Devanagari Numbers: How to Enable Hindi or Marathi Digits in the Watch Face on Apple Watch

Back in September, I wrote about my favorite watch face on the Apple Watch running watchOS 6 — the California Watchface with Devanagari (Marathi) numbers.

Devanagari Numbers on Apple Watch

The numerical text on the Apple Watch is being displayed as Devanagari text — Hindi or Marathi — with a simple analog watch face. Since then, I’ve received a bunch of emails asking how to enable the Devanagari numbers on Apple Watch. Here’s a small guide that explains how to display Apple Watch time with Marathi or Hindi numbers.

How to Enable Devanagari Numbers on Apple Watch

Apple Watch running Devanagari Numbers Watch Face
  1. First, ensure that you’re running watchOS 6 on your Apple Watch, as the California watch face isn’t available in previous versions.
  2. Now, tap and hold on your Apple Watch screen to enter the watch face editor mode.
  3. Swipe till the extreme right and tap on the ‘New‘ watch face button.
  4. Swipe up or rotate the crown till you see the ‘California‘ watch face, then tap on it to enable it.
  5. Once again, tap and hold on your Apple Watch screen to enter the watch face editor mode.
  6. Tap on the ‘Customize‘ button.
  7. Rotate the digital crown to cycle through California → Arabic → Arabic Indic → Devanagari numerals on the watch face.
  8. Swipe left to customize the appearance of the watch face, such as background color and shape.
  9. Press the digital crown when you’re done.

That’s it! You now have an Apple Watch with Hindi or Marathi numbers on the watch face.

You can add and customize any complications you want, depending on what shape you choose for the California watch face. If you choose the Full Screen watch face, then your options are limited. Choosing the round shape for the watch face lets you set much more complications, so you can go wild. I personally like to keep it simple, so the photo at the top are the Devanagari Digits I currently have on my Apple Watch.

Hit me up on Twitter: @preshit if you have any questions or feedback. And share your photos too, so

Devanagari Digits — My Favorite Watch Face on Apple Watch in watchOS 6

The California watch face on watchOS 6 with Devanagari numerals

I updated my Apple Watch Series 4 (GPS) to watchOS 6 a couple of days ago and while it’s nice to have features like the ECG app in India or the new independent apps, by far my favorite thing in watchOS 6 is the new California watch face on watchOS 6 with Devanagari numerals. I have it set to show the StepsApp complication, and I love how minimal the whole thing looks.

How I wish I could display the day and date in Devanagari too.

Update: To learn how to enable Devanagari numbers on Apple Watch, follow this tutorial.

Manish Goregaonkar has published this absolutely fascinating analysis of the iOS crashing bug that occurs when it comes across a particular text string.

So there’s yet another iOS text crash, where just looking at a particular string crashes iOS. Basically, if you put this string in any system text box (and other places), it crashes that process. I’ve been testing it by copy-pasting characters into Spotlight so I don’t end up crashing my browser.

[…]

I was pretty interested in what made this sequence “special”, and started investigating.

Even if you are not interested in the technical details, I urge you to go read it. The explanation about Indic scripts is incredibly interesting read.

Sally Kerrigan, writing on the Typekit blog:

In this newest batch of fonts from three of our foundry partners, we’re delighted to expand our support for Arabic, Devanagari, Hebrew, Gujarati, and Armenian. Latin script tends to be overrepresented in the typography world, and we’re eager to better represent the true range of scripts used all over the globe on Typekit.

I had no idea that Skolar Devanagari even existed. Skolar Sans is one of the nicest font I’ve used, so I’m excited to use Skolar Devanagari in production soon.

On the Gujarati side of things, Rasa and Skolar Gujarati look really good too.