What Are All Those Icons at the Top of the Apple Watch Face?

The Apple Watch can display seven different status icons at the top of the display, including the mysterious "red dot." Not all of them are easy to interpret, so here's an annotated list.

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The graphic that follows comes from Apple's "Apple Watch User Guide," version 1.0. It's a PDF file. The graphic for status icons is on page 7.

As an aside, there is also a version of this manual in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Tap on the "My Watch" tab at the bottom, then "General," then "About" (scroll down) and tap the text "View the Apple Watch User Guide." Once in the manual, the status icons are under the "Get Started" section.

Two of the status icons are of note.

  • The red dot means you have an unread notification. Swipe downwards on the Apple Watch face to see it. Press the digital crown once to leave.
  • The sixth one down is actually a miniature iPhone outline with a line through it. If your vision isn't terrific, it looks amazingly like a battery with a lighting bolt.  But what it really means is that the Apple Watch has lost its Bluetooth connection with its paired iPhone.

Image credit: Apple

All the rest are fairly intuitive because we've seen similar versions before on the iPhone.