to in Safari.

The interface even makes just a few lodging, like offering shortcuts for frequent internet handle prefixes and suffixes like “www.” and “.com” to make issues slightly simpler.

It’s nonetheless a bit tedious to make use of on an Apple Watch mannequin earlier than the Collection 7 due to the shortage of a bodily keyboard.

The “scribble” enter technique doesn’t work nice for exact internet addresses, and dictating URLs aloud isn’t going to swimsuit everybody’s tastes.

There are different paid Apple Watch browsers to select from, together with µBrowser and Squint Browser, however we wouldn’t advocate spending your cash on these instruments.

Go away the Shopping to Your Different Gadgets

Your different gadgets, resembling your iPhone or iPad, are a lot better fitted to shopping. But, there are nonetheless loads of causes to make use of an Apple Watch, whether or not you’re into outside pursuits like mountain climbing, searching for motivation in your health journey, or need probably life-saving options like coronary heart well being notifications or fall detection.