Scroll through wear os apps list by name, not icon

[faqman]

The most irritating problem I have with Android Wear on my Samsung watches has been the scrollable list of incomprehensible icons of which only a handful I can identify. I frequently confuse the timer and stopwatch icons. How is anyone supposed to be able to know what each of 30+ different icons represents? Nobody does. Nobody should be forced to learn either.

Can someone finally wake up and tell the good folks upstairs to provide a scrollable list of icons? Allow us to arrange them either in alphabetical order or as we choose in the Galaxy wear app? This seems to be the simplest most obvious solution to the problem. I believe that another company has been providing this option for many years. We don't need another AI app. We don't need other cool stuff. We need very basic functionality.

[Dan2023]

I understand your frustration. Not everyone's brain functions the same. I, myself, would be mortified to find that the app drawer on my Watch6 had suddenly changed to a long list, but there should be the option for either in the Settings.

That said, until Samsung rolls out this new feature, please allow me to make some suggestions?

In the Wearable (Wear) app you can arrange the app icons in an order that will help you to locate and remember each app that you want. The name for each app is displayed there, so it makes it easier to arrenge them. Humans are really good at pattern recognition (It's why we see faces in toast.), so arranging them in a personalize pattern should help you in locating the app on the watch that you want. I have mine arranged with the apps that I use the most at the top to help eliminate the need for scrolling. Then I divide some apps to the left and right to help me remember which is which if he icons are too similar in my way of thought.

Consider having only the apps that you use the most in the app drawer on your watch. Less clutter can help.

Finally, use Bixby on the watch to open the app that you wish. After pressing and holding the Bixby button on the watch say something like, "Open the timer app." If you use "Hey Bixby" and both your phone and watch respond, then just add the words "on my watch." to the request. "Hey Bixby. Open the timer app on my watch."

Hope that these suggestions help you.

[realaud]

These icons have been around since the graphic user interface was invented and are pretty universal and well known by now.  I, myself, am iconically impaired, but I know what each one is.  If you are confused, you can go to the wear app, where each icon has the name above it on the apps screen.  Space constraints probably is the reason why it's not the same on the watch.  You can go into the wear app apps screen, locate your confusing icons by name and then rearrange it into a logical position on your watch.  If you only use, for instance, the timer, you can relegate the stopwatch and alarm to the very bottom of the screen, or group them into a folder of other apps you do not use or do not use often.  It might be nice for Samsung to give users the option to have the apps as a list or icon, but that's not happening for the time being.

[faqman · Accepted solution]

Thank you. Some are recognizable after a while, agreed, but with new ones you forget, especially when you end up with at least 2 dozen icons. I discovered I can put them into named folders and am doing that now. This is probably the best solution.

There are some positively terrible decisions that have been made and an arrogance not to change them. 

[Amiram]

Unfortunately this does not seem to be a good solution, because (1) the folder name is not shown in the Apps list (swiping up) but only when the folder itself is clicked, and (2) you must include at least 2 apps in each folder and the app names are not shown inside the folder.

[realaud]

It's good enough for 98% of watch  users, because the app icons are pretty recognizable with or without labels - the app icons are the same on the watch as they are on the phone, so if you know what they are on the phone, you will know what they are on the watch.  For apps that you only have on the watch, I'm sure you know which apps you downloaded.  Yes, the folder name is not visible on the watch's slide up panel, but tapping it, as you said yields the name.  Yes, you have to add at least two apps to create a folder, this is the way it works on both the watch and the  phone. There is no need for a folder for a single app.  It's when you group them together that a folder is necessary.

[faqman]

No, they aren't if you use more than the stock watch apps, which is the point of having an open Android Wear OS store to download apps. So is that app a stopwatch? An alarm clock? A countdown timer? A world clock? I constantly get confused between the icons used by app developers.