How to silence your Apple Watch

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The other day, I was watching my son sing in a choir (he has the voice of an angel, a bass one) when, to my horror, my phone started ringing.

The woman sitting next to me — a stranger — instantly swiveled to face me with a look of stern disapproval. (Like I rang myself, lady! Give me a break!)

No worries! I placed my palm over my Apple Watch and my iPhone immediately stopped ringing.

The woman’s face turned from annoyance to approval! She gave me an approving nod, and afterward, asked how I’d done it. She’d not seen the feature before.

I went from zero to hero — thank you, Apple Watch!

Silencing calls with my palm is perhaps my all-time favorite feature of the Apple Watch. It’s so simple. So easy to do, and so useful.

And — I didn’t know this — you also can silence the Watch itself with the same gesture.

If your Apple Watch suddenly starts pinging with a flurry of notifications or alerts, just place your palm over it and it’ll go into silent mode.

It’s just one of four ways to silence your wearable — here’s everything you need to know about keeping your Apple Watch quiet.

Also in today’s newsletter:

• Apple's teeniest tablet is reportedly getting an OLED screen overhaul.

• We hands-on review the Ikea Sjöss power adapter, which offers a decent 45W of power but is absurdly cheap.

• Save 25% on Function 101 products sitewide over the Memorial Day weekend by using the code CULTOFMAC25. The sale includes Function 101’s fab Apple TV Button Remote and great cable-management products.

• Find more Memorial Day deals on Apple gear here.

• To stop unknown callers from intruding, use Live Voicemail and Silence Unknown Callers. Here's how to set it up.

• Alternatively, Incogni’s $14-per-month data-erasure service puts an end to spam calls at the source. We have an exclusive deal for Cult of Mac readers: Get 55% off with code Apple55.

• If you have a microphone in your setup, a particular mic arm comes highly recommended in today’s featured setup.

• If you’re buying a new Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard, Apple won’t let you trade it in. But Cult of Mac will. And our buyback program offers the highest prices when it's time to upgrade.

  — Leander Kahney, EIC.

^{A message from Incogni}

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^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

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One more thing ...

Today’s poll

Results from yesterday’s poll: Is Apple working on a folding MacBook or a folding iPad?

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